Thank you very much.
We certainly heard today, and I think members probably reasonably expected this going in today, that there are a number of factors beyond simple access to intellectual property that go into the manufacture of a vaccine. Certainly intellectual property is one of those factors. Even in the case of negotiating a voluntary licensing agreement, presumably that takes a fair bit of time and resources.
We now have countries that have come to the WTO asking for, not a blanket exemption to the entire intellectual property infrastructure, but a temporary waiver for a very specific purpose, which is to make the recipes for COVID-19 vaccines able to be used by as wide a cross-section of those in the vaccine manufacturing industry as possible. It is a recipe that has benefited, and its development has been made possible, not by the typical process where you have a lot of private investment and risk-taking, but by a considerable amount of public investment by governments the world over, not just in Canada but the world over.
It does seem to me that taking one of those complicated elements off the table would help facilitate a speedier expansion of global supply. That's not to say that it helps overcome all of the obstacles, but it helps overcome one of the obstacles. I haven't heard anybody here today say that intellectual property rights present no obstacles at all to the expansion of the global vaccine supply, just that it's only one among many. It seems to me that if our goal is to try to increase that supply, taking as many obstacles off the table as possible is a prudent approach.
In terms of direct questions, one of the things that I also haven't heard.... I have heard that this waiver is not a panacea. Fair enough. In fairness, I don't know that anyone is really suggesting that it is. It's just a step in the right direction. I don't see that the waiver would do harm in the sense of relaxing some of the typical intellectual property restrictions for a very targeted purpose and for a temporary time frame.
I don't know if we have a witness who wants to speak to that issue, but it seems to me that taking this off the table would be helpful. It would give facilities where they believe they have capacity the opportunity to explore that with fewer restrictions in their way.
I see Ms. Fralick has her hand up. I'll giver her the opportunity to respond.