Canada-China Relations committee  Mr. Chair, I think, as other members have questioned, I did express concern and I expressed concern at multiple points.

Canada-China Relations committee  I didn't stop the shipment, though, because, for me, that would have meant overriding my team—their expertise and processes. That's the process we had at the time, so I didn't override it.

Canada-China Relations committee  Mr. Chair, those were conversations with the senior executive of the agency. In my case, I can recall conversations with the vice-presidents of the infectious disease prevention and control branch and conversations with probably at least one other VP within corporate services. I don't recall if there were conversations with the president.

Canada-China Relations committee  Mr. Chair, I'm not aware of that happening. Those were not conversations I was privy to.

Canada-China Relations committee  Mr. Chair, that's a good opinion question and one I honestly haven't reflected on until now, as you're asking it. Yes.

Canada-China Relations committee  Mr. Chair, I'm sorry. I remember that the session on it was starkly different, because I transitioned from just having one-on-one briefings with an individual agent sporadically, over time. If I recall correctly, I think this was the first group session where there were multiple CSIS agents presenting a prepared presentation and describing some of the tactics and approaches used in the PRC—things like talent management programs and the undue consideration of intellectual property protection.

Canada-China Relations committee  Mr. Chair, I'd be challenged to remember the specifics, but I have to imagine it was at least the executive director.

Canada-China Relations committee  Mr. Chair, I couldn't say if it was just the two of us.

Canada-China Relations committee  No.

Canada-China Relations committee  Mr. Chair, it's one of the rationales for the existence of laboratories that you have a safe place to bring in any clinical material when a new disease is emerging. When the safety profile at the early outset is unknown, you can put it into a category 4 or category 3 lab as you see fit, and do the work to characterize it and understand the nature of that emerging organism.

Canada-China Relations committee  Mr. Chair, very quickly, my own thoughts on AI are that it's a very powerful tool, at least for information gathering. You can scan public data sources and other literature, and with natural language models, you can very accurately recover the information you're seeking. Whether you're a scientist or a security firm—whatever your interests are—you can use these tools, at least at the outset, to very robustly get the information you need.

Canada-China Relations committee  Mr. Chair, one, I have no concerns at all about the salutation. It's even later than you can imagine for me with a little bit of jet lag. I did not notice what you called me, but the question was asked and answered in terms of my departure. The short answer, just for your own benefit, is that an absolutely dream opportunity came available to me with colleagues whom I already knew and respected.

Canada-China Relations committee  Mr. Chair, that is probably the most powerful question I've heard tonight. I want to go back to Ms. Yip's question on whether I had any regrets. I think I answered maybe we needed more conversation with CSIS. In terms of whether I was equipped or not, that's a challenge to answer, but certainly, going back in time, yes, there absolutely should have been more briefing, more planning and more conversation among me, CSIS and the departmental security officer, yes.

Canada-China Relations committee  It's a challenge for me to fill that gap for you. In my own review of the documentation, I didn't see anything missing in terms of additional investigations. Again, these were investigations that were done by other authorities.

Canada-China Relations committee  Mr. Chair, I'm sorry. Just to clarify, are “similar organizations” the other public health laboratories?