OTTAWA — The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said on Sunday that an Ontario man had been arrested for allegedly trying to sell secrets about Canada’s new naval shipbuilding program to China.

In a statement, the police department said that it learned on Thursday that Qing Quentin Huang, 53, who lived west of Toronto in Waterdown, Ontario, “was taking steps to pass sensitive information to authorities from the People’s Republic of China.” The information, police said, related to Canada’s current $33 billion project to build 23 warships, as well as a variety of icebreakers and support ships.

Chief Superintendent Jennifer Strachan of the mounted police told a news conference that Mr. Huang was employed by Lloyd’s Register, a subcontractor to one of the companies building the warships, in this case arctic patrol vessels. But she offered little information about the nature of the secrets Mr. Huang had tried to sell nor did she indicate if the Chinese government was receptive to his plan.

“In these types of cases, sharing information may give a foreign entity a tactical, military or competitive advantage by knowing the specification of vessels responsible for defending Canadian waters and Canadian sovereignty,” she said.