:
I call this meeting to order.
Welcome to meeting number 29 of the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations.
Pursuant to order of reference of Wednesday, September 23, 2020, the committee is meeting for its study of Canada-China relations.
[Translation]
This is a hybrid meeting, pursuant to the motion passed by the House on January 25, 2021.
[English]
Today's meeting is in accordance with paragraph (c) of the House order of Wednesday, June 2, which provides the following:
[Translation]
the Minister of Health shall be ordered to appear before the special committee, for at least three hours, at a televised meeting, to be held within two weeks of the adoption of this order, to discuss the documents and the matters referred to in them;
[English]
As you all know, these documents are related to a transfer of viruses that occurred in March 2019, as well as the revocation of security clearances and the termination of employment of two scientists from the National Microbiology Laboratory.
I would also like to remind everyone that while the witnesses must answer all of the questions the committee puts to them, members have been urged to display appropriate courtesy and fairness when questioning witnesses.
I would now like to welcome the Honourable Patty Hajdu, Minister of Health, as well as Iain Stewart, president of the Public Health Agency of Canada, and Dr. Guillaume Poliquin, acting vice-president of the National Microbiology Laboratory.
Thank you all for being here.
I will now turn to Minister Hajdu for the opening remarks.
Minister, please proceed. You have five minutes.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and committee members, for the invitation to appear before the committee today.
As you know, on June 2, the House of Commons issued an order for unredacted documents pertaining to the transfer of viruses from the National Microbiology Lab, or NML, to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in March 2019, and the nature of the departure of two NML scientists.
We appreciate Parliament's desire for scrutiny of this matter and, of course, value the role of parliamentarians in holding government accountable.
At the same time, we are responsible for ensuring that sensitive material is protected and that the proper mechanisms are in place to safeguard any personal and security-related information. In this particular case, we have endeavoured to comply with the intent of the order while also respecting the law and ensuring that privacy and security-related information is, indeed, properly safeguarded.
Accordingly, on June 4, I referred this matter to the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians for its review. At that time, the Public Health Agency of Canada also provided that committee with the unredacted documents requested by Parliament.
I welcome this opportunity to explain how the Government of Canada arrived at that decision. I underscore, however, that there are matters that are under consideration by the Speaker and the House on the same issues. These matters will be addressed in those forums.
I would like to begin with a few words about the National Microbiology Lab, which provides and continues to provide critical scientific leadership for Canada in response to COVID-19.
Right now, for example, the NML is conducting more than 100 research studies on COVID-19, which range from designing and testing vaccines to investigating treatments to understanding the genetic fingerprint of the virus.
International collaboration is an essential part of this scientific work, and throughout the pandemic the NML has worked with its partners, both inside and outside of Canada, to combat this disease.
I'll reiterate that the two former employees named in the order are no longer employed by the Public Health Agency of Canada. Further, as I had noted previously in the House, there is no connection between the transfer of viruses cited in the order and the subsequent departure of these employees, and there is no link to COVID-19.
I cannot disclose any additional information for privacy and security reasons, but I can say that the National Microbiology Lab will continue to play a critical role in protecting the health and safety of Canadians.
The Government of Canada is committed to transparency in its work, and we endeavour to be as open as possible with Parliament and Canadians while at the same time protecting sensitive information. It is a balancing act that requires us to consider countervailing laws and duties and the public interest.
In this case, the Public Health Agency of Canada has appeared before this committee twice to answer questions to the extent possible. It has also responded promptly to all requests for information, while respecting its obligations under the laws passed by Parliament. More broadly, senior officials from the Public Health Agency of Canada have made almost 30 committee appearances since May 2020, and as minister, I have appeared some 25 times since the pandemic began.
We are and we remain committed to being as responsive and available as possible to parliamentarians.
The Government of Canada recognizes that the oversight provided by Parliament is essential to a well-functioning government. We respect the need for transparency and the importance of accountability before Canadians.
