I have had the opportunity to express to our colleague the discomfort that introducing such a motion causes me. I emphasize the word discomfort, not necessarily disagreement.
Let me also share my discomfort with you. Some chose not to reconvene the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations. That choice was theirs to make. Personally, I have very many reservations about that choice because I believe that, with the major obstacle removed, meaning the illegal detention of the two Michaels and the extradition request for Meng Wanzhou, we are at a kind of crossroads in our relations with the People's Republic of China. Consequently, I believe that the committee is perhaps more important than it was before. But others chose differently.
I was concerned by the fact that, although the choice was made not to reconvene the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations, there was perhaps the wish for the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development to do part of the work left unfinished by the Special Committee on Canada-China relations. That is a source of concern for me.
The other source of concern, and I will come back to it in a few moments, is this. If that committee had been reconvened, it was my intention to bring to the attention of the members of the committee one of the most significant challenges that the West may well have to confront in a few months. This is the possible invasion of Taiwan by the People's Republic of China. If that were the case, we would face a dilemma worthy of Corneille. We would have to decide whether to put the lives of our sons and daughters at risk in a conflict that we would very likely lose in order to defend our values or whether we would abandon our allies in Taiwan to a sad fate.
My view is that the subject deserves our attention in order to avoid any situation that anyone might want to use subsequently in a political way. I do not want people to think that I am alluding to the situation in Afghanistan. But it is a situation that most definitely deserves our consideration in advance. In that way, we will not be taken by surprise if it were to happen. So, in a few moments, I will have a motion along those lines, Mr. Chair.
However, I am also of the opinion that one situation we saw in the previous Parliament is still unresolved. This is about the mysterious events that took place at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg. Someone, somewhere in this Parliament really has to want to get to the bottom of things.
Although I am uneasy about this motion, as I have told my colleague, I would be inclined to support it, if only to prevent this becoming one of the countless mysteries of history that remain unresolved. I feel that we have the tools to let us get to the bottom of things while still accommodating the government's legitimate concerns for national security, for personal privacy, and for potential criminal investigations.