TO: The Commissioner
Public Inquiry on Foreign Interference
Introduction
My name is May Chiu and I am currently working full time as the coordinator of the Chinatown Round Table of Montreal. I am writing to share my intimate knowledge of the Chinese community in Montreal as well as the effects of the allegations of foreign government interference on the Chinese community in Montreal.
My first real employment was as an intake worker for the Chinese Family Services of Greater Montreal (CFSGM)1in 1988 after I graduated from university. CFSGM remains the only Chinese community center in Montreal and is the only organization that is able to consistently provide social services in the Chinese language. One of my most memorable work experiences at that time was helping lawyers to represent the groups of student asylum seekers in the wake of the Tian An Men Square crises in 1989. After this experience, I was motivated to attend law school and it was during this time that I joined the campaign for the Chinese head tax redress, in which I stayed involved until we obtained redress in 2006.
Through my work, I met with many community leaders, including three winners of the Governor General’s award (Father Thomas Tou, Jack Lee and Cynthia Lam). Career-wise, I became an immigration lawyer but had to suspend my practise after my first child was born. This coincided with the retirement of a former executive director of CFSGM, Cynthia Lam, around 2001 and I was asked to replace her. I held this position until 2006 when I had my second child. Incidentally I ran as a political candidate twice in my life and I was never approached nor received donations from the Chinese government.
Work of the Chinese Family Services of Greater Montreal
During my 5 years as executive director (ED) of CFSGM, again, being the only Chinese community center in Montreal, we were the first to be called upon in urgent actions and tragedies, from stopping the construction of a casino in Chinatown to the mass eviction of Chinese senior tenants to tragic deaths of Chinese foreign nationals on temporary visas in Canada. It was our involvement in the latter that we often interacted with representatives of the Chinese government. The first tragedy in which I was involved was the accidental drowning of a Chinese foreign student on her first day in Canada. The second tragedy was a car accident that killed a young Chinese couple sightseeing in Quebec during Christmas vacation. On both occasions, representatives of the Chinese embassy supported the parents who had to travel from China to attend the funerals. Since these families and their children were Chinese nationals, they received no help from Canadian authorities. We all grieved together.
Apart from funerals and community banquets where it was protocol to invite representatives of the Chinese and Taiwanese governments as well as municipal, provincial and federal governments, we did not have any contact with the Chinese government.
I understand after I left my employment at CFSGM, the frequency and intensity of tragedies involving Chinese nationals with temporary status in Canada increased, from car accidents resulting in long-term disability, suicides, evictions, conjugal violence, including the infamous murder of Jun Lin by Luka Magnotta, may have necessitated further contact with the Chinese consulate. The work that was undertaken by CFSGM often required much heavy lifting over extended periods of time, and it was essential to families in crisis.
Chilling Effect of RCMP Attack on Chinese Community Center
Therefore, I was stunned to wake up to the news on March 9, 2023, to hear and read the allegations of the RCMP in every media outlet regarding our sole community center in Montreal being investigated as a secret Chinese police station. The chilling effect was immediate. In our community, like every other community, there are media ‘divas’ members who love to see their names in print, and actively court media for interviews. On March 9, 2023, our media divas scrambled to avoid publicity as fast as possible. Even I, with a reputation of speaking out on a variety of difficult subjects, refused interviews as I searched to understand the political earthquake that hit our community without warning. Everyone kept silent, nobody wanted to be the object of investigation by the RCMP.
Confusion by the RCMP Investigation
Naturally, my first question was, “What did it mean to be a police station ?” I was ED for nearly five years. The worst thing that happened was a fist fight between two staff members. Due to the lack of space, all the staff shared offices and most services were conducted in common spaces. It was almost impossible for anything illegal to be conducted without common knowledge. Since I also work in a law office, I have colleagues who are criminal lawyers. They confirmed that <being a police station> was not an offense in the criminal code. What then were the specific offenses for which our community center was being investigated ?
Damages Caused by RCMP Allegation
After throwing this political grenade into our community, the RCMP refused to shed any light into their action as the tidal waves of damages began to take its toll. In the weeks that followed, one government agency after another began to announce they were cutting funding or refusing to renew funding one program after another. The first service to be cut was French classes in the Chinatown where CFSGM was located. This was followed by immigration settlement services and employment search support. These were the essential, bread and butter services that all immigrant communities needed to integrate. The funding cuts forced the organization to begin to lay off staff. As in all care work, the majority of the workers were women who spent their careers helping our communities.
When I returned to private practice almost 20 years ago, I had decided to practice family law to serve my community who needed help in this area. Being the only Chinese-speaking attorney who consistently accepted legal aid mandates, I always accepted the cases of conjugal violence referred to me by the family crisis intervention worker at CFSGM. The funding cuts forced her into early retirement. I am told that they now have only one worker who handles the very heavy caseloads of families in crises and this worker is also responsible for the work of 3 other previous colleagues, as is the case with the few remaining staff.
Despite the lack of any evidence of the RCMP allegations, the community began to become divided as to whether there were any spies among us, harkening back to the days of McCarthyism and the Cultural Revolution. People who needed the help of the community center were afraid to reach out. One person called to tell me that a friend who lived in Toronto wanted to ask for a wellness check on his unilingual Chinese-speaking parents who had not answered their phone for several days and wondered if it was safe to contact CFSGM to do this. Another person who was the only contact of Chinese parents visiting Canada in the aftermath of the death of their daughter in a fire sent out random calls for referrals because he was afraid of calling our community center for help.
