Canada-China Relations Committee on March 26th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 35 of the House of Commons Special Committee on the Canada–People’s Republic of China Relationship.

Pursuant to Standing Order 106(4), the committee is meeting today to discuss a request to hold meetings on the matters revealed in the Winnipeg lab documents involving the People's Republic of China. We have some guests with us today. We have Mr. Naqvi in place of Mr. Oliphant and Mr. Bittle for Mr. Fragiskatos. I'm pleased to see Luc Berthold here for MP Seeback and Mr. Ellis for MP Lantsman. Mr. Villemure is substituting for MP Bergeron.

Of course, today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application. Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. Those appearing by video conference can click on the microphone icon to activate their mics. Please mute yourself when you are not speaking. For interpretation for those on Zoom, you have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of floor, English or French. Those in the room can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.

I will remind you that all comments should be addressed through the chair. Members in the room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hands. Members on Zoom, use the “raise hand” function. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can, and we appreciate your patience and understanding in this regard.

We are here to discuss Mr. Chong's motion. I am sure he wishes to lead off.

Mr. Chong.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will move my motion.

I will read it out for the benefit of members of the public and for members of the committee who may be here for the first time.

Mr. Chair, I move:

That pursuant to its order of reference of Monday, May 16, 2022, the committee undertake a study of the matters revealed in the Winnipeg lab documents together with the broader concerns they represent in relation to Canada’s national security, as well as the obstacles encountered in obtaining these documents, provided that the committee:

(a) make this study a priority over its other business, notwithstanding the motion adopted by the committee on Monday, December 4, 2023, respecting the appearance of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance;

(b) instruct the Chair and the clerk to take the necessary steps to arrange for two meetings of the committee each sitting week for the purposes of this study;

(c) take into consideration the relevant evidence and documentation received by the former Special Committee on Canada-China Relations during the First and Second sessions of the 43rd Parliament;

(d) invite and, if this invitation is not accepted, summons, pursuant to Standing Order 108(1) the following witnesses to appear, at dates and times to be fixed by the Chair:

(i) the Departmental Security Officer, Executive Director of Security, Public Health Agency of Canada;

(ii) the Deputy Minister of Health, Dr. Stephen Lucas;

(iii) the Vice-President, Infectious Diseases Branch, Public Health Agency of Canada, Dr. Donald Sheppard;

(iv) the Vice-President, National Microbiology Laboratory Branch, Public Health Agency of Canada, Dr. Guillaume Poliquin;

(v) the President of the Public Health Agency of Canada, Heather Jeffrey;

(vi) the Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, David Vigneault; and

(vii) the Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council and National Security and Intelligence Adviser to the Prime Minister, Nathalie G. Drouin;

(e) invite the following to appear on dates to be fixed by the Chair:

(i) the Minister of Health, the Honourable Mark Holland,

(ii) the Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs, the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, and

(iii) other witnesses whose names shall be provided by the parties to the clerk of the committee within one week of the adoption of this motion; and

(f) report its findings to the House.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for allowing me to move this motion. I'm just going to speak briefly to it, so we can all have a say on the motion and get it to a vote.

We finally got the documents relating to the Winnipeg lab. My view is that this is the start of the matter, not the end. The collection of evidence is usually the start of a process, not the completion of it. Really, we're leaving off where we left three years ago when the Canada-China committee in the previous Parliament asked for the Winnipeg lab documents.

I believe strongly that the committee is the right place to examine these documents, the right place to hold the government accountable and the right place for us to hear from witnesses and to produce a report with recommendations.

This is a grave and serious matter, as CSIS highlighted in the intelligence assessment it submitted to the Public Health Agency of Canada, an assessment that is contained in the documents we received. It's a grave and serious matter because the government scientists clandestinely collaborated with the government and the military of the People's Republic of China and were paid clandestinely by the government and the military of the People's Republic of China without the Government of Canada knowing.

These serious national security breaches, I believe, warrant examination by a parliamentary committee. It's now been four weeks since we received the documents, which is the reason, Mr. Chair, as you know I've called this emergency meeting so that we can make a decision, I hope, in favour of holding hearings on these documents. It took us three years to get the documents. It's now taken us four weeks to have a discussion about whether or not a committee should look at these documents. I think we should have done that almost immediately upon receiving the documents.