However, in this particular case, the information requested has both privacy and national security implications. Complying with the order without having proper safeguards in place would put sensitive information at risk of being released publicly.
That's why I've referred this matter to the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. This committee has the statutory mechanisms and protections needed to safely review sensitive information while maintaining its confidentiality.
As I mentioned at the outset, I've already provided the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians with the material requested. The Public Health Agency of Canada will co-operate with the committee as it conducts its review.
Thank you very much.
:
Thank you. I'll answer the question. NSICOP is not a committee of Parliament. This is stated in subsection 4(3):
The Committee is not a committee of either House of Parliament or of both Houses.
Not only is this committee not a committee of Parliament, MPs and senators on the committee actually give up their parliamentary rights. Subsection 12(1) says:
Despite any other law, no member or former member of the Committee may claim immunity based on parliamentary privilege in a proceeding against them in relation to a contravention of subsection 11(1) or of a provision of the Security of Information Act or in relation to any other proceeding arising from any disclosure of information that is prohibited under that subsection.
So NSICOP is not a committee of Parliament. Its members give up the rights they have as parliamentarians. Its members and its chair are hired and fired by the . Any minister has the right to refuse the committee information and block the committee's review, and the Prime Minister has the power to change committee reports before they are made public.
It's clearly the wrong committee to hold the government accountable for national security breaches. It's like the fox guarding the henhouse, and more importantly, by sending these documents to NSICOP, you are in violation of two orders of this committee and an order of the House.
Minister, with the greatest of respect, for the last year and a half during this pandemic, you have been telling Canadians they should follow public health orders while you and your agency have thumbed your noses at two orders of this committee and one order of the House of Commons.
So much for the rule of law.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I also thank all of my colleagues who are here, as well as the Minister.
Minister, you said on the CTV program Question Period that if China had concealed information from the world concerning its management of the COVID‑19 pandemic, it should be held to account. I think that all of us sitting in committee today agree with that statement.
Do you believe that the Public Health Agency of Canada and your government should also be held to account if you conceal information, including by sending redacted documents to a committee that reports to the Prime Minister? There seems to be a double standard.
Thank you, Minister Hajdu, for joining us this evening.
Mr. Chong asked some questions relating to the legislation for NSICOP. One thing he referred to, of course, was that the members of the committee are appointed by the Governor in Council on the recommendation of the Prime Minister. According to subsection 5(1) of the legislation, they hold office “during pleasure until the dissolution of Parliament following their appointment.”
That means to me, Minister, that if there is an election called, the committee would be dissolved. There would be no members of that committee, and any work that they were doing would, in fact, disappear.
Is that correct?
:
Yes, except that the government has not been forthcoming. Until June 3, this committee had been told repeatedly that the reason the documents weren't forthcoming was that it was a privacy and administrative matter. It was only suddenly, earlier this month, that it became a national security matter.
Given that you've not been forthcoming, why should Parliament, parliamentarians and Canadians be satisfied when you've not fulfilled the obligation to send documents to Parliament for oversight? The government is accountable to Parliament, and ultimately to Canadians through that Parliament. Instead, you've gone to a committee where members, as MP Chong pointed out, don't have the ability to hold the government accountable, as other committees do. No matter how hard they work, no matter their standing as parliamentarians, they simply do not have that ability to hold the government accountable.
It seems to me, and I think a lot of other Canadians, that this route has been chosen because you want to hide what's in those documents. You don't want to be forthcoming about the government's errors, the national security breach and possibly how you put our nation's security at risk.
Thank you Minister, Mr. Stewart and Monsieur Poliquin, for being with us tonight.
While, you were not there in the 40th Parliament, Minister, I was. I think this may be a question you might have for me if you got to ask us questions—and I sometimes think you should be able to. It's this: why did I abstain on the opposition-day motion that has called you to be here?
