Verdict due today in Hydro-Québec espionage case

A Quebec Court judge is expected to rule today on whether former Hydro-Québec researcher Yuesheng Wang carried out economic espionage for China.

Wang became the first person charged under Canada's Security of Information Act in connection with alleged industrial espionage. He was arrested in 2022 and accused of sharing proprietary research from Hydro-Québec with Chinese entities without permission.

Prosecutors also allege that while employed at the utility, Wang submitted applications to Chinese universities under a recruitment framework used by the Chinese government to attract foreign-trained scientists back to work in China.

Wang, a Chinese national and resident of Candiac south of Montreal, has pleaded not guilty. He testified in November that his interest in moving back to China reflected workplace unhappiness and visa concerns—nothing more sinister.

The verdict will mark the first judicial determination of what constitutes economic espionage under Canadian law in a case involving energy infrastructure, setting potential precedent for how the country prosecutes intellectual property theft by state-aligned actors.