City Councillor Oversees Montreal Area Organizations Alleged to Double as Chinese Police Stations

A Montreal area city councillor who oversees two organizations suspected by the RCMP of hosting Chinese police stations has been asked to step aside during a police probe of the issue.

Brossard Mayor Doreen Assaad said she asked councillor Xixi Li to recuse herself from her role during the RCMP investigation, reported the Journal de Montréal on March 10.

Separately, Assaad said she also made a complaint against Li, who’s aligned with an opposition party, to the province’s director of elections regarding the 2021 municipal elections.

The mayor alleges that Li used the logo of the Director General of Elections in her political communications in Chinese during the campaign.

Li is the director of the Centre Sino-Québec de la Rive-Sud (CSQRS) in Brossard and the Service à la famille chinoise du Grand Montréal (SFCGM).

Both entities have been identified by the RCMP as being the subjects of investigations for allegedly hosting Chinese police stations.

Neither Li nor Assaad’s office have returned requests for comment. Brossard’s Communications Director Alain Gauthier said he had no information to provide on the matter.

CCP Reception

A now-deleted page on CSQRS’ website shows Li attending a National Day celebration in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in 2018. The page was flagged on social media by cyber criminologist Laura Love.

The reception was attended by top-level Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials, including regime leader Xi Jinping.

The website says Li attended the state dinner at the invitation of China’s then-Premier Li Keqiang.

The CSQRS’ 2018-2019 annual report (the only currently available online) also indicates that in 2016, the organization was “honoured to be among three groups helping new Chinese immigrants to Canada selected by the Chinese government.”

The RCMP said on March 9 it was investigating the two locations. The SFCGM is located in Montreal’s Chinatown.

“We are carrying out police actions aimed at detecting and disrupting these foreign state-backed criminal activities, which may threaten the safety of persons living in Canada,” said the force.

The RCMP said on March 10 it had received a dozen promising leads on the organizations since making its investigations public, reported the Journal de Montréal.

The Epoch Times reached out to the RCMP but didn’t immediately hear back.

Bernard Ouellet, an administrator of the CSQRS, says the allegations regarding Chinese police stations and election issues don’t match with what he knows about Li.

“It goes contrary to the image and the work I see from the Sino-Québec director, even with regards to values, her way of doing things, and her personality,” he said.

Ouellet said he is unaware of Li’s attendance at the CCP event in China, and says neither the RCMP nor the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) have talked to him.

Cheuk Kwan, an activist for democracy in China, told a House of Commons committee on March 10 that he was not surprised by who has been identified as being behind the several alleged Chinese police stations in Canada.

“We were not surprised because these are well-known names,” said Kwan, co-chair of the Toronto Association for Democracy in China.

“She openly advertised herself as being a partner of the Chinese Communist Party,” he said about Li.

Confusion About Police

The Epoch Times went to the office of Sino-Québec in a Brossard strip mall flanked by a popular grocery store and restaurant. A receptionist said there was no Chinese police station there, but instead a Longueuil police station. Brossard is part of the larger urban area of Longueuil and is served by its police department.

He said Sino-Québec is partnered with Longueuil police, but when asked if police were present on site, he said it’s not the case.

“We’re partners. We do a lot of liaison,” said the employee in French. “If there’s something we call them.” Longueuil police would not comment given the ongoing RCMP investigation.

The Sino-Québec employee called the allegations “really funny” and said Sino-Québec works for the “Language Ministry” of Quebec.

Political Connections

Sino-Québec provides language resources to Chinese immigrants and is well-known in the community. It also mixes with politicians at all levels.

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino tweeted in July 2021 that he had a “very productive meeting” with Sino-Québec. “We continue to work for a fairer and more welcoming” Canada for all. 

The Epoch Times reached out to Mendicino’s press secretary for comment but didn’t hear back by publication time.

The Sino-Québec website also has a photo of International Trade Minister Mary Ng and Liberal MP for Brossard Alexandra Mendes meeting with Xixi Li in January 2019.

An inquiry with Mendes’ office was not returned before publication.

Love also flagged a picture of Li with Liberal MP Han Dong, who Global News reported was a “witting affiliate in China’s election interference networks,” based on CSIS information. Dong has called the allegations “inaccurate and irresponsible.”

An advisor to MNA Linda Caron in the Brossard riding where Sino-Québec is located told The Epoch Times he would not comment at this time given the RCMP investigation and the complaints made to Elections Quebec.

Complaints

Quebec Conservative Party Leader Éric Duhaime sent a letter on March 10 to the director of Quebec elections to request an investigation into potential Beijing interference in the province’s municipal elections.

Duhaime quoted Mayor Assaad as saying: “I’ve seen things which raise doubts about the transparency of Sino-Québec’s role in the electoral campaign and the involvement they had to get their director elected.”

“In light of these revelations, I ask you today to open an investigation in order to examine potential Chinese communist interference in Quebec’s municipal elections and to see if it could illegally contribute to Ms. Li’s election,” he wrote.

The RCMP said last week that four other Chinese police stations in Toronto and Vancouver have ceased operating. It said police had visited the locations and had a visible police presence there, which didn’t please Beijing.

“Any time you have representatives from the embassy whose law enforcement liaison officer comes up to us and is not pleased with the actions we took, I think that’s a sign that we did our job,” RCMP Deputy Commissioner Michael Duheme told the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs on March 2.

The RCMP says no charges have been laid and Global Affairs Canada says no Chinese diplomats have been expelled in relation to the unofficial police stations.

Andrew Chen and Peter Wilson contributed to this report.