You know that you’re on to something when Justin Trudeau throws around accusations of racism.

That’s where Erin O’Toole and the Conservatives found themselves on Wednesday as they asked questions about security at Canada’s top microbiology lab and the partnership with scientists tied to the Chinese military.

Apparently, in the eyes of the prime minister, asking what he’s doing to ensure espionage isn’t happening at Canada’s most dangerous and most secure lab is an anti-Asian hate crime.

“In order to work at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, you need a security clearance. In order to work with human pathogens, like Ebola, in that lab, you need a higher level of security clearance,” O’Toole said. “Can the prime minister tell this House, how a person with deep connections to the Chinese military obtained a high-level Canadian security clearance?”

Trudeau didn’t even attempt to answer the question but spoke about how he couldn’t comment on two scientists who were recently fired from the lab over security concerns first raised by CSIS. I think that given what takes place at the lab, Canadians deserve to know more about these two scientists but also about others, like Chinese military scientists, being given access.

That is what O’Toole was asking about.

As the Globe and Mail reported last week, there have been many collaborations between the NML in Winnipeg and researchers from China, many with ties to the government or military. Feihu Yan, a researcher with the People’s Liberation Army’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences, was cleared to work at the Level 4 facility, the only one of its kind in Canada.

Most Canadian scientists couldn’t get into that lab, but a scientist with the Chinese military was given clearance. Now two of the people he worked with, Dr. Xiangguo Qiu and her biologist husband, Keding Cheng, have been fired with claims that CSIS was concerned they were handing over intellectual property to the Chinese government and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.