Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I speak in support of the motion. Let me say at the outset that this national security breach is about as serious as it gets. It's a national security breach that occurred at Canada's highest security lab, which is responsible for handling and studying some of the most dangerous pathogens and viruses.
For three years, this Prime Minister has been anything but transparent. Instead of informing Canadians about this massive national security breach that took place under his watch, he covered it up.
In an unprecedented campaign of obstruction, the Prime Minister defied four orders of Parliament, and for the first time in Canadian history, he took the Speaker of the House of Commons to court to block the documents—600 pages of documents that have finally been produced to this committee. He called a snap election in an effort to avoid producing those documents, an election in which, incidentally, the Beijing regime interfered on his behalf to the benefit of the Liberal Party.
Now, after three years of cover-up and obstruction, we finally have the documents. What is evident upon reviewing these documents is that there was a massive breakdown with respect to the flow of intelligence and information within the Government of Canada. That is one of the central matters that this motion seeks to get to the bottom of.
I'll underscore the degree to which there was a breakdown with respect to information and intelligence. The head of special pathogens, scientist one of two, who was a central figure in collaborating with the Beijing regime.... By the time a preliminary investigation was launched in the fall of 2018, that scientist, Dr. Qiu, had travelled to the PRC on at least five occasions and had collaborated with PRC officials, including officials within the People's Liberation Army. Among those Dr. Qiu collaborated with was none other than Beijing's foremost expert in biodefence and bioterrorism, and Dr. Qiu was paid for her travels to Beijing, all apparently unknown to PHAC.
An investigation finally was launched in September 2018, but Dr. Qiu continued to work in the lab until July 5, 2019—10 months later. During that 10-month window, Dr. Qiu continued to have unfettered access to the lab.
By March 2019, a report had been issued in which PHAC had determined that Dr. Qiu had clandestinely been actively collaborating with the Beijing regime, with the PLA, without the knowledge of PHAC, and that she had shipped antibodies to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. However, while PHAC knew that, Dr. Qiu was the central figure in facilitating the transfer of Ebola, one of the most dangerous and most deadly viruses in the world, to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. How did that happen? How was that allowed to take place?
This breakdown in national security has had serious consequences. In fact, CSIS and PHAC have determined that this breach represents a very serious and credible danger to the Government of Canada as a whole and constitutes a credible threat to Canada's economic security.
As Mr. Chong noted, the Prime Minister is singularly responsible for the machinery of government, with special responsibilities for national security. The buck stops with the Prime Minister, and we have questions we need answers to. When did the Prime Minister know about this massive national security breach? Did he learn about it in 2019, in January 2021 or sometime in between? We don't know.
Let me conclude by saying very simply that the national security culture of the Government of Canada starts at the top. It starts with the Prime Minister, who has special responsibilities when it comes to national security. This Prime Minister set the tone for the national security culture when he said famously that he admired Beijing's basic dictatorship. In other words, he admires a brutal authoritarian genocidal regime.
We have seen, over the past eight years of Justin Trudeau , interference on the part of Beijing in our post-secondary institutions, interference in our elections, interference in the targeting of sitting members of Parliament, interference in terms of setting up illegal police stations and the intimidation of Chinese Canadians. Now we have learned that Beijing was given unfettered access to some of Canada's most sensitive biological secrets.
After eight years of Justin Trudeau , Canada's national security culture is broken, and an incident on the scale of what happened in Winnipeg is a direct result of that.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.