House Speaker Rota files motion in Federal Court, defends parliamentary privilege on firing of two Winnipeg scientists

Following the historic reprimand of Canada’s head of the Public Health Agency, Iain Stewart, who repeatedly refused to provide the Canada-China relations committee with copies of the unredacted documents, Stewart advised Attorney General David Lametti in a notice under the Canada Evidence Act that the information requested contained sensitive or potentially injurious information, and could not be released. The documents pertained to the transfer of Ebola and Henipah viruses to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology in March 2019, and the role Qiu specifically had.

This led to a court application by the attorney general that requested these documents remain redacted. "Those officials are following the law. PHAC is following the law," said Lametti.

According to the National Post, House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota said the federal government’s attempt to prohibit the disclosure of records on Qiu and Cheng from Canada’s highest-security laboratory demonstrated disregard for the parliamentary privilege of other elected representatives. Without pushback, this would have granted members of parliament the power to send for the "persons, papers and records" needed to carry out their duties.

Rota previously said he would fight "tooth and nail" to defend the integrity of the House in a "non-partisan manner."

He filed a notice of motion Thursday in Federal Court to defend the House, particularly the parliamentary privileges of his colleagues. "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," said Rota.

"Under our system of democratic government, the House has unfettered discretion and authority in exercising this power. A contrary determination would be inconsistent with an essential feature of Canadian parliamentary democracy and the separation of powers," he said: "Only Parliament itself has the authority to abrogate, modify or limit its parliamentary privileges."

Rota’s notice indicated that neither the executive nor the judicial branches had the authority to question, overrule, modify, control or review the exercise of parliamentary privileges.

He also made clear that Parliament expressed no intention to take seriously the application filed by the attorney general. The attorney general’s application "seeks to engage the court in exceeding its legitimate sphere of activity and to interfere with the exclusive jurisdiction of the House over the exercise of its privileges," argued the Speaker, adding that the section of the Canada Evidence Act referenced could not modify or limit the House’s privileges.

Rota asked that the attorney general’s application be struck out. Lametti has yet to respond nor provide a set date to hear the Speaker’s motion.