No, that is a matter for government procurement. It is the same as a matter for research funding. I have submitted over the years. I have received large amounts of research funding over the years, and I've also been denied research funding over the years, and it's the luck of the draw. It's not that somebody came back to me and said “it's pretty good but it could be better”. You're either in or you're out, and it's the same for government procurement. There are very clear processes to make sure it's fair. They do not go back and give people a second chance. As it turns out, none of them passed the bar.
At the same time, going back to the capacity issue, three or four years ago, whenever this process started, Frank and I were both part of the discussion at the time, of interest in the Government of Canada partnering with the Gates Foundation on an initiative. The Gates Foundation identified at that time that there appeared to be a gap in terms of a contract manufacturing facility for small trial lots of vaccine. As part of the due diligence, because again, time passes, you need to continually check that, which they did. The subsequent study identified—as has been our practical experience in the National Microbiology Laboratory in terms of getting our own vaccine trial lot produced, and as has been the experience of others around the world who actually do it, as opposed to those who talk about it—that it's there. The study actually confirmed that.
Given that we had none that passed the bar and we had a study that showed that the previous capacity gap had been filled, to me it was a very simple decision of how best to spent $82 million: Is it on another facility that may or may not be used; or is it on other initiatives that actually could address the issue of a successful vaccine, which is tremendously difficult, against HIV?
In terms of the subsequent question, about what do we do, we're in active consultation with the Gates Foundation, with stakeholders and others, to try to figure it out, but quite honestly this process is delaying us from that. The sooner whatever needs to be done here can be resolved, it will allow us to move more quickly on the next steps in terms of the Canadian HIV vaccine initiative.