Prior to her internship at NATO, Claire (Biwei) Zhang worked in public-service roles, including at Statistics Canada.YVES HERMAN/Reuters
A Canadian NATO intern arrested in Belgium on suspicion of spying for China was ordered by a federal watchdog to take a course in ethics after being found to have committed fraud in applying twice under two slightly different identities for a public service job.
Claire (Biwei) Zhang, a Canadian of Chinese origin, worked in public service roles, including at Statistics Canada, before taking up the NATO internship at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, known as SHAPE, in Mons near the French border.
She was found to have acted dishonestly by submitting two applications from different e-mail addresses, with slightly different identifying names, for a role with the Canada Border Services Agency, according to federal court documents.
The public-service watchdog, which found she had committed fraud, ordered that for a year she notify it in writing before accepting a position within the federal public service.
The June, 2023 Public Service Commission report added that if she joined the federal public service within a year, she must also complete an ethics course followed by a discussion with her manager within two months of starting the job.
Ms. Zhang has not made any public comment on the allegations since her detention, nor has any lawyer acting on her behalf. Her identity was confirmed to The Globe and Mail by a national-security source. The source and a second national-security source said Belgian prosecutors are looking into allegations that she spied for China.
The Globe is not identifying the sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the case.
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Opposition MPs and experts on the public service are questioning how, after being found to have committed fraud, she was able to secure roles in public bodies both in Canada and abroad.
Former Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick said there should be a fresh look at the security screening process. He said, “it is a long-standing problem” in the Canadian public service that “people can slip between the cracks and move from one place to another despite transgressions of conduct and mismanagement.”
Ms. Zhang sought judicial review of the commission’s ruling, with her lawyers arguing that the corrective measures were “disproportionately harsh.” But a federal court judge dismissed her appeal in 2024, court records show.
The judgment refers to her having also submitted more than one application for a role at Statistics Canada. The agency had detected this and consolidated her applications, the federal court document said.
Carter Mann, head of media relations at Statscan, said it “takes the integrity of its staffing and security processes very seriously and has measures in place to identify and address irregularities when they arise.”
The investigation by the Public Service Commission concluded that Ms. Zhang had increased her chances over other candidates for the CBSA role, as in 2019 she had two attempts to pass the exam in 24 hours, the court documents show.
The CBSA had spotted that her applications were virtually identical, despite being submitted on the same day from different e-mail addresses at the University of Montreal and York University.
Ms. Zhang, who also worked at the Canadian Space Agency, was given security clearance by the federal government before starting the NATO internship, after vetting by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and checks by the RCMP into whether she had a criminal record.
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Mr. Wernick said he would like to see the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP), made up of MPs and senators who have top-secret security clearance, “take up the matter.”
NSICOP should look into not just the specifics of this case “but a broader examination of the security screening apparatus, whether it is properly aligned and calibrated, and whether it is resourced and equipped to deal with the enormous caseload of personnel and contractors,” he said in an e-mail.
NSICOP declined to comment.
Ken Rasmussen, professor emeritus at the University of Regina’s Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, said the federal government needs to conduct a “fairly robust inquiry” into what happened with its screening processes.
“They’re going to have to, if not name and blame, say what measures have been taken to … ensure this kind of thing can’t happen,” he said. “Even if there were no great national-security secrets being siphoned off, it’s still a very bad look for the government.”
Conservative national-security critic Dane Lloyd said it was embarrassing for Canada that Ms. Zhang had been given security clearance by the federal government before starting her NATO internship, raising questions about how thorough Ottawa’s vetting process is.
He said a finding of fraud by the public service watchdog should have been an indication that “maybe we should look more closely at this person.”
He said Canadians would expect foreign nationals coming from countries that have a history of engaging in espionage to be subject to “a very high level of scrutiny.”
China has said little about the case. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs hasn’t responded to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Brussels dismissed the allegations as “unfounded, fabricated suspicions” from anonymous sources and said the embassy would not be commenting further.
The Public Service Commission said it could not comment on individual cases. In a statement, it said it “is committed to protecting the integrity of the federal public service and the merit-based appointment system.”
CBSA spokesperson Luke Reimer said in a statement: “The Canada Border Services Agency works diligently to ensure the integrity of all its activities, including staffing processes. This includes taking concrete measures to detect and address suspected fraud.”
With a report from James Griffiths