The Liberal government and the NDP have reached an agreement to set up an ad hoc committee – without the approval of the Official Opposition – will have access to secret documents relating to the dismissal of two infectious disease scientists at Canada’s Top Security Microbiology Laboratory. The panel will not be a parliamentary committee, which means it will not have the mandate and investigative powers of the House of Commons. It will move forward even if the Conservatives and the Kebua Bloc refuse to join, Parliament Speaker Mark Hollande told The Globe and Mail on Wednesday. The Conservatives are adamant that they will not participate, while the Bloc did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “We do not have much faith or confidence in the Liberals’ approach to this,” said interim Conservative leader Candice Bergen. Mr Hollande promised the ad hoc committee would have full access to all national security documents explaining why Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, were fired from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg in January 2021. The two scientists lost their security licenses in July 2019 and the RCMP was called in to investigate. Dr. Qiu, who was head of the vaccine development and anti-virus department at Winnipeg Laboratory, and Mr. Cheng were fired in January 2021. The Globe and Mail reported that a high-ranking officer of the People’s Liberation Army of China collaborated in the Ebola investigation with Dr. Qiu and that the RCMP is investigating whether the fired scientists transferred Canadian intellectual property to China. Opposition parties have been demanding for nine months that the Liberal government release unpublished versions of the documents. The government refused to do so and warned that their release could endanger national security. Mr Hollande said he hoped the commission could work and function as soon as possible. The NDP reached an agreement in March to support the Liberal minority government on budget and confidence issues, and the agreement on the Winnipeg Laboratory documents committee expands the scope of co-operation between the two parties. “With the participation of the NDP, we will move on to this ad hoc committee,” Mr Hollande said. “We believe it is important to give MPs the opportunity to examine these documents and challenge the formalities.” Decibel podcast: Why were two scientists fired from a Winnipeg virus lab? Asked if the Canadians would find out exactly why the two scientists were fired, Hollande said: “They should share everything they can.” He said information that could harm national security would be kept by the public, but not by members of the ad hoc committee. “What Canadians expect is that MPs from all parties … have the opportunity to see every last letter of the documents and learn the full story,” he said. “They will have the opportunity to appeal to an independent body of lawyers if they disagree with any amendments.” Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong said the Liberals’ plan is being completed around Parliament because the committee will not be a formal parliamentary committee. He said he believed the Liberals had reached an agreement with the NDP because the Conservatives were pushing for a vote on his proposal for the Communities Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs to see the documents. “It is clear that the government is trying to divert attention from what we are trying to do,” Chong said. “It’s an attempt to deny information to Parliament.” He said a parliamentary committee, not a committee set up by the Liberals, should receive the documents. The Liberal government’s rules on handling documents will prevent lawmakers from learning what happened, he said. “They are putting a lot of restrictions on this committee that will allow the government to deny the committee information.” NDP foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson defended the NDP-Liberal deal, saying the issue could disrupt proceedings in the foreign affairs committee at a time when pressing issues such as Russia’s war in Ukraine require its attention. “My priority is to get these documents to the deputies. “There was a blockage of logs,” he said. The issue led to a parliamentary debate last June, when opposition parties rallied and invoked parliamentary privilege to order the government to make the files public. When the Liberals did not do so, they voted to declare Canada’s Public Health Service contempt of Parliament. The government appealed to the courts to try to stop the publication of documents, but abandoned the effort when the elections were called. Shortly before Christmas, the Liberals reversed their course and proposed the ad hoc committee with a panel of judges as arbitrators. The Conservatives rejected the idea, saying they wanted the Liberals to stick to a plan they first tabled last June to give lawmakers documents from the House of Commons. “The procedure they proposed will not protect national security documents or national security issues,” Mr Hollande said. More than 250 pages of files have been retained in their entirety by MPs and hundreds more have been partially censored. Deputies are seeking documents related to the transfer of deadly virus samples in March 2019 to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which was overseen by Dr. Qiu. RCMP research focuses on the possibility that materials such as plasma DNA molecules, which could be used to regenerate vaccines or viruses, were transferred to the Chinese authorities without the approval of the Public Health Service. The Globe also reported that Dr. Qiu collaborated in scientific work with Chinese military researchers.
