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Conservatives launch new probe into Canada's lab leak scandal: National security failure saw Chinese scientists send Ebola in the mail to Wuhan and spy on top research hub
Members of Canada's House of Commons have successfully opened a new investigation into a pair of Chinese scientists who spied for Beijing while they were employed at a microbiology lab in Winnipeg.
The scientists were fired after an investigation revealed they had been sharing classified documents and materials from the Winnipeg National Microbiology Laboratory and posed a 'national security threat' to Canada.
While they worked at the lab, they maintained secret communication with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the facility at the center of the Covid lab-leak theory.
A 600-page report released in February made these revelations public. But the scientists were escorted from the lab in 2019 and fired in 2021.
Members of Parliament say they plan to find out why it took so long for the report to come out - and why it took so long for officials to act in the first place.
Chinese scientist Dr Xiangguo Qiu was booted out of a Canadian lab after she was found to have been mailing lethal viruses, including Ebola, back to China to aid research.
The Chinese couple had worked at the Canadian National Microbiology Lab (pictured) in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It is the only biosafety level 4 lab in the country cleared to handle dangerous pathogens including Ebola and Marburg virus
But Liberals and the New Democrats thwarted Conservative MPs' attempt to study its contents more closely, shutting down an emergency House of Commons ethics committee meeting on the matter at the beginning of March.
The new investigation finally became official this week, though, led by Conservative MPs on the Canada-China Relations Committee who vowed to study the revelations contained in the report.
The group was formed at the behest of Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong.
A Chinese scientist who was booted out of a Canadian lab after mailing live Ebola to China is thought to have worked with the 'bat woman' virologist at the center of the Wuhan leak theory.
Chong said the group will focus on national security breaches, as well as the information and intelligence flows within the Canadian government that prevented these documents from becoming public sooner.
Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, were escorted out of the lab in 2019 and fired in 2021. Reports suggest they have since resumed life in China under new names.
The only biosafety level four (BSL-4) lab in the country, Winnipeg National Microbiology Laboratory, studied dangerous viruses like Ebola.
Although the scientists were fired three years ago, the 600-page report on the incident only came out in February of this year.
'My view is that this is the start of the matter, not the end,' said Chong, who made the motion to open the new investigation, according to the National Post.
'And so really, we're leaving off where we left three years ago, when the Canada-China committee in the previous parliament asked for the Winnipeg lab documents.
'I believe strongly that the committee is the right place to examine these documents, the right place to hold the government accountable and the right place for us to hear from witnesses and to produce a report with recommendations.'
The committee reportedly plans to hear from Minister of Health Mark Holland, Minister of Public Safety Dominic LeBlanc, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) director David Vigneault, Justin Trudeau's national security adviser Nathalie Drouin and top brass from the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC).
The couple, Dr Xiangguo Qiu (left) and Dr Kending Cheng (right), are pictured above. Both are now believed to be in China
Dr Qiu has now been linked to Dr Shi Zhengli (pictured), known as 'bat woman', who is at the center of claims that the Covid-19 virus leaked from experiments she led at a Wuhan lab.
When Chong had first attempted to initiate the new probe with the ethics committee at the beginning of March, opponents argued it was not a priority nor the proper venue.
Liberals expressed concern that the investigation was more about blaming political opponents than about getting to the truth of the matter.
'In all seriousness, this cannot turn into a political show. This cannot turn into a process where members are trying to just score political points,' said Liberal MP Yasir Naqvi.
Nonetheless, once Parliament convenes in April, Conservative and New Democrat MPs expressed support for the committee to hold as many meetings and call as many witnesses as necessary.
Still-secret sources first raised concerns about Dr Qiu in September 2018 when her name appeared on a patent filed in China for a treatment for Ebola - research the lab had not been told about.
Suspicions were then raised about Dr Cheng in October after he was found to have invited students into the lab who later attempted to leave carrying two clear plastic bags containing vials of an unknown substance.
Later the same month, Dr Cheng was also caught trying to leave the lab carrying two empty Styrofoam containers, which BSL-4 labs use to transport materials, including viruses.
The PHAC, concerned by the reports, launched an investigation into the pair in December 2018 - which revealed numerous security violations, including that the pair had repeatedly allowed restricted visitors to download experimental data from the lab and send it to their email accounts.
Dr Qiu, shown working in the lab, was also found to have lied to officials about a vacation she took to China in 2018 and to have appeared on two Chinese patents without the knowledge of the lab
Conservative MP Michael Chong made the motion to start the new investigation. It was initially squashed by Justin Trudeau's Liberals and the New Democrats when he brought it to the House of Commons ethics committee, but the New Democrats now support the investigation under the Canada-China Relations Committee.
The PHAC also alleged that in May 2018, Dr Cheng had been sent vials containing mouse protein in a package shipped from China labeled as 'kitchen utensils'.
Dr Qiu was accused of having shipped Ebola-fighting antibodies out of the lab for at least two years to countries including China, the US, and the UK.
She was also accused of being named on a second patent in China which was concerned with a treatment for Marburg virus.
Alarmed by their findings, the PHAC passed its investigation to the CSIS just before July 2019.
The CSIS launched its own security investigation and interviewed the couple.
In a letter from 2021, in which the CSIS recommended her security clearance be revoked, the CSIS wrote: 'The Service assess that Ms. Qiu developed deep, cooperative relationships with a variety of People's Republic of China institutions and has intentionally transferred scientific knowledge and materials to China in order to benefit the PRC government.'
Dr Qiu and Dr Zhengli attended a conference held by the Wuhan lab in 2018. Also present were British doctor Peter Daszak, whose US charity funded animal virus experiments at the lab, and US scientist Ralph Baric, who co-authored a paper on bat viruses with Zhengli in 2015
The CSIS concluded that Dr Qiu had repeatedly lied about her ties to the Chinese government, even when given chances to come clean.
These ties included multiple visiting professor positions at Chinese institutions - appointments she left off of her CV when she had applied to jobs in Canada.
'Qiu continued to make blanket denials, feign ignorance or tell outright lies,' according to the CSIS letter.
This letter was one document included in the 600-page report, much of which remains redacted.
Holland said China's influence on Canada's scientific community 'was not known to the extent it was today', following the release of the files.
'These were eminent scientists whose research and work was well known. They were leaders in their field, some of the brightest scientists that were known,' he said.
With the formation of the new committee, Chong has said he plans to put hard questions to officials seen as mishandling the investigation and the disclosures it brought.
These include why it took so long for PHAC to find out that Qiu had a Chinese patent for something produced while she worked in Canada, why PHAC took 10 months to secure the lab after that, and why MPs didn't have access to the full report until this year.