Feds drop quest to have court stop release of documents on scientists’ firing

The Trudeau government is dropping its quest to have a court prohibit the disclosure of documents related to the firing of two scientists at Canada’s highest security laboratory.

It served the Federal Court with a notice of discontinuance late Tuesday afternoon.

In so doing, it’s avoiding a legal showdown over the long-standing principle that the House of Commons is supreme and has unfettered power to demand the production of any documents it sees fit, no matter how sensitive and regardless of privacy or national security laws.

Opposition parties joined forces earlier this year to pass a Commons order demanding that the Public Health Agency of Canada turn over all unredacted documents related to the firing of scientists Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng.

The pair were escorted out of Winnipeg’s National Microbiology Laboratory in July 2019 and subsequently fired last January.

The government applied to the Federal Court of Canada in June to prevent release of the documents, which it maintained would be injurious to international relations or to national defence or national security.

However, the Commons order to produce the documents, along with all other business before the chamber, was terminated when Parliament was dissolved Sunday for a federal election.

Consequently, Justice Department spokesperson Melissa Gruber said Tuesday that “no purpose would be served” by continuing the court case.

Pursuing the case would have put Liberal MP Anthony Rota in an awkward position as he campaigns for re-election in the northern Ontario riding of Nipissing-Timiskaming.1:03O’Toole says Conservatives will not participate in committee investigation of Winnipeg lab firingsO’Toole says Conservatives will not participate in committee investigation of Winnipeg lab firings – Jun 17, 2021

As Speaker of the House of Commons, he was the named respondent in the court case. He had pledged to fight the Liberal government’s court application.STORY CONTINUES BELOW ADVERTISEMENThttps://7d0e6aff96d2f58b31d75222a0632722.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

Indeed, in his most recent submission to the court, Rota asked it to dismiss the case, arguing that the courts have no jurisdiction to review the exercise of its parliamentary privilege to send for the “persons, papers and records” it deems necessary.

“This constitutionally entrenched power is fundamental to our system of parliamentary democracy, and to Parliament’s critical role in acting as the `grand inquest of the nation’ and in holding the executive branch of government to account,” Rota said in a notice of motion.

The executive and the judicial branches do not have the jurisdiction to question, overrule, modify, control or review the exercise of this privilege by the House, he added.

Gruber said the Speaker’s motion to strike the case is now “unnecessary.”