Canadian Security Intelligence Service Director David Vigneault prepares to appear before the Special Committee on the Canada–People’s Republic of China Relationship, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on April 29.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
Canada’s top spy says China’s concerted efforts to steal cutting-edge Canadian technology is mind-boggling, and is designed to build the People’s Liberation Army as a formidable force against Western interests.
David Vigneault, the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, told MPs on the Canada-China committee Monday that Chinese hacking and other espionage activities have become a serious threat since Xi Jinping became president in 2012.
Canada and other wealthy Western countries have been targeted by People’s Republic of China actors to obtain high-end technology, he said.
“The statistics is mind-boggling in terms of the amount of attempts against government institutions every day. But more and more we see that those entities like PRC hacking groups are not just going after government institutions but are going after the private sector and academia to be able to acquire information and data that they need to pursue their objective,” Mr. Vigneault said.
He was testifying before the committee that is investigating why it took nearly 2½ years for the government to fire two Canadian scientists from the country’s high-security infectious-disease laboratory in Winnipeg.
The Canada-China committee is investigating the weak security measures at National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg that enabled Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, to pass on confidential scientific information to China and allowed military scientists and students from China into the Level 4 lab.
CSIS discovered that Dr. Qiu was associated with multiple talent-recruitment programs run by Chinese authorities. Investigators concluded that she posed “a realistic and credible threat to Canada’s economic security,” while Mr. Cheng was “a very serious and credible security danger to the government of Canada.”
The couple were escorted out of the National Microbiology Laboratory in July, 2019, and later had their security clearances revoked. They were fired in January, 2021.
Mr. Vigneault would not comment on why the two scientists were allowed to flee to China after they were fired. Nor would he talk about what possible secrets the couple may have provided to China.
But he acknowledged that China has targeted Canada as a place to obtain leading-edge scientific information.
“We have a long list of PRC attempts to steal secrets – both government secrets but more and more what is developed in our cutting-edge universities and our research labs,” he said. “The stated goal of the government of China is to make the People’s Liberation Army the most sophisticated, capable military by 2049, and one of the ways they need to do that is by stealing intellectual property from anywhere they want in the world, and Canada is indeed part of that.”
The Globe and Mail revealed in March that the pair fired are now working in China and that Dr. Qiu is collaborating with researchers from the People’s Liberation Army. The couple are using the pseudonyms Sandra Chiu and Kaiting Cheng, conducting research at prestigious institutions in China and alongside some of that country’s most noted scientists.
Under questioning from Conservative MP Michael Cooper, the CSIS director said the agency was asked to help investigate the pair in August, 2018.
Mr. Vigneault acknowledged that he briefed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and top officials in his office about the investigation but he was unable to say when those discussions took place.