MPs on the public accounts committee have voted unanimously to view unredacted copies of COVID-19 vaccine contracts signed between vaccine manufacturers and the federal government.
“Following united opposition pressure, the Public Accounts Committee has just ordered the production of contracts between the Government of Canada and vaccine manufacturers for the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines. Now let’s see if the Liberals comply,” said Conservative MP Garnett Genuis on Twitter on March 23.
The same day, MPs on the public accounts committee unanimously voted to undertake a study of the COVID-19 vaccine contracts between Public Services and Procurement Canada and pharmaceutical companies Moderna, Sanofi, Pfizer, Medicago, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax.
Within 15 days of the vote, Public Services and Procurement Canada must produce an unredacted copy of each of the contracts and forward them to the clerk of the committee. When the committee members view the contracts, no personal phones or recording devices will be permitted in the room, and no notes will be taken out of the room.
The initial motion to review the vaccine contracts was done in response to two auditor general reports released last December, which related to the government’s procurement of COVID-19 vaccines.
Auditor General Karen Hogan found that while the government had acted urgently to procure 169 million doses, a total of 35.3 million doses have expired or could soon expire, while another 29.7 million doses are sitting unused in federal, provincial, and territorial inventories.
Before the vote on March 23, executives from the pharmaceutical companies argued in their opening statements to the committee that the vaccine contracts contained commercial and technical information that needed to remain confidential.
Najah Sampson, president of Pfizer Canada, had said the MPs’ request to view the confidential agreements with the government sent 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.”
Patricia Gauthier, president and general manager of Moderna Canada, said that the company’s delivery of mRNA vaccines to the Canadian government was predicated on two “good faith principles:” transparency with the government, and the protection of intellectual property and confidential commercial information.
Conservative MPs on the committee rejected the executive’s claim that allowing the committee members to review the unredacted contracts would harm the intellectual property of the companies. Genuis said as the “chief accountability committee in Parliament,” the public accounts committee needs to review the documents and provide recommendations to Parliament.
Conservative MP Kelly McCauley said the idea that “11 MPs in a guarded room with no phones or copiers or any ability to copy anything is somehow a risk to Canadian investment from Moderna and Pfizer—we’re just putting that to bed.”
Previously, Liberal MPs on the House of Commons public accounts committee wanted a requirement that the MPs sign a non-disclosure agreement before viewing the vaccine contracts. The amendment to the Feb. 13 motion to view the contracts free of redactions was introduced by Liberal MP Anthony Housefather on Feb. 16.
“It’s because these documents were signed at the beginning of a pandemic when everybody was desperate for vaccines, when companies were being told to rush vaccine production, do testing in an unprecedented way, in a way they normally don’t do it,” Housefather said when explaining why the vaccine contracts had so many redactions.
“So that’s why these companies said, ‘If I’m going to deliver you this product that I haven’t tested in my normal way, I want to have different conditions.’”
The committee ultimately rejected Housefather’s amendment.