I abstained because I believe fundamentally and profoundly that Parliament has the right to call for papers and persons. I also believe that parliamentarians and Parliament has the responsibility not to call for certain papers at certain times. That was the dilemma of the 40th Parliament when the Afghan detainee papers were considered. The Speaker did rule, but he did not give unfettered access to parliamentarians. Instead, he demanded a creative approach to review those papers carefully with certain criteria being placed on them.
That was the 40th Parliament. The 41st Parliament with Mr. Harper as the prime minister did nothing, despite the opposition's call then for a process in that situation. However, in the 42nd Parliament.... While I thank you for your presence here and I thank the former minister Ralph Goodale for his work in ensuring that, should a situation happen like that again, we would have a process by which a minister could refer these requests and papers. That is what we've done. We've set up that process. To honour Parliament, you have actually, in effect, done what Parliament has asked you to do. I want to thank you for that.
As I say, Parliament is supreme. I will argue that forever. I'll also argue that parliamentarians have to be responsible. In our wisdom, parliamentarians set up that committee. What the opposition is asking you today to do is to be in contempt of the previous Parliament that set up this committee.
I think that what you have been able to do is balance the need for information to go to parliamentarians to review—who are not hired and fired by the prime minister. That is incorrect and unparliamentary language. They are appointed as order in council appointments. Yes, they will dissolve when this Parliament dissolves, as will this committee. The argument that was made by Mr. Harris doesn't make sense either because both of these committees will dissolve.
Here we are in this situation in the 43rd Parliament where we're attempting to find out what happened. We're attempting to find out with privacy laws established by this Parliament, with a committee of parliamentarians established by a previous Parliament to do those things. I think it is absolutely appropriate for parliamentarians to be concerned about what happened in the lab in Winnipeg. We are absolutely concerned about that, but at the same time, we recognize that there is a place for that to be done. It is at the NSICOP, where we have one former member of this committee as a member of that committee.
When you're asked whether or not you have doubts about us and our abilities to handle this process, I would say that you don't have doubts—and I don't want to put words in your mouth. It's not about us as individuals. Could you clarify that? This is not about us as individuals. It is not about the parliamentary system. It's about honouring what Parliament has done to create an expert committee with security clearances that will do the work that we want done as Canadians.
:
I can't speak to those particular collaborations, but I can speak to intellectual and research collaboration in general.
It's an incredibly important part of understanding infectious diseases, viruses and treatments. As I said in my opening statement, the National Microbiology Lab has a long history of collaboration, globally, to further research, to come up with treatments and to push forward scientific knowledge in a number of infectious disease areas.
We should be very grateful that we have a National Microbiology Lab of this calibre in this country, which has contributed to some breakthrough understandings of a variety of different diseases—
Hello, Minister, and thank you for being with us.
At one of the meetings we had recently, , your colleague at Foreign Affairs, said that there was no longer any collaboration between the Winnipeg and Wuhan laboratories now.
Is that the case? If so, how long has it been the case?
:
This is National Public Service Week, so I want to thank the public servants, which include senior officials from the PHAC, who have made almost 30 committee appearances.
I also want to thank the Minister for her hard work, ensuring that Canadians have been kept safe during this pandemic.
Minister, we keep hearing two different stories from opposition members. On the one hand, they are deeply concerned about national security threats; on the other hand, they are asking for unredacted documents to be publicly shared when it has been made clear that there are clear national security concerns about doing so.
Are you concerned about the opposition's attitude towards national security concerns in this situation?
:
The National Microbiology Lab has sprung into action since the early days of the pandemic and delivered the first functional diagnostic test within five days of the sequence being published by Chinese collaborators. It has continued to work tirelessly to advance the science.
Some of our work has contributed directly to our understanding of the periods of infectivity in individuals who were infected with COVID-19, and during their recovery.
We have developed a national wastewater surveillance system that is able to provide early warnings of resurgence. We were sequencing, in May alone, 30,000 genomes to understand the threat posed by variants of concern. We continue to work on the advancement of a number of potential vaccine candidates should new technologies be needed to meet the threat posed by variants.
