Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you again to the witnesses for being here. It's nice to see Mr. Tabah here. I worked with him prior to being elected.
I have a lot of questions about this. I do thank the minister for coming and speaking to us about the COVAX vaccines. This is at the behest of the motion I had brought forward with regard to Foreign Affairs, looking for more clarity on this, so I will start with a series of questions about COVAX. If we have time, I'll ask about the TRIPS waiver as well.
The minister has explained how COVAX works in some detail. Unfortunately, what I think we haven't been able to unpack here today is how the COVAX vaccine works if other countries, wealthy countries, aren't also making side deals with pharmaceutical companies for bilateral agreements.
Could the minister talk about how the Canadian government has reconciled the fact that it has made bilateral purchasing agreements—bilateral agreements equivalent to 10 times the doses, from I've heard, that Canadians will require—despite the fact that Dr. Tedros publicly announced that these advance purchases undermine COVAX's ability to secure adequate doses? The WHO is saying that because we've done this, because Canada has secured these doses, COVAX won't work as well. How does the minister reconcile that?