RCMP Confirms Investigation Into Chinese Police Stations Continues, After Minister Said Stations Were Closed

The RCMP logo is seen outside Royal Canadian Mounted Police "E" Division Headquarters, in Surrey, B.C., on April 13, 2018. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press)

A day after Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said Chinese police stations operating on Canadian soil have been shut down by the RCMP, the police force said investigations remain ongoing.

“The RCMP continues to actively investigate reports nationally of criminal activity in relation to the so-called ‘police’ stations. As the RCMP is currently investigating the incident, there will be no further comment on the matter at this time,” the RCMP told The Epoch Times in an email statement on April 28, when asked to confirm the minister’s claim that the Mounties had “taken decisive action to shut down the so-called police stations.”

Mendicino made the remark while testifying before the House of Commons Procedure and House Affairs Committee on the topic of foreign interference. He was responding to a question from Conservative MP Michael Cooper, who asked why the Liberal government hasn’t expelled any Chinese diplomat despite media reports in recent months about the communist regime’s wide range of interference activities in Canada.

“It is well established that the Beijing regime interfered in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections,” Cooper said. “We also know that the Beijing regime has operated at least eight illegal police stations on Canadian soil to intimidate Chinese-Canadian citizens, including through coerced repatriations.”

Some of the locations investigated by the RCMP have been running for a number of years, but have only caught public attention after media reported on reports, released by the Spain-based NGO Safeguard Defenders last year, that identified a total of 102 police outposts worldwide, run by four provincial-level police jurisdictions in China.

Safeguard Defenders said some of those police stations have reportedly engaged in the forced repatriation of up to 230,000 Chinese citizens living abroad between April 2021 and July 2022, using harassment and intimidation tactics against the targets and their family members back in the country.

Amid reports that Beijing has been targeting Chinese Canadians, the RCMP acknowledged the threat, saying there will be “no tolerance” for any form of intimidation, harassment, or harmful targeting of diaspora communities or individuals in Canada.

In reports released in September and December of 2022, Safeguard Defenders identified five locations in Canada operating as Chinese police stations, including three in the Toronto area, one in Vancouver, and another one in an unspecified location.

In March, the RCMP confirmed that they were also investigating two locations in Quebec, after receiving 15 “serious tips” relation to the Chinese police stations. The two locations have been identified as the Centre Sino-Québec de la Rive-Sud (CSQRS) in Brossard and the Service à la famille chinoise du Grand Montréal (SFCGM). According to their respective websites, the CSQRS was founded in 1990 and the SFCGM in 1976, but it is unclear when they’ve been doubling as alleged Chinese police stations.

In February, The Epoch Times reported that a location in Richmond, B.C., had been listed as an overseas police outpost by a regional Chinese police bureau in July 2020. The post, written in simplified Chinese, said the police station in Canada was established in 2016, alongside other stations in 28 countries worldwide.

Operations at four alleged police stations—the three in Toronto and one in Vancouver—were presumed “ceased” in early March, according to Michael Duheme, RCMP deputy commissioner of federal policing, in testimony before the Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 2.

The RCMP has since provided a largely identical response to multiple inquiries from The Epoch Times in regard to the Chinese police stations, saying that investigations are ongoing and that they won’t be commenting further on the issue.