Thank you, Madam Chair.
Welcome everyone.
I would like to first say thank you to the members of the committee for providing the opportunity to speak here today on behalf of the University of Western Ontario.
Western, for those of you who don't know, is one of Canada's largest universities and one of the most successful in terms of research, development, and commercialization. It's one of Canada's leading academic health centres and very, very strong in terms of the life science sector. In support of the research and development work we do, including commercialization, we are very much appreciative of the funding provided by the federal granting councils, the CFI, and the support we receive, often in matching form, through original programming through the Province of Ontario and our industrial partners. We're also heavily engaged in training through graduate programs in a broad array of areas, particularly through graduate training.
We were attracted to the CHVI initiative for a variety of reasons, and I'll just list these briefly. One was certainly the existing work we do on HIV/AIDS, particularly through the development of AIDS and HIV vaccines; the strong ties we have forged with international partners in health promotion, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa; the strong local support we continue to develop and our ambitions with respect to further developing London and southwestern Ontario's capacity in terms of pharmaceutical and life science research and development; expertise in the operation and development of clinical trials; and the enthusiasm and support we have garnered from our international partners throughout the process.
Having said all that, I will say that the process through which we applied for the trial live vaccine facility was different from any other application process that we have witnessed to date. I would echo some of the comments from my colleagues from the University of Manitoba and also from Dr. Carver.
Through the request for qualifications round, Western was shortlisted with three other finalists to submit full proposal bids. We also believed, as my colleagues do, that Western's bid was extremely competitive, and if it had been awarded to us, I'm still confident that we could have made this facility an international magnet for vaccine research. We were also hopeful that should Western's bid not be successful, we might have an opportunity to work with whichever successful bidder might be named.
Certainly while we were disappointed that this was not the case, it was made known to us early on in the process, as we heard earlier, that should the Government of Canada or the Gates Foundation not wish to proceed, the competition would be null and void.
In summation, on behalf of the University of Western Ontario, I can tell you the entire community was excited by the prospect of landing what we thought would be a substantial piece of infrastructure for researchers around the globe in the race to find viable vaccines for HIV/AIDS and other diseases as well. We were disappointed that neither Western nor our competitors were successful in their bids. However, we understand and accept that the decisions being made by the government in collaboration with the Gates Foundation were entirely theirs to make.
I am very happy to answer any questions you may have, but I will conclude at that point.