Mr. Chair, I was there, right at the beginning, advocating for things that were, in my opinion, as I said in that letter, in the best interests of Canada. In fact, the people from VIDO-InterVac, at the University of Saskatchewan, contacted me, because they wanted, through my membership on the health committee, to get out the idea that they wanted the government to help them build a facility that could produce vaccines. The company rightly identified the fact that we would eventually get to a point where there would be a vaccine, but Canada had no vaccine-producing capacity. They asked our government for assistance and, subsequently, we funded VIDO-InterVac at the University of Saskatchewan for $46 million.
In addition, our government gave $170 million to the National Research Council in order to build a large-scale biologics manufacturing centre. We invested $25 million in Precision NanoSystems, a Canadian biotech firm, in order to improve our capacity to produce RNA vaccines. We gave VBI Vaccines in Ottawa up to $156 million and gave money to IMV, a Dartmouth pharmaceutical, and Medicago, which is in the process of developing a vaccine. We gave money to all of these various vaccine producers to try to get out of the position we are in now, which is dependent upon foreign companies, foreign pharmaceuticals and this kind of rat race where everyone in the world is trying to get hold of the vaccines.
We wanted to be able to be in a position where we had control over our own supply of vaccines, but unfortunately, science isn't something that happens overnight, and production takes time, and we are in that situation. We are dependent on these companies. Again, do we really want to roll the dice?
As for the public, whom do you want to believe? Do you want to believe a government that says we'd be in breach of contract? Do you want to believe a government that says that revealing these details could harm our vaccine supply, or do you want to believe the opposition? I don't want to roll the dice. My parents are waiting for the vaccine. My brother has some serious underlying health issues, and I want him to get the vaccine. It's in the interests of all Canadians to get the vaccines, and I think doing anything to jeopardize that supply.... I think that this motion, in antagonizing the vaccine producers, is something that could potentially jeopardize our supply of vaccines.
Once again, I do not agree with this motion.