Madam Speaker, it is an honour for me to participate in this important debate. Although I am rarely speechless, I must say it is a little intimidating to follow the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, with such powerful and historic words about the state of our institutions. I would encourage all members to reflect on those words. They go beyond any party. They go beyond any particular issue of the day. However, they do speak to particular problems that we see right now in our national life, particular problems that reflect actions and decisions of the government.
Prior to getting elected, the Prime Minister was asked which other regime or political system around the world he admired most. He said that he actually had some degree of admiration for China's basic dictatorship. This is what we are talking about. We are talking tonight about the fact that the Prime Minister has a problem with understanding democratic values, their importance, how they operate and how they constrain a Prime Minister. We are also dealing with the fact that as a result of his admiration for the Chinese regime, the Prime Minister has allowed our country to form dangerous associations, which threaten our values and our security, and which threaten global security.
I am going to talk about those two issues. I am going to talk about the rule of law and democratic values, and then I am going to talk about the particular issues raised by the associations that we have seen, in terms of Chinese military-affiliated scientists working at Canadian labs, and the fact that the health minister does not seem to see any problem with this.
On the issue of the rule of law, we are seeing, make no mistake, regular assaults on the rule of law by the Liberal government. Last year, at the beginning of the pandemic, under the pressure of very challenging circumstances, the government tried to pass a law that would have effectively given it unlimited law-making power for more than a year and a half. Conservatives stood up to that. We put a stop to that, thankfully.
It should never be forgotten that the government thought this was the appropriate thing to try to do in the face of a pandemic, that it wanted to seize on the very real fear and concern that Canadians were feeling to try to pass a law that would have given it unlimited law-making power for over a year and a half without Parliament.
We have a Prime Minister who has repeatedly been found in violation of ethics laws, multiple reports, multiple violations, according to the Ethics Commissioner. It has become clear that the Prime Minister who said he admired China's basic dictatorship simply does not feel that the laws apply to him. We are seeing that again tonight.
In the last week, we have had back-to-back rulings from the Speaker calling out the government for failing to respect the rules of Parliament and for failing to abide by them. The first ruling was on Bill C-10. After the government shut down committee debate, the committee then proceeded to vote on amendments without debate, without those amendments even being read. Thankfully, our Speaker recognized that that was a clear violation of the rules of this place.
Today we have a very clear ruling, a ruling that, while giving full credit to the Speaker for making, I think we should acknowledge came as no surprise to anyone. It was clearly aligned with all the past precedent, the well-established powers of Parliament to send for documents.
Why does Parliament, as the voice of the people, as the democratic representative of this country, have the right to send for documents in every case? It is because if we are to hold the executive accountable, if we are to do our job on behalf of the people who sent us, if we are to exercise our industry and our judgment, as Burke said, then we have to have the information available to us to consider what is going on and to consider the steps that need to be taken.
Speakers, since the beginning of Parliament, have recognized powers and privileges that must accord to Parliament in its role. Once again, the Speaker recognized that those precedents recognized those rights, and affirmed that Parliament has the right to request these documents and that the government has to hand them over.
Continuing this debate today, in spite of the Speaker's ruling, the government is not at all chastened, it seems. We have members like the member for Kingston and the Islands simply reverting back to the same old talking points that have been clearly rejected by the Speaker.
I do not think that NSICOP is the appropriate forum. I think the Canada-China committee had a right to look at these documents, but frankly, it does not matter whether or not one thinks that NSICOP should be the one looking at this. The point is that the Speaker, the lawful authority in this case, has ruled clearly based on the precedent, and the government must follow the law. Again, we have a Prime Minister who simply does not think the rules and the law apply to him and his consistent behaviour, since taking office, of breaking ethics laws, ignoring Parliament and, in back-to-back cases in the last week, being chastened by the Speaker. The Prime Minister is trying to behave as if the law does not apply to him.
I want, again, to go through the events at the Canada-China committee, where I have the honour of serving as vice-chair, to illustrate how this came about. The government had many, many opportunities, and we put in place very clear and reasonable checks. Because of the reasoned process through which we proceeded, there was substantial support throughout the committee to proceed in this fashion, but the government thinks it is in its political interest to try to make this all about the Conservatives: the Conservatives this, the Conservatives that. This is not about the Conservatives. This is about the fact that a parliamentary committee unanimously asked for those documents.
This process started when the president of the Public Health Agency, Iain Stewart, was before the committee and members started asking very simple questions about these two scientists who transferred deadly viruses to Wuhan and then were expelled. We were asking some very basic questions about what happened. The president of the Public Health Agency refused to answer. These questions were asked by Conservative, Bloc and NDP members consecutively.
