IN-DEPTH: Montreal Groups Had Reported Ties to China’s United Front Long Before Being Suspected as Chinese Police Stations

The community organizations in the Montreal area being investigated by the RMCP for hosting suspected Chinese police stations have had formal ties since at least 2016 to a Chinese regime entity which the Canadian government says is involved in espionage.

The federal police force indicated in March it’s investigating Centre Sino-Québec de la Rive-Sud (CSQRS) and its sister organization in Montreal, the Service à la famille chinoise du Grand Montréal (SFCGM), two not-for-profits which have been tending to the needs of Chinese immigrants for decades.

The issue of the presence of illegal Chinese police stations abroad came to the public’s attention after the Spanish NGO Safeguard Defenders released a report on the matter in September 2022. Seven such suspected stations have been identified in Canada to date.

In the case of the two Montreal area locations, apparent formal links to the Chinese regime have been reported online since 2016.

The organizations reportedly entered into agreements with the regime’s Overseas Chinese Affairs Office (OCAO) in 2016 to host “Chinese help centres,” with a stated focus to tend to the needs of the diaspora.

Canadian immigration and border services view the OCAO as an entity involved in espionage and manipulation.

The OCAO was also moved in 2018 under the control of the regime’s United Front Work Department (UFWD). The UFWD’s activities include “co-opting elites, persuasion, and facilitating espionage,” according to CSIS executive Cherie Henderson who testified at a House of Commons committee in January 2022.

An article published in March 2016 on the Chinese language website FH Media says that the OCAO and the SFCGM jointly established a Chinese help centre with the help of the Chinese consulate in Montreal. It adds this occurred after centres were opened in Toronto and Vancouver.

The director of the SFCGM and CSQRS, Xixi Li, is pictured in the article beside the director of OCAO, Qiu Yuanping.

Li, who’s since become a Brossard city councillor in 2021, attended a previous OCAO meeting in China in 2014, according to FH Media.

Li has not returned multiple requests for comment from The Epoch Times. The SFCGM and CSQRS have also not replied to inquiries.

In 2015, according to an article sourced from the SFCGM and posted on Chinese-language news site Sinoquebec.com, Li attended an OCAO seminar in China for the heads of overseas Chinese services agencies. She is pictured in the article beside the deputy director of OCAO, Tan Tianxing.

In 2016, the head of the OCAO, Qiu Yuanping, visited Montreal and offered gifts to the Montreal-area centres. Chinese consul in Montreal Peng Jingtao attended the ceremony with Xixi Li.

Sinoquebec.com, with no corporate ties to Centre Sino-Québec, posted an article in January 2017 also sourced from the SFCGM and saying that Xixi Li had attended another meeting in China organized by OCAO with similar overseas Chinese support centres from other countries.

The article adds that before the meeting, the OCAO had “specially nominated and invited” Li as the “representative” for North America.

“Li Xixi said that the work of the Overseas Chinese Aid Center in Montreal cannot be achieved without the guidance and help of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office and the Consulate General in Montreal, the concern and trust of the local Chinese community, Chinese and overseas Chinese, and the support of the three Canadian [levels of government] and related organizations,” wrote the SFCGM, according to Sinoquebec.com.

Li and other delegates also went to visit the hometown of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong in Shaoshan and laid wreaths before his statue, says the report.

An account of the meeting from Chinese state media China News Service also mentions that Xixi Li was in attendance at the meeting and she spoke of the benefit of the “QiaoBao” cellphone application, a platform used by the OCAO to release news to overseas Chinese people.

The Toronto Star recently reported that the Service à la famille chinoise du Grand Montréal (SFCGM) deleted an intake form from its website which contained a QR code to download QiaoBao, and which requested personal information such as social insurance number and income.

China News Service wrote that the OCAO “advocated” for the creation of the Chinese help centres in 2014, to “provide care and assistance to local overseas Chinese [and] help them deal with emergencies and solve practical difficulties.”

Another China News Service article reported on an OCAO meeting in Beijing attended by Li in January 2018.

She was back in Beijing in the fall of 2018, having been invited to a state dinner by then-Chinese premier Li Keqiang, which was also attended by Chinese Leader Xi Jinping, according to a now-deleted page on the Centre Sino-Québec de la Rive-Sud (CSQRS) website.

OCAO Espionage Allegations

There have been precedents where Canadian authorities have taken issue when an individual has ties to the OCAO.

A federal court dismissed an appeal in January 2022 by Chinese nationals Yuxia Gao and Yong Zhang who had been denied permanent residency after a Canadian immigration officer deemed them inadmissible due to previous employment with OCAO.

“The Officer determined that there were reasonable grounds to believe that OCAO had engaged in acts of espionage that are ‘contrary to Canada’s interests,’” Justice Vanessa Rochester wrote in her decision.

A report by the Canada Border Security Agency on OCAO disclosed in the court proceedings says the body is involved in intelligence gathering and manipulation activities.

“This involves intimidation of OC (Overseas Chinese) at every level of society,” said the report obtained by Global News. “The managing of their behaviour is accomplished through incentive or disincentive, as well as intelligence-gathering, surveillance, and subversion against OC communities.”

Government Funding

The Montreal-area organizations tied to OCAO have received political support from different levels of government throughout the years, and also sizeable amounts of funding.

The Epoch Times reported on May 22 that the CSQRS and the SFCGM have received over $400,000 in federal funds since 2010, mostly from Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC).

All of the grants were provided after 2015 except for one: Sino-Québec received $100,000 from ESDC in 2010 for “Elder Abuse Awareness.”

ESDC previously told The Epoch Times that it holds no current contribution agreement with the SFCGM and that there is no multi-year funding relationship between the department and the organization. Information about the CSQRS was not provided.

The two groups say the public disclosure of the RCMP investigation has impacted their finances and operations.

In a statement from late April, the SFCGM reacted to comments from Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino who said that all of the Chinese police stations in Canada had been “shut down.”

“We didn’t receive any request to shut down from the RCMP. Our activities are taking place as usual, though greatly limited due to reduction in funding following the publication of recent articles,” it says.

In a previous statement released by the SFCGM in March, the organization says it learned of the RCMP investigation after its existence surfaced in the media. The statement adds the groups want to collaborate with the investigation and “reminds of the importance of the presumption of innocence.”

The Quebec Ministry of Immigration also provided both organizations with nearly $7 million from 2012 to 2020 for an immigrant integration program, but says it cut funding in 2021 after the conclusion of audits unrelated to the latest controversy. The groups are still receiving funding from the department for language classes for immigrants, having received over $750,000 since 2018.