Community Defense
In the meantime, the community was left alone to defend its entitlement to basic human rights under both the Canadian and Quebec charters: our rights to freedom of assembly, freedom of expression, freedom of association, the right to be presumed innocent, the right to be informed of specific accusations, and under the Quebec Charter, our social rights. During the centennial of the Chinese Exclusion Act, the RCMP could not have chosen a better time to remind us that we were still excluded, we were less than second class citizens, we did not merit rights and equal treatment.
More Confusion by the RCMP
When we publicly defended our human rights, the RCMP announced triumphantly they had shut down all the Chinese police stations in Canada. Again, we were stunned. Although many services were cut, the community center was still operating on a shoestring. I received a call from the organization when the workers read the headlines. “What are they talking about ?” they asked me. “We have not been shut down. We are still operating.”
In the face of our public questioning, the RCMP then changed its declaration to say they shut down all the illegal activities at the Chinese police stations. This only raised more questions. What illegal activities did they shut down ? As far as the community was concerned, our French
classes were shut down. So was the service to help immigrants find employment. Intake services were drastically reduced. The RCMP did not answer this question.
More Damages
Summer arrived and more funding cuts. Funding for the summer enrichment program for youth, which had been granted every year for decades, was refused. Another federal funding that had been announced was then rescinded specifically because of the RCMP investigation.
All the while, as the political class and the heavy hand of police artillery continued the McCarthyesque hunt for spies and foreign intervention nationally and locally, our community continued to suffer stigmatization and media assaults, even including attacks on our seniors’ residences as agents of Chinese government propaganda.
On the Precipice of Losing the Only Chinese Community Center in Montreal
In 2019, CFSGM had purchased a three story building that was previously the Cultural Centre for the Chinese community in Quebec, with a mortgage of nearly 2 million dollars. Part of the mortgage agreement required that the CFSGM maintain tenants in the building. Following the
RCMP allegations, it was impossible to rent out spaces. Even potential tenants changed their minds upon learning the building was the site of a Chinese police station.
It was not until March of 2024, when the community organizations filed a lawsuit against the RCMP that confidence was regained and numerous spaces have now been rented out. Unfortunately this was not fast enough for the bank, Desjardins, who refused to extend the mortgage past its deadline for renewal on April 31, 2024. With unusual aggression, the bank immediately issued a series of legal notices, including notice of imminent foreclosure, notice of repossession of office equipment and locking doors on employees, and notices to tenants to start paying rent directly to the bank. Most damaging of all was the bank’s shocking decision to drain the entire operating account of the organization, effectively shutting down ALL Chinese social services in Montreal and leaving the employees without pay for weeks.
Resilience
Fortunately, the person at the center hailstorm who has suffered the most personal damage in defending the community’s right to innocence, Ms. Xixi Li, the current executive director of the two community centers, through sheer determination to save our social services, mobilized 11 private community members who mortgaged their own homes to pay off the remaining mortgage
and this is the main reason why the community center is still surviving. It is most unjust that in Quebec, public social services that are available to the general population through government support currently only exist in the Chinese community through private individual sacrifices.
Conclusion
Most recently on July 10, 2024, the RCMP visibly conducted a massive sting operation in Chinatown, a community still distrustful of authorities that has caused so much harm without explanation. They barged into restaurants, souvenir shops and bubble tea shops fishing for evidence of foreign interference. Even more deceitful, they asked the merchants to call the RCMP hotline if they had trouble with homeless people or theft, something completely misleading as the RCMP does not have the jurisdiction for local crimes or cohabitation issues.
Despite my extensive involvement in the Chinese community, I have no knowledge of anyone who complained about being threatened by any agent of the Chinese government (except maybe the Falun Gong).2 However, I do have several friends who were directly threatened by proponents and promoters of the Israeli government such as the Centre for Israeli and Jewish Affairs (CIJA). I do not know of any organization for PRC affairs in the community. I wonder if there will soon be an inquiry on Israeli and American government interference if we are to treat all Canadians and all communities equally. Incidentally, I do concede that not all zionists or people who support the genocide of Palestinians are necessarily agents of the Israeli government.
I hope that similar to what happened with the government redress and apology for the Chinese head tax, I look forward to making a submission to a Parliamentary Commission on reparations for the damage inflicted by government institutions and laws that certainly have discriminatory effects on racialized communities.
I end my submission with the words of the acclaimed spoken word poet Christopher Tse, who penned the liberating poem, A Song For the Paper Children that was part of the centennial commemoration of the Chinese Exclusion Act in the Senate in June 2023:
“Still told to go home
Still spit on at bus stops
Still virus
Still spies
Still foreign interference”
Respectfully submitted on July 30, 2024
May Chiu
Footnotes
1 Although the RCMP named both Centre Sino-Quebec and the Chinese Family Services of Greater Montreal, as objects of investigation as Chinese police stations, I am focusing on the one I know best, CFSGM.
2 For decades the Fa Lun Gong practices meditation seven days a week in the only public park in Montreal’s Chinatown which is right across the street from the Chinese Family Services. Despite the Fa Lun Gong’s fear of the Chinese government, including torture, arbitrary detention, vivisection, etc., the Fa Lun Gong has never missed a day mediating in front of the Chinese Family Services’ building, even though the RCMP alleges it is a Chinese police station.