House public safety committee to hold special meeting on accused NATO spy

OTTAWA — The House of Commons public safety committee will meet Monday to decide whether to investigate potential security screening failures, after a Canadian woman was arrested in Belgium for allegedly spying on NATO.

On July 25, Belgian authorities announced the arrest of a “Canadian national of Chinese origin” on suspicion of spying for a third country while working as an intern at NATO’s central military headquarters in southern Belgium. The suspect was subsequently identified as Biwei “Claire” Zhang, a computer science and systems engineering graduate in her early 30s who’d previously held positions at multiple Canadian federal agencies.

Its also been reported that the overseas NATO internship was sponsored by Global Affairs Canada, and that the agency was responsible for conducting Zhang’s security clearance.

Five committee members — four Conservative MPs and a Bloc Québécois MP — said in a joint letter to Liberal MP Jean-Yves Duclos, the committee’s chair, that the “serious allegations of espionage” against Zhang warranted a special out-of-session meeting.

“These allegations raise urgent questions about how an individual now accused of spying was able to obtain an internship within one of Canada’s most important military alliances and what security screening, information-sharing and monitoring processes were in place at the time,” reads the letter.

The five MPs invoked a special order of House procedure to force Duclos to call a meeting on the matter.