Public Accounts Committee on March 23rd, 2023

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Okay, sir, but to be clear, how many doses were given to the Canadian government to be distributed?

[Toshifumi Tada]

In the contract...?

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

How many doses of your vaccine did you actually, physically distribute to the Canadian government?

[Toshifumi Tada]

No doses were distributed by Medicago.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Okay. That's no doses for $773 million, and Medicago still owns the intellectual property, the physical building and the manufacturing capability, even here in Canada.

[Toshifumi Tada]

Yes.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Wow. That's great.

In the contracts you have signed with the Canadian government, could you clarify those things? I wasn't sure what you were talking about at the very end. It seemed you were talking about some redaction of those documents.

Can you clarify that once again for me, please, sir?

[Toshifumi Tada]

The parts that were redacted in our access to information response in February 2021 was information relating to pricing, quantity, facility locations and availability plans. We thought this had a direct commercial application. That is the reason why we requested the redaction of those documents.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Did you say the pricing is redacted in those documents?

[Toshifumi Tada]

It was pricing, facility locations and the quantities, which is the key information that should not be utilized by our competitors.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Okay. Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Mrs. Shanahan, you have the floor for six minutes, please.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses here with us today for their availability. Like my colleague, I'd also like to thank them for their hard work, especially at the beginning of the pandemic when no one in the world knew what we were in for.

I recall in my constituency of Châteauguay—Lacolle, we watched on television as the first shipments of vaccine came in. The vaccine clinics were very well organized in our area. We were extremely happy that we could be vaccinated and receive booster shots. I'm not a health expert, but I do understand that vaccination is very important for saving lives. So once again, I'd like to thank our witnesses for their work.

The Auditor General reported on all of these public health and public services activities, including vaccine procurement.

She found that the federal government had responded to the urgency of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and secured COVID-19 vaccine doses so that everyone in Canada who chose to be vaccinated could be. Vaccines were needed quickly to reduce Canadians' risk of serious illness, hospitalization and death from COVID-19.

The Auditor General herself was quoted as saying, “In 2020, Public Services and Procurement Canada established advance purchase agreements with 7 companies that showed potential to develop viable vaccines.” Signing advance purchase agreements increased the chances that the government would obtain enough doses to meet Canada's needs, recognizing that this approach brought the possibility that Canada would have a surplus of doses if all vaccines were eventually approved.

That's what this committee is about. Once a policy or an approach is adopted by the government, it's about looking at how the implementation was carried out and whether the outcomes were achieved. Of course, it's to make sure, at the same time, that the Auditor General has all the tools she needs to do her job.

As the witnesses are aware, we heard further testimony from the Auditor General as well as public health and Public Services and Procurement Canada in February of this year regarding these findings, including issues around surplus vaccines and data sharing between different levels of government. During this meeting, the AG said in response to a question about access to confidential documents, “Yes, we had access to all the contracts, all the information, all the corrections and all the amendments”, confirming to members that access to documents was not a problem in her audit work.

Now, we are all aware that we're here today because we have a request to have access to unredacted vaccine contracts between your companies and our government, because apparently, according to various media reports, elected representatives in other countries have had this access.

I'd like to ask this of each one of you in turn: Can you provide our committee with an update on the level of disclosures that your companies have provided to other countries for their vaccine contracts?

Perhaps I can start with Madam Gauthier.

[Patricia Gauthier]

Thank you very much for the question.

Moderna globally has consistently provided redacted versions of agreements when requested to parliaments. No unredacted versions of agreements have been provided to parliaments in the world, and this has been a consistent position that has been taken by the company.

Thank you.

[Najah Sampson]

Similarly, Pfizer's position is to not provide unredacted contracts, and we have not done so across the globe.

[Jean-Pierre Baylet]

Thank you for your question, Mrs. Shanahan.

To our knowledge, only redacted versions were released by Sanofi in other countries.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

All right.

Have any of your companies provided completely unredacted vaccine—

I'm sorry. I forgot the gentleman from Medicago, but, of course, you've already agreed to provide a redacted contract.

[Toshifumi Tada]

Yes and, by the way, we've contracted only with Canada and no other country.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You have 20 seconds left.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

What is this that we're hearing about other countries such as Brazil, Colombia and so on? I don't have much time. I think my colleagues will pick up on that, but how did these contracts become public?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

We'll have to leave that in suspension, but I'm sure, Mrs. Shanahan, we'll be coming back to that important question.

Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné, you have six minutes.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To the witnesses, I want to begin by thanking you for coming in or joining us today via videoconference.

As the mover of this motion, I feel it's important to clarify that you are not on hostile ground here. I also feel it's important to reaffirm that we are extremely grateful to the pharmaceutical companies for the outstanding work they did during the pandemic.

I also want to reiterate that accountability, which is a routine process, is among the exceptional measures adopted by the government. It's in this context that we followed up with the Auditor General. Being bound by law to confidentiality, the Auditor General was quick to confirm to us that she could not answer questions about the contracts with pharmaceutical companies.

Therefore, to do our job properly as parliamentarians, like we've done before on many other committees and in many other circumstances, we requested access to the contracts in camera. As the Chair reaffirmed, we've taken the necessary precautions to keep the confidential information confidential.

In my view, there may be confusion about the role of parliamentarians and their privileges as such, or perhaps a lack of understanding of case law in the House of Commons, but also with respect to Canada's Access to Information Act.

However, please be aware that this committee is the first step. We were sensitive to the confidential aspects of the contracts, but we have also used many other means to access information in the past.

At this point, I'd like to emphasize that we don't wish to take this further into the courts, because the case law would rule in our favour anyway.

On the other hand, we're in a constructive process, and we simply want to make sure that there were no major abuses on either side, that no mistakes were made and, most importantly, to learn from any mistakes we might have made. If we're ever faced with another phenomenon as significant as the pandemic, we don't want to make the same mistakes and we want to be able to establish fair contracts and so on.

I don't know if you read the response from our law clerk, who by the way is here today and wishes to remind everyone what “in camera” means. I will give you an important example. There have been several instances where committees have requested access to confidential documents. In some cases, even the government didn't want to disclose the documents, and the House ordered it to produce them.

It might be important to cite another case here involving AstraZeneca, which unfortunately could not be here today. In 2005, a competitor used the Access to Information Act to access information and a contract. However, the Federal Court judge pointed out that only trade secrets relating to processes and manufacturing had to be redacted. It should be noted that there is a difference between industrial trade secrets and trade secrets, and the same distinction is made in international trade agreements. Business information is not excluded under the Access to Information Act.

In a number of letters received to date from chambers of commerce and pharmaceutical associations, and even some opening remarks heard at this committee's meetings, some concerns have been brought to our attention that this would degrade the business climate. I'd like to take this opportunity to address those concerns. In my opinion, those statements are exaggerating the potential repercussions. When past contracts have been reviewed and made public, which is not the case here, the business climate has not deteriorated.

When the information on AstraZeneca was made public, we saw no deterioration. In fact, the company just announced a $500 million investment in Canada only a month ago.

Many people in the pharmaceutical community agree that in Canada and Quebec, both because of the workforce and all the resources we have, there is a healthy life sciences business climate. So this would not set a dangerous precedent.

As I said before, we're operating in a constructive way and we're only seeking some accountability, which is really important. It's important because—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You have 30 seconds left.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

The more tension there is about this, the more suspicion will grow. However, we don't want to get to that point. We want to work with you in the spirit of cooperation and confidentiality to avoid any erosion of trust in our institutions and in the pharmaceutical companies. I feel it's important to reiterate that point.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Your time is up. Thank you.