The former federal executive criticized for his failure to disclose records of security breaches at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg retired just weeks before cabinet tabled the long-awaited documents on Feb. 28.
Iain Stewart became the first manager to be censured by Parliament since 1891. He retired as National Research Council president after more than six years in the post.
It seems careless to let uncleared foreign researchers roam unattended in a high-security microbiology lab, as one of the scientists fired in 2020, Keding Cheng, did.
To the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, it seemed even more careless, and suspicious, that his wife and colleague, Xiangguo Qiu, hadn’t told her employers she took a side trip to the
Wuhan Institute of Virology. Or that she had applied to a “talent program” in China that the Canadian spy agency suspected was connected to commercial espionage.
In the larger sense, the whole thing was an example of carelessness, here in Canada.
There is an old saying, “It is always darkest before the dawn.” The meaning behind this axiom is that things may look dire, but they will soon turn for the better.
When it comes to the federal government and national security, however, I fear only more darkness for the foreseeable future.
We now know why Prime Minister Justin Trudeau fought so hard to keep secret the documents revealing scientists Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, were fired from Canada’s highest security biolab because of their undisclosed relationships with agencies of the People’s Republic of China.
Facing questions about how scientists who were intentionally sharing information with China were cleared to work at a Winnipeg lab studying deadly diseases, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau deflected criticism to his chief political rival and accused the Conservative leader of weaponizing national security.
During a Thursday news conference in Thunder Bay, Ont., Trudeau was asked how scientists working on high-security viruses at the Winnipeg-based National Microbiology Lab were able to collaborate with the People’s Republic of China.
After a years-long fight for access, the federal government dumped hundreds of pages of documents about the dismissal of Dr. Xiangguo Qiu and her husband Keding Cheng. The two were marched out of the facility in July 2019 and were stripped of their security clearances. Their dismissals were announced in January 2021.
🇨🇦🚨🚨🚨This might be one of the biggest coverups in Canadian History by Justin Trudeau?🤔
And he is caught red handed yet again endangering Canada’sdemocracy, security and health.‼️
Now the Beijing interference in our elections makes perfect sense!☝🏻 pic.twitter.com/LVGkKOi9DP
— Contrarian (@ContrarianTribe) February 29, 2024
Two scientists fired from Canada’s National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg in 2019 had an “extensive relationship” with China that they did not properly disclose to Canadian health officials, according to documents that were finally released over four years later.
Health Minister Mark Holland announced the tabling of the documents in Parliament on Wednesday, after a special ad-hoc committee formed to review the documents recommended they be released unredacted.
A big leak of data from a Chinese cybersecurity firm has revealed state security agents paying tens of thousands of pounds to harvest data on targets, including foreign governments, while hackers hoover up huge amounts of information on any person or institution who might be of interest to their prospective clients.
The cache of more than 500 leaked files from the Chinese firm I-Soon was posted on the developer website Github and is thought by cybersecurity experts to be genuine. Some of the targets discussed include Nato and the UK Foreign Office.
Why did the government call an election in August, 2021, in the middle of a pandemic, just as Afghanistan was falling, and with more than two years left in its mandate? A good argument could be made that it was to shut down a Commons committee looking into the mysterious dismissal of two Chinese nationals from a top-secret Winnipeg research laboratory.
At the urging of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the two scientists – Dr. Xiangguo Qiu, head of vaccine development at the National Microbiology Laboratory, and her husband Keding Cheng – had their security clearance revoked and were escorted out of the facility by RCMP officers in July, 2019. They were fired in January, 2021.
A special committee of MPs tasked with evaluating censored records on the firing of two scientists from Canada’s top infectious disease laboratory – researchers who worked with China – says most of the information redacted from Public Health Agency of Canada documents appears to have been withheld to shield the organization from embarrassment rather than to protect national security.
The committee is recommending the majority of the documents be made public, according to a Feb. 19 letter, obtained by The Globe and Mail, that was sent to House leaders of the Liberals, Conservatives, NDP and Bloc Québécois.
The human-rights group Canadian Friends of Hong Kong says it won’t participate in Canada’s public inquiry into foreign interference, citing what it calls grave concerns about the standing granted to three politicians with alleged ties to the Chinese government.
In January, an organization representing Uyghur Canadians announced it was withdrawing from the public inquiry over the same matter. The refusals to participate threaten to undermine the commission’s ability to hear from all vulnerable communities facing persecution from China.
Recently declassified documents from the Royal Canadian Air Force show how two Air Canada flights spotted a suspected Chinese spy balloon days before it became headline news.
Once classified secret, the heavily redacted “vital intelligence sighting” report and air force “daily log” file from Jan. 31, 2023, offer a glimpse into how authorities initially responded to the high-altitude balloon, which was shot down days later.
As it makes its maiden voyage up the English Channel next week, not much will visibly distinguish the BYD Explorer No 1 from any of the other giant cargo ships ploughing through the world’s busiest shipping lane.
In fact, it heralds a revolution. When it deposits its contents in the Dutch port of Vlissingen on Wednesday, the Explorer will start either the next wave of Chinese worldwide manufacturing dominance or a trade war, depending on the tolerance of voters and politicians in Brussels and London.
There is no Second Amendment in China, and Chinese citizens are not permitted to possess firearms. So is it possible that the shooters in the videos are merely taking advantage of a new-found freedom in their new home country ?
Unlikely.
One of the migrants videoed was in America for only three weeks and arrived in the country with no money and no identification.
If you had just landed somewhere as a migrant with nothing to your name, you would undoubtedly be preoccupied with finding your next meal, getting a place to live, making a livelihood.
China’s BYD was a battery manufacturer trying its hand at building cars when it showed off its newest model in 2007. American executives at the Guangzhou auto show gaped at the car’s uneven purple paint job and the poor fit of its doors.
“They were the laughingstock of the industry,” said Michael Dunne, a China auto industry analyst.
Nobody is laughing at BYD now.
The company passed Tesla in worldwide sales of fully electric cars late last year. BYD is building assembly lines in Brazil, Hungary, Thailand and Uzbekistan and preparing to do so in Indonesia and Mexico. It is rapidly expanding exports to Europe. And the company is on the cusp of passing Volkswagen Group, which includes Audi, as the market leader in China.
Hardly for the first time, remote Arab tribesmen are reshaping the world. Piratical attacks on international shipping by Yemen-based Houthi rebels have created a significant security crisis in the Red Sea. The world’s largest shipping lines have been forced to suspend transit through the Red Sea and thus the Suez Canal. And with nearly a third of global container traffic typically flowing through Suez, this has seriously disrupted world trade. Yet the most enduring impact of the crisis may be on the geopolitical balance between two great powers, each many thousands of kilometres away from the scorching sands of the Arabian Peninsula: China and the United States.
