Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree says “gaps” in Canada’s security screening need to be addressed following the arrest of a Canadian NATO intern in Belgium on espionage charges.
Anandasangaree faced an hour of grilling from MPs on the House of Commons public safety and national security committee on Monday, who are probing how the intern gained security clearance from Ottawa to work at the military alliance.
Belgian authorities arrested the intern on July 24, alleging she was spying on behalf of a third country and of being a member of a criminal organization. Sources have told Reuters and other media that the suspected third country is China.
The minister said he asked the RCMP and CSIS to review what happened and is going through their recommendations.
“There will obviously be some serious lessons that come out of that process,” he said.
Anandasangaree said there are some 200,000 screenings done every year by government departments, with the support of CSIS and the RCMP.
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“By and large, it is an unimpeachable record. Of course, there are gaps here, and I recognize that there are gaps,” he testified.
“And that’s what I think we need to improve on.”
While Belgian courts do not publicly identify defendants in criminal investigations until their trial, a CBC News investigation identified the accused spy as Biwei Zhang, a systems engineer with a background in economics who was an intern at NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in the southern Belgian city of Mons. She also uses the name Claire Zhang professionally and Catina Zhang on her Facebook profile.
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In 2023, the Public Service Commission of Canada found Zhang had committed fraud by applying for a position at the Canada Border Services Agency under two different names and emails, failing to later clarify whether she submitted multiple applications.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) told the committee that working for NATO usually requires at least a secret level clearance if not higher.
Much of the questioning revolved around how the intern was cleared after the fraud finding.
“If someone is willing to lie to get a job with the federal government, how are we not more cautious?” asked Conservative MP Rhonda Kirkland during one of her rounds of questioning.
The minister and senior bureaucrats who appeared in front of the committee on Monday often responded that they were limited in answering specifics of the case because there’s an ongoing investigation.
MPs heard from bureaucrats how the Treasury Board sets security screening policy for the government but it’s up to the individual department’s deputy head to sign off on an employee’s clearance. In this case the final authorization landed with Global Affairs Canada, witnesses testified.
Vanessa Lloyd, deputy director of policy and strategic partnerships at CSIS, said her agency found “opportunities for improvements” in the process.
The committee’s probe was triggered by the Conservatives and Bloc Québécois, who argued it’s necessary to find out whether Canada had missed warning signs or red flags.
“It is a shame and I think it’s actually disgraceful, dare I say minister, that it was Belgium that figured out a Canadian was spying rather than Canada,” said Conservative MP Frank Caputo, the party’s public safety critic.
“Was this an intelligence failure? Yes, it was. Did Canada’s international standing suffer because of this? Yes.… How did this happen? We have no answer.”
Based on online information, Zhang also previously worked as an economist at Statistics Canada and as a systems engineer at the Canadian Space Agency.
The Chinese Embassy in Canada told CBC News it firmly opposes “baseless speculations” that Zhang was acting on behalf of Beijing.
She remains in custody in Belgium.
