An ad hoc committee of parliamentarians has begun its probe into previously withheld documents related to the firing of two infectious-disease scientists from Canada’s highest-security lab in Winnipeg, according to a report.
“Work is underway and documents are available to the committee members. They work independently,” said Mark Kennedy, communications director for Government House Leader Mark Holland, according to the Globe and Mail on June 29.
Kennedy said the special parliamentary committee has begun its investigation and will receive unfettered access to all national-security documents related to the eviction of Xiangguo Qiu and her husband Keding Cheng from the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in January 2021.
The couple was first escorted out of the NML facilities in July 2019 and stripped of their security clearances.
CBC News later obtained documents through an Access to Information request showing that Qiu had been in charge of shipping the deadly Ebola and Henipah viruses to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China in 2019.
Holland said in November 2022 that the committee probing the scientists’ eviction from the lab would also have access to documents involving the virus transfers, although the Public Health Agency of Canada previously denied any connection between Qiu and Cheng’s firing and the shipment of viruses to China.
The Epoch Times contacted Holland’s office for more details of what documents the committee will be reviewing, but did not hear back before press time.
Committee
Holland announced in May the special committee would be made up of MPs from all recognized parties in the House of Commons and its “panel of arbiters” would consist of two former Supreme Court judges and one former Federal Court judge.Holland said the MPs on the committee would have “full access to related redacted and unredacted documents” and also “receive briefings from officials on the reasons for protecting certain information from disclosure.”
“The documents from the Public Health Agency of Canada pertain to the transfer of viruses and the termination of employment of two staff members,” said a press release from Holland’s office on May 17.
The government House leader further said that when the MPs on the committee come across redacted information in the documents that they agree should be made public, the judges on the committee’s panel of arbiters “will determine how that information could be disclosed more widely without compromising national security, national defence or international relations, or any other public or private interest.”
Andrew Chen contributed to this report.
