QUESTION PERIOD — Innovation, Science and Economic Development
COVID-19 Vaccine Patents
April 30, 2021
My question is for the Government Representative in the Senate.
This year, the World Health Organization, or WHO, is celebrating World Immunization Week from April 24 to 30. This year’s theme is “Vaccines Bring Us Closer.” This campaign showed how vaccination connects us to people and helps improve everyone’s health. In today’s world, where everything is connected, an epidemic poses a threat to everyone, regardless of where it starts.
Although we have invested a lot of public funds in vaccine research and development, companies are the only ones who have benefited from this public-private partnership to date, and we are lagging behind in meeting the ultimate goal of vaccinating everyone around the world. We can count on one hand the number of people who have been vaccinated in my home country of Haiti.
Canada’s refusal to support calls for the WTO to waive patents on the COVID-19 vaccines is not helping to curb the pandemic. The WTO Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights is meeting today to study the request from South Africa and India regarding patents. In order to guarantee fast, fair access to vaccines, will Canada stand in solidarity with the 55 member countries that are calling for a waiver on vaccine patents in order to end the global COVID-19 pandemic as soon as possible?
Thank you, senator, for raising this question.
The government is committed to ensuring fair access to effective COVID-19 vaccines around the world. COVID-19 will not be defeated until vaccination is provided everywhere.
I’m advised that, as early as December 2020 and possibly before that, when the parties requested a waiver of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, the Government of Canada contacted the proponents of the waiver to better understand their concerns. The government has been actively working with international partners to proactively support the WTO Director-General’s efforts to strengthen the organization’s role in the global dialogue with the pharmaceutical sector in order to speed up the production and equitable distribution of vaccines around the world.
The government is committed to finding solutions that everyone can agree on to this important issue.
