Much of the space inside a building housing the 50-year-old Chinese Family Services of Greater Montreal is now empty.
According to director Xixi Li, most of the activities stopped in the wake of an RCMP probe into reports of Chinese government police outposts in Canada.
“We lost about 70 per cent of funding,” she told Global News from her office at the centre in the city’s Chinatown neighbourhood. “That’s about $700,000 to $800, 000 a year.”
Now, they’re hoping to start turning things around, since the RCMP just announced it has has closed its investigation of the centre in Montreal’s Chinatown and the Centre Sino-Québec de la Rive-Sud in Brossard on Montreal’s South Shore.
“Well, my personal reaction is relief,” stated May Chiu, Chinatown Roudtable director. “It’s been a long, long two-and-a-half years of seeing the community suffer from dire access to social services.”
But Li and other Chinese community members say the damage is already done.
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The investigation was part of a broader probe that started in 2022, into reports that Chinese-Canadians were being threatened and intimidated by people connected to the Chinese government.
Both organizations were identified as housing secret Chinese government police stations, but no charges have been laid.
Li, who also heads the Brossard centre, as well as other officials deny any such activities took place on the property, even though they and others supporting them did not object to an investigation.
The problem for them and legal experts in the community is the RCMP’s’s conduct in going public with their investigation.
“By doing that, essentially they are already defaming and hurting the organizations that they are supposedly investigating,” explained lawyer and activist, Walter Chi-yan Tom.
As a result of the federal police service’s approach, Li says both organizations have had to reduce services to thousands of clients and slash staff by 70 per cent.
“We had close to 30 staff around the (Chinatown) centre,” she pointed out. “Right now, we have five.”
Li blames it all on funding loss prompted by the stigma the accusations created, causing individuals, government and financial bodies to stay away.
Chiu agrees and notes that even the mood in the Chinese community was tarnished.
“It caused all this distress and disunity and suspicion among community members,” she observed. “People didn’t know who to trust.”
She and others feel that, instead of reassuring community members, the RCMP’s approach had the opposite effect — making people feel less safe.
They fear that while the police have closed the case, it’ll take years to restore the groups’ reputation, as well as much-needed funding.
The force refused to comment.
Though the case is now closed, the community organizations and Li want to push ahead with a $4.9-million defamation lawsuit against the RCMP.
The groups believe it’s the only way they can get answers.
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
