Good day, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Najah Sampson. I'm president of Pfizer Canada.
Thank you for your invitation to share Pfizer’s perspective on the motion before you. I am here with my colleague Fabien Paquette, our mRNA vaccines and antiviral portfolio lead in Canada, who is joining us remotely.
Today I want to highlight why disclosure of our confidential agreements with the government sends a very concerning signal about how this country upholds its contractual obligations and could challenge its reputation as a reliable partner for future contracts across all business sectors.
First, I must tell you how proud Pfizer is of its partnership with the Canadian, provincial and territorial governments in our fight against one of the most complex health challenges of our time. What was accomplished on behalf of Canadians was unprecedented and should be recognized as a model for collaboration moving forward.
For our part, Pfizer has engaged in ongoing transparency with Canadian health officials and the public. Throughout the pandemic, we worked in lockstep with the public health authorities and with Health Canada to share all data related to our vaccine as it became available. We regularly shared our timeline of manufacturing targets to help manage expectations and logistics, and, as a result, public health authorities, health ministers, premiers and the federal government have praised Pfizer’s collaboration and the reliability of our contribution to the immunization campaign.
Independent analysis of the Canadian vaccine response to the pandemic has been overwhelmingly positive. The Canadian Medical Association Journal concluded that Canada performed better than most other G10 countries in terms of vaccination rates, infection rates and mortality.
The Auditor General examined all agreements related to COVID-19 vaccines, and this committee had the opportunity to question her and numerous officials about her findings. Her report highlighted several success factors, including the expedited process to authorize, procure and distribute vaccines. The report also contains recommendations to make Canada’s response to a future pandemic even more robust. Pfizer supports these recommendations and will continue to work with its partners in government on behalf of Canadians.
However, nowhere in the Auditor General’s report does she recommend further scrutiny of vaccine provider contracts or the contracting process. In Pfizer’s case, our work against COVID-19 continues. We remain actively engaged with authorities around the world on the supply of our vaccines, and each country has its own requirements for supply. We stand by the obligations we have accepted in our commercial agreements with these stakeholders. These contracts contain commercially sensitive information that would likely be of interest to our competitors and also prejudice our discussions with other partners.
We believe that proper and robust oversight of the vaccine procurement process, including parliamentary oversight, has occurred. Canada’s response to the pandemic has been subject to public review by the country’s highest auditor, and the AG fulfilled her commitment to Parliament and to Canadians.
Pfizer's approach around the world is to maintain the confidentiality of the agreements for all of our medications, and our COVID-19 vaccine has been no different. Respectfully, it is fair to say that disclosure of our confidential agreement would be an extraordinary use of authority. Contractual trust and stability remain a cornerstone for a country like Canada to attract investment and innovation. Although it isn't represented here today, we’re quite sure that the Canadian government would agree with this principle. Eroding this predictability sends a concerning signal about how this country will uphold its contractual obligations, not just in health care but across all industries.
I ask members of this committee to take the time to carefully consider our perspective before creating a precedent with unintended consequences on Canada’s reputation. It would send a strong message to business partners and to companies looking to invest here that here in Canada confidentiality protections negotiated in good faith with the federal government may not be binding.
Pfizer deeply values the level of co-operation with government throughout these unprecedented times, and we take very seriously the agreements that have governed this collaboration to date.
We appreciate the opportunity to share our perspective and welcome any questions you may have. Thank you.