Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We still don't know the origin of the coronavirus. That's because the Government of China has blocked the investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Not only did the Government of China delay the start of this investigation; they also did not allow WHO investigators unfettered access to pursue the scientific evidence. As a result, the world still does not know where the virus came from. Determining the exact origin of the virus is essential if the world community is to prevent the next pandemic. The Government of China has been opaque and anything but transparent when it comes to investigating the origin of the coronavirus.
Here in Canada, we have another investigation going on that concerns viruses, an investigation that concerns the shipment of Ebola and Henipavirus from the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg to the Wuhan Institute of Virology on March 31, 2019, just eight months before a global pandemic ostensibly began in the same city.
An investigation that concerned two Chinese scientists employed by this lab in Winnipeg resulted in their termination. Dr. Qiu and Dr. Cheng were terminated on January 20 of this year for—quote, unquote—policy breaches. Here, like in China, the Government of Canada is blocking our investigation into the transfers of these viruses to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and blocking our investigation into why Dr. Qiu and Dr. Cheng were terminated.
The parallel between these two situations is appalling. We live in a parliamentary democracy and we are facing the same impediments to our investigations as investigators are facing as they attempt to discover the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic in China.
Dr. Qiu and Dr. Cheng were escorted out of the lab by the RCMP, along with Chinese students, two years ago on July 5. In the months before they were escorted out, the Government of Canada replaced Dr. Qiu's computer at the lab and denied her permission for trips to China she applied for, but we still don't know why she was terminated.
Dr. Qiu made five trips to China in 2017 and 2018. She was invited to the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences twice a year for two years, for two weeks at a time. One of those trips was to train scientists and technicians at China's new level 4 virology lab in Wuhan, but we still don't know why these two scientists were terminated from the Government of Canada's lab in Winnipeg, because the Government of Canada is blocking us from getting this information, information that we ordered through a motion that we adopted on March 31 of this year.
Mr. Stewart, you say that you are bound by law. “Open and Accountable Government” is not the law; it is a document produced by the PMO and PCO at the start of this government. It is not the law. Paragraph 8(2)(c) of the Privacy Act is the law, and it says:
for the purpose of complying with a subpoena or warrant issued or order made by a court, person or body with jurisdiction to compel the production of information or for the purpose of complying with rules of court relating to the production of information;
That's the section of the act that says where personal information may be disclosed.
We, as this committee, are a “body with jurisdiction to compel the production of information”. The motion we adopted on March 31 is an order to you to produce unredacted documents about “the transfer of Ebola and Henipah viruses to the Wuhan Institute of Virology” in China and to produce documents with respect to the termination of Dr. Qui and Dr. Cheng.
You are not in compliance with the law as adopted by the Parliament of Canada, entitled the Privacy Act, under paragraph 8(2)(c), which expressly gives us the authority to compel the production of this personal information.
Mr. Stewart, what do you say to the fact that you're not complying with that section of the act?