(Ottawa) The Conservatives ultimately rejected a Liberal compromise proposal to resolve an old dispute over the disclosure of secret documents related to the firing of two scientists from Canada’s highest-security laboratory.
Conservative House leader Gérard Deltell said on Wednesday that the government’s proposal came months too late.
He pointed out that during the previous parliamentary session, the Public Health Agency of Canada ignored several orders from a House of Commons committee and the House itself to produce unredacted documents that could shed light on the dismissal of scientists Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng.
“Parliament’s will is clear and that has not changed,” Gérard Deltell told the Commons.
The two scientists were escorted out of the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg in July 2019, then fired last January.
Instead, Mr Deltell is asking Speaker Anthony Rota to declare the Liberal government in contempt of Parliament when it went to court last June to prevent the release of Health Agency documents public opinion regarding the dismissal of scientists Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng.
If Mr. Rota allows it, the Conservatives intend to present a motion in the House, seconded by other opposition parties, for a warrant to be issued to seize the documents in question.
Liberal government House leader Mark Holland proposed a compromise last week: create a special all-party committee to examine secret documents. Three ex-judges have previously reportedly determined what can be made public without compromising national security.
Mark Holland argued that the former Conservative government of Stephen Harper adopted a similar process in 2010 to allow MPs to view unredacted documents related to the alleged abusive treatment of detainees handed over to Afghan authorities by the Canadian military.
But Gérard Deltell argued that it was like comparing “apples and oranges”. In the case of Afghan detainees, opposition parties demanded to see 40,000 pages of uncensored material that could endanger the lives of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan.
In contrast, he said opposition parties banded together in the previous legislature to demand just over 500 pages of unredacted PHAC documents, which would be reviewed by the parliamentary law clerk to determine what might be disclosed securely.
House Speaker Anthony Rota sided with the opposition parties in June, ruling that the House of Commons and its committees have the right to order the production of any documents they wish, regardless of laws on national security or confidentiality.
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 more than a century.
The government went to the Federal Court of Canada a few days later to prevent disclosure of the documents, which it said would be harmful to international relations, national defense or national security.
The government dropped the request when the election was called in August because the order to produce the documents, along with all other business in the House, ended with the dissolution of Parliament.
Far from seeking a compromise, Gérard Deltell said on Wednesday that the Liberal government’s approach has been to “deny, then hijack and, finally, plead in a totally shocking and unprecedented legal request against the House of Commons.”
He reiterated a question of privilege he raised last month in the opening week of the new parliamentary session, asking Anthony Rota to rule the lawsuit in contempt of Parliament. If the Speaker agrees, the Conservatives intend to bring forward a motion, seconded by other opposition parties, to issue a warrant to seize the PHAC documents.
Mark Holland is disappointed that the Conservatives rejected the compromise proposal, but he remains hopeful that other opposition parties will accept it.
“If we create a situation where we treat national security documents like circulars from Canadian Tire and allow them to be distributed everywhere, it is very damaging to national security,” he said in an interview, adding that this could cause the allies to stop sharing security intelligence with Canada and even endanger the lives of Canadians involved in national security.
“That such a reckless and irresponsible stance on national security documents came from the Conservatives, a party that was in power, is just incredibly disappointing. ”
Mark Holland said he was still hopeful that the NDP and the Bloc Québécois would be more reasonable. He would need the support of at least one of the two to make the proposed compromise.
The request includes documents related to the transfer, overseen by Mr. Qiu, of the deadly Ebola and Henipah viruses to the Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, in March 2019.
Mr. Stewart, who is no longer the head of the PHAC, had assured the deputies that the transfer had nothing to do with the subsequent dismissals of Mr. Qiu and her husband and that there was no link to 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.