China remains Canada’s leading threat for espionage and foreign interference, CSIS report warns.

By Probe International

Canada’s Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) calls the People’s Republic of China (PRC) a leading perpetrator of espionage and foreign interference in its newly tabled Public Report 2025.

The report highlights an escalation in espionage against Canada as PRC intelligence services (civilian and military) continue to cultivate relationships with Canadian politicians and other targets to promote pro-China policies and narratives. Tactics have evolved to include mass-recruitment via fake job advertisements posted by front companies on mainstream employment sites. Aimed at luring financially strained and ambitious Canadians into unwittingly submitting resumes and personal data that could expose their networks of contacts with privileged government, private, or academic information, the report states this broad-net approach permits engagement with far more people—many unknowingly—and even uses non-sensitive applicants to identify further targets.

CSIS responded to these threats with public security alerts, including one exposing a PRC-linked operative disrupting academic research, and coordinated disruptions of Beijing’s efforts to recruit current and former Canadian military personnel to train its aviators.

The warnings come amid the federal government’s recent diplomatic outreach to China, including Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit to Beijing and Foreign Minister Anita Anand’s announcement of a new foreign policy emphasizing cooperation.

The CSIS overview released in March 2026 and tabled in Parliament in early May, identifies India, Russia, Iran, and Pakistan, along with China, as the primary actors in foreign interference, transnational repression, disinformation, and economic espionage. It details broader threats including violent extremism (both religiously and ideologically motivated, with heightened concerns linked to the Israel-Hamas conflict) and cyber risks such as PRC-linked operations targeting telecoms.

The full CSIS Public Report 2025 is available on Canada.ca for complete details.