Debates of June 1st, 2021

National Defence Act

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 96 of the Statutes of Canada, 1998, c.35, I have the pleasure to table, in both official languages, the third independent review by the Hon. Morris J. Fish, C.C., Q.C., of the provisions and operations of Bill C-25, an act to amend the National Defence Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

Forest Industry

[Jenica Atwin, Green, Fredericton, NB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to present petition 11279386 regarding the ongoing travesty of logging the last remaining old growth in Canada.

Whereas the climate crisis requires action by all levels of government and industry, old-growth forests provide immeasurable benefits, including carbon sequestration, biodiversity, culture, recreation, food and more. Of the remaining 2.7% of the original high-productivity, old-growth forests in British Columbia, 75% are still slated to be logged.

The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to work with the provinces and first nations to immediately halt logging of endangered old-growth ecosystems, fund the long-term protection of old-growth ecosystems as a priority for Canada's climate action plan and reconciliation with indigenous peoples, support value-added forestry initiatives in partnership with first nations to ensure Canada's forestry industry is sustainable and based on the harvesting of second- and third-growth forests, ban the export of raw logs and maximize resource use for local jobs, and ban the use of whole trees for wood pellet biofuel production.

Income Tax Act

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise virtually today and present a petition on behalf of the residents of Haida Gwaii.

The petitioners urge this government to amend the Income Tax Act and restore the full northern residents tax deduction for residents of the islands of Haida Gwaii. This, of course, is on account of the remoteness of the islands; they are a full seven-hour ferry ride from Prince Rupert. By extension, there is a very high cost of living borne by people who live there.

Residents received the full deduction until the criteria was reworked in the 1990s. Omitting Haida Gwaii was an oversight and should be restored.

Conversion Therapy

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to rise in the House of Commons today to present a petition brought forward by Canadians who are concerned about the government's Bill C-6.

The petitioners call for the House of Commons to take a number of actions: one, ban coercive, degrading practices that would try to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity; two, ensure that no laws discriminate against Canadians by limiting the services they can receive based on their sexual orientation or gender identity; three, allow parents to speak with their own children about sexuality and gender and to set house rules about sex and relationships; four, allow free and open conversations about sexuality and sexual behaviour; and five, avoid criminalizing professional and religious counselling voluntarily requested and consented to by Canadians.

Forest Industry

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to present a petition today on behalf of many residents of Vancouver Island.

As many parliamentarians will know, there have been many arrests recently at Fairy Creek, a valley that still has old-growth forests, of real importance and significance to British Columbia. The petitioners note that only 2.7% of British Columbia's old-growth forest remains, and it is being logged at an unsustainable rate.

The petitioners are asking the federal government to recognize the importance of old-growth forests in any climate plan; recognize the importance of old-growth forests for biodiversity; halt the logging of old growth and specifically halt the export of raw logs; and ban the practice of taking whole forests and converting them to wood pellets for biofuel alleged to be a climate policy, which is actually degrading the capacity of our forests for sequestration.

Fuel Prices

[Rob Morrison, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present virtually petition e-3233. The petition has 818 signatures and was submitted out of great concern by many constituents in Kootenay—Columbia regarding the significant increase and inconsistency in fuel prices throughout my riding.

The petitioners, therefore, call on the Government of Canada to focus on the affordability aspects of fuel as it has done for telecom services, investigate through the Federal Competition Act any evidence of anti-competitive conduct in the fuel sector and move to protect consumers from price gouging by fuel suppliers.

I support this petition and present it to the House of Commons on behalf of my constituents in Kootenay—Columbia.

Sex Selection

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I present a petition on behalf of my New Brunswick constituents calling for Parliament to end the abhorrent practice of sex-selective abortions in Canada. Abortions based on gender are currently legally permitted in Canada, yet there is a broad consensus to prohibit them as 84% of Canadians agree that sex-selective abortions should not be permitted.

I hope the House of Commons will reflect this consensus when we vote Wednesday on Bill C-233.

Criminal Code

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present two petitions.

The first petition results out of a very troublesome crime that happened in Niagara where someone was run over by their own vehicle that was being stolen. The petitioners call on the Government of Canada to review the laws related to trespassing and theft in order to include more severe punishments to further deter individuals from committing these crimes.