The motion in front of us will allow us to examine these serious national security breaches. It will allow us to examine the flow of information and intelligence within the Government of Canada and to get answers to questions such as the following: Why wasn't this caught earlier than September 2018? Why did it take 10 months for the government to secure the lab?

According to the documents, the first red flag went up in September 2018 when a patent was discovered to have been registered in the People's Republic of China, which is contrary to government policy and contrary to Canadian law. It then took 10 months for the lab to be secured, which was on July 5, 2019. In my view, it's an unacceptably long period of time to wait for that to happen.

We also need to examine why it took us three years to get the documents. The minister indicated that it was up to public servants to make the decision on what information to release to the committee. We need to examine what is wrong with the information flow between the Government of Canada and Parliament so that, in the future, when a parliamentary committee asks for these sorts of documents, they're provided forthwith in a way that protects national security, as we put in place three years ago, and not in three years.

The motion is also to examine the flow of information within the government as it relates to the most senior figures in the government—the Minister of Health, the Minister of Public Safety and the Prime Minister's Office—and to understand if the information flow within the government is working.

At the end of the day, I believe we need to hold the government accountable in this. This saga started more than three years ago. The government defied four orders of the House of Commons and its committee. It took the Speaker to court, and it disposed of these four orders by the dissolution of Parliament, which, as you know, dissolved the four orders. We cannot allow that to go unanswered and unexamined.

Finally, I'll say there was a report just today in the news that a new containment level 4 lab is being proposed in Canada. Surely we need to study this matter about the only existing level 4 lab and its security breaches at committee before a new level 4 lab is stood up in this country that might pose security risks.

I hope that members of the committee will support the motion, and I look forward to their views on it.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Thank you, Mr. Chong.

We'll have a speaking order. For those on Zoom, use the “raise hand” function if you wish to weigh in on the matter.

We'll go back and forth on this one.

We'll go next to Mr. Naqvi and then to Mr. Berthold.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

I have a point of order.

I asked for the floor before Mr. Naqvi.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

The chair is going to go back and forth.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Chair, I asked for the right to speak before Mr. Naqvi.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Yes, Mr. Naqvi can go and then you can go.

We still have plenty of time.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Chair, it's not a question of time. It's a question of opportunity.

If I want to talk about my colleague's motion before the party opposite proposes amendments or anything else, I am allowed to do so. I clearly indicated that I wanted to speak before Mr. Naqvi did. If you deprive me of my right to speak at this time, you are depriving me of the opportunity to talk about this motion before another party, such as the government party, can propose amendments that may change the meaning of the motion. You saw very clearly that I asked to speak first, as the people following our proceedings could see. I even interrupted my colleague Mr. Chong to ask to speak before you turned to Mr. Naqvi.

Once again, I ask you to follow the order in which members ask to speak and to give me the floor before my colleague. That is how we usually operate in committee. I am sure that my fellow member has some very interesting things to say, but I am within my rights to insist on having the floor now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

The chair has the option to recognize people in the order that he sees them.

As I look at Mr. Naqvi, I suggest that there are probably going to be amendments.

Mr. Berthold, I take your point that you wish to support Mr. Chong's motion before we get into looking at amendments, so I will give you the floor, sir.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for recognizing the importance of following the order.

As I mentioned in my brief remarks, I am speaking today in support of the motion by my fellow member Michael Chong regarding the importance for this committee to undertake a study on the documents related to the Winnipeg lab affair, which were made public four weeks ago. As my colleague said, the tabling of the documents or the fact that we have them in our hands does not signal the end of this matter, but only the beginning. In the last Parliament, we worked very hard to obtain the documents so we could refer to them to ask those responsible about what really happened in this situation, which led to the expulsion of two researchers from the level‑4 lab in Winnipeg, Canada's highest-security lab.

