Finally! A Commons Committee will sit to shed light on the darkness to an incredible espionage case. China has been stealing information for years from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Canada's main virus research center. This laboratory is one of the few in North America capable of treating pathogens that require the highest level of containment (Level 4), such as: B. Ebola.
The parliamentary committee may call any witnesses it considers relevant. The first meeting could take place at the beginning of next week.
It is based on hundreds of documents released by the Liberal government in connection with the firing of two Chinese scientists, Dr. Xiangguo Qiu and her husband Keding Cheng, who worked in the laboratory in Winnipeg.
Disappeared without a trace
The two researchers were fired in 2019 after sending samples of the viruses, including Ebola, to the Chinese Institute of Virology in Wuhan. However, their firings were not announced until January 2021, when CSIS warned about Qiu: “His close and secret relationships with various Chinese companies thus pose a threat to Canada's security.”
As recently as February 2020, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) found that the couple had stolen viruses and “allowed visitors to seize government property without authorization.”
I can't wait to see the people in charge of the laboratory under PHAC and explain the fiasco. And how could we allow the two spies to disappear without a trace? Why didn't the RCMP arrest her?
One of two things. Or they returned to China, which is more likely. And we let them go! Like that! Or they applied for political asylum and we accepted it on the condition that they reveal all the details of their espionage mission. Possible, but it would surprise me.
Another Chinese specter haunts Trudeau
So far, when the Conservatives, the NDP and the Bloc Québécois have asked for explanations on this strange matter, Justin Trudeau has refused to comment, saying it could harm national security and the ongoing investigation. This is what governments always say to prevent their gaffes, their stupidities and their mistakes from becoming public knowledge.
Commission members must figure out how these two Chinese spies managed to steal samples of some of the world's deadliest viruses and bring them to China, a country in conflict with Canada.
You'll also want to know how this couple with ties to the Chinese army were able to obtain the highest security clearances to gain access to the secrets of Canada's most secure laboratory.
Qiu worked in both Winnipeg and Wuhan
In one of the CSIS documents released by the federal government on Wednesday, we learn that Qiu lied several times during the interrogation. She told investigators that she went on vacation to China for two months every year. In reality, she worked there at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, CSIS discovered.
If China is interested in developing diagnostic tests, vaccines and treatments for the acute viral hemorrhagic fever Ebola, it is undoubtedly because it is investing in regions of Africa affected by this virus.