Honourable senators, I have an update for you on the situation concerning Chinese police stations in Montreal: They don’t exist.

Last week, the RCMP concluded its investigation into Chinese Family Services of Greater Montreal, or CFSGM, and the Centre Sino-Québec de la Rive-Sud, or CSQ, without recommending charges.

For more than two years, CFSGM and CSQ were publicly cast under suspicion because of reckless claims by the RCMP. These claims led to funding cuts, drastic staff reductions and even the threat of foreclosure on their community facility. Beyond the immediate operational impact, the reputational damage created fear, mistrust and stigma within racialized communities, who saw how easily long-standing institutions could be undermined by accusations and innuendo from powerful government agencies — and not just government agencies, but parliamentarians as well.

In this chamber and in the other place, we had senators and MPs speaking about the two organizations as if they were guilty, when no charges had even been laid. In the frenzy of foreign interference hysteria that has gripped this country over the past 5 years — and 103 years after the Chinese Exclusion Act — we are again allowing a kind of discrimination. It is not directed at all Chinese people, but at Chinese Canadians who have the wrong backgrounds, views and affiliations. This, honourable colleagues, is modern exclusion.

It is not only that the RCMP never laid charges and dragged out its investigation for more than two years; it is also that the police never explained what they believed were the objectionable activities taking place in Montreal. The shame of it is that even now, with the investigation completed and no charges laid, the RCMP has not offered an apology to the two organizations, let alone restitution.

The great irony in this case is that the so-called intelligence that led to the investigation into foreign interference came from an NGO in Spain with dodgy provenance. Will the RCMP now investigate Safeguard Defenders for its foreign interference in Canada and the harm it has done to the Chinese community in Montreal?

In the aftermath of Bill C-70 and the impending appointment of a commissioner of the foreign influence transparency registry, we must be more vigilant than ever about discrimination, stigmatization and prejudice on the grounds of foreign interference hysteria and national security overreach.

This is not an issue that affects just Chinese Canadians. Recently, Senator Patterson organized a fireside chat with Huda Mukbil, who reflected on her groundbreaking role as the first Black Arab-Canadian Muslim woman to serve as an intelligence officer with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS, and how she witnessed systemic discrimination first-hand in the aftermath of the “war on terror” following 9/11.

Thank you.