Three stations in Toronto and one in Vancouver have been identified, Lucki said during her Monday appearance at the special committee for Canada-China relations
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Anja Karadeglija
Published Feb 07, 2023 • Last updated 5 days ago • 3 minute read
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RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki testifies before the House of Commons Public Safety Committee on October 31, 2022. PHOTO BY PARLVU.PARL.GC.CA
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OTTAWA — The RCMP sent in officers to show a “visible presence” to
Chinese police stations operating in Canada, commissioner Brenda Lucki told a House of Commons committee.
“We did a disruption by
going in uniform, with marked police cars, to speak with the people involved in those police stations, or those locations,” she said.
Lucki said the RCMP is investigating the four Canadian stations, but because that investigation is ongoing,
declined to get into specifics.
The stations are in locations where there is a legitimate business in the front, she said. “
In some of these cases, it could be as simple as a room behind a commercial retail store.”
She indicated to MPs the strategy was successful. “We haven’t heard very many new complaints on those three stations in Toronto and the one in Vancouver
as a result of the disruption we have done,” she said.
Lucki also said one of the reasons for that action was to encourage people to come forward. “We’ve had that visible presence, and that’s mostly so that people will see the actions first of all,
because we need more information. So what we hoped,
and it did occur, when we do this a lot of people come forward to provide information because they see the police in the area.”
She couldn’t give a timeline about when the RCMP investigation into the police stations will conclude. “
Normally, they’re very lengthy investigations,” Lucki said.
Lucki noted the RCMP is working with local police,
Five Eyes allies and other l
aw enforcement agencies around the world.
Conservative MP Raquel Dancho asked Lucki
whether anyone had been arrested, deported, or had their diplomatic credentials revoked.
“
If any of that had happened then I could speak more to it, if there was any charges laid, but that is not the case,” Lucki said. Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, who was also testifying, said “if there are any actions which are taken, then the government will share that information
when we can.”
“
Nothing has been shared. Therefore we can conclude no one has been arrested or credentials removed,” Dancho responded.
The revelations about police stations in Canada were followed by a report last November that
intelligence officials had briefed the prime minister on a campaign of foreign interference from China, including funding at least 11 candidates in the 2019 federal election. Last week, news emerged of a suspected Chinese
spy balloon that flew over Canada and the U.S. It was shot down by the U.S. military on Feb. 4.
At a separate meeting of the House procedure and house affairs committee Tuesday, f
ormer Canadian diplomats to China warned MPs to take foreign interference seriously.
Former ambassador David Mulroney called Chinese interference in Canadian elections an “increasingly serious problem.”
“I worry that we have
yet to address this threat with the urgency it deserves,” he said.
Mulroney said police need to be better trained to deal with the threat.
While the RCMP is investigating and gathering information, because the police stations are in big municipalities, they fall into the jurisdiction of local police services, according to Lucki’s testimony.
One of Mulroney’s recommendations was that Canadian police “need to be more present
in diaspora communities and better informed” about Chinese interference. Police also need to be able to “
act if they are to protect people who are being harassed and silenced by the Chinese state here in Canada.”
“I think we need to train our police to be more aware of what’s happening,” he said.
Charles Burton, senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, pointed out that
no Chinese diplomat has been expelled and “no agents of the Chinese regime have been brought before a Canadian court to be accountable for alleged criminal activity.”
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He said that
lack of action will have consequences. “This
emboldens the Chinese regime to do much more of it in the next election,” he said.
“In other words, the longer we remain passive and ineffective, the more encouraged they’ll be that they can do more of this and get away with it.”