When the funding renewal for the Halifax Security Forum comes up later this year, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan promised a House of Commons committee that he’ll “take a look at it.”

He vigorously denied a report by Politico, a U.S.-based publication, that the Liberal government was threatening to pull funding from one of this country’s marquee defence and security conferences because it was looking at giving Taiwan’s president a prestigious award.

“That is absolutely false,” Sajjan told the Canada-China Relations committee