Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Happy new year to everyone. Yes, I have grown a moustache since you last saw me—just to clear up any confusion there may be.
That being said, the reason we're here today is a much more serious topic. It is the topic of the $150 million paid to Medicago and Mitsubishi by the Liberal government.
The concern that the Conservatives and, I believe—I will not speak for Madame Vignola—the Bloc share, because they did sign our letter of concern pursuant to Standing Order 106(4), is the fact that, when we read the redacted contracts that we've been provided with as a matter of public availability, what we don't see there is the reason why $150 million was provided to Medicago. What we heard from the Minister of Health and the president of Medicago was that this was a requirement under the advance purchase agreements or something similar to that.
When you read the redacted contracts, very clearly that is not there. Therefore, the concern that we have is this: Is there a problem with the veracity of the testimony given before this committee by the minister and by the president of Medicago, or is the problem related to the fact that the unredacted copies of the contract, among other valuable items to which we at this committee have not been privy, may potentially shine light onto this very serious loss of $150 million?
With that being said, we thought it important, on an urgent basis, to get everybody back. We all know the story of what has gone on here. Medicago had a partnership with Philip Morris International. Because of the WHO's framework on tobacco that was also signed by Canada, the WHO rejected the vaccine created by Medicago because, of course, Philip Morris International was one of the partners associated with the development program.
The difficulty that happened thereafter is not only that the federal government provide Medicago with $173 million in start-up costs, but that when Medicago closed, 600 jobs were lost in Quebec. The WHO rejected the vaccine, which Canada really wanted to give to the COVAX program, which is an entirely different story. Canada was the only developed country that took vaccines from the COVAX program because of our slow start with respect to getting domestically produced vaccines.
Therefore, what we were left with was the fact that, indeed, no vaccines were produced by Medicago in spite of the fact that multiple millions of dollars were provided to that company by the Trudeau Liberals in conjunction, perhaps, with their NDP partners. That being said, we do know very clearly that no vaccines were delivered, and Canadians were then on the hook for the full bill with nothing to show for it.
Thereafter, of course, Medicago closed its operations. Strangely enough, what happened then was that suddenly, in a very thick tome put out by public accounts, we saw a curious heading called “Losses of public money due to an offence, illegal act or accident”. In a four-inch tome, three-quarters of the way down, this $150 million was buried without any explanation. Because of that, we brought the president of Medicago and the Minister of Health to the committee, which sadly did not shed any light on the particular problem. That, of course, sent us home to review the contracts and to try desperately to understand why another $150 million was paid.
When the president of Medicago appeared at committee, he also stated very clearly that his company owned the building, owned the machinery inside and owned the intellectual property. Some of those things have changed since. That being said, that was his contention last spring. Here we are now, having the taxpayers of Canada on the hook for over $300 million.
I'll be perfectly transparent here. There is an unverified story that says that the parent company of Medicago, Mitsubishi—a multi-billion dollar, multinational company—paid $40 million back to the Government of Canada. Once again, it becomes unclear why that happened.
What we're asking for here on behalf of the taxpayers of Canada is clarity so that they can understand why their hard-earned tax dollars, in a fiscal environment that has seen inflation soar to 40-year highs, a fiscal environment in which we see them being $200 away from insolvency every month and a fiscal environment that sees mortgage costs having doubled and rent having doubled.... They are unable to put food on their tables and a roof over their heads. Also, as we see in Alberta, they're barely able to keep the heat on.
Those are the reasons why we find it incredibly necessary to call an urgent meeting of the Standing Committee on Health to hold all of those people to account for the actions associated with this particular loss of $300 million-plus of taxpayers' hard-earned money.
To that end, we have a motion to put forward to this committee. I'm happy to read it out. It's rather lengthy. I move:
That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(1)(a), this committee order the production of unredacted copies of the vaccine supply contract between the Government of Canada and Medicago Inc. dated November 13, 2020, and, the committee order the production of all contracts between Medicago Inc, and the Department of Innovation, Science and Industry, under the Strategic Innovation Fund regarding the development of the COVID vaccines and the capital investment in Medicago's manufacturing plant, and the committee order the production of all contracts between the Government of Canada, Medicago and the Aramis regarding the transfer of ownership of the former Medicago plant and the transfer of the intellectual property of Medicago's COVID vaccine, further, the committee agrees to a study, of at least six meetings, to examine these contracts, and that the following witnesses be invited:
(a) Mark Holland, Minister of Health;
(b) François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry;
(c) Assistant to the Deputy Minister of the Strategic Innovation Fund, Department of Innovation, Science and Industry;
(d) Officials from the Public Health Agency of Canada;
(e) the President of Medicago;
(f) the President of Aramis; and
(g) any other witnesses deemed relevant by the committee;
and, that the standing committee prepare a report with its findings for the House.
I have that. I can email it to the clerk if that's helpful. It could then be distributed.
Those are the concerns. I've tried to be fairly concise in outlining them. I know we haven't been at committee for a while, so I thought it germane to bring forward those issues and to make sure that the millions of people watching understand clearly why we need an urgent meeting to discuss the loss of funds and the requirements that are moving forward to understand very clearly where the $300 million went—with incredible transparency.
We ask this committee to consider this motion.
Chair, I will stop there. I apologize for not being there. I was on an airplane this morning. I sat on the airplane for an hour and then, I guess, they decided that I didn't need to be in Ottawa with you, Mr. Casey. I do apologize for not being there, but there was no flight out of Halifax to get me there.
With that, I will leave it. Please give me instruction if you would like me to email that to the clerk.