That's a broad overview, but we are proud of the work we've been doing.
:
Minister, I'm interested in your response on this. Dr. Poliquin can follow up in writing at a later point, and I would welcome that.
Although we're meeting for three hours, it is in my view still limited time, given the issues we're dealing with.
I want to ask you this. Mr. Gilmour, subsequent to raising those concerns, left the lab and the country rather suddenly in the middle of the pandemic.
Do you know why Mr. Gilmour left his job, and did you have any conversations with Mr. Gilmour? Did you have a courtesy call? Did you have any discussions with him around the time of his departure?
It is my turn to thank the Minister, who is very busy, for being here. She has even said that she has taken part in 25 meetings since the pandemic began. I also want to thank her for all the work she has done during the COVID‑19 pandemic. It is also because of her participation and her contribution that we are where we are today.
I want to welcome our witnesses, Mr. Stewart and Dr. Poliquin, too. This is not the first time they have appeared before us, but I would like to come back to a few points.
During this meeting, and even before, in the House, the opposition has often risen to somehow try to put down the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. It is made up of parliamentarians, and some parliamentarians are sending the message that the committee is of no importance. I was a member myself when it was created, and I can speak to the entire process I participated in to obtain a maximum security clearance. I can speak to the number of questions that each member had to answer and the number of examinations that each member had to pass to be able to sit on that important committee.
The committee is also composed of parliamentarians from the parties in the House. The party leaders, including the leaders of the Conservative Party and the NDP, had to submit the names of the members they wanted to sit on the committee. Those parliamentarians then underwent checks.
I can also point out to the members that when the committee was created, it was made up of Liberals, Conservatives and New Democrats. Diane Finley and Rob Nicholson, both from the Conservative Party, were members. Murray Rankin from the NDP was also a member. There were also senators from various groups who were members of the committee, which is supported by an independent secretariat.
The committee decides its own procedures. We always held our meetings in camera, in secure facilities, and even my employees could not know where we were meeting. We also considered how such committees work in other countries, such as the United Kingdom, Australia and France. Our job is to ask questions from a government-wide perspective and make recommendations.
In addition, in his news release announcing the creation of the committee, the wrote that it was going to help us ensure that our national security agencies continue to keep Canadians safe in a way that also safeguards our values, rights, and freedoms. The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act received Royal assent. So the committee may review the legislative, regulatory, policy, administrative and financial framework for national security and intelligence. We fulfilled our mandate and met with all members of the security and intelligence community, including members of the RCMP and CSIS.
Minister, you responded to the request from the Standing Committee on Canada-China Relations, but you could not provide us with those documents because the committee members do not have that security clearance. So you did well to send it to the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, whose members have the necessary security clearance to analyze all of those documents and then report on them.
We also have to protect Canadians.
Minister, I want to tell you that you did well to send those documents to the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians.
I'd just like to follow up on the question regarding the collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Dr. Poliquin, you suggested that there is no existing collaboration with the Wuhan laboratory, and The Globe and Mail reports that PHAC informed them in May that collaboration on new projects had ceased. Since 2019, there have been no new projects.
Is it a matter of policy, Minister, that the Government of Canada and PHAC will not collaborate with the Wuhan Institute of Virology? Is that a matter of policy?
First of all, I want to say thank you to our Minister of Health.
Thank you, Minister Hajdu, for all of your extremely hard work. I don't know how you've managed to do it this past year and a half. I haven't seen you since we were in Ottawa together at the very beginning of the outbreak, and I just have to say that every day that I hear you and see you I'm so grateful that you are there and that you have the best interests of Canadians at heart. I truly believe that, and you prove it day after day after day.
I find it very interesting that the opposition seems to harp on and obsess about the Chinese military and the Chinese army, when in fact we've actually had our army help us roll out the vaccines here in Canada, and also look after our long-term care seniors when they were in desperation.
