Thank you, Madam Chair.
To our witnesses, thank you. You are, and your committee members are, all heroes, in my view. I think Canadians owe you an enormous debt of gratitude. I mean, I've had the opportunity to discuss on many occasions with our chief science adviser the nature of the work you are doing, she in her ex officio capacity on your task force. It is simply tremendous. I find it most regrettable how certain politicians and certain members of the media are choosing to politicize this for what I think are very short-term gains when you are really helping us look at the short-, medium- and long-term needs of our country around vaccines.
I want to get on the record the issue around any budgetary parameters. Were you in any way limited in your mandate in terms of looking at vaccines within the constraints of particular financial aspects, or was it just “best advice, money is no object”?