Canada, Bringing Up The Rear On COVID Vaccinations

"The slow arrival of COVID-19 vaccines is the latest setback for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in confronting the biggest challenge of his political career. His overarching responsibility is to reduce the number of infections and mortality from the pandemic and mitigate its devastating impact on the economy."

"Tragically for the country, that delay extends the time Canadians are at risk of exposure, illness and death."

Joe Oliver, former Canadian Minister of Finance and of Natural Resources

Nurse Venus Lucero administers the first Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the Ottawa Hospital to Jo-Anne Miner at a vaccination clinic, Tuesday December 15, 2020 in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

 

Justin Trudeau may have lingering memories of his father Pierre Elliott Trudeau opening up to China in 1968 that has led him -- much as he recalls his own visits as a toddler with his parents going to Cuba -- viewing both countries with affection. Trudeau the elder had a fondness for 'socialism' and  his son appears to harbour a fascinate wonder -- let's call it curiosity with a bit of envy thrown in -- for dictatorships. He once, before becoming leader of the Liberal Party and ultimately the country's current prime minister, expressed his admiration for China's 'basic dictatorship', capable of 'turning on a dime'.

Pierre Trudeau gets a little assistance with his chopsticks from Chinese premier Chou En-Lai during a meal in China in an October, 1973, visit to mainland China.

China, with its immense population and huge business opportunities in trade and investment, in fact, seems to fascinate the Liberal Party of Canada altogether. Former Prime Minister Jean Chretien went to great ends, embarking on huge trade missions to China, forging personal 'friendships' with business leaders in China, and using those invaluable contacts when he retired from public life and joined a high-powered legal firm where he could boast of his contacts, and bring along corporate leaders in private business delegations to China. His influence no doubt resonated with Trudeau junior.

Canada's more current and less felicitous entanglements with China have turned the relationship beyond frosty, with Beijing making use of diplomatic hostage-taking of Canadian citizens to emphasize its displeasure that Canada has taken the CFO of Huawei Technologies into custody on the basis of an extradition request by the United States. Relations between the two countries have plummeted to a new low, Beijing slinging crude insults and threats and the Trudeau government fearing to state unequivocally that Huawei will not be involved in Canada's 5G upgrade as part of the Five Eyes Intelligence group.

Despite this toxic background, the prime minister still saw fit to sign an agreement with CanSino Biologics based in Tianjin, for joint cooperation on a COVID vaccine, with Canada's National Research Council. An agreement that collapsed ultimately when authorities in China refused to permit vaccine samples to be exported to Canada for testing as agreed upon. This was Canada placing its eggs in the wrong basket. And then playing catch-up by belatedly contracting for vaccines being produced by British and American pharmaceuticals.

 

Paramedics transport a resident from Midland Gardens Care Community in Toronto on Jan. 5. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

 

Not to be forgotten was the Liberal government's generosity in ransacking the nation's own short supplies of PPE in sympathy with China's efforts to control its first wave of the novel coronavirus, sending those supplies off to China. When it soon afterward came Canada's turn to discover first-hand what it was like to face PPE shortages at a time of infectious chaos within the Canadian population, orders were placed with Chinese manufacturers of PPE, and though the initial shipments were held back by Chinese authorities, when later shipments did arrive, they were discovered to be faulty and useless.

When the Trudeau government finally realized it must source vaccines elsewhere than with its agreement in co-developing a vaccine with a Chinese pharmaceutical company which had links with the People's Liberation Army, it found itself at the tail end of a line-up of countries anxious to secure vaccines for their own populations. And that's when it went overboard, to contract with a number of pharmaceutical companies and in total secured access to 414 vaccines, vastly exceeding the numbers required for a population of 38 million people. 

That having been accomplished, by the end of January the country plans to be in the position to have on hand sufficient vaccines to inoculate roughly two percent of the population. Compare that with 13 percent in the U.S. and 22 percent in Israel. By early April the United Kingdom expects it will have successfully vaccinated its entire population -- while Israel which has completed a million vaccinations expects to have completed inoculating its entire population of nine million by March at the very latest.

 

The first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine are delivered to the Maimonides CHSLD, Monday, December 14, 2020 in Montreal. The long-term care facility is slated to be one of the first in Canada to administer the vaccine. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

"In Canada, we have military generals in charge of our rollout, but they don’t seem to have much sway."

"We rushed to get the first vaccines into health workers and elders because that made for good photo opportunities. But getting the subsequent vaccines to more people seems to have been treated with shocking lassitude."

"There is nothing more symbolic of this disdain than the fact that Canadian politicians were sunning themselves in places such as Hawaii, St. Barts and Barbados while vaccines languished in freezers back home. What’s unfortunate, however, is that the antics of scofflaw politicians have generated far more media attention than the slow vaccine rollout that will ultimately cost lives."

Andre Picard, The Globe and Mail