It is all the more important for us to shed light on this because we learned today in the newspapers that a new level‑4 laboratory may be coming into operation shortly in Canada. To prevent what happened at the Winnipeg lab from happening again in the new facility, we must get to the bottom of these events, which led the government to disregard four parliamentary orders to produce the documents. The Prime Minister took the House of Commons to court, something that has never before happened in Canadian history. He even went so far as to call an election to avoid responding to the order from Parliament to produce the documents.

Here we are several years later with the documents in question. It is important, as my colleague's motion states, that we be able to study what is in the documents, ask questions about why it took so long to get them and find out what in them may have compromised national security.

The motion seeks to have “the committee undertake a study of the matters revealed in the Winnipeg lab documents together with the broader concerns they represent in relation to Canada's national security, as well as the obstacles encountered in obtaining these documents”. I won't read the entire motion, but I would just like to mention that there are two categories of witnesses we want to invite.

First, there are witnesses who would be invited to appear here to answer the committee's questions and who would be summoned to appear if they did not accept the invitation. They are the departmental security officer and executive director of security at the Public Health Agency of Canada; the deputy minister of health, Dr. Stephen Lucas; the vice-president of the infectious diseases branch of the Public Health Agency of Canada, Dr. Donald Sheppard; the vice-president of the national microbiology laboratory branch of the Public Health Agency of Canada, Dr. Guillaume Poliquin; the president of the Public Health Agency of Canada, Heather Jeffrey; the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, David Vigneault; and the deputy clerk of the Privy Council and national security and intelligence adviser to the Prime Minister, Nathalie G. Drouin.

The witnesses in the other category would be invited to appear on dates to be set by you. They are the Minister of Health, the Honourable Mark Holland; the Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs, the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc; and other witnesses whose names come up in the discussions and revelations that emerge during the study. I will talk later about why we absolutely must hear from Mr. Holland. Finally, the motion calls for the committee to report its findings to the House.

I'm going to go through the first couple of questions, just to put the debate in context for people. After the first red flag was raised in September 2018, when a patent was filed in China by one of the two researchers in question, Dr. Qiu, it took 10 months to secure the Winnipeg laboratory. From September 2018 to July 2019, these two researchers remained in the lab, even though the agency was aware of the situation. We need to know why—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Excuse me, Mr. Berthold. We are here to actually discuss the motion and the terms on which the study is to proceed. It's a little bit early on in the process to get into the evidence part. I think what we're really here to do this morning is to discuss the mechanics of how we will undertake this study.

I'm sure you have a great depth of information to provide on the evidentiary side. I would draw your attention to the purpose of this meeting, which is to really get the motion in a position where we can go forward on the study. It's the mechanics of the motion that we're here to discuss today, sir.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Chair, today we need to debate the motion moved by Mr. Michael Chong so that we can undertake a study. It is important for people to know why this motion was moved and for my colleagues from all parties to know the motivations behind the motion.

As I said, I'm going to be very quick, because I only have a few minutes left. It took 10 months to secure the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg. We need to know when the Prime Minister was informed of the situation at the lab.

I will talk later about the appearance of the Minister of Health. We need to know when the Minister of Health was informed of the situation at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg to ensure that it won't happen again, as I mentioned earlier.

We have some serious questions for the Public Health Agency of Canada. We had to wait three years before getting information that turned out not to put the country's national security at risk. The Minister of Health, Mr. Holland, confirmed that he was not responsible for the unnecessary redaction of documents from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg. That is why we are inviting representatives from the Public Health Agency of Canada to find out why they decided to redact the documents and not allow Canadians to see them.

Minister Holland said that no employees of the Public Health Agency of Canada would be held responsible and that nothing had been transferred from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. We're seeking clarification on those statements.

As I mentioned, after all the attempts made by this Parliament and the last to obtain these documents, we have a duty to study them now that we have them in hand. It is the role of the parliamentarians here to ask all the questions required to shed light on the matter at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Thank you, Mr. Berthold.

Again, to those who may wish to speak, we're here to talk about the mechanics of what we're to do. The evidence, I'm sure, will be fascinating, and I will be as interested as you to find out exactly what happened and why.

Now we will recognize Mr. Naqvi.

