Obviously, it's an incredibly topical question. The Institute for New Economic Thinking released a report yesterday on this very topic. The president of CIGI, Rohinton Medhora, is part of the commission that was behind that report. I'd refer you to it. There are four points in it.
As you've indicated, patent rights and their enforcement are integral to our trading system. They give temporary monopolies to allow companies to take risks and to get paid for those risks. What this report really discusses is that in this case the pharma companies have received enormous support from governments, which in fact has mainly covered their R and D costs, and then they've benefited tremendously from public research.
I guess the question would be, should they be allowed to enforce patent rights in this particular instance, when there is obviously a global health emergency, a pandemic? There are measures for compulsory licensing built in. I can't comment on Canada's position. I don't know enough about that. I think there is a clear case that patent rights could be waived or be considered to be waived for this pandemic.