Celine Dion delivers stirring comeback performance at Paris Olympics opening ceremony
Against the rainy Paris night sky, Celine Dion staged the comeback of her career with a powerful performance from the Eiffel Tower to open the Olympic Games.
The federal government has recovered $40 million of its investment in the now-defunct Quebec-based vaccine developer Medicago as part of a deal with the parent company, the innovation minister announced Thursday.
Medicago's intellectual property will remain in Canada under a new firm as part of the agreement.
The government provided Medicago with $173 million in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic to develop a plant-based vaccine in Quebec City and set up a facility to produce doses.
The Procurement Department also gave the company an additional $150-million non-refundable advance to get the production of the vaccine underway before Health Canada approved it.
Though Medicago's vaccine was approved for use in Canada early last year, no doses of the shot were ever distributed.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization rejected the vaccine due to the company's ties with tobacco giant Philip Morris, which made it impossible for the product to be exported outside of Canada.
Philip Morris owned about one-fifth of the company until December 2022, just months before Medicago was shut down.
Japanese parent company Mitsubishi Chemical Group shut down Medicago's operations in February as global demand for vaccinations plummeted.
The new agreement between Canada and Mitsubishi Chemical Group will transfer the research, intellectual property and equipment to a new operation: Aramis Biotechnologies.
That company, which was established by former Medicago employees in February, will also operate out of Quebec City.
Medicago's technology is important to Canada's life-sciences sector, Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said in a statement. He said Canada worked to keep the workers and expertise in Quebec.
Canada's COVID-19 vaccine deal with Medicago, including the $150-million non-refundable payment, came under scrutiny this week at the House of Commons health committee.
The government agreement to buy the company's vaccine was struck in 2020 as the government was casting around for as many promising vaccine options as quickly as possible, Andrea Andrachuk, a director general at the Procurement Department told the committee on Monday.
At the time, no COVID-19 vaccine was approved by Health Canada, and global competition for viable options was fierce.
A few months after Medicago's operations were shut down, Canada and the company agreed to end the contract in an effort to manage the country's oversupply of COVID-19 vaccines.
The company was also evidently struggling with "production challenges and delivery date challenges," Andrachuk told the committee.
"In the termination by mutual consent, the government had no contractual right to request (a) return of the payment," she said.
Opposition MPs questioned why Canada invested in the vaccine in the first place, given that they could've foreseen the WHO's tobacco policy would prevent it from approving the company's drug for emergency use.
Andrachuk said, at the time, the government was only focused on securing doses for Canadians.
Against the rainy Paris night sky, Celine Dion staged the comeback of her career with a powerful performance from the Eiffel Tower to open the Olympic Games.
Premier Danielle Smith said Friday afternoon in Hinton while weather conditions are cooler, the Jasper fire is still considered out of control and that Jasper residents can expect to be away from their homes 'for several weeks.'
A three-year-old boy has been found dead a day after he went missing in a park in Mississauga, Ont., Peel police say.
An Irish museum will withdraw a waxwork of singer-songwriter Sinéad O'Connor just one day after installing it, following a backlash from her family and the public, it told CNN in a statement on Friday.
A Winnipeg senior is getting soaked with a six-figure water bill.
Nearly two weeks after Donald Trump’s near assassination, the FBI confirmed Friday that it was indeed a bullet that struck the former president’s ear, moving to clear up conflicting accounts about what caused the former U.S. president’s injuries after a gunman opened fire at a Pennsylvania rally.
Orillia OPP arrested and charged a driver with impaired driving after flashing their high beams.
The lawyer for a former judge whose claims to be Cree were questioned in a CBC investigation says his client is not considering legal action against the broadcaster after the Law Society of British Columbia this week backed her claims of Indigenous heritage.
Scotiabank says it has fixed a technical issue that impacted direct deposits on Friday morning.
As fire threatened people in Jasper National Park, Colleen Knull sprung into action.
Video posted to social media on Thursday morning appears to show the charred remains of a Jasper, Alta., neighbourhood.
A Saskatchewan-born veteran of the Second World War was recently presented with France's highest national order.
A local First Nations elder and veteran is helping to bring the Ojibwe language to a well-known film for the first time.
A cat who fled her Montreal home nearly a decade ago has been reunited with her family after being found in Ottawa.
A woman in Waterloo, Ont. is out thousands of dollars for a car crash she wasn’t involved in.
A swarm of bees living in a lamppost in Winnipeg’s Sage Creek neighbourhood has found a new home for its hive.
Around 100 acres of Manitoba Crown Land near the Saskatchewan border is being returned to the Métis community.
Nova Scotia is suspending the licensed Cape Breton moose hunt for three years due to what the province is calling a “significant drop” in the population.