Canada-China Relations Committee on June 14th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you, Minister.

Next we have Mr. Harris, for two minutes and a half, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Minister Hajdu, could you tell us, prior to the security protocol breach review that I discussed, did CSIS or the RCMP or any other entity warn the PHAC about intellectual property being shared with China without authorization?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I can't speak to that question, Mr. Chair. I don't have information in that regard.

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

Mr. Stewart, do you have information on that?

[Iain Stewart]

As per my previous answer, Mr. Chair, I'm not able to respond to that.

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

Minister, between 2016 and early 2020, according to media reports this year, seven scientists at the National Microbiology Laboratory co-published six studies on infectious diseases with Chinese military researchers.

Why is it that scientists at the National Microbiology Lab collaborate with Chinese military researchers?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

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—

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

Minister, if I may interrupt, the question was, why? Do you have any reason why the National Microbiology Lab would collaborate on infectious diseases with Chinese military researchers? That's the question.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I don't have answers for you. I don't have the history of how collaboration is established at the National Microbiology Lab, but I will reiterate that, in general, the principle of collaborative research is an incredibly important one. As we have seen, the national research on vaccinology, for example, has led to the breakthrough of the mRNA—

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

We understand that.

How many other military organizations has the microbiology lab collaborated with?

Perhaps Dr. Stewart could answer that question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you.

I'm sorry, but we're out of time for Mr. Harris. Perhaps at his next opportunity he'll get the chance to get an answer to his question.

We will now go on to Mr. Genuis for five minutes, please.

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

I'm going to give the round to Mr. Paul-Hus, actually, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Mr. Paul-Hus, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Hello, Minister, and thank you for being with us.

At one of the meetings we had recently, Mr. Garneau, 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?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I can't speak to that.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Why?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I don't have the information.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Stewart, is there still any collaboration between the Winnipeg and Wuhan laboratories?

[Iain Stewart]

Dr. Poliquin, do you want to talk about the state of collaborative research?

[Dr. Guillaume Poliquin]

Yes, right.

At present, we are no longer collaborating with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

When did all collaboration end?

Was it when the incidents occurred or very recently?

[Dr. Guillaume Poliquin]

In the academic and research communities, collaborations are often led by a particular researcher. When the researchers leave an institution, naturally those collaborations tend to...

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Since when, Dr. Poliquin, have we no longer had any relations with Wuhan?

[Dr. Guillaume Poliquin]

To be clear, there are two processes.

First, there are active collaborations. Do we have any joint research plans with them? No, we have not had any joint research plans with that institute for several months.

Regarding the analysis of data from research that has already ended, the process is ongoing.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you.

Minister, you know that Dr. Qiu brought students from China to work in the laboratory.

The Globe and Mail recently reported that one of those scientists was Feihu Yan, from the Academy of Military Medical Sciences of the People's Liberation Army.

How do you explain the fact that this person passed the security checks and ended up at the Winnipeg laboratory?