Thank you.
I have to thank my colleague Darren Fisher for his very succinct examination of the vaccine issue.
I have to also thank my Conservative colleagues for citing me, so that way I get my voice in twice. Not only do I say it myself, but I get the Conservatives to say what I said earlier, which is great for me.
Let me clarify something about that. That was early on in the pandemic. That was in an internal email which came out, I gather, because of the House motion, but it was from one Liberal MP to the Liberal COVID committee, and that was related to the ventilator issue. I was concerned that we didn't have enough ventilators. Am I going to say something to my own government, to my own party, when I have the health concerns of my constituents in mind? Damn right I am. Do you know what? No one in the party has yet given me much grief over that. Certainly, it would be a sad state of affairs if you couldn't send emails making suggestions to your colleagues and to people within the party. What is criticism? Criticism is just saying, “I think there's a better way we can do things than the way we are.” We then have to worry that potentially, because of these kinds of motions, it will go public. What are you supposed to do, not send such things to your own party? Are you supposed to stay quiet when you see things happen? I don't think that's in anybody's best interests. I will continue to look after the interests of my constituents.
Let me just clarify another thing, as per Darren Fisher's comment. I'm not a lawyer. I was never called to the bar. I did do my law degree and I did a master's in law—in fact, in global health law, which was, up until the pandemic, a particularly obscure area of law but now it suddenly seems to be fairly important.
With respect to the vaccines, I'm going to speak a little bit more about that. To go back to the issue at hand, the Conservatives say, “Well, why can't we know the details of the contract? Is the contract that flimsy that if we were to reveal the details it would jeopardize our supply?” It's been a long time since I did contract law, I have to admit. I never practised contract law as Mr. Davies did, so I can't say I'm any great expert on contract law. You know, I was probably, at the time, a pretty poor student of contract law; however, there is something called breach of contract, as I recall. I mean, there are contractual obligations that one is required to follow, and if you don't follow the contractual obligations, you're held in breach of contract.
One of the contractual obligations in our contract with the vaccine producers is a privacy clause, a confidentiality clause. Don Davies, in what I think was perhaps one of the most brilliant questions I've heard anybody ask, not just in these kinds of meetings but ever, said, “Can you reveal the terms of the confidentiality clause?”, which I thought was an absolutely brilliant question. That just goes to show that we don't even know what is in that confidentiality clause.
Even through a committee like this, through the Government of Canada, would revealing at least parts of that contract put us in breach of the contract? I don't know. My guess is that, since there hasn't been a pandemic before and there hasn't been an issue like this before, that kind of issue, whether we would be in breach of contract, would be something that someone like the Supreme Court of Canada would have to come up with an answer to. Do we want to chance it? Do we want to roll the dice? Maybe we would lose but maybe we wouldn't.
The other thing I was going to say about this was that, regardless of whether or not you're in breach of contract, this market for vaccines at the moment is absolutely 100% a seller's market, and certainly the vaccine companies could find other buyers for the vaccines. Do you really want to give them an excuse and an opportunity?
My guess is that right now—given that vaccines are such a hot commodity that in places apparently trucks containing vaccines are being robbed as people try to get them—the vaccine producers could find a higher price for the vaccines, so do you really want to give them that opportunity? Do you want to give them the business case? Do you want to give them the legal case to say we are in breach of contract and the Government of Canada hasn't been very favourable to the vaccine companies? Do you want to give them the opportunity?
I don't think so. You quoted me earlier about criticizing my government. I'm not just saying this because I'm a Liberal. I'm saying it because I believe it. I don't think this is the time to get macho and start demanding things of people we are dependent on. We are dependent on the vaccine producers and that's unfortunate. We are dependent on them, but let me say a bit about the fact that we are dependent upon them.
Why are we dependent upon them? Why would that be? In fact, there was a time in our history when we would have been in a much better position in terms of producing vaccines. We had Connaught Laboratories. I went to U of T. I don't know who else went to U of T, but I recall I used to run by Connaught Laboratories regularly. It's on Spadina Avenue. Connaught Laboratories, for many years, produced vaccines. I think it produced diphtheria antitoxin. It produced insulin at cost and sent it around the world. It sounded like, to begin with, it was maybe the only place in the world that produced insulin. It was a non-profit organization.
Subsequent to that, Connaught for a while was owned by the Government of Canada. Guess who sold it off. It was Mulroney who originally sold it off. The Conservatives are asking why we don't have the vaccine-manufacturing capacity. Look in the mirror. Maybe you'll see the answer.
Also, subsequent to that, there were a whole bunch of pharmaceutical companies that had a presence in Canada and that closed. For example, there was AstraZeneca in 2007, Johnson & Johnson in 2010, Teva Pharmaceuticals in 2011, and Boehringer Ingelheim in 2013. I had to look this up on Wikipedia. Who was Prime Minister during that period of time? I think it was a Conservative. Former prime minister Harper was there.
Now, I don't want to play the political game too much and say that the fact that we have no vaccine manufacturing capacity is all because of the Conservatives. For all I know, had the Liberals been in power, the same thing would have happened. I don't know, but I would note that it seems there was a massive loss of companies that could produce pharmaceuticals and vaccines that occurred under Conservative governments.
Furthermore, what did we do when this started? From that letter you cited me on, I was right there at the beginning, advocating—