PHAC head grilled on firing of two scientists

The president of the Public Health Agency of Canada has been given until the end of the week to explain why two Canadian government scientists were let go 18 months after being escorted from Canada's only Level 4 laboratory.

Iain Stewart told the special committee on Canada-China relations he can't go into details because of an ongoing RCMP investigation.

But after heated exchanges with opposition members of the committee, he agreed to seek legal counsel about whether he could give the committee details in confidence.

The committee agreed to give him until Friday to provide answers about why PHAC terminated the employment of Dr. Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, in January.

The pair were escorted out of the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg in July 2019 over what was described as a possible policy breach and administrative matter.

PHAC has said their departure had nothing to do with the fact that four months earlier, Qiu had been responsible for a shipment of Ebola and Henipah viruses to China's Wuhan Institute of Virology.