Many companies were created, especially in the 1990s, before Hong Kong's handover to mainland China in 1997. Many of them were front companies that came here to gather information. They expressed a desire to work with Canadian companies, but once they had obtained the information they were looking for, they would disappear.
Similarly, another witness talked about the Confucius Institute and its branches, which are doing exactly the same thing right now. They are essentially spy satellites sent out by China. In fact, the head of the Confucius Institute in New Brunswick was asked to leave Canada after engaging in activities that looked a lot more like espionage.
I, myself, recall investigating a case where, once again in New Brunswick, a previous director had asked a provincial government employee for an official email address for himself, so he could access provincial government information. That would have been a gateway to all of the provincial government's information, and that's not the only example I could give you.
Numerous incidents around the world are raising doubts about organizations like the Confucius Institute and companies that come to steal technology and information. In some cases, they also work with Chinese organized crime. When we see incidents where the Chinese government is to some extent colluding with organized criminals to carry out certain activities, it's especially disturbing.
The phenomenon is currently being studied in British Columbia in relation to casinos. The situation was exposed by a defector in the 1990s. The defector told the Australian intelligence service that, in the early 1980s, when he worked for the Chinese intelligence service, his job was to go to Hong Kong to recruit triads to ensure the 1997 handover went off without a hitch. That's another example of the collusion going on right now between Chinese organized crime and the Chinese intelligence service.