Two now fired Chinese-Canadian scientists given top clearance at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg secretly kept in contact with officials in Beijing, according to Blacklock’s Reporter. A 614-page report shows Xiangguo Qiu, the head of vaccine research, and her husband Keding Chang, a biologist, both fired in 2021 by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) after the RCMP raided the lab, held contacts with state agencies and maintained a Chinese bank account. Investigators found Qui and Chang both lied when questioned by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and denied any contact with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The report said “Ms. Qiu repeatedly lied in her security screening interviews.”"The cost, the crime, the corruption, the coverup," Conservative opposition leader Pierre Poilievre said outside Parliament Thursday morning, holding up the stack of pages that make up the extensive report. "Now we know (Trudeau) cannot protect our people or our country," said Poilievre. "We've just received these documents that Trudeau has been covering up for years, documents related to a massive security breach at the Trudeau government's most sensitive laboratory, where the most dangerous viruses and pathogens are studied and handled." "We've learned that the Trudeau government's head of pathogens was collaborating with members of Beijing's PLA, who are responsible for bioweapons and bioterrorism," he continued. "A member of the PLA was able to gain personal access to all our most important virological secrets.".Qiu kept an undisclosed account with the China Commercial Bank and “offered that she had collaborated” with state agencies such as the Chinese Academy of Military Medical Sciences. “Ms. Qiu stated she really just does scientific work,” said a 2020 security report. “When it was explained by the investigator that this work could be used for nefarious purposes such as biological weapons, Ms. Qui replied: ‘That’s true.’”.During the hearings Qui was shown a picture of herself with a uniformed major general involved in bioweapons research with the Chinese army. She continued to deny any contact with the PLA. “I didn’t know,” Qui told investigators, according to the security report. .“When questioned as to what she would do if approached by the Chinese government to conduct exclusive research for the betterment of Chinese people, Ms. Qiu responded, ‘Well, it depends on what they asked me to do. It’s just like collaboration,’” said the report. “Despite being given every opportunity in her interviews to provide a truthful version of her association with Chinese entities Ms. Qiu continued to make blanket denials, feign ignorance or tell outright lies.”.Cheng, “was less than honest” when interviewed, said a security report. “I have no connection with foreign officials,” Cheng told investigators. “I am just a biologist.”Evidence shows Cheng sent lab-related emails through an unmonitored Gmail account despite repeated warnings and gave encrypted USB keys with passwords to “restricted visitors” at the lab. In one 2018 incident Cheng was found to receive a package from China marked “kitchen utensils” that actually contained lab proteins.“Mr. Cheng and Ms. Qiu have been married many years” and were obviously both aware of each other’s contacts with Chinese agents, the security report states. In June 2021, cabinet voted for unrestricted access to the National Microbiology Laboratory records. Internal emails were obtained showing managers were uneasy over the two scientists’ Chinese contacts. “I have some concerns here,” the Lab’s scientific director wrote in a 2018 staff email. .Health Minister Mark Holland Wednesday could not explain why the couple were hired under the Trudeau Liberal government. “There was lax adherence to the security protocols that were in place,” he told reporters. “There was going back a number of years now an enormous amount of concern about events that happened at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg.”“That led to an enormous amount of speculation. Some of it was completely valid in terms of concern around security,” said Holland. “They weren’t disclosing information, they weren’t disclosing relationships.”“The nature of other work they were conducting wasn’t being disclosed,” he added. A reporter asked if he was “concerned China was interfering and trying to get delicate information from Canada’s National Microbiology Lab,” to which Holland replied, “No sensitive information left the lab,” replied Holland.“People let Chinese nationals into the lab; who authorized this?” asked a reporter. “These were eminent scientists whose research and work was well known,” replied Holland. “They were leaders in their field.”“The concern is the relationship they had with Chinese science, Chinese businesses that they did not disclose,” said Holland. “It was not known to the Public Health Agency at that time.”
