Canada's Vaccine Task Force says it needs to operate in secrecy: that it MUST be secretive and hide 100% of the meeting agendas, the meeting minutes, and the conflict of interest declarations of members.

This is, with respect, exaggerated BS.

Here are a few reasons why.

First, obviously the VTF's uppermost mission is to pick the most effective, safest vaccines. These are SCIENTIFIC questions, and the evidence comes in PUBLIC results of clinical trials, usually published in medical journals.

Second, other countries are not this secretive. In the USA. their vaccine advisory committee holds its meetings in public, and even posts live video of its meetings on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc. https://www.fda.gov/advisory-committees/advisory-committee-calendar/vaccines-and-related-biological-products-advisory-committee-december-17-2020-meeting-announcement

Third, part of what is hidden includes the conflicts of interest of members. All of them prepared conflict of interest declarations for government. Why can't we see that at least? https://nrc.canada.ca/en/corporate/declaration-interests-protocol-covid-19-vaccine-task-force

Transparency matters. For example, here's an instance where Dr. Langley, the co-Chair of the VTF, opted NOT to recuse herself from a discussion on GlaxoSmithKline's vaccine, even though she holds a university chair apparently funded by that firm. https://nrc.canada.ca/en/corporate/covid-19-vaccine-task-force-registry-interests#pc5

Any system that requires blind trust in people to recuse is dangerous. What if they simply don't, like Dr. Langley that time? Could they make bad decisions out of self-interest? Shouldn't we have proactive, and not after-the-fact, disclosure and transparency to prevent this?

In Canada, our elites enjoy a culture of secrecy. But that's not befitting life-critical decisions in a pandemic. There MUST be transparency.

The US proves it is possible to be transparent, so unless Canada's VTF is inherently inferior--is it?--then it should be too. *end*

PS - Sorry, forgot to post the news story where the VTF defended secrecy. It's here. https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/federal-covid-vaccine-task-force-defends-secrecy-as-necessary-to-do-its-work