Thank you, Chair.
Before I move the motion, I want to note that I am going to add, right off the bat, the Public Health Agency of Canada to the witnesses I'm going to request. I think we missed them, and I think they will be best positioned to provide details on the Auditor General's report.
With that, I move:
That the Committee hold a meeting to invite the Minister of Health, Minister of Public Services and Procurement, and the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada Theresa Tam, and the head of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization, and the head of the Public Health Agency of Canada to discuss recent COVID-19 developments including, but not limited to,
the recent Auditor General's Report entitled; Report 8: Pandemic Preparedness, Surveillance, and Border Control Measures,
emerging issues related to the AstraZeneca vaccine,
new evidence regarding COVID-19 vaccine dosing timeline recommendations in Canada,
concerns surrounding possible vaccine supply shortages due to export restrictions by the European Union and India,
and the impact of above issues on COVID-19 modelling projections; and
That the meeting be at least three hours in length, that the Ministers listed above appear for no fewer than 2 hours and that appropriate government officials appear for the last hour, that each of the invited witnesses give prepared remarks no longer than seven minutes in length to ensure adequate time for questions to be posed by committee members, and, that this meeting be held on or before the end of day on Wednesday, April 7th 2021.
I'm happy to provide comments on rationale, but I think the motion speaks for itself. The Auditor General's report raises a lot of questions for us to address as a committee. There's been a lot of coverage in recent days of decisions related to the AstraZeneca vaccine and how that may or may not affect vaccine supply and rollout, and there are still outstanding questions on clarity with regard to the other issues that are contained in the matter therein.