OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal government is refusing to disclose how much money they lost on a failed $200 million plan to build a COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing facility in Quebec.
“The financial details and information pertaining to the relationship between Canada and the supplier are considered confidential,” Trudeau’s cabinet asserted in an Inquiry of Ministry tabled in the House of Commons last week.
“Total authorized support for this project was $200 million against which $101 million was disbursed in 2021 and $59 million was disbursed in 2022,” explained the Inquiry.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, as of February, the Trudeau government calculated its total spending to medical manufacturer Medicago, which was planning to open and operate a vaccine production plant in Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos’ Québec City riding, at $173 million.
That same month, it was reported that the Medicago plant was closing due to “significant changes” in the vaccine market before ever producing a single dose.
Medicago CEO Toshifumi Toda testified to the House of Commons on March 23 that the company is “working to wind up operations” and that some “of our tangible assets including facilities and equipment, or importantly intangible assets such as our intellectual property rights, may be sold.”
Toda explained that his company appreciates the “support from the Government of Canada” and that the “[f]unding was intended to finance our COVID-19 vaccine and the building,” and despite the axing of the project before it was even launched, Medicago “spent all those monies.”
After being asked by Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) MP Stephen Ellis who owns the intellectual property, Toba explained that Medicago does.
“No doses and $173 million and Medicago owns the intellectual property and still owns the physical building and manufacturing capability here in Canada?” Ellis inquired.
“Yes,” the CEO answered.
This is not the first time the Trudeau government has come under fire for massive COVID-related expenditures on failed projects.
Last October, it was found that Canadian taxpayers were on the hook for $54 million in costs related to the Trudeau government’s faulty and now-defunct vaccine passport application ArriveCAN.
In November, it was revealed that on top of the spending associated with the ArriveCAN app, the Trudeau government spent an additional $411 million on mandatory airport and border COVID testing.
Critics of Trudeau have called his government’s spending “shocking” and “inexcusable,” with CPC leader Pierre Poilievre and People’s Party of Canada (PPC) leader Maxime Bernier long stating that the government’s continued deficit spending is one of the biggest factors contributing to the ongoing inflation crisis sweeping the nation.
“Trudeau’s record-breaking deficits and tax hikes on fuel and wages are inflating prices. His government must tell us what it will do today to reverse the rising cost of living,” Poilievre stated last January.
“Inflation keeps rising. And for this we have to thank Trudeau, Freeland, and the Bank of Canada’s incompetent apparatchiks who printed hundreds of billions to fund the Liberals’ gigantic deficits. You will pay for it,” Bernier chimed in at the time.