That petition is e-3061 and was signed by almost 1,500 petitioners.

Pharmaceuticals

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

The second petition I want to read into the House is petition e-3265. This was signed by almost 5,000 people who are physicians, scientists and other concerned citizens and residents of Canada. They call upon the Government of Canada to urgently examine the evidence in favour of ivermectin and give due consideration to making ivermectin available immediately to Canadians as a schedule II medication, which can be obtained directly from pharmacists. They point out the fact that there are several countries in the world, including Japan, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Egypt, that are already using ivermectin.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Opposition Motion—Documents Related to the Transfer of Ebola and Henipah Viruses to the Wuhan Institute of Virology

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

moved:

That an order of the House do issue for the unredacted version of all documents produced by the Public Health Agency of Canada in response to the March 31, 2021, and May 10, 2021, orders of the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations, respecting the transfer of Ebola and Henipah viruses to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in March 2019, and the subsequent revocation of security clearances for, and termination of the employment of, Dr. Xiangguo Qiu and Dr. Keding Cheng, provided that:

(a) these documents shall be deposited with the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, in both official languages, within 48 hours of the adoption of this order;

(b) the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel shall promptly thereafter notify the Speaker, who shall forthwith inform the House, whether he is satisfied the documents were produced as ordered;

(c) the Minister of Health shall be ordered to appear before the special committee, for at least three hours, at a televised meeting, to be held within two weeks of the adoption of this order, to discuss the documents and the matters referred to in them;

(d) the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel shall confidentially review the documents with a view to redacting information which, in his opinion, could reasonably be expected to compromise national security or reveal details of an ongoing criminal investigation, other than the existence of an investigation;

(e) the Speaker shall cause the documents, as redacted pursuant to paragraph (d), to be laid upon the table at the next earliest opportunity and, after being tabled, they shall stand referred to the special committee;

(f) the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel shall discuss with the special committee, at an in camera meeting, to be held within two weeks of the documents being tabled pursuant to paragraph (e), what information he redacted pursuant to paragraph (d); and

(g) the special committee may, after hearing from the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel pursuant to paragraph (f), decide to make public any of the information which was redacted, as well as, in lieu of making such information public, rely on such information for the purpose of making findings and recommendations in any subsequent report to the House, provided that, for the purpose of this paragraph, the documents deposited pursuant to paragraph (a) shall be deemed to have been referred to the special committee.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to split my time with the member for Louis‑Saint‑Laurent.

The government is responsible for national security. It is also responsible for ensuring the safety and security of Canadians. We in this House assume the government is protecting national security, and we assume the government is ensuring the safety and security of Canadians, until information comes to our attention that says otherwise.

When this happens, we have a responsibility to investigate, obtain information and find out exactly what happened in order to hold the government accountable and ensure these mistakes are not repeated in the future. This is why I have introduced this motion.

We have information that this country's national security has been compromised. We have information that the safety and security of Canadians has been compromised. What information is this? We know seven government scientists at the government's National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg collaborated with Chinese scientists on some of the world's most dangerous viruses and pathogens.

These scientists co-authored at least six studies from 2016 to 2020. We know some of the research was paid for by China's government and that some of these scientists were part of China's military. We know one of the Canadian government scientists, Dr. Qiu, made at least five trips to China in a two-year period alone to collaborate on virus research, including working at the Wuhan Institute of Virology to train scientists and technicians there up to a level 4 standard, allowing them to handle the world's most deadly viruses and pathogens.

We know the same scientist shipped deadly Ebola and Henipah viruses to the Wuhan Institute of Virology on March 31, 2019. We know Canada's national security agency, CSIS, raised alarm bells about all of this. We know the two government scientists at the lab, Dr. Qiu and Dr. Cheng, along with students we believe to be Chinese nationals, were escorted out of the lab by the RCMP on July 5, 2019. We also know that Dr. Qiu and Dr. Cheng were subsequently terminated in January of this year.

We know Dr. Matthew Gilmour, scientific director general of the lab, quit suddenly on Friday, May 15, just eight weeks into the global pandemic, and that Ms. Tina Namiesniowski, president of the Public Health Agency of Canada, suddenly resigned on Friday, September 18, while Parliament was prorogued.