Go ahead, sir.

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good morning colleagues. It's a pleasure to join you here this morning in Ottawa.

I want to start by saying that this is a very important issue. That is why the government has been quite diligent in making sure that there is utmost transparency when it comes to these documents so that Canadians can understand what exactly happened a the national microbiology lab.

I find it quite unfortunate that it was the official opposition that dragged its feet in terms of participating in a process that would have allowed for the disclosure of these important documents. First, at NSICOP, by withdrawing their own members and not engaging in a pre-existing process to deal precisely with such issues by members of Parliament from all political parties and the Senate.

Given the seriousness of this issue, the government took another step, which was to create the ad hoc committee that allowed for members from all political parties to work together and be able to then disclose those documents in a manner that maintains important aspects of national security and also provides for the transparency that is important.

Foreign interference is an attack on democracy and on each and every member of the House and of this committee. That's why it's important that we deal with this issue in all seriousness. This cannot turn into a political show. This cannot turn into a process where members are trying to just score political points. This is about foreign interference. This is about national security. All of us have an important and a serious obligation to treat all of these matters very seriously.

I can tell you from my experience that, just last week in the health committee, theatrics were at play from the opposition. Official opposition members accused the Minister of Health of treason and engaged in name-calling, which was highly unnecessary and undermined the seriousness of this process.

Therefore, Mr. Chair, I would like to move an amendment to the motion. It does two things.

First, it scopes the duration of this study to two meetings, while requesting all the witnesses that have been outlined in Mr. Chong's motion. All witnesses named in the motion, we feel, could fit easily into two regular meetings. At the end of the day, if the committee determines that more meetings are needed, as usual, we can schedule more meetings at that time or add more witnesses. That's the first aim of the amendment that I will be proposing shortly.

Second, we're proposing to remove the summons aspect that's been outlined in this motion. As typical, our process is to invite witnesses as a first step. If a witness refuses to appear, then a summons can be issued. There is no need to have that in place in the motion. We expect that witnesses will appear willingly given the seriousness of this issue.

Chair, with this in mind, I would like to move the following amendments. They are not too extensive, so it should be easy to follow for all members.

Number one is to insert the words, “two meetings” after the words the “committee undertake a study of”. Number two is to delete clause (b). Number three is to remove the words, “and, if this invitation is not accepted, summons, pursuant to Standing Order 108(1)” from clause (d). Finally, number four is to remove clause (e)(iii).

These are the four simple changes that we are proposing in this motion. If the chair and members like, I can read the entire motion as it would read with the amendments, or I can repeat myself. I also have copies in English and French, if you'd like me to provide them to you, which may make things a bit easier.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Mr. Naqvi, we'll need to process these one at a time.

I'm going to suspend for a moment so that copies in both official languages can be distributed and to give an opportunity for everybody to read and get their head around what's being proposed.

I'll suspend for, let's say, five minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

I will call the meeting back to order.

I am going to go back to Mr. Naqvi, who, I believe, had one more thing to add that he did not include in his comments.

Go ahead, sir.

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

My sincere apologies to all the members because I forgot to mention that the amendments we have sent and that you have in front of you also remove clause (a). That's it.

Thank you. There are five changes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Again, this really focuses on the mechanics of acting on the motion. I think it's probably best that we handle these one at a time.

Mrs. Lalonde.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Mr. Chair, I don't want to get into a debate on this, but since the changes were presented in a fairly easy-to-follow order, and in the interest of time, I really think that we could deal with them all at once, rather than one at a time.

That said, I have a great deal of respect for you and I don't mean to tell you what to do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Go ahead, Mr. Villemure.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

With all due respect to my colleague, I would prefer that we deal with them separately. I'm acting as a substitute for a member of the committee, so I'd prefer to study them individually rather than as a whole.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Very good. If that's the will of the committee, then that's the way we will proceed.

I do have a speaking order on the amendments, then. We'll start with the first one.

Mr. Chong.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just to be clear, you've broken it into four amendments. Is that correct?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

That's correct.

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

We're on the amendment that would strike clause (a). Is that correct?