Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you for your indulgence and for the privilege of being able to speak in this committee on this very important issue.
As many members would know, I served on the ad hoc committee on Winnipeg labs. I want to thank MPs René Villemure, Heather McPherson and John Williamson, all from different parties. The four of us worked very tirelessly to go through these documents and to ensure that we were able to be open and transparent. It was a great process.
This committee, this ad hoc committee, was something that the Liberal government put into place. It was difficult to get it going because the Conservatives dragged their feet for so long. When we got through these months and months of work that we did collectively, in a non-partisan way, to find out and to understand what happened here, I think we came to a good conclusion. I really want to congratulate my three other colleagues on that really good work.
We proposed this ad hoc committee of parliamentarians to balance parliamentary accountability with protecting national security.
Chair and colleagues, as you may know, I've sat on National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. I know how important it is for us to balance that relationship of accountability with also protecting our national security. My four Conservative colleagues—none of whom are permanent members of this committee, I may add—have all alluded that there was apparently some kind of cover-up. There was no cover-up.
We are supportive of taking the unprecedented step of creating these ad hoc committees, going through the documents, having arbiters and then releasing documents. This has been a non-partisan process. This is all about the public interest, and all parliamentarians from all parties came together to make sure that we got there.
The second point I want to raise, Chair, is that the redactions that are done by PHAC, the Public Health Agency of Canada, and CSIS are not done by politicians. It should stay that way. There are very good reasons why politicians should not be involved in determining what should be redacted on the basis of national security. I think that the role of this ad hoc committee proved how important it is for us to have that oversight and that accountability but not to be part of that redaction process. The ad hoc process was an opportunity for Parliament to really weigh in on how these redactions happened and, in this instance, what was redacted, without endangering national security or privacy. This is a process that I think my colleagues, including Mr. Villemure, would agree works.
The third point I want to raise, Chair, on this motion and on this emergency meeting is that we share the outrage on foreign interference. We know that this is an issue and a challenge that we have to address. We can't let partisan politics get into the middle of it. We have to come together as a Parliament to ensure that we are protecting Canadians and that we are protecting ourselves in the work that we do to hold government to account, for sure, and to make sure that our democratic institutions are stable, well established and protected from a lot of this. Foreign interference is an attack against democracy and every member in the House of Commons. We share that concern. We have to be united in ensuring that we're working to combat foreign interference for the sake of our democracy and for sake of Canadians who live here day by day.
It is unacceptable that two Canadian citizens who were eminent and well-known scientists in Canada lied to the Public Health Agency of Canada about their work in China. There is currently an RCMP investigation into these individuals. I hope that we trust and respect the RCMP to conduct that investigation while we carry out our role as parliamentarians in the general oversight of that process.
The motion that has been brought to this committee is not in our committee's mandate. Mr. Villemure and I have worked really hard on the ad hoc committee for this Winnipeg lab issue to ensure that Canadians got access to that document. We released all of those documents. We put out a letter stating our position. We had arbiters come in to look over the work we did. This was an amazing way of showing how non-partisan politics can work to protect the safety and security of Canadians while also ensuring parliamentary accountability for and oversight of the work we do.
Chair, I have to say that this process of calling a meeting under Standing Order 106(4) is supposed to be reserved for emergencies and not for political gain. In my opinion, the original letter we received about this 106(4) meeting really spreads disinformation by saying that it was the Trudeau government that withheld all of these documents, that there's something nefarious and that there is a scandal going on here. The reality of the matter is that we have worked very hard with all parties to ensure that there is accountability.
Every single Conservative member who signed this 106(4) letter has been substituted for by another member. Those who signed are not here in this room. Clearly this is not the emergency that these permanent members signed off on. They're not here. Clearly they don't care about what is supposed to be the mandate and the expectation of the ethics committee if all of these people have been substituted for.
While the events that are the subject of these documents are incredibly important and our government has taken action by creating this ad hoc committee and releasing those documents publicly, what transpired five years ago does not constitute an emergency. Many actions have been taken over the past five years to ensure that these issues have been dealt with and that they won't happen again. That's literally our purpose as we go about ensuring that there is accountability and fairness in the process. The ad hoc committee, of which I was a part, did important work over the course of many months to get to the bottom of this.
This 106(4) is not necessary. It's not urgent. It is not in the mandate of this ethics committee.
Chair, for that reason, I move that we adjourn this meeting.