Years after scientists lost security clearances at top lab, there are still concerns about who has access

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) says it has tightened security of its Level-4 National Micro‐ biology Lab (NML) in Win‐ nipeg years after two sci‐ entists were escorted out over concerns about secu‐ rity breaches, but experts worry the back door may still be open to graduate and postdoctoral students affiliated with the Univer‐ sity of Manitoba.

"We had scientists from a hostile country not only po‐ tentially sharing highly prob‐ lematic material … but in the process, likely, it appears China picked up key opera‐ tional and procedural knowhow from Canada," said Christian Leuprecht, a secu‐ rity and defence expert who teaches political science and economics at The Royal Mili‐ tary College of Canada.

He says lax security proto‐ cols are a problem "every day at Canadian research institu‐ tions. And we are now slowly, slowly starting to change the institutional culture."

A Level-4 facility is equipped to work with the most serious and deadly hu‐ man and animal disease, making NML one of only a handful of labs in North America capable of handling pathogens like Ebola, which require the highest level of containment.

Many of the NML scien‐ tists also have appointments at the University of Manitoba (U of M), which means some of their students have access to the country's highest-secu‐ rity infectious disease lab through joint research. That's how researchers with con‐ nections to the Chinese gov‐ ernment and military gained access to the lab.

U of M says it currently has no formal affiliation agreement in place between the NML and departments offering graduate studies, re‐ lying only on a policy that is meant to govern the work of adjunct professors.

Supervisors are supposed to monitor their students whenever they are in the

NML, but that hasn't always happened, as shown in the CSIS intelligence assessment of the two fired scientists, Xi‐ angguo Qiu and her hus‐ band, Keding Cheng. That as‐ sessment was released by the federal government last week after years of demands for transparency.

WATCH | Mystery around fired scientists points to larger issues at high-security lab:

'No smoking gun'

"These scientists really were regarded as stars," said Wesley Wark, a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Internation‐ al Governance Innovation. He noted that "no red flags were raised" about their connec‐ tions with Chinese scientists, visiting Chinese researchers or institutions in China con‐ nected to the military.

"There's no real smoking gun in this documentation," he said. "There's nothing to say that one of these scien‐ tists provided China with a military pathogen or a weaponized virus or … mate‐ rial was stolen by visitors."

However, Wark says it shows an attitude that scien‐ tists are above security con‐ siderations that universities and research entities have to address.

Part of the investigation looked at how restricted visi‐ tors under Qiu's supervision shared scientific data to unauthorized people using personal email accounts and USB keys.

Scholars connected to China's military gained access

The investigation found Qiu brought several postdoctoral scholars to the U of M as vis‐ iting scientists, who then gained access to the NML. One was a research assistant at the Academy of Military Sciences' Beijing Institute of Biotechnology, which studies biological technology for the

People's

(PLA).

The woman, whose name is redacted from the docu‐ ments, held a Chinese public affairs passport reserved for civil servants and staff of public institutions.

Liberation Army

She was a restricted visi‐ tor at the NML and was living at Qiu and Cheng's second home in Winnipeg. The inves‐ tigation found a photo of her conducting laboratory work in her PLA uniform and her mentor was a major general of the PLA, a top virologist at the Chinese Academy of Mili‐ tary Sciences.

LISTEN | What do re‐ cently released documents reveal about Winnipeg lab affair?

Investigators found docu‐ ments from Chinese sources suggesting that Qiu "will build a team" in Canada with the goal of benefiting Chi‐ nese science, and that Chi‐ na's Level 4 lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, would contribute funds and "office conditions" so Qiu could con‐ tinue "normal operation" of her Canadian-funded re‐ search at the NML.

Qui said she was never told about any potential con‐ flicts of interest between re‐ searchers she was bringing in through the university and her work at the NML.

According to the report, Qiu explained she didn't know her restricted visitors were left unsupervised until the administrative investiga‐ tion, but said she understood the importance of "why this should not have happened."

When asked about collab‐ oration with agencies and government institutions of another country, the investi‐ gation found Qiu was "eva‐ sive in responding honestly and truthfully until presented with the facts and evidence."

