AFTER HIS DEPARTMENT WAS FOUND IN CONTEMPT OF PARLIAMENT, THE HEAD OF CANADA'S FEDERAL HEALTH AGENCY SAYS HE

Facing censure in Commons on Monday

OTTAWA • After his department was found in contempt of Parliament for failing to provide top-secret documents to a special House committee, the head of Canada's federal health agency said he now finds himself in an “extraordinary situation” unlike any he has witnessed in his nearly 30-year career.

Iain Stewart, president of the Public Health Agency of Canada, did not clarify whether he intends to adhere to a parliamentary request for him to appear before the House of Commons on Monday to receive an “admonishment” by the Speaker.

The extremely rare reprimand, requested as part of an opposition motion, comes after PHAC has declined for weeks to provide documents to a parliamentary committee that might explain why two scientists were fired from Canada's highest-security infectious disease lab earlier this year.

Stewart and other federal officials say providing such uncensored information could amount to a breach of security law, including of the Privacy Act. That has in turn put the longtime civil servant in an especially difficult position, he said, balancing concerns between defending national security and meeting the will of Parliament.

“I'm the person who signs the packet or provides the documents and, hence, I find myself in this extraordinary situation in this 27 th year of my career,” Stewart told the House of Commons health committee on Friday.

“It's not the exercise of my choice that's putting me here. It's the obligations of my job, and making the representations of my organization, guided by the advice that was provided by the experts.”

His testimony comes amid an intensified focus on the operations of the National Microbiology Lab (NML) in Winnipeg, the only level-4 security infectious disease facility in Canada, equipped to handle some of the world's deadliest pathogens.

Two scientists — Dr. Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng — were fired from the NML in January for undisclosed reasons amid an RCMP investigation. At the same time, foreign affairs experts and former intelligence experts have raised concerns over collaborations between the Winnipeg lab and Chinese researchers, including at least one researcher with ties to China's People's Liberation Army (PLA).

The public health agency supplied documents to a special House of Commons committee on Canada-china relations that detailed the laboratory's operations, albeit with redactions. Earlier this week, House Speaker Anthony Rota ruled that the government's unwillingness to supply uncensored documents amounted to a defiance of the will of Parliament.

Stewart on Friday said he made the decision to withhold documents on the advice of officials in the Justice Department. He said he has not spoken with anyone in the office of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the matter.

“I've had no conversations with anybody in the Prime Minister's Office on this topic. And I have not had discussions with my minister's office with respect to the intent to comply, on Monday.”

He said the ruling that his department was in contempt of Parliament does not absolve him of the need to adhere to the Privacy Act and other laws, saying “that's been the challenge in this file.”

Opposition members on the heath committee blasted Stewart for withholding the documents, citing past rulings that have found the right of Parliament to compel documents “supersedes statutory obligations.”

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner charged Stewart with making a determination about the supplying of documents that wasn't his to make.

“Are you aware that Parliament is supreme and that your opinion is immaterial in this regard?” she asked.

NDP MP Don Davies rejected claims that the supplying of documents would impact national security whatsoever, considering safeguards the committee had put in place to protect sensitive information. Members of the Canada-china committee would review the documents in private, and any necessary redactions would still be made by the House law clerk, he said.

“Those documents will be redacted for national security — just not by you, by the law clerk.”

THOSE DOCUMENTS WILL BE REDACTED FOR NATIONAL SECURITY — JUST NOT BY YOU.