Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Given the limited time, I want to focus on the Medicago vaccine company and its production of a Covifenz vaccine. I'll direct my question to Oxfam, because their representative mentioned concerns about Canada being able to meet its COVAX obligations. That was Ms. Sarosi, I think.
As you may be aware, the Government of Canada provided a SIF grant of $173 million to Medicago to produce a made-in-Canada vaccine, which was intended for a number of purposes. One was to enable Canada to meet its COVAX obligations. This was confirmed by Minister Sajjan in media articles. It was denied by the public service when I questioned the public service about it in the last meeting about vaccine equity.
Do you have any concerns about that? The WHO has said specifically that Covifenz will not be approved for emergency use. In fact, it went so far as to say that “there is a fundamental and irreconcilable conflict between the tobacco industry's interests and public health policy interests”. Why did it say that? It said that because Philip Morris International, which is a tobacco company, owns a roughly one-third stake in Medicago.
Could you comment on that situation?