Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's good that the election is in 2025, so that my colleagues have a long runway to be able to get on the soapbox.
Let's get back to the facts.
I have fundamental issues with this Standing Order 106(4) motion for a study, starting with the fact that the motion says, “given recent media reports that the Public Health Agency of Canada lost over $300 million”. I'll stop there.
Our colleagues are constantly referring to the media. I'm going to go back to the media report that was out on November 3:
In a statement to National Post Friday, the press secretary for Health Minister Mark Holland, Chris Aoun, said the government made a $150 million non-refundable advance payment to Quebec-based Medicago early in the pandemic to fund development and reserve a number of doses of its eventual COVID-19 vaccine.
Then it says:
The “advance purchase agreement” was one of seven the government signed early in the pandemic with vaccine manufacturers to secure vaccine doses as soon as they were ready. At the time, it was not known which, if any, of the vaccines would pass Health Canada' approval process (most of them did).
I also want to refer back to the note that was sent to the committee, signed by five of our colleagues across, stating that the “Government's Public Health Agency is unable to explain how the agency lost $150 million”. The fact is that the explanation is there. It was not $150 million lost, but invested into research and development. It was not for an unfulfilled contract, because when you look at it, what was delivered was....
Again, since our colleagues refer to the media, I'd like to bring to the attention of our colleagues an article dated February 24, 2022. It says, “Medicago's plant-based COVID-19 vaccine is now approved by Health Canada, which will soon give Canadians the option of getting a homegrown shot against SARS-CoV-2.”
Now, my colleague across the aisle was bringing up the Auditor General. I'd like to acknowledge that the Auditor General reviewed all of the contracts and confirmed that there was no issue with any of those contracts being executed.
It was not $300 million. It was two investments. One was for $150 million for research and development, which resulted....
Dr. Ellis, would you like me to do exactly the same thing to you when you have the floor, laugh at you?