Tory Plan to Study Winnipeg Lab Documents in Committee Blocked by Liberals, NDP

The National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg is seen in a May 19, 2009, photo. The Canadian Press/John Woods

A Tory motion to launch a parliamentary committee study on the recently revealed Winnipeg lab documents, which show serious security breaches at the high-level security facility, has not received support from Liberal and NDP MPs.

A special meeting of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics (ETHI) was called on March 4 to discuss a motion from Tory MP Michael Chong.

After four Conservative MPs spoke in favour of the motion, Liberal MP Iqra Khalid moved to adjourn debate and thus end the meeting, alleging the official opposition was trying to politicize the issue. NDP MP Matthew Green supported the move to adjourn, whereas Bloc Québécois MP René Villemure opposed it.

Mr. Chong proposed to undertake a study based on the government’s own findings, which he described as the Chinese regime and its entities having “infiltrated Canada’s top microbiology lab, a national security breach representing a very serious and credible threat to Canada.”

The motion comes a few days after the Liberal government disclosed hundreds of pages of documents detailing the circumstances of the firing of two China-linked scientists from the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg. The lab is Canada’s only bio-safety level 4 facility permitted to handle lethal pathogens.

Mr. Chong’s motion says the study would look into the transmission of information within government and the government’s reliance on “over-classification” to deny Parliament access to the documents.

The Liberal government defied four orders from the House and took the former House Speaker to court to avoid disclosing the documents.

The meeting had been called while the House is on pause for two weeks. Ms. Khalid argued that the matter was not urgent and that her government has been transparent.

“There was no cover-up,” said Ms. Khalid, who pointed to the government establishing an ad-hoc committee to review the documents. One MP from each of the four major parties, including herself, reviewed the documents and recommended they be released.

The MPs on the ad-hoc committee assessed that in withholding the documents, the government appeared to be seeking to avoid embarrassment rather than protecting “legitimate national security concerns.”

Ms. Khalid also argued that it is not in the committee’s mandate to pursue such matters. In recent months, ETHI has launched studies into the RCMP for not pursuing a criminal investigation into the SNC-Lavalin affair, the government’s use of tools to extract data from devices, and into threats of foreign interference.

‘Not the End’

The committee meeting had started with Liberal MPs protesting that Ms. Khalid was not able to speak earlier during the meeting, with Committee Chair and Tory MP John Brassard having put four Tory MPs on the speaking list before her.

With Ms. Khalid not being able to stop the meeting early on, Conservative MPs laid into the government for its handling of the issue, from lax security at the lab to being slow to respond, and regarding withholding the documents.

Mr. Chong told the committee obtaining the documents is the “start of this matter, not the end.” He argued that the breaches at the NML in Winnipeg are reflective of larger issues pertaining to lapses in Canada’s national security and exemplify the threat coming from Beijing.

A public inquiry into foreign interference by Beijing and other lesser actors is currently being held, in part because of leaked national security information showed the government ignored warnings about Mr. Chong and other MPs being targeted by the Chinese regime.

Tory MP Michael Cooper remarked to the committee that despite being alerted to potential security breaches in 2018, scientist Qiu Xiangguo was still authorized to send the Ebola virus to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2019.

Following an internal investigation, Ms. Qiu and her husband biologist Cheng Keding were put on leave with pay in July 2019 and barred from the lab premises. The investigation conducted by an outside contractor found they were involved in a multitude of security breaches.

Ms. Qiu was conducting undisclosed research with China, was listed on an undisclosed patent in China for which research had been conducted at the NML, and restricted visitors from China under her responsibility would “run amok” in the lab, according to a security official.

As for Mr. Cheng, he was found to have connected a non-authorized external hard drive to the lab’s networks and he would have a restricted visitor from China access the networks using his own personal log-in credentials.

The two scientists were fired in 2021 and their whereabouts are unknown. The RCMP is still conducting an investigation.

Other than local security breaches, the Canadian Service Intelligence Service found Ms. Qiu had “close and clandestine relationships with a variety” of Chinese regime entities. Some of those are military scientists involved in bio-defence and bio-weapons research.