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Conservatives look to use rarely-invoked tactic to rebuke head of Canada's public healthy agency | CBC News

Conservatives look to use rarely-invoked tactic to rebuke head of Canada's public healthy agency | CBC News

Conservatives look to use rarely-invoked tactic to rebuke head of Canada's public healthy agency | CBC News
Jun 17, 2021 1 min, 21 secs

Conservatives want to invoke a rarely used procedure to publicly rebuke the head of the Public Health Agency of Canada over his refusal to produce unredacted documents related to the firing of two scientists from Canada's highest security laboratory.

Stewart would also be expected at that time to hand over the documents that opposition members of Parliament on the special Canada-China relations committee have been demanding for months, the motion says.

Deltell's move came shortly after Speaker Anthony Rota sided with opposition parties in ruling that the Commons and its committees have unfettered power to order the production of any documents they please, even those with national security implications.

Opposition MPs on the Canada-China committee have been demanding the documents for months as they attempt to find out why PHAC terminated the employment of scientists Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, in January.

Stewart has twice refused to comply with a committee order to produce those documents, saying federal Justice officials have advised him that would be a breach of privacy laws, could interfere in an ongoing police investigation and jeopardize national security.

Opposition parties joined forces earlier this month to pass a motion in the Commons ordering PHAC to turn over all unredacted documents to the parliamentary law clerk, who would confidentially review them and redact anything he felt would compromise national security or the ongoing police investigation.

In defiance of the House order, the minority Liberal government instead provided the unredacted documents to the all-party National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, whose members must have top security clearance and are bound to secrecy.

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