Liberals propose that a committee of all parties should see documents on fired scientists

The Liberal government proposes a compromise on a protracted dispute with opposition parties over the publication of documents related to the firing of two scientists at Canada’s highest security laboratory.

The head of the Government House, Mark Holland, proposed on Thursday that a special ad hoc committee of parliamentarians from all parties be allowed to view both the edited and unedited documents. Non-party political officials will advise if any sensitive information needs to be edited.

In case of disagreement on what to publish, a panel of independent arbitrators, consisting of three former senior judges, agreed by all parties, will decide how the information can be published without compromising national security, national defense or internationally. relationships.

The panel’s decisions will be binding and may include the full or partial release of documents or the writing of summaries of sensitive material.

The Netherlands noted that this is the same process that was adopted in 2010 by Stephen Harper’s former Conservative government to allow opposition MPs to view unedited documents related to the alleged abusive treatment of prisoners handed over to the Afghan authorities by the Canadian military. .

“We believe that this proposal constitutes a good faith effort on the part of the government to resolve this issue,” the Netherlands said in a letter to its opposition opponents.

“It recognizes the role of the House of Commons in holding the government accountable. And it also respects the government’s obligation to keep certain information confidential in order to protect Canadians. We propose a transparent, responsive and reasonable approach that complies with laws that protect sensitive information.”

There was no immediate response from any of the opposition parties.

Researchers fired in January 2021

At the last parliamentary session, opposition parties joined forces to pass repeated resolutions requiring the Canadian Public Health Agency to release all unedited documents related to the firing of scientists Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng.

The pair were escorted out of Winnipeg’s National Microbiology Laboratory in July 2019 and were subsequently fired in January last year.

Opposition MPs have repeatedly claimed that the Commons and its committees have the right to order the production of any documents they wish, while former PHAC chief Iain Stewart has repeatedly stated that he was barred by law from releasing infringing material. privacy or national security laws.

The fight culminated in June with Stewart being dragged to the bar in the Commons to be reprimanded by House Speaker Anthony Rota over his repeated refusal to comply with the order to present the unedited documents. He was the first non-MP to be subjected to such a procedure in more than a century.

The government appealed to the Canadian Federal Court a few days later to prevent the release of the documents, which it claimed would be detrimental to international relations, national defense or national security.

Qiu is seen here in an undated screen grab from a CBC segment at the National Microbiology Laboratory. (CBC)

It dropped the case when the election was called in August, when the order to present the documents, along with all other cases to Parliament, was concluded with the dissolution of Parliament.

Investigating link to COVID-19 pandemic

But in one of the first moves, when the Commons resumed the meeting last week, the conservatives asked Rota to rule that the government was in contempt of parliament when it opened the trial. Rota has not yet ruled on the matter, but if he agrees, the Conservatives intend to put forward a proposal, backed by other opposition parties, to issue an order seizing the documents.

The demand for documents includes material related to the transfer, monitored by Qiu, of deadly Ebola and henipah viruses to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology in March 2019.

Stewart, who is no longer head of PHAC, had assured MPs that the transfer had nothing to do with the subsequent firings of Qiu and Cheng and that there was no connection to COVID-19.

The corona virus was first identified in China’s Wuhan province, and some believe it may have been accidentally released by the Virology Institute, triggering the global pandemic. In October, the World Health Organization (WHO) appointed a team of scientists to oversee an investigation into the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, which remains unknown nearly two years after it began.

Despite Stewart’s assurances, opposition parties continue to suspect a connection.