The RCMP says it’s investigating Chinese “police” stations in Canada.
This comes after the Spain-based human rights group Safeguard Defenders reported that more than 50 exist worldwide, including three in the Greater Toronto Area in predominantly Chinese communities.
They include a residential home and single-storey commercial building in Markham and a convenience store in Scarborough.
”In most countries, we believe it’s a network of individuals, rather than … a physical police station where people will be dragged into,” said Laura Harth, a campaign director at Safeguard Defenders.
“It’s completely illegal under international law. It’s a severe violation of territorial sovereignty.”
In a statement to CBC in response to questions about these stations, the Chinese embassy said local authorities in Fujian, China, had set up an online service platform to assist Chinese nationals abroad.
Human rights group Safeguard Defenders lists this single-storey commercial building in Markham, Ont., as one of three so-called Chinese police stations in Canada. The group claims the outposts in the Greater Toronto Area are part of the first batch of Fuzhou overseas police service stations. (Idil Mussa/CBC News)
“Due to the COVID-19 epidemic, many overseas Chinese citizens are not able to return to China in time for their Chinese driver’s licence renewal and other services,” read the statement. “For services such as driver’s licence renewal, it is necessary to have eyesight, hearing and physical examination. The main purpose of the service station abroad is to provide free assistance to overseas Chinese citizens in this regard.”
The embassy said the overseas service stations are staffed by volunteers who are “not Chinese police officers” and are “not involved in any criminal investigation or relevant activity.”
But Safeguard Defenders said there is evidence individuals connected to these stations have been involved in persuading nationals suspected of committing crimes to return to China to face criminal proceedings.
Foreign states may ‘intimidate or harm’ communities: RCMP
CBC News has not been able to corroborate that, but in a statement, the RCMP said it’s “investigating reports of criminal activity in relation to the so-called ‘police’ stations.”
The RCMP also said it takes “threats to the security of individuals living in Canada very seriously and is aware that foreign states may seek to intimidate or harm communities or individuals within Canada.”
“This is an outrageous intrusion on Canadian sovereignty,” said Conservative MP Michael Chong.
These stations are … another tool that Beijing can use to repress Canadians here in the Chinese community in Canada.– Conservative MP Michael Chong
“We’ve heard of threats directly targeting people who are advocating for minority rights in China, such as those from the Uyghur and Tibetan communities. These stations are now another tool that Beijing can use to repress Canadians here in the Chinese community in Canada,” he said.
“The government needs to take immediate action. At minimum, they should be hauling the Chinese ambassador to Canada on the carpet through a formal demarche and strongly voicing our outrage.”
Pursuing fraud suspects abroad
The statement from the Chinese embassy did not address the reports of intimidation, but earlier this year, China’s state-run newspaper Global Times reported that 230,000 people suspected of telecom fraud were “persuaded to return to China from overseas to confess crimes from April 2021 to July 2022.”
In September, China adopted an Anti-Telecom and Online Fraud Law with the aim of tackling telecom and online fraud in China and abroad.
“There may be those that are guilty of economic crimes. We also know these kinds of campaigns have been used to target dissidents, critics of the regime, even those within the Communist Party … those that might have stood up to [President] Xi Jinping himself,” said Harth.
“These kinds of operations go from harassing and threatening family members back home to sending covert agents abroad to approach the target directly and coerce them into returning home,” she said. “[The] worst-case scenarios are those where they even lure or entrap people to a third country, from where they can have them returned — or even kidnappings.”
According to the Irish Times, this Fuzhou overseas police service station opened in Dublin earlier this year. The newspaper says the signage has since been removed. (Conor Gallagher/The Irish Times)
At a House of Commons special committee on Canada-China relations on Oct. 4, Chong questioned Global Affairs officials about the existence of the police stations reported in media outlets.
“There is space for legitimate police liaison co-operation, state to state,” said Weldon Epp, director general of North Asia and Oceania at Global Affairs, in response to Chong’s question.
“But the allegations reported in the press would fall well outside of that, and we would have deep concerns if they proved to be true.”
Epp said Global Affairs was working with partner agencies to confirm the allegations.
CBC reached out to Global Affairs and Public Safety Canada for comment, but both federal agencies deferred to the RCMP’s statement.
Dissidents fear being targeted
Journalist and human rights advocate Sheng Xue moved to Canada after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre to flee repression.
She said she’s been repeatedly targeted by Chinese officials online for her activism and was arrested in Beijing in 1996 when she traveled there to visit her mother, as well as in Hong Kong in 2008. In both instances, Xue said she was forced to leave after being detained.
“They want to destroy my reputation. But since I am in Canada, they cannot just kidnap me or kill me, like many of my friends in Thailand or Vietnam [or] Hong Kong,” she said. “[But] now the Chinese police station [is] here, just a few kilometres from me, so I am asking myself, where else I can escape to?”
Uyghur activist Rukiye Turdush said members of her community are shocked and concerned about Chinese ‘police’ stations in Canada. She said many Uyghurs are fearful for family members both in Canada and back home in Xinjiang. (Berkalp Birlik)
Xue said some Chinese nationals in Canada may choose to co-operate with Chinese officials out of fear for family members back home.
Uyghur activist Rukiye Turdush says many members of her community in Canada are afraid to publicly criticize China’s actions toward the Uyghur Muslim minority because of possible repercussions for family in China.
“They live in Canada [and] they can’t freely speak up like me,” she said.
A 2021 report drafted by the Montreal-based Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and a Washington, D.C.-based think-tank concluded that China “bears state responsibility for an ongoing genocide” against Uyghurs.
It detailed serious abuses, including mass internment, family separation and forced sterilization and abortions. China has denied the allegations, claiming the crackdown on Uyghurs is about countering extremism.
Turdush fled China’s western Xinjiang region in the 1990s after her brother was killed by Chinese soldiers for protesting against Chinese influence in the region.
Turdush said several Uyghur students in Canada told her “they were intimidated by Chinese police online and [the police] threatened them, threatened … to return [them] to China.” She said she doesn’t know where they are located because the harassment happened virtually.
Turdush said that out of fear for their safety, she hasn’t communicated with members of her own family back home for more than 20 years.
“I cut the connection,” she said. “I never communicate with anybody because if I communicate with them, maybe they’re going to be in trouble over there.”
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
