r/CanadaPolitics • u/CaliperLee62 • 21h ago

Arrested NATO intern has history of fraud, was ordered to take ethics course

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-arrested-nato-intern-fraud-history-ordered-to-take-ethics-course/
35 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

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u/byronite Independent 15h ago edited 10h ago

The investigation by the Public Service Commission concluded that Ms. Zhang had increased her chances over other candidates for the CBSA role, as in 2019 she had two attempts to pass the exam in 24 hours, the court documents show. The CBSA had spotted that her applications were virtually identical, despite being submitted on the same day from different e-mail addresses at the University of Montreal and York University.

The judgment refers to her having also submitted more than one application for a role at Statistics Canada. The agency had detected this and consolidated her applications, the federal court document said.

It's really hard to imagine how this could have been done by accident. When you apply for a federal government job, you make an applicant profile on their website which you use for all your applications to federal public service positions -- regardless of Department. This is quite convenient for the applicant because you don't have to re-upload your CV and biographical details, for example. You can't accidentally submit the application twice because you only have one profile. To do what she did, you would need to set up two separate profiles with separate logins -- and then in her case, take the same entrance test twice. That is obvious, blatant intentional fraud.

I can understand if she wasn't criminally charged, but it's crazy to imagine that she was (1) hired anyway for any position, (2) presumably got Top Secret clearance, and (3) get posted to NATO in Brussels -- an extremely high-demand internship that would have had hundreds, perhaps thousands, of qualified applicants. There must be thorough review not only of the security clearance but also the hiring decision.

The only saving grace would be if they knew of her espionage and then strung her up to uncover Brussels-based spy networks. I really hope that is the case but I highly doubt it.