We know President Biden said last week that there are two likely theories on the origin of the coronavirus. One theory is it emerged from human contact with an infected animal. The other theory is it emerged from an accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the same lab the government's lab in Winnipeg collaborated with.

President Biden has ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to report back to him in 90 days, on August 24, as to which theory is most likely, and he ordered that elected members of the U.S. Congress be kept fully apprised of the investigation so the people's representatives would be aware of national security issues.

These are the things we know. It is clear from what little we do know that the government has failed to protect Canada's national security and has failed to ensure the safety and security of our fellow citizens.

What we do not know is exactly why Dr. Qiu and Dr. Cheng were fired. We do not know the totality of the collaboration between the Winnipeg lab and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. We do not know if there were shipments of other viruses or other materials, such as reagents, from Winnipeg to Wuhan.

We do not know how a Chinese military scientist Feihu Yan of the People's Liberation Army's Academy of Military Medical Science was granted access to work in the government's Winnipeg lab, which appears to be contrary to government policy, or how the students escorted out of the lab by the RCMP, purportedly Chinese nationals, gained access to that same lab.

We do not know exactly why the two most senior executives of the Public Health Agency of Canada suddenly resigned during the pandemic, on May 15 and September 18 respectively.

It is because of the things known and unknown that we have asked the government for more information. We have been responsible in seeking this information. We began our request for these documents at committee, at the Canada-China committee, on two separate occasions: March 31 and May 10. The committee ordered the government to produce documents about the firing of these two government scientists and about the transfers of viruses from Winnipeg to Wuhan.

In both cases, we were careful to ensure that any documents received would be reviewed by the committee in camera with the law clerk to prevent anything injurious to national security or any details of an ongoing criminal investigation from being made public. The government has failed to comply with both committee orders.

That brings us to today. I have introduced this motion so the House of Commons, as a whole, can put its full weight behind an order to the government to produce these documents. The motion in front of us today ensures that nothing injurious to national security and no details of an ongoing criminal investigation would be made public.

Some might say that the RCMP should investigate this. However, an investigation by the RCMP would be narrowly limited to violations of statute law and would not look at broader concerns about national security and foreign policy.

Some might say this information is best given to the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. That would be wrong because the government should not be investigating itself. While NSICOP is made up of parliamentarians, unlike the United Kingdom's intelligence and security committee, it is not a committee of Parliament. It is not a committee of this place.

Committee members are appointed and serve at the pleasure of the Prime Minister, including the Chair. The government has the power to terminate the committee's reviews. It is also allowed to withhold information from the committee. The Prime Minister has the power to review and amend the committee's reports before they are made public.

In short, NSICOP is accountable to the government. Under our constitution, the government is accountable to this House. It is to this House that the government should deliver the documents.

It is unfortunate that we are using precious time in the House to debate this motion. This question should have been addressed at committee, but the government ignored two committee orders, so we had no other choice but to bring this matter to the attention of the House of Commons as a whole.

It is also unfortunate for the government that we are here today, for this was a government that came to office promising to do things differently, promising an open and accountable government, promising to respect Parliament and promising to ensure greater democratic oversight. This is a government headed by a Prime Minister who voted for the motion ordering the previous Conservative government to release the Afghan detainee documents and who now does the opposite of what he said in opposition.

This is a government that says it supports a transparent and independent investigation into the origin of the coronavirus in China, which is so important to the world if we are to prevent the next pandemic. The problem is that China has not been co-operating with the investigation and has not been forthcoming with information about the lab in Wuhan. It has been stalling and refusing to release the information needed for the investigation.

The irony is that the government, whose Winnipeg lab collaborated with the Wuhan lab, is also stalling and refusing to release the information needed for the investigation about the Winnipeg lab and its collaboration with the Wuhan lab.

We live in a world today where there is a great clash between two ideals. On the one hand, authoritarian governments such as China, with their new-found prosperity, wish to spread their model of authoritarianism to much of the world. On the other hand, democracies like ours are on the defensive. The time-tested principles of democracy, human rights and the rule of law will triumph once again in the future, but only if we are courageous enough to take a stand for them in the present.

That is why this motion must pass. I ask all members of this House to support this motion to order the government to produce these documents.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for introducing his motion and I will say at the outset that the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of it.