We asked some very general questions as well: Has there ever been a case where somebody has been expelled for a policy breach? How many of these cases have taken place? Identifying numbers of cases in which there has been an expulsion for policy breaches certainly does not hurt anybody's privacy, as was claimed at the time. There was a complete refusal to answer these questions.
At that initial meeting, the committee agreed unanimously to give the president of the Public Health Agency until that Friday to provide additional information. No additional information was provided, so we used Standing Order 106(4) to summon the committee for a special meeting on March 31. That initial Standing Order 106(4) letter was signed by members of multiple parties already.
Then we had a motion adopted at that meeting to send for the unredacted documents. We did so in a collaborative way, involving the whole committee in the discussion. We compromised on the number of days. The Liberals at the committee agreed that we had the right to request the documents. They said we needed to give the Public Health Agency more time. We agreed to give the Public Health Agency more time, and it still refused to comply. As a result of its failure to comply, the consequence was that Iain Stewart, the president of the Public Health Agency of Canada, came back to the committee for further discussion in a three-hour meeting.
There are a few things that are very important about that subsequent meeting that happened on May 10. One of them is that the justice department shared that its legal advice to PHAC had been that PHAC did not have to provide these documents. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs directly told them, “You need a second opinion. Your legal advice is wrong.” Actually, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, obviously a Liberal MP, went further than that. He said that the Department of Justice is often wrong. He cited a number of precedents of cases where he felt the justice department had given bad legal advice.
When I questioned the justice department lawyer, I said, “Look, we have the ruling from Speaker Milliken that says you have to hand over documents and that Parliament has an unfettered right of access. You are saying Parliament does not have an unfettered right of access, so that means you disagree with the Speaker's ruling.” The justice department essentially said that, yes, it was hard to square the two. It was hard to square its position with the position of the Milliken ruling.
Then I asked if they thought that Speaker Milliken had the lawful authority to make the ruling, and there was acknowledgement that yes, Speaker Milliken had the lawful authority to make that ruling. He was the authority accountable for making this ruling. He made the ruling, and the ruling is different from the justice department's opinion.
Do members know what happens when we have a different opinion from the lawful authority about what the law should be? We have to comply with the lawful authority. That is how the rule of law works. In a rule of law society, there is an authority that is empowered to make determinations about law. We might disagree with that authority. We might disagree with the Speaker. We might disagree with the judge. We might disagree with the police officer on a given day. However, we have to adhere to that lawful authority and, where available, seek appeal. We cannot just say that our legal opinion is different from the lawful authority that made that decision, so we are just not going to listen.
That was the really strange testimony we heard from the justice department at the May 10 meeting. It was testimony that was directly called out by the Liberal Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. In the end, another Liberal member, the member for Cumberland—Colchester, moved a motion to order the unredacted documents again. That was the second motion to order the unredacted documents. It was not only supported by the Liberals, but it was actually moved in the first instance by a Liberal member, the member for Cumberland—Colchester. That motion was adopted unanimously, ordering the production of the documents. We compromised again with the Liberals on the timeline. We wanted seven days; they wanted 10 days, and we said okay. Then the report was tabled.
We have two separate orders, very much driven by a collaborative process at the committee, one motion proposed by me, one motion proposed by the member for Cumberland—Colchester, and unanimous support. Then we have an opposition motion that says the government has to comply with this order and provide this information. Again, the government refuses. We have three consecutive orders, two by committee and one by the House, and the government refuses to comply. We have lawful authorities telling the government to follow the law, and the government is saying, effectively, that the rules do not apply to it.
On Monday, we had the Minister of Health before the committee. I was precise in asking her whether the decision not to provide the documents was made by Iain Stewart alone, or whether she was consulted on that decision. That was about the only question she responded to directly, but she told the committee that she met with Iain Stewart, they discussed it and she agreed that they should not hand over the documents.
This is not just a decision being made by public servants. Public servants need to be accountable for their decisions in terms of following the law. However, we see how the Minister of Health, in her position by the Prime Minister, does not feel that they have to follow the law.
What are the Liberals saying about these issues? Right now, they are saying this should be a matter for NSICOP. On the issue of NSICOP, I was very interested in the speech by the chair of NSICOP, the member for Ottawa South. Notably, the member for Ottawa South, who is the chair of NSICOP, did not discuss whether the committee had received the documents.
