Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, colleagues.
It's a very significant day in Canadian history. This is, perhaps, the most significant security breach in the history of Canada. As CSIS would say, this is a serious and credible threat to Canada and to Canada's economy.
Why is that? When we look at many things involved in this terrible sequence of events, let's be clear so that Canadians understand that this is the only containment level 4 lab in Canada. It is not like we expect the Prime Minister—as my colleague Mr. Cooper outlined—who's responsible for national security, to have to look after 20 such labs. There is only one level 4 containment lab in Canada.
Secondly, we know the result of this terrible breach is that China now has a level 4 containment lab as well, albeit with what appears to be sloppy workmanship at the hands of scientists who were working here at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg.
Why is this important? When you look at documents from the U.S. Department of State, as early as 2005, they identified the Academy of Military Medical Sciences as a threat, having links to a biological weapons program.
When we begin to understand this, why is the Academy of Military Medical Sciences important? It's because scientists from that particular academy were able to gain access, as my colleague said, in an unfettered and unsupervised fashion to the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg. Once again, we need to understand that the Academy of Military Medical Sciences is the scientific arm of the People’s Liberation Army, which is partly tasked with biology-enabled weapons and bioterrorism.
Further to that, as we said, we know very easily that a PLA scientist not only had access to the lab to do scientific work and create papers in conjunction with Dr. Qiu; she was also in photos, wearing a PLA uniform. She had, again, terrible and astonishing contact with a major general of the PLA, who also wrote papers with Dr. Qiu.
Understanding all of these things really points to the fact that there is a serious and credible threat to democracy here in Canada, to our economy and to our safety.
Finally, Mr. Chair, I would also say the U.S. Centers for Disease Control states that Ebola is a category A bioterrorism weapon.
We know that on March 31, 2019, Ebola was sent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology at the behest—first, on October 18, 2018—of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, supervised by Dr. Qiu here in Canada. Oddly enough, on October 19, 2018, Dr. Qiu made a visit to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It was one of many visits. There were at least five visits in 2017 and 2018. Dr. Qiu was not entirely open with the Public Health Agency of Canada about knowing she was visiting the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Of course, it actually paid for her trip as well.
Is this a serious and credible threat to Canada? Yes, it is.
Were there significant security breaches at Canada's only level 4 laboratory? Yes.
Is the Prime Minister of Canada singularly and uniquely responsible for the national security of Canada? The answer to that is yes.
We need to get to the bottom of this scandal, Mr. Chair, and that is exactly why I intend to support this motion, as we have an opportunity and an obligation to hold this government to account as the official opposition.
Thank you, Chair.