What would you like to say about that? I'd like to hear your thoughts about that.
:
It's so nice to see you too, MP Zann. When I saw your little square, I realized that we hadn't seen each other in a long, long time. I hope you're doing well.
Thank you for asking about the Canadian military. Truly, they have been heroes throughout this pandemic. In fact, we called on them early, as you know, to help out in long-term care. Indeed, not only did they help but they also discovered some atrocities that were occurring due to lack of capacity in those homes to care for elders. We will be forever grateful. I think all Canadians will be for the incredible compassionate care they provided seniors at a time of particular need.
We also heavily leaned on the Canadian Armed Forces to help with the logistics and planning with regard to how to move millions and millions of doses of vaccines to provinces and territories. In the early days we did a lot of role-playing and tabletop exercises with provinces and territories to make sure that people were ready to deliver and manage and store them appropriately.
The military continues to be there for us whenever we need them during this pandemic response. Indeed, they've helped out. For example, Canadian rangers in northern Ontario and other parts of the country have helped with immunizing remote indigenous communities, something that is not easy in this country of ours, which presents such a geographical barrier.
We will be forever grateful to the Canadian military for helping in such a time of need, and I think it's what Canadians think of when they think of the Canadian military service—the men and women and their selflessness in stepping up in these times.
:
Yes. Thank you, Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
There's a lot to be proud of, but in the early days of the COVID-19 response, testing supply reagents were scarce and difficult to come by. Scientists at the laboratory attacked the problem in a number of different ways, including by working with provinces, territories and industry to find solutions, to bring in reagents, swabs, test kits and PCR. We also developed our very own reagent when we could not buy any on the open market so that provinces and territories could continue to do testing.
We went from capacity being 10,000 to well over 200,000 PCR tests per day in that time. We have built sequencing capacity and wastewater testing and have brought diagnostic technologies to our northern regions.
:
Mr. Chair and honourable member, thank you for the question.
Research collaboration occurs on a number of different levels. It could be at the level of individual researchers collaborating on a particular project or a particular question, and there are broader overarching collaborations.
To be clear, the National Microbiology Laboratory has never had an institutional-level collaboration with the Chinese military. As has been highlighted, there are a number of publications where there has been overlap of research interests, but that is not equivalent.
The research endeavour of the laboratory is always to collaborate, to advance public health for Canadians, but also to advance public health on a global scale since we have seen that as infections arise in other places they can readily spread and reshape our societies. Therefore, we are all stronger through collaboration.
:
Mr. Chair, it will soon be at eye level, but whatever is needed.... It's no problem. I'll hold it up here. I'm not sure what the issue is.
Dr. Poliquin, thank you for that.
This has been touched on, but I want to be direct about it. Forgive me; maybe a direct answer has been provided already.
It's about research itself. How is it being kept safe and secure? What can you share about the rigorous protocols around that and how seriously that is taken at the laboratory?
Again, I've been getting up and getting some water, coming back and forth, things like that, so if it has been put on the record already, my apologies. However, so far, I haven't heard a direct answer on that, so it would be helpful.
I just have one follow-up question concerning the legislation.
Minister, you have made a great deal of hay about the fact that the documentation was sent to the national security committee of Parliament. There's an exception to the committee's entitlement to have access to information. It's found in section 14 of the act.
One of the items here is “information relating directly to an ongoing investigation carried out by a law enforcement agency that may lead to a prosecution”.
We know that this information or this activity relates to individuals where there were concerns about security information being released to the Wuhan lab. We know there's an investigation going on, so clearly the committee that's supposedly looking at all these documents isn't entitled to access to them.
How can it be that this is an appropriate body to provide information to, with the expectation that somehow or other that all of this is going to be reviewed, looked after and determinations made that this committee is interested in pursuing, if they are not entitled to access those documents?
:
I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.