He did not discuss whether his committee was studying the documents, because he cannot talk about what the committee is working on. He can only share information with respect to the committee that the Prime Minister allows him to release. He made the argument that the Prime Minister's discretion in terms of limiting the release of information is constrained by law, but we have seen how the Prime Minister reacts when he is constrained by law. He does not believe himself to be constrained by law.
It was evident in the speech from the member for Ottawa South why NSICOP is not the appropriate body, because he, himself, was not able to address very basic questions. He could not even answer how he was voting on the motion. He cannot actually, because of his role in NSICOP, speak at all about this issue in a serious way in the House, because to do so might give some indication as to whether his committee is studying it.
We know that NSICOP is not a parliamentary committee, but the point is that the Speaker has ruled. These questions about NSICOP have been answered definitively by the Speaker in his ruling, the Speaker being the lawful authority to make these determinations.
We hear the government making arguments about national security issues. The reason these efforts to get documents got so much support throughout the committee, including from Liberal members, including the motion being proposed by the member for Cumberland—Colchester, is that we put in place those protections for national security.
Yes, Parliament should use its powers in a responsible way. Yes, with great power comes great responsibility. That is why we established a process by which the documents would be given to the law clerk and the parliamentary counsel and redactions would be made at that level, but we wanted an employee of Parliament, not of the executive, to make those determinations. That was a reasonable process that respected national security and, at the end of the day, it was our right as a parliamentary committee, it was our right as a collective Parliament in the context of the opposition motion to make these decisions.
The fundamental point is that in every case, the authorities with the constitutionally given powers to make these decisions made decisions. In every case, in three consecutive instances dealing with this issue alone, and in many others, as we have discussed, the government said that the rules did not apply to it.
We know now why the Prime Minister believes it would be so much better to have a basic dictatorship. We see how the Prime Minister treats our institutions as if we live in a basic dictatorship. Truly respecting the values of a parliamentary democracy means we do things as an executive that we might not want to do because we are accountable to the people's representatives. We do not get to do exactly what we want. We are bound by law.
At the Canada-China committee, we have discussed the distinction between rule of law and rule by law: rule of law characterizing our system where leaders are bound by law; and rule by law whereby leaders use law to their advantage to get the kinds of outcomes they want. The Prime Minister is behaving as if he thinks this is a rule-by-law system instead of a rule-of-law system. The Prime Minister needs to know the rules apply to him.
On the issue of research co-operation with the Chinese military, we have a case where two scientists were involved in transferring deadly viruses to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The head of the lab at the time, Matthew Gilmour, raised concerns about this. He raised the fact there was no materials transfer agreement in place. He raised other concerns about the credibility of what was to happen. His concerns were ignored and a few years later he resigned suddenly and left the country.
After these deadly viruses were transferred, even in a context, by the way, where security concerns had already been raised about the Wuhan lab, people were expelled who were involved in this transfer, but no explanation was given as to why they were expelled or what the context of the investigation was. We found out since that another person, Feihu Yan, was affiliated with the People's Liberation Army's Academy of Military Medical Sciences while working at the Winnipeg lab.
Some of these issues are complex but some of these issues are fairly simple. When we hear that somebody from the Academy of Military Medical Sciences is working and gathering information at a Canadian lab, it should not be difficult to identify that is a problem. The government of China is currently, as we speak, committing genocide. It is running concentration camps for Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims.
We know the government of China is deploying all of its most up-to-date technology in its suppression of minority communities like Uighurs. We know it is always trying to access new technology, the most sophisticated surveillance, to control and repress minority populations and indeed to inflict this ongoing genocide.
When we are engaged in research co-operation around virology with the military of a country that is involved in genocide, that should just horrify the basic moral sensibilities of Canadians. There are all these questions around what kinds of co-operation were happening between the Winnipeg lab and the Wuhan Institute for Virology. There are very serious questions that need to be investigated about the lab leak theory potentially being a cause of COVID-19. There are security questions. There are obviously intellectual property questions. There are human rights questions.
I posed these questions to the Minister of Health at committee on Monday. She just piled this in layers of complexity, saying that it was complicated, that the world worked together, that we needed to have this research co-operation, that this was the way the research system worked and everybody was working together on research co-operation.
I am in favour of research co-operation with like-minded countries, but I do not want us engaged in research co-operation when there is a very serious risk that research done in Canada contributes to repression of minorities, contributes to genocide and contributes to threats to our own security. These are questions of our fundamental values.
The government, in addition to talking about a basic dictatorship, is just so naive to the risks to our values. This privilege motion is critically important. We need to stand up for Canada, stand up for our values and hold the government to account.
