Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ambassador de Boer, I'm glad to hear your statement.
There are a lot of rumours that Canada is opposing the TRIPS waiver at the WTO. Many people don't realize that Canada is actually working with the TRIPS waiver proponents like South Africa and India, and of course the Africa group, the LDCs, on how best we can address the current situation. Many people think that if IP is relaxed and is made available certainly we'll get the vaccines, but most people don't understand that it's not just the IP. We need other inputs. We need manpower. We need.... Whosoever wants to manufacture should have access to the sophisticated supply chain.
As you pointed out, discussion on historical, general hypothetical IP issues is one thing, but we need to focus on what exactly is required to be done now so that vaccines are made available.
Madam Chair, for the people who may not know, the director-general of WTO is advocating the third way. It means facilitating technology transfer within the framework of multilateral rules so as to not just encourage research and innovation, but at the same time, allow licencing arrangements that help to scale up the manufacturing of medical products.
Ambassador de Boer, let me start with a very simple question. Can you reconfirm that Canada is not opposing, per se, the TRIPS waiver? Is that accurate?