Again, I would ask the chair to remind the committee of decorum. There is very much in the Standing Orders the expectation that respect will be accorded to any witness, whether they're a minister of the Crown or not. Earlier in the questioning, there was an accusation of deliberately avoiding saying something, and I think, actually, that that's not parliamentary. I would just ask that all the members be reminded by the chair about decorum being very important in committee and about respect being accorded.
We will remember the same thing in the House of Commons. People may not like the answer, but the answer belongs to the person answering the question. It doesn't belong to the person asking the question.
I do not think it's unparliamentary to suggest to a witness that she or he is deliberately avoiding answering the question, because I think that was clearly obvious, I suppose. Maybe stating the obvious is a bit much in some cases, but it's certainly not unparliamentary to do so when you ask one question and you get another answer. You can point that out.
I think that the decorum has been maintained. The fact of the matter is that we did have a witness who was stonewalling—it's just an adjective that is well known and understood—and I don't think there's anything wrong with pointing that out to a witness. I don't believe the point of order is, in fact, valid.
Of course, members have the right of free expression, but they also know that there are rules of decorum. I expect them to stay within those rules and, as Mr. Oliphant points out, to show respect to all witnesses who come before the committee. At the same time, the House, of course, is an adversarial place, and there are differences of opinion. We try to express those while continuing to show respect.
Mr. Harris, your time is concluded if you don't mind, and I'm going to go on to Mr. Williamson for five minutes. We're going to the second round now.
Mr. Williamson, please.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Madam Minister, I do appreciate your being here tonight. I know it's a long night.
Some of the questions about policy aren't being answered as we'd like, so maybe you can tell us your philosophy about scientists. Is it your contention that scientists are scientists, regardless of where they come from? You have no concerns, say, if a scientist comes from France or China—as we're talking about this at the Canada-China committee—and you believe that these are people are working for the betterment of mankind, or humankind, and will do just that and there's no security concern?
My next question is for Dr. Poliquin.
Dr. Poliquin, in an earlier appearance at this committee, you told us that when determining intent, your lab relies on the promissory note that you receive from the foreign institution. When I asked if any follow-up occurred if the letter came from a government that is not transparent, or that is suspect, you didn't confirm that was the case. You pointed back to the letter saying that you rely on the letter and that if good intent is written in that letter, then you assume good intent.
Do you stand by that characterization? Is that accurate? That seemed to be the testimony you offered to us some weeks ago in response to some of my questioning.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a question for Dr. Poliquin.
There's a lot of interest in the Wuhan lab and how it operates. These questions are not all conspiracy theories. I understand that the G7 is particularly interested in ensuring that a proper investigation takes place with respect to the origin of the coronavirus, so the Wuhan lab is of great interest.
Dr. Poliquin, you said that when you collaborate with another institute, you identify the risks and make sure you can mitigate them.
Could you tell us what risks were identified when you decided to collaborate with the Wuhan Institute of Virology? What did you do to mitigate them?
The point I was raising was about the irony. Earlier in the meeting, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe had raised the problem of the minister who proactively referred these documents to the NSICOP, yet he was concerned because there was not a member of the Bloc Québécois on that committee.
I wanted to raise the irony of that, because there was a member of the Bloc Québécois nominated by their party, appointed by the order in council on recommendation of the , yet this member, the member for , quit the committee. That's a matter of public record. There is no longer a member on the committee. She was appointed in 2020 following the election. She's not a member.
Because I'm not privy to this, I have no idea what the situation is, but the reason there's not a member of the Bloc Québécois on NSICOP is not that we didn't appoint one as a government. The Prime Minister did appoint one, but she quit.
That was the point I was attempting to make. The criticism of the minister referring these documents to that committee was simply inappropriate if the basis was that the committee didn't have a member of the Bloc Québécois on it.
That was that second irony that I wanted to raise. That was all I wanted to do with those two points. The minister has proactively given all of the documents, even though, if demanded, she might have had grounds to refuse based on the legislation, but she chose to give all of the documents to ensure that a full hearing is made.
