Poilievre claims Trudeau is covering up lapses at high-security lab, PM accuses rival of spewing conspiracies

Facing questions about how scientists who were intentionally sharing information with China were cleared to work at a Winnipeg lab studying deadly diseases, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau deflected criticism to his chief political rival and accused the Conservative leader of weaponizing national security.

During a Thursday news conference in Thunder Bay, Ont., Trudeau was asked how scientists working on high-security viruses at the Winnipeg-based National Microbiology Lab were able to collaborate with the People's Republic of China.

After a years-long fight for access, the federal government dumped hundreds of pages of documents about the dismissal of Dr. Xiangguo Qiu and her husband Keding Cheng. The two were marched out of the facility in July 2019 and were stripped of their security clearances. Their dismissals were announced in January 2021.

The documents show Canada's intelligence agency conducted multiple security screenings and determined Qiu «intentionally» shared scientific information with China, potentially putting people's health in jeopardy.

«Dr. Qiu represents a very serious and credible danger to the government of Canada as a whole and in particular at facilities considered high-security due to the potential for theft of dangerous materials attractive to terrorist and foreign entities that conduct espionage to infiltrate and damage the economic security of Canada,» wrote the Public Health Agency of Canada in 2020.

The RCMP says it's still investigating the matter. Trudeau said he's also asked his national security adviser to look into what happened at the lab and to make recommendations.

«We know… that increasingly countries like China and others are trying to either influence or get secrets out of our country