Canada-China Relations Committee on March 11th, 2021

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Dr. Halperin, thank you for being here.

Mr. Chong touched on some of the same questions I had in mind. From your experience in the academic research community, how much awareness is there in our institutions about the risks posed by foreign actors, in this case China?

I would also like to talk about the Department of Public Safety's Safeguarding Science program.

How have you interacted with this program, and what link does it creates with intelligence and security agencies?

[Dr. Scott Halperin]

With the type of research I'm doing, typically I am not generating intellectual property. I'm evaluating intellectual property of other entities, and that's the same whether it be a domestic or a foreign manufacturer. The type of work I'm doing at this level is evaluative research. I'm dealing with other people's intellectual property rather than sharing intellectual property that we are generating. Therefore, it's a bit of a different situation than what you're talking about.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

More generally, I actually wanted to know the degree of awareness in academia of the risk that foreign actors present, in your experience.

[Dr. Scott Halperin]

In my world, I think the interaction with foreign actors becomes higher on the priority list based on the type of research we're doing. With COVID-19 vaccines, that became a higher priority, and that's where people have approached us to have these conversations. Most times we don't hear about that, just because it doesn't seem to be an overall concern. It's targeted.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Lightbound.

Mr. Bergeron, the floor is yours for two minutes.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We know that, under the national security laws in the People's Republic of China, all companies have to work with the regime in terms of transferring information.

Under those circumstances, were Canadian security agencies and yourself not concerned by the fact that CanSino could come looking for information here without us being able to do so in return? That is what seems to be demonstrated by the fact that CanSino was not able to send the samples that were supposed to be forwarded to Canada.

In other words, what were they looking for here and what did we gain from this exchange with CanSino?

[Dr. Scott Halperin]

For the phase one study that ended up being cancelled, they gained nothing and we gained nothing, because we were not able to generate any data from the planned study. The study didn't go ahead because we couldn't get the vaccine. For that study, it just turned out to be a waste of a lot of time for all parties because of the block of the export of the product.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

In terms of the concern that you or Canada's security agencies might have that the company was perhaps coming to look for information, you are basically telling me that it got nothing.

However, were there any prior concerns along those lines?

[Dr. Scott Halperin]

No, because the type of information that they would have gained if the study had gone forward would have been information that they would have sponsored to generate, so it would have been clinical trial information.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Harris, you have two minutes.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

I'll give another version of my last question, and hopefully it's short enough that you can answer this time.

Dalhousie is a member of the U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities and U15 and Universities Canada published in 2019 a document called “Mitigating Economic And/Or Geopolitical Risks in Sensitive Research Projects”, a set of guidelines and risk mitigation tools developed in collaboration with Canada.

Are you, sir, familiar with that particular document, and is it in use by your organization? Are your researchers familiar with that?

[Dr. Scott Halperin]

I am not familiar with it myself. I know that for any study we do, the university screens it first, and any research we do has to be signed off by our vice-president of research, so—

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Does that include the kind of lens we're talking about here in terms of security and mitigation to risks?

[Dr. Scott Halperin]

I'm not sure. I can't answer that.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Before you were engaged with CSIS in the last year and a half, as you pointed out, were you aware of any of these types of problems or issues that were related to that?

[Dr. Scott Halperin]

Yes, absolutely. I was certainly aware that there are state actors and particular countries that have been of concern. That's been in the news, and I follow that. Although it's not a formal process that I am aware of, I certainly am cognizant of and aware that, in my interactions with any study sponsor, I'm going to make sure that we're not being taken advantage of in any way and that we're not losing any information that is not in the public domain.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Dr. Halperin.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Harris.

Thank you so much, Dr. Halperin, for being with us this evening. I appreciate that very much.

We'll let you go now. Have a nice evening.

To members of the committee, I get the impression from the clerk that the bells are ringing. Is that correct?

Now we have, of course, the work plan and subcommittee report, but we can only go to that, since the bells are ringing, if there is unanimous consent to continue.

I would ask if anyone objects to our continuing for 15 minutes.

Seeing no objections, would someone like to move the adoption of the subcommittee report and the work plan?

Go ahead, Mr. Chong, and I'll see Mr. Bergeron after that.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

I so move.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much.

Monsieur Bergeron.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

I have already pointed out to my colleagues that this version that has been sent to us concerns me because it does not quite match the conclusion we reached.

For example, I had proposed that Clive Hamilton, who is now paired with Roger Faligot and Michel Juneau-Katsuya, would actually be paired with Ting-Sheng Lin.

It seems, however, that, right at the end, the clerk asked us whether we were referring to Mr. Lin or Mr. Li, and that your interpretation, Mr. Chair, was that it was Mr. Li. As a result, Mr. Li seems to end up in another group of witnesses and Mr. Lin seems to be on the bench. It seems that you said that I was supposed to nominate a witness for the ninth meeting and that I could propose Mr. Lin at that time. I do not want to be forced to propose Mr. Lin for the ninth meeting just because we overlooked him when the report that committee members are getting this evening was finalized.

Although Mr. Hamilton may be a little out of his element in the group he shares with Mr. Faligot and Mr. Juneau-Katsuya, I had proposed the compromise of adding Mr. Lin to the group with Paul Evans and Gordon Houlden, two other academics. If the committee agrees to include Mr. Ting-Shen Lin—whom our analyst had proposed—with that group of witnesses, I feel that we would be able to come to some common ground.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much.

I can see the proposal from Mr. Genuis in my notes. For meeting 7, here is what is written in English.

I had written “old number 5”, or what was planned originally for meeting number five, plus Mr. Li.

I understand, I think from Mr. Genuis, that he said Mr. Li—that's what I wrote down—would be in the seventh meeting. I'm not sure. I don't have the work plan right in front of me.

Can you clarify or correct the situation here, Mr. Genuis?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Sure. Thank you.

I was looking for Mr. Li to be invited in the seventh panel, and that is reflected in the work plan, but I have absolutely no objection to the proposal for Mr. Lin as well, or to the particular configuration proposed by Mr. Bergeron.

I don't think it's an either-or. We should adopt what I understood to be Mr. Bergeron's proposed amendment.

Mr. Chair, I do want to make one other general comment.

We have this work plan. It has been agreed upon. Of course, there may be times when witnesses are not available, as happened tonight. There were some witnesses we had agreed we would hear from and they weren't available. I hope we have an understanding at the committee that we give our staff the flexibility to schedule those witnesses at a time when they are available, if they aren't available in certain instances.

We may find, for instance, that the Minister of National Defence is not available on Monday but is available on Thursday. I hope that the work plan is adopted with the spirit of that kind of flexibility and understanding.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

If the chair and the clerk had the permission of the committee for it, that would sound good. We would carry on, I think, on that basis.

Monsieur Lightbound.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

I complete agree with including the witness that Mr. Bergeron is proposing. As Mr. Genuis has just mentioned, we must of course be flexible so that the committee can make good progress. We have no objection on our side.