Government Operations committee  The committee has considered whether there would be a need for boosters for ongoing vaccine supply. That is not clear, I would say, as a scientific consensus. People are preparing for several trajectories, namely, that there would be a need for ongoing yearly boosters, that the

Government Operations committee  That is being considered. A booster vaccine would generally be a qualitatively different vaccine. There are regulatory considerations, and we can't just make a recommendation based on the fact of the previous vaccine working. All of those aspects are being considered.

Government Operations committee  The final authorization is when it's approved by Health Canada. All of the procurements have in them a clause that if the vaccine is never approved, we would not be using it for Canadians.

Government Operations committee  I'm not sure what the CMB is. I want to be sure we understand that. It might be better for Mark to answer that.

Government Operations committee  The vaccine task force looked at the recommendations for our involvement in COVAX—the facility to improve vaccine access around the world—to which Canada has committed quite a lot of funding. On your question about whether we are the only country, I wouldn't be the expert on th

Government Operations committee  Sorry?

Government Operations committee  In the G7. I believe you are correct that that is the case. Roger, am I correct with that?

Government Operations committee  The strategy during a pandemic is to go into these decisions knowing that you're at risk, that some, or even all, of the vaccine platforms might not pan out. The reason for procuring, or recommending to procure, different platforms is that any one, or two, or maybe even three of

Government Operations committee  We looked at the domains of technical merit, scientific merit and the supply chain. In terms of scientific merit, there were subclassifications. We kind of had a rubric with all of those three domains. Some of the vaccine platforms that arose during the COVID pandemic were very

Government Operations committee  The original portfolio had seven candidates in it. When we came up with those, we looked at all of the vaccines we were aware of and distilled it down to those. On an ongoing basis, we are open to new scientific evidence about the efficacy of vaccines. When those companies come t

Government Operations committee  Is that directed to me?

Government Operations committee  Okay, thank you. Our mandate is to advise ministers, and we have been doing that since late last spring and early summer. That has continued to be the case. Because it's advice to ministers, my understanding—not as a public servant—is that that is not in the public realm.

Government Operations committee  The considerations we worked with in regard to the procurement team was always with regard to security of supply. That varied over time. The specifics of that would be very dependent on the particular supply problems at any point. Again, I would ask Mr. Scott-Douglas to fill in.

Government Operations committee  We were very aware of some of the concerns about vaccine nationalism that arose from the beginning of the pandemic, so that would have played into our recommendations, the ultimate decision being, of course, from the government.

Government Operations committee  Yes. The vaccine task force has met on an ongoing basis and has had meetings since October.