Public safety minister admits security ‘gaps’ after NATO intern arrest

OTTAWA — Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree conceded there are “gaps” in the government’s security clearance process in the wake of the arrest of a Canadian woman of Chinese origin charged of spying at NATO headquarters.

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“I think there’s over 200,000 screenings that are undertaken every year,” said Anandasangaree, who was grilled by MPs of all stripes at the Commons public safety committee on Monday.

“By and large, it is an unimpeachable record. Of course, there are gaps here, and I recognize that there are gaps, and that’s what I think we need to improve on.”

But the meetings provided few answers to key questions such as what are those gaps, what did the government know or not know about Zhang’s checkered professional past and how was the former federal public servant allowed to keep her clearance despite previous concerns about her integrity.

That raised the ire of Conservative and Bloc Québécois MPs, who described the Zhang saga as a stain on Canada’s international reputation.

“I don’t feel like we have any further … answers, I should say, on something that is a very serious matter,” said Conservative MP Frank Caputo towards the end of the public meeting with the minister and top CSIS, RCMP and Treasury Board Secretariat officials.

Bloc MP Claude De Bellefeuille went a step further, telling the minister and bureaucrats that she was seeing “sizeable incompetence and a lack of rigour” in this case.

“I cannot believe that this person who had fake names… applied twice to CBSA and have Facebook accounts under two names succeeded in getting her security clearance,” said Bloc MP Claude DeBellefeuille.

“Sure, because of the investigation you can’t tell us anything, but it’s a demonstration of the weakness of your processes… and if I was the public safety minister, I would not be happy to see that the group that is meant to protect us are very lax,” she added.

On July 24, Belgian authorities laid espionage charges against a Canadian woman of Chinese origin who was working as an intern at NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) headquarters in Mons, Belgium.

The suspect was later identified by media as Biwei Zhang (who also went by Claire Zhang) by various media outlets. Belgian and Canadian officials have neither confirmed nor denied her identity.

According to Belgian authorities, Zhang is suspected of “spying on behalf of a third country and of being a member of a criminal organisation.” She was denied bail in August and remains imprisoned in Belgium.

During the hearing, Anandasangaree also said he learned of the impending charges by Belgian authorities against Biwei Zhang one week before they were made public in July.

He also promised there would be “serious learnings” from the Zhang case at the conclusion of the Canadian and Belgian investigations.

Granting any level of security clearance to an employee rests with the deputy minister at the top of a federal organization but is informed by information from the RCMP and CSIS, Anandasangaree told the committee.

The arrest sparked international headlines and intense scrutiny on the Canadian public service and intelligence apparatus, which is charged with approving the security clearance of public servants who intern at NATO.

Following her arrest, various media outlets revealed that she had worked for the Canadian public service for a decade, often in jobs that required security clearance. They also discovered her checkered past within the federal bureaucracy.

For example, a 2024 Federal Court decision revealed that Zhang had committed fraud while applying for a job at the Canadian Border Services Agency by submitting two applications using different names in order to increase her chances of getting the job.

During the committee meetings, Liberal, Conservative and Bloc Québécois MPs all agreed that it was crucial for the government to prevent any such failings in the future.

CSIS, Public Safety and Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) officials all said they were reviewing their own processes all the while investigating what happened in the Zhang case.

Public safety assistant deputy minister Richard Bilodeau noted that his department had recently implemented a mandatory “Internet inquiry” as part of the screening process of clearances ranked “secret” and above.

TBS’s Adam Hatfield also said there needs to be much better information sharing between departments regarding personnel files.

“There’s room for improvement there. A lot of that turns into an IT and data problem. Where we would see improvement is speed, transferability, consistency. It wouldn’t necessarily affect the rigour of the system, but it would certainly let us use our resources far more effectively and hopefully cut down some of those times,” he said.

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

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