In my view, what we want is a global strategy for this, so that the most vulnerable people in all countries get immunized to decrease the rate of spread. One of the things we know is that the faster the virus spreads and the more people it infects, the higher the likelihood that it's going to mutate.
That's one of the reasons we're seeing mutations coming from countries like Brazil, South Africa, the U.K. and possibly the United States. These are places where the virus has spread very rapidly and is widespread.
If we concentrate our immunization efforts, as we seem to be doing, on the rich countries, and then go to the low and middle-income countries, we're ensuring the development of mutations. Some of those mutations may be resistant to vaccines.
Canada should show leadership. Canada can't do this alone, but it can certainly show other countries the right course. The right course is for Canada to support the COVID-19 technology pool, to give more support to COVAX and to announce when we're going to be donating our excess vaccines to other countries.