Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate in this debate today and to share my time with the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, who just demonstrated the importance of today's debate.
We are also here today to talk about national security and access to information, access to evidence and documents that are very relevant to today's public debate. We are also going to talk about our work as MPs and the Prime Minister's dishonourable behaviour in this case.
Let us remember that what we want today is to make public documents that are currently at the heart of a troubling situation for Canada's national security. These events occurred at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, an extremely important institution for our country, particularly during a pandemic.
There is a relationship between the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg and the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Communist China regarding the transfer of viruses, the forced departure of two researchers from the Canadian lab and the departure of two executives from that same lab in Winnipeg.
Let us review the facts. To varying extents, seven Canadian scientists were involved with Communist China in the events we are discussing today. A Chinese military scientist from the People's Liberation Army's Academy of Military Medical Sciences was authorized to work in the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg.
Let us not forget that this story revolves around two researchers attached to the Winnipeg laboratory, Dr. Qiu and Dr. Cheng, who are a couple. This whole story revolves around them.
In 2017 and 2018, Dr. Qiu travelled to China five times and co-operated directly with Chinese Communist regime researchers.
On July 5, 2019, Dr. Qiu and Dr. Cheng were escorted out of the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg by RCMP officers. That was right when the pandemic was taking hold.
On January 20, 2020, we learned that the two researchers were officially terminated by the National Microbiology Laboratory. They had top-level security clearances because they were working in a lab that was doing extremely important microbiology research, and CSIS revoked those clearances.
We recognized that, on March 31, on board an Air Canada flight, two vials of a deadly virus were transferred from Canada to China to combat the Ebola and Henipah viruses. These vials came from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg and were transferred to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. We also know that, on May 15 and September 18, two executives at the National Microbiology Laboratory resigned.
We are at the heart of Canadian scientific research into coronavirus; at the heart of the most important aspect of what we have experienced, scientifically, over the past year and a half; at the heart of an extremely important institution for Canada, the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg.
Two key people were fired and removed from the lab under police escort and two executives at that lab are no longer employed there and tendered their resignation.
Under the circumstances, we have duties to fulfill as parliamentarians. That is why the recently created Special Committee on Canada-China Relations took a look at the situation. On March 31, the committee called for the tabling of documents to have access to all the available information to understand what happened.
How did two high-ranking scientists, with the highest security clearance, get fired and lose their security access? That seems fairly significant.
We asked for documents on March 31. On April 26, documents were submitted to the committee, but they were heavily redacted. The committee tried again, filing a second motion requesting the documents on May 10. Unfortunately, on May 20, we once again received heavily redacted documents.
We want to be clear. Yes, we want the documents, but they should not be photocopied and made accessible to everyone. We will ask experts, people in the House of Commons who are familiar with this type of study, to assess whether there is a danger to national security or human life. If there is none, the documents must be made public. That is our approach.
We worked on this issue in committee, unfortunately to no avail. We also asked questions in the House of Commons to get to the bottom of things and to find out where the government stands on this issue. It has refused all our requests for access to the relevant information. Every time we raise the issue, we are told that the two researchers no longer work at the National Microbiology Laboratory and that we cannot ask questions, since an investigation is under way. In the House, members are accountable.
Last week, we asked the Prime Minister questions about this issue. I hate to say it, but he is still the Prime Minister of all Canadians. Unfortunately, he was unable to refrain from making vicious personal attacks, which is shameful for someone in his position.
I would like to cite John Ibbitson’s article, which appeared yesterday in The Globe and Mail. Allow me to paraphrase. He quoted the Prime Minister, who said last week that he would like to recommend that the members of the Conservative Party, in their zeal to make personal attacks, not start to push too far into intolerance toward Canadians of diverse origins. John Ibbitson wrote that this was a foolish thing to say.
Mr. Ibbitson goes on to say that we need to question this government's willingness to co-operate with China despite its misdeeds. It is irresponsible to slander the opposition for doing its job in asking why scientists at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg were co-operating with Chinese scientists. That is from The Globe and Mail; those are not our words.
The journalist then goes on to quote my hon. colleague, the member for Port Moody—Coquitlam, who was especially shocked and upset by the Prime Minister's contemptuous comments about the Conservative Party and its representatives in the House. The Prime Minister made an offensive link between these legitimate questions and racism.
My colleague said, and I quote:
...the Prime Minister conflated our legitimate concerns about national security with racism against Asian-Canadians. He spun an inflammatory narrative that implies Conservatives are stoking intolerance. By using this false narrative, he has cheapened and undermined the ongoing efforts to combat the rise of anti-Asian racism.
The hon. member knows what she is talking about, having been personally affected by the Prime Minister's disgraceful comments. He associated pertinent questions from parliamentarians about national security with racism. When he could not explain further, he decided to attack by implying that our questions were fuelling racism. This is unbecoming of a Prime Minister. I would hope that today or later the Prime Minister would have the honour and dignity to recuse himself and acknowledge that he has gone too far.
This is an important story, and we need to get to the bottom of it. What happened? What was the connection between the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg and the Communist Chinese laboratory? How is it that two important researchers at the heart of virus research were fired and lost their security clearance? How is it that two important executives at this institute are no longer working there?
Canadians deserve answers. The only way to get to the bottom of this is to release the documents, as requested in today's motion.