Corbella: The CEO of a Calgary-based biotechnology firm says if he had been able to procure $35 million from the federal government instead of just $4.7 million, it would be in Stage 3 clinical trials right now with a Canadian vaccine similar to the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.
In short, it wasn’t until almost five months later, on Aug. 17, the day before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prorogued Parliament to stop the probe into the WE Charity scandal, before Sorenson was told that they would get some funding — not the $35 million asked for but just $4.7 million through the National Research Council, “which we’ve had a great experience working with,” said Sorenson, who was reached by telephone at his Calgary office.
At that time, the Trudeau government was throwing tens of billions of dollars around like there was no tomorrow. The WE Charity controversy is proof of that. The initial contract was for $912 million for the WE Charity to pay students to “volunteer.” The WE charity was to be paid $43.5 million to administer the program — 10 times more than Providence ended up getting to develop its life-saving vaccine.
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