The City of Brossard is supporting the Parti Québécois’ (PQ) request for an inquiry into foreign interference, in the wake of the federal report on this issue tabled on Monday.
In a letter to Public Security Minister François Bonnardel, Brossard Mayor Doreen Assaad points out that a Brossard city councillor is a director of two organizations under investigation by the RCMP for operating alleged Chinese police stations on Canadian soil.
The city’s “significant concerns” about “foreign influence during the last municipal elections (…) remain unanswered,” she says.
The Municipal Commission refused to intervene, and PQ MP Pascal Paradis deplored the fact that the city has been “left to its own devices on this crucial issue for local democracy.”
During question period on Wednesday, he asked Bonnardel to launch an inquiry.
“The question is what is Quebec’s strategy for preserving its democratic institutions?”
“There are municipal elections coming up, there are elections in Quebec coming up, we have to be ready,” said Paradis.
Bonnardel said that his department’s state security branch was in daily contact with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Interpol and the major intelligence agencies.
“Nothing leads us to believe that there is any interference or anything else going on in Quebec,” he insisted.
According to him, the only incident to report is linked to the arrest, in November 2022, of a Hydro-Québec researcher. The RCMP’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team opened an investigation in August 2022 after receiving a complaint from the Crown Corporation’s Corporate Security Branch.
Yuesheng Wang was charged with attempting to obtain industrial secrets, unauthorized use of a computer, fraud to obtain industrial secrets, breach of trust by a public official, as well as two counts of acts preparatory to economic espionage activities on behalf of the People’s Republic of China.
Last April, he pleaded not guilty.
In the case of Brossard, the alleged person in question is city councillor Xixi Li, who is the director of the Centre Sino-Québec de la Rive-Sud and the Service à la famille chinoise du Grand Montréal.
The RCMP has confirmed that it is investigating these two organizations on suspicion of acting as fronts for Chinese police stations.
Xixi Li and the Centre Sino-Québec de la Rive-Sud are suing the mayor of Brossard for defamation and claiming a total of $68,000 in moral and punitive damages.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews