(Ottawa) The Liberal government is proposing a compromise on a long-standing dispute with opposition parties over the disclosure of documents related to the firing of two scientists from the highest-security Canadian laboratory.
Government House Leader Mark Holland is proposing that a special committee of MPs from all parties, all with “security clearances,” be allowed to view unredacted documents.
A committee of independent arbitrators, made up of three former judges, would also decide which documents can be made public and which information should be redacted or summarized.
Holland believes this is a reasonable approach, similar to what was done in 2010 to allow opposition MPs to view documents related to Afghan detainees.
“We believe this proposal is a good faith effort by the government to resolve this issue,” Holland said in a letter to his opposition counterparts.
“The proposal recognizes the role of the House of Commons in holding the government to account. And it also respects the government’s obligation to keep certain information confidential to protect Canadians. We offer a transparent, responsive and reasonable approach that complies with laws that protect sensitive information ”.
There was no immediate response from the opposition parties.
In the previous parliamentary session, opposition parties banded together to pass repeated motions demanding that the Public Health Agency of Canada hand over all unredacted documents related to the firing of scientists Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding. Cheng.
The couple were escorted out of the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg in July 2019, then fired last January.
Opposition MPs have repeatedly asserted the right of the House of Commons and its committees to order the production of any documents they wish, while the former head of the Public Health Agency of Canada ( PHAC), Iain Stewart, has repeatedly argued that the law prevents him from disclosing documents that could violate privacy or national security laws.
The battle culminated in June when Mr Stewart was dragged to the Commons Bar to be reprimanded by the Speaker of the House, Anthony Rota, for his repeated refusal to comply with the order to produce the uncensored documents. He is the first non-MP to be the subject of such a procedure for over a century.
The government asked the Federal Court in June to block disclosure of the documents, which it said would be damaging to international relations, defense and national security. He dropped the request when elections were called in August.
However, in one of the first gestures when the House of Commons resumed work last week, the Conservatives called on Mr. Rota to declare that the government was in contempt of Parliament by initiating the legal process. Mr Rota has yet to make a decision on the matter, but if he agrees, the Conservatives intend to bring forward a motion, supported by other opposition parties, to launch a mandate. to enter documents.
The request includes documents related to the transfer, supervised by Mr.me Qiu, of the deadly Ebola and Henipah viruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, China in March 2019.
Mr. Stewart, who is no longer the head of PHAC, had assured MPs that the transfer had nothing to do with Mr.me Qiu and her husband and that there was no connection with COVID-19.
The coronavirus first appeared in the Chinese province of Wuhan and some believe it may have been accidentally released by the institute of virology, thus triggering the global pandemic.
Despite Mr Stewart’s claims, opposition parties continue to suspect a link and remain determined to see the documents unredacted.