Evidence of meeting #39 for Canada-China Relations in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was csis.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken Hardie
Mr. Cooper, I'm sorry. Your time has run out.
We'll go to Ms. Yip now for five minutes.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Thank you very much for staying so late.
Are similar research organizations in the U.K. working in collaboration with the PRC?
Research Scientist, As an Individual
Mr. Chair, I'm sorry. Just to clarify, are “similar organizations” the other public health laboratories?
Research Scientist, As an Individual
I'm not an employee of those organizations, so I couldn't speak to them.
Liberal
Research Scientist, As an Individual
It's not something I've done a review of.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
In your opening statement, you spoke about the balance point of scientific innovation and national security. Knowing what has transpired, is there anything in hindsight that you might have noticed that would have tipped the balance point?
Research Scientist, As an Individual
Mr. Chair, can I hear the question again, please?
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
In your opening statement, you mentioned the balance point of scientific innovation and national security. Was there a time when you worked with the lab that this was tipped?
Could you see warning signs or red flags?
Research Scientist, As an Individual
Mr. Chair, the red flags would have been the ones that amounted to the discussion with CSIS in August 2018. Some of those warning signs were the affiliation with Chinese institutes. There was frequent travel to China. There were the issues that were uncovered relating to visiting scientists who were not always supervised.
Those were issues very near the same time, which we were discussing within the management team, so when they were presented by CSIS in August 2018, I reciprocated that they were of growing concern to us.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
Would you have done anything differently, knowing what you know now?
Research Scientist, As an Individual
Mr. Chair, that's another good question. This has been part of my own reflection—even this last week, after reading all of the documents.
I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but to my knowledge, the April 2020 and June 2020 CSIS reports are not things I had seen before. That I hadn't seen them before can be explained by how I had already resigned from the position by that point, so I wouldn't have expected the employer to show them to me.
The one regret I might have is.... Would I have had a role in following up with CSIS more actively myself? That's a question I ask myself.
Liberal
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
You testified at the health committee during your previous role at PHAC on the important work that NML does, including diagnostic support and research studies into therapeutics, antiviral transmission modelling and more.
Can you speak about the role of the NML in the context of new and emerging viruses and the pathogens of concern?
Research Scientist, As an Individual
Mr. Chair, it's one of the rationales for the existence of laboratories that you have a safe place to bring in any clinical material when a new disease is emerging. When the safety profile at the early outset is unknown, you can put it into a category 4 or category 3 lab as you see fit, and do the work to characterize it and understand the nature of that emerging organism.
It is one of the key rationales for having a laboratory like the NML in Canada.
Liberal
Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON
What are your thoughts on AI and the role it plays in national security?
Research Scientist, As an Individual
Mr. Chair, very quickly, my own thoughts on AI are that it's a very powerful tool, at least for information gathering. You can scan public data sources and other literature, and with natural language models, you can very accurately recover the information you're seeking. Whether you're a scientist or a security firm—whatever your interests are—you can use these tools, at least at the outset, to very robustly get the information you need.
At this time, it probably very much still needs a human interface to synthesize all that into a compelling narrative, but at least it's a very powerful tool for information gathering.
Liberal
Liberal