That being said, one small part of it bothers us a bit. This motion would give a lot of power to the committee, including the power to make public information that would have been redacted and would not necessarily be of interest to the public. We are obviously not against disseminating information that is of interest to the public, far from it, because it is important in terms of transparency, but giving this power to committee members to act solely on their good judgment, is that not going a bit too far?

I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on that.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Madam Speaker, we put a requirement in the motion to have the Clerk of the House review the documents before discussing them with the special committee in order to ensure that no information regarding national security or a criminal investigation is made public.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Madam Speaker, I first want to thank the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills for his motion. It comes from a unanimous decision of our Canada-China committee, which I fully support, and our party will be supporting it today. I would also like to say that I am particularly pleased to see that it comes from the Conservative member.

I know the member was present and part of the government at the time, in 2009 and 2010, when Speaker Milliken made a ruling about the powers of Parliament to have access to documents that were in the control of the executive. The member's government opposed that. Am I able to conclude that his party has changed its views on the powers of Parliament and parliamentarians to have access to documents of this nature?

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Madam Speaker, my colleague's question is an important one.

There was a problem with the motion of December 2009. The motion that called on the government to release the Afghan detainee documents at that time was an order of the House to immediately release them publicly and without redaction. The government's position at the time was that this would be injurious to national security and to the safety of Canadian troops in Afghanistan and those of our allies.

This is why I have worded the motion today in a way that ensures that we protect national security and any ongoing criminal investigations. The motion today is different from the one in December of 2009.

The member has pointed out Speaker Milliken's ruling of April of 2010. I supported that ruling. I believe it was a precedent-setting ruling and one that reinforced the long-standing privileges and rights of this House to get the information it needs from the government.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, when the documents were requested by committee, they were provided by the Department of Health. I think this member would know that the ministry is separate from the department or the government officials, who are the people who do not come and go. They are consistent between different ministers and different ministerial staff. They are the ones who redacted the documents that were originally given to the committee.

Is this member, through this motion, saying that he does not have faith that the department officials, not the minister's staff, were able to produce the proper documents?

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will answer the member's question by conveying what his colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, said. He said that he had no confidence in the legal advice the justice department had provided to the Public Health Agency officials about the redaction of the documents.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

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.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech and the motion he has put before the House today.

I would simply like him to tell us more specifically what criteria he thinks should be used for the disclosure or publication of official documents concerning public health or public safety.

What criteria does he want to put forward to ensure that these documents are published, made public and accessible to the people of Canada?

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite‑Patrie for his very pertinent question.

Yes, we want access to the documents, but we do not want to jeopardize national security or the lives of people involved in this matter.

That is why my colleague, who moved the motion, mentioned earlier that Speaker Milliken ruled in 2010 to allow the committee and parliamentarians to have access to certain documents. At that time, the Conservative Party was in power, and we said that we needed to be careful, because if we went as far as was requested, we would have jeopardized the lives of Afghan citizens and of Canadian soldiers involved in that operation.

We want to get to the bottom of this situation without jeopardizing national security and Canadians' lives.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Madam Speaker, this is not the first time that we see the current Liberal government refusing to allow parliamentary oversight on very serious issues of the day and refusing to submit unredacted documents to committee. Does my colleague find this serial cover-up behaviour in any way transparent, as the Liberals insistently claim they are?

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to answer the question from my colleague, who was elected a year and a half ago in a British Columbia riding. I very much appreciate her hard work. I can assure members that she is doing a great job and working very hard on behalf of her constituents.

What we have seen since 2015 is a government that is saying one thing and doing different things, especially when we talk about transparency. The Liberals' transparency is good when it is good for them. However, when we want to go deep into a real problem such as this issue, I do not know why the government is so protective of the truth and the reality, because this is not a political issue; this is an issue of national interest. There is no Conservative, no Liberal, no NDP, no Bloc, no whatever. We are all Canadians on this issue. We want to know the truth and the reality of the situation, and that has nothing to do with partisanship. We hope that today the Liberals will understand that.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Madam Speaker, I wonder if my hon. colleague can comment on the remarks of Andy Ellis, the former CSIS assistant director of operations. He said it was “madness” for the Public Health Agency of Canada to be co-operating with the Chinese military and that it just shows “incredible naïveté”. I wonder if my hon. colleague could give his perspective on those comments.