For example, the investi‐ gation found she co-au‐ thored a research paper with a serving officer in the Acade‐ my of Military Medical Sci‐ ences (AMMS), an organiza‐ tion linked to China's military.

Qiu also collaborated with and sponsored other visiting scientists from the Beijing In‐ stitute of Biotechnology that worked with her at the U of M, or through her at the NML. In one case, she asked to have a colleague's affilia‐ tion with AMMS removed from a paper.

"This was a direct attempt to disassociate herself and the student in her charge from an outside organiza‐ tion," the report said.

Restricted visitors tried to remove vials from lab

The investigation into Qiu's husband Cheng involved the potential breach of security policies in relation to studen‐ ts under his supervision, some of whom attempted to improperly remove materials from the lab.

In a February 2019 inter‐ view, Cheng said he was

hosting scholars from his home province in China, with funding and collaboration with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Preven‐ tion. He claimed he didn't know researchers he super‐ vised were removing materi‐ als from the NML, although he remembered one trying to take out two Styrofoam con‐ tainers.

That same month, investi‐ gators interviewed a technici‐ an who'd been a visiting re‐ searcher at the U of M since February 2018, working un‐ der Qiu. He said he con‐ ducted experiments at the NML related to the Ebola virus, DNA and protein. He also said that the level-4 lab in China was trying to get the Ebola virus.

During the interview, the technician admitted to at‐ tempting to remove vials from the NML on Oct. 12, 2018, to bring them to the U of M lab. This was backed up by an NML security commis‐ sionaire, who told investiga‐ tors the technician, a re‐ stricted visitor (RV) with lim‐ ited security clearance, was unescorted by his supervisor.

In another interview in December 2019, Cheng stated that he "later learned the test tubes came from Dr. Xiangguo Qiu's lab and the RV had an urgent need for the test tubes at the Univer‐ sity of Manitoba because they work almost every weekend."

Repeated attempts to reach Qiu and Cheng for comment have been unsuc‐ cessful.

Threat of Chinese influ‐ ence

After tabling the documents from the investigation in Par‐ liament on Wednesday, Health Minister Mark Holland told reporters the threat of China's influence wasn't as well known in 2019.

He said while he did think security protocols were lax and there wasn't enough un‐ derstanding about the threat of foreign interference, he did believe "an earnest effort was made to adhere to those policies, but not with the rigour that was required."

Security expert Christian Leuprecht doesn't buy that.

He says that when Qiu and Cheng were escorted from the lab in 2019, it was already well known that China was systematically in‐ filtrating research and gov‐ ernment institutions and uni‐ versities around the world, so it was surprising that the government hadn't doubled down on security at those fa‐ cilities.

"And it is even more sur‐ prising that subsequently it took the government five years to come out with a re‐ search, security strategy and policy for research institu‐ tions," he said.

Improved security pro‐ tocols

Wesley Wark believes secu‐ rity protocols and policies protecting intellectual prop‐ erty at universities and re‐ search institutions have im‐ proved since 2019 because everyone is taking the issue more seriously.

In response to questions about its security protocols from CBC News, the Univer‐ sity of Manitoba's Office of Research Services said it doesn't do formal security screening on registered stu‐ dents or visiting students of other institutions, but that it will comply with a new feder‐ al policy on Sensitive Tech‐ nology Research and Affilia‐ tions coming into effect May 1.

The university does con‐ duct a "research security check" on grants involving collaboration with countries outside the Five Eyes intelli‐ gence alliance made up of

Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S., but doesn't have a "re‐ stricted foreign universities list." It says it tries to avoid "bias, racial profiling or unfair targeting" when assessing in‐ ternational partnerships.

The U of M says it aims to "facilitate open science and systematically assess and mitigate risks to protect re‐ searchers and their research from harm, theft and foreign interference."

PHAC said it has improved security at the NML as a re‐ sult of this case.

All guest researchers, stu‐ dents and employees go through a security screening process and must adhere to other security protocols, pro‐ cedures and policies.

Visitors must be escorted by someone with the appro‐ priate clearance at all times. Anyone without that clear‐ ance can't get into areas of the NML that hold sensitive information and assets.