Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here, and to Mr. Vigneault for being here again.
I have a bit of a dilemma in my mind. You know, we've talked at this committee about how things were different before the incident at the national microbiology lab. We've also said that things have changed at the national microbiology lab. I guess my contention is that when I look at a report....
Mr. Vigneault, I'm sure you're familiar with the report called “China and the Age of Strategic Rivalry”. It was produced by CSIS in May 2018. It goes on to talk about a report by CSIS that concluded that China was engaging in “Targeted efforts to co-opt the New Zealand business, political and intellectual elite”.
My contention, then, is that things were really not different when this incident started, at least in August 2018, so why do we say that they weren't? Things were not great then. We knew that the PRC was out there looking for secrets from other countries like New Zealand. Why would we think Canada was any different?