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| Tom Macintosh Zheng |
On the surface, this appears to be a prudent national security policy. But scratch deeper and it reveals a dangerous, ill‑defined approach that risks painting an entire group with the same brush.
‘Linked to state actors’ means what, exactly?
In a country like the PRC, the state is involved in many areas. Universities are government-run. State-owned enterprises employ millions. Does having a parent in a state-owned company count as a “link”? What about a degree from a public university? Under such a vague standard, Canada would flag virtually every student from the PRC as a security risk. That is not security, it is collective suspicion masquerading as policy.
The slippery slope to xenophobia
This kind of reasoning isn’t new. During the Second World War, we treated Japanese Canadians as security risks based solely on ancestry. We also did the same to Ukrainians in the First World War.
I know the personal toll this mindset takes. When I was in high school, my classmates accused me of being a spy for the PRC, for no reason other than that I had a strong accent and I am ethnically Chinese. I can only imagine how students from the PRC, or worse, Canadians of Chinese descent, feel facing the same insinuations today.
Students from the PRC are not a monolith. Some are critical of their government. Others simply want a good education and better prospects. Reducing them all to pawns of a foreign regime is dehumanizing and wrong.
How would ‘enhanced security screening’ even work?
Even if you accept the premise that “enhanced security screening” is somehow appropriate, as was stated in the article, what would this look like? Would visa officers dig through family trees? Scrutinize political beliefs? Review the student’s social media postings?
And if we’re taking a country-specific approach, where does it end? Should we also vet American students who believe Canada should be the 51st state? That, too, would surely be a national security concern. Yet no one is suggesting barring U.S. students from Canadian campuses or subjecting American students to “enhanced security screening.” Singling out one nationality while ignoring similar hypothetical risks from others exposes how arbitrary and discriminatory this approach really is.
Real security needs smart policy, not scapegoating
Yes, Canada must protect its research and national security. Espionage and illicit technology transfer are real concerns. But nationality-based suspicion is lazy and counterproductive. We should apply the same rules to everyone, regardless of nationality.
The author cites the 2023 case of Li v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), [2023] F.C.J. No. 2354 as “sound[ing] the alarm about the risk of espionage through academic research.” But that case warrants closer scrutiny. The decision does not refer to any concrete evidence that Li had, in fact, made any contact with PRC intelligence. Nevertheless, the court held that the mere possibility that PRC intelligence may approach him some day was a reasonable ground to deny his student visa (paras. 57-77). (See also Zachary Jericho Couture, Unearthing the “Established Citizen”: International Students’ Inaccess to Justice from Housing to Study Permits, 2025 62-3 Alberta Law Review 755, 2025 CanLIIDocs 1515, p. 774.) By that logic, Canada could deny a visa to anyone hoping to study in Canada on that basis. After all, anyone could hypothetically be contacted or recruited by any foreign intelligence agency at any time. If such speculation is enough to justify a refusal, then no applicant is truly safe from arbitrary denial.
We can be secure without being xenophobic
We can protect national security and uphold our values. Blanket suspicion is easy. Thoughtful, targeted policy is harder, but it is the right way forward. Treating an entire population of students as suspects doesn’t make us safer. It makes us smaller.
Tom Macintosh Zheng is a Toronto-based former commercial litigator. He is now building online tools to help Canadians access and understand our justice system.
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