Committee led by liberals rejects Protesters demand hearings on lab security breaches

A group of Liberal lawmakers in charge of a committee said no to a request from Conservative lawmakers to investigate two scientists who were fired from a top-secret lab because of their connection to China.

Michael Chong, who is in charge of foreign affairs for the Conservative party, asked a group in the government to bring in different people to talk to them about privacy and information. This included some people from the Public Health Agency of Canada.

However, the Liberal and New Democrat Members of Parliament (MPs) voted 6-4 to stop discussing the motion.

Liberal MP Iqra Khalid said the hearings were not needed and were not part of the committee’s job.

After the vote, Chong said that the Liberals and NDP were trying to hide something.

“It’s time for Parliament to take on responsibility and make sure the government is doing its job,” he said in a statement.

Last week, over 600 pages of private reports and letters about security were released to the public, with some parts blacked out. It was after a special group of MPs reviewed them.

The papers reveal that two scientists at the National Microbiology Laboratory lost their jobs in early 2021 because they didn’t keep important things safe.

The scientists, Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, tried to make it seem like they were not working closely with Chinese government organizations, according to the records.

The papers also reveal that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service found that Qiu lied many times about how much she worked with the Chinese government. She also didn’t admit to being part of Chinese programs, even when they showed her evidence.

Chong said on Monday that the committee should hold hearings to look at how information and intelligence moves through the government. They want to find out why Qiu’s actions weren’t noticed earlier.

Also, Chong said to the MPs that hearings would help find out why it took so long for the documents about the firings to be shown to the public.

Last May, the government announced that three retired top judges will make the decision about whether the records can be made public. A committee of MPs will review the records in a secure place.

The Conservatives did not like the idea and wanted the records to be given to a committee of MPs.

In 2021, opposition parties in the House of Commons passed a rule that the government didn’t like. It said that a person who knows the law would check the documents for any security problems. However, the committee members would still have the right to release any material they wanted.

Khalid was part of a group that reviewed the documents. He defended the process on Monday.

She said they did not hide anything.

“We worked hard for many months to figure this out. “