There was another issue raised. Because she referred them to NSICOP, that was absolutely taken as a breach of national security.
I want to ask the minister this. Did she refer the documents to NSICOP to request if there was a breach of security, and if so, was it handled appropriately? Would that be a reason to refer something to such a committee?
As you know, Mr. Chair, we are permitted to use the time allocated to us for questions or comments. Therefore, I'd like to let you know that I want to use my five minutes not for questions to our witnesses but for commentary about the matter at hand, which I am permitted to do under the rules.
There has been plenty of talk of NSICOP at this committee. NSICOP is not a committee of Parliament. Not only is it not a committee of Parliament, but MPs and senators on that committee actually give up their parliamentary rights.
Its members and its chair are hired and fired by the . Any minister has the right to refuse the committee information and to block a committee review, and the Prime Minister has the right, the power, to change committee reports before they are made public, so it's clearly the wrong committee to hold the government accountable for national security breaches. It's akin to putting the fox in charge of the hen house.
It's also not the same committee, as was previously mentioned today, as committees in other countries like the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom's Intelligence and Security Committee is a committee of Parliament. Its members are confirmed by the House of Commons, not by the Prime Minister. It has substantial powers to compel the government to provide it with information, and it has full power to produce reports and to access information concerning national security.
The and the Public Health Agency of Canada are defying an order of the House of Commons, dated June 2, 2021.
That order said in clause (a):
these documents shall be deposited with the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, in both official languages, within 48 hours of the adoption of this order;
That was to be have been completed by Friday, June 4. That deadline passed, and the government did not comply with the order. The and the Public Health Agency of Canada failed to deposit these documents with the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel by the end of day, Friday, June 4, as the order required.
That order explicitly put in place provisions to protect national security and the details of any ongoing criminal investigation.
The order said in clause (d):
the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel shall confidentially review the documents with a view to redacting information which, in his opinion, could reasonably be expected to compromise national security or reveal details of an ongoing criminal investigation, other than the existence of an investigation;
A question of privilege has been raised in the House of Commons on this issue, and the Speaker has been asked to rule whether there is a prima facie case of privilege. The Speaker is expected to rule on this in the coming days. The precedents are clear, especially the precedent set in Speaker Milliken's ruling of 2010.
The and the Public Health Agency of Canada are defying an order of the House of Commons to produce information that Parliament has requested, just like the government did in 2011. In the 2011 case, the government was found in contempt of Parliament for refusing to deliver the documents requested.
I supported Speaker Milliken's ruling at the time, and publicly indicated this. While I maintained confidence in the government at that time, I supported the finding of contempt. That's unlike the current , who said one thing in opposition and does another thing in government.
The , the Public Health Agency of Canada and the government are violating a House order of June 2. I believe they all are in contempt of Parliament.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I am really insulted to hear parliamentarians here in Canada, from the House of Commons and the Senate, say that other parliamentarians are not eligible to consider situations in which national security is threatened.
I hear that the Prime Minister has the power to do this or do that. Since when? Since that committee was created, has he interfered?
I said just now that that committee was entitled to manage its proceedings. So it does its work and produces reports. The reports we receive, that are tabled in the House, are necessarily redacted, because national security is in issue.
We are told that the parliamentarians waive their immunity. We have no immunity, that is true. It is important that we keep the information we analyze secret. Myself, and I am no longer a member of that committee, Mr. Chair, if I were to disclose some piece of information I had learned during the work we did while I was a member of the committee, I would be risking life in prison.
I am therefore being very careful when I speak today on the work of that committee. Even after my term in office, on whatever date it may be when I have to leave politics, I will still be subject to that law and I am still going to risk prison. Former parliamentarians and committee members always have that sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. Do you think that means nothing?
That is why I would like to ask the Minister, since she sent those documents, whether she really trusts the parliamentarians who sit on the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, or NSICOP.
