“After three long years, we finally have gotten access to the documents, and we need to continue this examination in order to hold the government accountable.”

By Robert Fife and Steven Chase | Published by The Globe & Mail

Summarized

Liberal and NDP MPs joined forces Monday to block a parliamentary investigation into the massive security breach at Canada’s high-security infectious-disease laboratory in Winnipeg, one that a probe found constituted a credible threat to Canada.

Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong moved a motion to investigate how Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, were able to pass confidential information to China even after security concerns were raised about the two scientists’ activities.

“The government defied four orders of the House of Commons and its committee for these documents,” Mr. Chong told the House of Commons committee on access to information, privacy and ethics. “After three long years, we finally have gotten access to the documents, and we need to continue this examination in order to hold the government accountable.”

Among the questions Conservative and Bloc MPs want answered is why the government did not catch the clandestine activities of Dr. Qiu before 2018, when it was discovered she had improperly registered a patent that was produced in China, and why she had met clandestinely with Chinese government and military officials in 2017 and early 2018.

They also want to know why it took 10 months for the government to secure the Winnipeg lab after it had been discovered that the patent had been improperly registered in China and violated PHAC policy.

“The patent violation was discovered in September, 2018, and yet it took 10 months to July 5, 2019 for the government to secure the lab,” Mr. Chong said. Even after her computer was seized by government and she was denied approval for a trip to China, Dr. Qiu was still allowed to ship two lethal viruses, including Ebola, on March, 2019, from the lab to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

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