First of all, Mr. Cumming, thank you for welcoming me. I look forward to working with you. You and I already had a conversation. This is really my stuff.
Let us look back to when this all started. We all know that on March 11 the World Health Organization declared a pandemic. From that time to today, we have about 234 vaccine candidates around the world. On the advice of the vaccine task force—to be more specific to your question—we did look at the candidate that you mentioned, but this was for about three months, something like April to May to August. After that, we discontinued the discussion.
Even before that—and I think that's important for Canadians who are watching—within 12 days of the World Health Organization's declaring a pandemic, we were investing $192 million in biomanufacturing here in Canada. Within a month, we had invested close to $792 million.
My point is just to put that in context for Canadians watching. When there are 234 vaccine candidates in the world, we rely on science, and we rely on the advice of experts. The episode that you're talking about was a very short episode in a very long process. We looked at that for about three months, but then we decided to discontinue the discussion.