Evidence of meeting #54 for Public Accounts in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was contracts.
A video is available from Parliament.
5:10 p.m.
General Manager, Vaccines, Sanofi Canada
To my knowledge, no unredacted versions have been sent to a Parliament in any other country around the world. If I may, I can verify this with our legal teams and share the information with you in the next few days.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Thank you so much.
This is for each of you.
Just to confirm, your companies have not provided unredacted contracts to the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Colombia, Australia or anywhere else. You haven't provided unredacted contracts anywhere.
I see heads shaking there.
5:10 p.m.
President, General Manager, Canada, Moderna Inc.
Moderna has not provided unredacted contracts to any parliaments globally. It has been a standard position. Thank you.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
What about Sanofi? I think you just said that. I am not sure.
Medicago, you haven't produced it unredacted to anywhere else so far. Have you?
5:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Medicago Inc.
Medicago contracted only with Canada and with no other countries.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Could you describe the sensitivity of the information in contracts like these?
Ms. Gauthier, would you like to start?
5:10 p.m.
President, General Manager, Canada, Moderna Inc.
Maybe I will just take a step back a little and talk about the context in which these contracts were negotiated.
It has been talked about. It was full-on the peak of the pandemic. There was urgency. We didn't have products at the time yet. It is really important to think about that, because the confidentiality, the assurances and the security that we were provided through these agreements really, for us at Moderna, allowed us to move very quickly, to collaborate swiftly with the government, to create a place to co-create, to really enable us to focus on increasing the speed of our development of our vaccine, which was developed in less than 12 months, and also to ramp up our manufacturing globally.
We have never made products commercially in the world, so that safeguard was really important in allowing us to move quickly.
There are many types of information that are very sensitive in these agreements, from processes to commercial information and know-how, so there is a variety of information that is highly sensitive, confidential and, from a global perspective, in a competitive market environment as well.
5:10 p.m.
President, Pfizer Canada
Maybe I'll add a bit to that, because I think these contracts contain proprietary and commercially sensitive information for all companies. When we take a look at where we were when we originally signed those contracts and where we are today, it is easy to say that we are past the pandemic, but we're still managing. Even today, we are working with countries around the world for supply to vaccines. Those same sensitivities that existed two years ago are in play right now.
I would say that, in addition, there are things that are confidential to the country that we're working with, the other signatory on the agreement. There are things around the supply schedule, delivery and other supports that we're providing to that market.
5:10 p.m.
General Manager, Vaccines, Sanofi Canada
Sanofi only entered into that agreement after an extremely thorough competitive process. Disclosing information from the contract could put us in a difficult situation. The pandemic isn't over yet and negotiations are currently underway in other countries. So, of course, we don't want the contract information to be made public.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
That's pretty much it. You have a few seconds for comments, but I think that I just ate them up, unless you want 10 seconds. I don't want to take your time.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Okay.
Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
5:10 p.m.
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
An interesting case came up in a country that only recently became a member of the OECD, Colombia. The OECD administrative tribunal determined that the right to have access to information took precedence over the commercial interest of pharmaceutical companies. The documents I have here indicate that the information came directly from the State Council. It was not sent by the pharmaceutical companies. So if we were to ask them whether they disclosed contracts, the answer would be no, because it was the State Council that disclosed the contracts on August 10, 2021.
So we already have some unredacted contracts and others that are redacted. I think that the extent of the redaction remains to be determined for those contracts that were disclosed. We have an enormous amount of information about prices in other countries. As these were mentioned by my Conservative colleague, I don't think it's important here to mention the amount of information that's already available.
I think that the core issue here is the failure to understand our role as parliamentarians, and that, unfortunately, colours the work we are doing today. It's very important to clarify the role of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, which is specifically to report on the Auditor General's reports. That was the context, at the time we were studying the Auditor General's report, when we introduced this motion. It was to obtain information that she could not give us under the Auditor General Act. She sent us a brief letter to tell us that unfortunately, if we wanted access to this information, we would need to have access to the contracts, because she could not answer these questions. She was very clear about that. She virtually invited us to look at the contracts. At any rate, that's what I understood.
Once again, to show our good faith, I reiterate that we have no intention of making any information public. It's simply to do our work as parliamentarians in the manner it is supposed to be done in Canada's Parliament. It's important, after all. I'd like to hear from Mr. Baylet again.
Now that I have clarified this matter, have you changed your mind? Does this information clearly explain our role as parliamentarians?
5:15 p.m.
General Manager, Vaccines, Sanofi Canada
Thank you again for the question, Ms. Sinclair-Desgagné.
I haven't changed my mind. I respect your opinion….
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you very much.
We understand.
Mr. Desjarlais, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
5:15 p.m.
NDP
Blake Desjarlais NDP Edmonton Griesbach, AB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Hearing from several members of our committee now, you can see there are a few disputes. One is on the nature of what you believe Parliament's role is and one is what we believe your role is.
I will clarify my position on this clearly, which is that I do believe that Canadians deserve the kind of transparency and democratic government that a free society would expect for those who are operating commercially in Canada.
I was disappointed to hear Jean-Pierre Baylet's comments and I won't return to it now. I believe your position is well noted in the record that you oppose the perspective that this committee would, in fact, have some role of breaching your perception of confidentiality, given the fact that we have offered you a confidential process that would actually guarantee that.
It's sufficient for all other means, particularly national security means, but apparently it's not good enough for you, which is a big problem for Canadians. I will make that note known in our report. It's something that I will, hopefully, mention to the government as well.
To the other members, is it your perspective that the confidential process of Canada's Parliament is insufficient for the purposes of reviewing your contracts in a confidential way?
5:15 p.m.
President, Pfizer Canada
For the context and also for the question, I believe that even viewing in camera would be a breach of the confidentiality clauses that are put forward in our current contract with the department of procurement.
5:15 p.m.
President, General Manager, Canada, Moderna Inc.
Thank you very much for the question.
We have not, in any countries globally, provided unredacted copies of the agreements to parliaments. That has been a position.
As my colleague said, there are very strict confidentiality clauses in the agreement that would put us in breach should we go outside of what is provided in these agreements and share these agreements in an unredacted manner.