Federal Official Says Years-Long Timeline to Fire Winnipeg Lab Scientists Needs Review

Nathalie Drouin, Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council and National Security and Intelligence Advisor to the Prime Minister, prepares to appear before the Special Committee on the Canada–People’s Republic of China Relationship, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on April 29, 2024. (The Canadian Press/Justin Tang)

The government’s years-long timeline to dismiss two scientists from Canada’s top-security lab in Winnipeg for their undisclosed ties to China deserves a review, the National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister told MPs.

“It’s always easy to look at what happened in the past with our retrospective lens and see how easy it was,” Nathalie Drouin, who also serves as deputy Privy Council clerk, said in her April 29 testimony before the House of Commons special committee on the Canada-China relationship.

“But from the first signal to the moment the two scientists were put on leave, yes, there is a timeline that needs to be looked at.”

Ms. Drouin was responding to a question from Conservative MP Michael Chong regarding the dismissal of scientists Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng, as first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter. The married couple was removed from the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in July 2019 while under RCMP investigation and were fired two-and-a-half years later on Jan. 20, 2021.

Citing his experience in workforce reduction in the private sector, Mr. Chong had asked, “In this situation [with the two scientists], from start to finish, the process took almost two-and-a-half years. Do you think that is an appropriate length of time?”

Recently declassified documents revealed security concerns regarding the fired couple’s research ties to China. These concerns included Ms. Qiu’s undisclosed patent filed in the country in 2017. The couple was also involved in Beijing’s contentious talent recruitment programs. Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) warned about these programs’ potential for “incentivizing economic espionage and intellectual property theft.”

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Concerns by CSIS and NML about Ms. Qiu and Mr. Cheng potentially being exploited by a foreign actor were first raised in August 2018.

The National Security Management Division, in charge of security for the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada, hired a security firm to investigate Ms. Qiu and Mr. Cheng in December 2018. A fact-finding report on the couple was issued on March 23, 2019. The couple retained access to the laboratory during this period. Ms. Qiu facilitated the transfer of deadly Ebola and Nipah virus strains to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology during this time.

Delays in Securing Lab

Conservative MP Stephen Ellis raised concerns about the significant length of time it took for the government to secure the NML, the top-security level laboratory in Canada.

“It took so long to secure the lab. My only conclusion is that there was political interference to slow down the investigation,” he said.

“Yes, in retrospect, we can always say that things could have been faster,” Ms. Drouin said in response. “However, at the beginning, it was not even clear that it was a national security issue. It was more a lack of illustrative procedure, like it took some time after the fact-finding, after the reference to CSIS, to identify that we were in front of national security.”

“In the end, yes, we can say that it should have been faster at the time. But going forward, the reflections will be faster in terms of making the links between those deficiencies, those conducts with national security,” she added.

CSIS Director David Vigneault, who also testified before the same House committee on April 29, defended the time taken by his agency to produce intelligence for the public health agency.

“I think this was done in a very effective manner, in terms of time, in terms of the specific administrative decisions,” he said.

Mr. Vigneault declined to comment when asked about reports that the fired couple had fled Canada and returned to China.

“CSIS is an intelligence organization, not a law enforcement organization, and we have no powers to detain, intercept, or arrest anyone,” he said.

Omid Ghoreishi and Noé Chartier contributed to this report.