What do you think, Minister?
:
Thank you very much, MP Dubourg. You've really explained the special nature of this committee—that it's not just a matter of now that they have clearance with the appropriate level of security to review these documents, but it is in perpetuity.
Of course, there are some things that need to be kept private, people's private information, for example. We've talked a lot publicly about the individuals, but, of course, they are individuals who have a certain degree of right to privacy, as all employees do, as all people do.
Again, it's very useful for you to explain the nature of that committee. That's why we've released those documents fully unredacted to that committee. The committee can review those documents with the appropriate clearance. It will, indeed, protect the privacy considerations; it will protect considerations of national security; and it will give confidence to Canadians that we will follow the appropriate processes to handle information of this nature.
I am going to have to come back to the depressing remarks by my colleague Mr. Oliphant. He didn't get to the heart of the story of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians.
My colleague from the riding of Saint-Jean resigned from the committee in February 2020 for personal reasons and has not been replaced since she left, in spite of a proposal by the Bloc Québécois. The government has therefore not done its job. Mr. Oliphant is trying to exploit the resignation for personal reasons of one of my colleagues. I find that depressing.
Now, knowing that, does the Minister still believe that the committee perfectly reflects all parties in the House of Commons?
First of all, I want to thank Mr. Chong for his very clear and correct interpretation of the role of the NSICOP and the fact of its existence. I know there's disagreement here between what's being said by the minister and by Mr. Dubourg, but clearly, according to the act, it is not a committee of Parliament. It reports to the Prime Minister. It keeps secret all of the things that the minister and a prime minister do not want reported.
The order of the House was very clear that the documentation should go to the law clerk of the House for his determination as to what's appropriate or not. That procedure was there and designed to do exactly what was pointed out.
I think it's also very clear that the government has not followed the order of the House. That's on the record. I want to thank Mr. Chong for elaborating that point and making it clear that what's being said here tonight is not correct in its description of the role of the NSICOP—a committee of the government that is appointed to report to the prime minister, who has control over the documentation and the release of the report.
I want to briefly ask a single question of Dr. Poliquin.
In addition to investigating the transportation of the viruses with respect to risk assessment, did they also do a risk assessment of what goes on at the lab in Wuhan? Was that part of the risk assessment? Was there any necessity for mitigation as a result?
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Minister, I will finish my question and give you the balance of my time.
Viruses can be used in military applications. We know that there has been collaboration between Chinese military scientists and the Winnipeg lab. Dr. Poliquin has told us in response to the question of current co-operation between Chinese military scientists and the PLA, well, it's a complicated question to answer.
Are you prepared to tell this committee that you would put in place a policy to block research co-operation in cases where that co-operation risks enhancing the capacity of a foreign military involved in gross violations of human rights or threatening the security of Canada? Would you be prepared to take that position, or are you comfortable with the status quo in which, clearly, that co-operation has gone on with hostile foreign militaries, and by all indication, is continuing to go on? Are you prepared to put in place a policy to stop this once and for all, or not? The time is yours.
I would like to emphasize that the work that has been done at the laboratory over the past 16 months has been born out of a long-standing history of responding to important events, be it domestically or internationally, through the outbreak support we have gotten. The research we have done has advanced our knowledge and our ability to respond to these diseases. It's the day-to-day toil of our staff that makes the work possible, through collaboration.
Through that collaboration, there are a number of achievements I want to read into the record, including the development of a Sudan vaccine candidate, which is a subtype of Ebola. There has been the identification of losmapimod, which is able to block Lassa virus entry. There has been the characterization of Tangeretin, which is a novel blocker of cellular entry for viral hemorrhagic fevers. There has been the development of treatment for potential Rift Valley fever, and novel treatments against Ebola and other high-consequence pathogens.
All of that work is something we are very proud of, and it is born out of the work of our staff, who collaborate to advance the health, safety and security of Canadians and the rest of the globe.