Quebec Chinese community members want answers after RCMP ends ‘police station’ probe

Montrealers say they have been left with many questions after the RCMP closed an investigation into two community centres suspected of acting as clandestine police stations.

Chinese Montrealers say they have been left with many questions after the RCMP closed an investigation into two community centres suspected of acting as clandestine police stations for the Chinese Communist Party.

The executive director of the two Montreal-area non-profits says she’s “very happy” the investigation has come to a close. But Xixi Li says she still wants to know why the investigation happened in the first place, adding that she only learned about the probe’s launch and closure from the media.

“We don’t know why this happened, there’s no one who informed us,” she said, adding that RCMP officers interviewed some of the centres’ board members, but never spoke with her or visited the offices of the non-profits — Service à la Famille Chinoise du Grand Montréal in the city’s Chinatown district, or Centre Sino-Québec de la Rive-Sud, in the suburb of Brossard.

Quebec RCMP announced in early 2023 that they were investigating two Montreal-area organizations for allegedly hosting secret Chinese government police stations. At the time, the RCMP said the stations were used to put pressure on members of the Chinese community in Canada, sometimes by threatening friends or relatives in China. They said they were also investigating similar allegations of clandestine police stations in Vancouver and Toronto.

The force recently confirmed it has closed the investigation into the Montreal centres, and is not recommending that charges be laid for the moment. RCMP have not confirmed whether the investigations are still ongoing in Toronto or Vancouver.

“We confirm that we have closed the foreign interference investigation into alleged illicit activities reported in connection with Chinese diaspora service centres in the Montreal area,” RCMP Cpl. Erique Gasse said in an email.

Gasse added that RCMP would continue efforts “to combat foreign interference and any form of intimidation, harassment, threats or harmful targeting of diaspora communities or individuals in Canada.”

While Li is relieved by the end of the probe, and grateful for those who supported her, she and other community members say the highly publicized allegations caused enormous damage. Li said the centres lost 70 per cent of their funding, forcing them to lay off staff and cut services. She said they also nearly lost the Montreal building where one of the non-profits was located after the bank decided to call in the mortgage.