Mr. Speaker, while the Liberal government's own COVID vaccine task force appears to be riddled with conflicts of interest from the pharmaceutical industry, Canadians continue to languish at the prospect of an even more severe second wave. In British Columbia, Premier John Horgan has committed to providing free vaccines once approved and available.
Instead of helping its friends in big pharma, will the Liberal government finally take the profits out of the pandemic and utilize publicly owned agencies, such as the National Research Council's facility in Montreal where it just put $44 million, and immediately begin the development of a publicly available COVID-19 vaccine?