The $150 million is not lost. It resulted in a vaccine approved by Health Canada.
What happened subsequently is of interest. Again, since my colleagues like to refer to the media reports, I'd like to quote a February 2, 2023, report from CBC. It reads:
Then in March, the World Health Organization decided not to accept Medicago's COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, citing the company's ties to big tobacco. Marlboro cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris International was once a shareholder of Medicago, but divested all of its shares in late 2022.
Can the $150 million be accounted for? Yes. What was it invested in? It was invested in R and D. Did the R and D result in a vaccine being developed that was approved by Health Canada? Yes. Did the business go forward? No. Why? The World Health Organization didn't approve it because of ties to a tobacco organization, which meant that the vaccine that was manufactured was available domestically, but not internationally. That's therefore a business decision by Medicago and Mitsubishi, which is probably worthy of a study.
Now we come to the other part of this. There was $173 million also invested in Medicago for the site expansion, after the approval of the vaccine by Health Canada. It is worthy of study to see whether the $173 million actually went to the site expansion and what the status of that site expansion is.
When we look at this motion and see it's talking about “lost” rather than a business loss, it raises questions. When we see unfulfilled contracts, there are grounds for us to look and see whether the contract was fulfilled or not. The AG has done that. Whether it's $300 million.... It's not.
Also, the public accounts committee is actually doing this study. The notion of this study as it is in the motion is not acceptable to our side. Based on referring to the media, there are areas that the media has not had the opportunity to explore and that may potentially lead to misinformation.
I'm not going to make any comments on the other.... My colleagues talked about many other items, which we will deal with in the election in 2025.
I want to close by saying that I believe this is another tactic by our Conservative colleagues to delay the study of women's health. Today we were supposed to start the study of women's health. We have the children's health report that is not completed. We have the breast implant report that is due for its second version, with some very good recommendations, which we need to finalize. We have the PMPRB study, which is now going to get pushed back. We have the PPE study, and we know the fate of Bill C-293.
Mr. Chair, there are areas of concern in this motion. I'd like to look at a modified or amended version of this motion for us to be able to bring total clarity to the issue of where the $150 million was spent—we know who spent it and what it was spent on—and the state of the $170-million site expansion.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.