MPs sitting on a special House of Commons committee will study the trove of documents released last month detailing allegations against two scientists fired from a high-security lab in Winnipeg.
Members of the special committee on the Canada–People’s Republic of China relationship met Tuesday at the request of Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong.
Chong has been seeking a committee probe the matter, and earlier this month failed to get the House ethics committee to look into it.
“I believe strongly that the committee is the right place to examine these documents, the right place to hold the government accountable, and the right place for us to hear from witnesses and to produce a report with recommendations,” Chong said on Tuesday.
“These serious national security breaches, I believe, warrant examination by a parliamentary committee.”
Released last month, more than 600 pages of documents detail allegations against scientists Xiangguo Qiu and her husband Keding Cheng, who were escorted from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg in July 2019 for reasons “relating to possible breaches in security protocols,” public health officials said at the time.
They were subsequently fired in January 2021.
The Winnipeg lab is Canada’s only Level 4 laboratory, designed to deal safely with deadly contagious germs such as the Ebola virus.
Cheng was accused of violating safety and security policies by inviting restricted visitors into the lab unaccompanied, who then allegedly removed materials from the lab.
Investigators also found that Cheng received packages of biological samples from China that were mislabelled as “kitchen utensils,” which the investigation concluded was done to ease the shipping process but not with Cheng’s knowledge.
Subsequent investigations, including by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), determined that Qiu hid her relationships with Chinese research associations and shipped some materials from the Winnipeg lab without authorization.
While many details of Qiu and Cheng’s case were reported through leaks to media, the case became a lightning rod for scrutiny during the COVID-19 pandemic, and as federal Liberals fought for years to keep the documents secret.
When Chong brought the issue to the ethics committee, a majority of members voted to end debate on his motion after Liberal MP Iqra Khalid said hearings were unnecessary, and fell outside the committee’s mandate.
MPs on Tuesday passed an amended version of Chong’s motion, calling for at least two meetings on the documents, and to hear from witnesses including PHAC officials, Health Minister Mark Holland and Democratic Institutions Minister Dominic LeBlanc.
The documents range from mundane email chains to “Canadian Eyes Only” security assessments, largely uncensored and released in a batch by Ottawa on Feb. 28.
Holland tabled the documents in Parliament after a special ad-hoc committee was formed in 2022. It determined efforts to keep the information sealed were meant to avoid the “embarrassment” of PHAC, rather than protecting national security.
“The information appears to be mostly about protecting the organization from embarrassment for failures in policy and implementation, not legitimate national security concerns, and its release is essential to hold the Government to account,” it said.
Holland later told reporters that the documents show an “unacceptable” security situation in the lab.
“The threat environment with respect to foreign interference was in a very different place at that moment” in 2019, Holland said on Feb. 28.
“While there were the proper protocols in place, there was a lax adherence to the security protocols in place.”
At the time Qiu and Cheng were working at the Winnipeg lab, Canada was fighting for the release of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor from Chinese detention. The two men weren’t released until 2021.
The government, as well as CSIS and the RCMP, also had information that China was attempting to influence diaspora communities in Canada and interfere in Canadian domestic affairs, including elections.
“I think in 2019, the extent to which China was attempting to influence the scientific community or to interfere in domestic Canadian affairs was not known to the extent as it is today,” Holland said on Feb. 28.
However, he added he is “absolutely certain — and you will see it in the documents — that no sensitive information left the lab.”
— with files from Global News’ Sean Boynton and The Canadian Press