Three former judges will have the final say on the public release of “sensitive” documents related to the firing of two scientists from Canada’s most secure lab.
The Liberal government announced Wednesday that former Supreme Court Justices Ian Binnie and Marshall Rothstein, along with former Federal Court of Appeals Justice Eleanor Dawson, will work as “expert arbitrators” with the Special Committee of Parliamentarians which will examine the documents.
Opposition parties believe the documents in question will shed light on why scientists Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, were escorted out of the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg in July 2019 and then fired for a year. and a half later, in January 2021.
The oppositions also want to see documents related to the transfer, supervised by Professor Qiu, of the deadly Ebola and Henipah viruses to the Chinese Institute of Virology in Wuhan, in March 2019.
The Select Committee of Parliamentarians is made up of Liberal MP Iqra Khalid, Bloc Québécois René Villemure, Conservative John Williamson and New Democrat Heather McPherson. The four parties each named a “replacement” MP to the Select Committee, should the need arise.
The government specifies in a press release on Wednesday that these deputies will have full access, “in a secure framework”, to redacted and unredacted documents. Members of the Special Committee will also participate in briefings by officials on why certain information is protected and not disclosed, the government said.
If committee members believe that redacted information should be made public, the three former justices, as “expert arbitrators,” will determine how it could be released on a wider scale “without jeopardizing national security, national defense or international relations, or any other public or private interest,” the government explains.
More than a year of waiting
The announcement of participants in the process comes more than a year after the Liberals announced they were moving forward with such a special committee to review “sensitive” documents. The Conservatives initially rejected the idea, preferring that the files be handed over to a standing committee of the Commons.
Under a House of Commons order passed by opposition parties in 2021 — over government objections — the documents would have been reviewed by the House law clerk for possible national security concerns, but committee members would have retained the right to make public any material they chose.
Government House Leader Mark Holland then urged the Conservatives to reconsider the Liberals’ proposed approach, citing several experts who argued that national security would be jeopardized if the opposition’s demands were adopted.
Mr Holland acknowledged on Wednesday that the creation of the Special Committee and the recruitment of ex-judges had taken some time. “The first problem is that we had only one partner at the start, the New Democratic Party, and we were ready to go with it. Then the Bloc indicated that it wanted to participate, and then the Conservatives,” he explained. “So adding these members, choosing them, it took time. »