Unscrupulous China ... Naive Canada

 Justin Trudeau/CanSino Biologics Photo Blair Gable/Reuters

"Trudeau inherited a naive affection for China's dictatorship that devolved into craven passivity in the face of blackmail."

"What else can explain his willingness to work with Tianjin-based CanSino Biologics on a COVID vaccine, given our highly contentious relationship with China and while the two Michaels [arrested on specious charges of espionage days after Huawei's CFO Meng Wanzhou was taken into custody by the RCMP on an American extradition warrant] languish in jail? The deal collapsed when Chinese authorities blocked exports of vaccine to Canada."

"The government pursued a controversial, and now delayed, $170-million initiative with a National Research Council lab that was supposed to be ready last November. Industry players were rightly skeptical and believed a better approach would have been to fund private-sector companies like bio-manufacturer PnuVax Inc or clinical-stage biopharmaceutical Medicgo, both located in Quebec."

Joe Oliver, former Conservative Minister of Finance, Canada

"The result is that the vast majority of Canadians will have to wait many months to get protection from the rampaging coronavirus. And it's all because Canada has a prime minister who's lacking in good judgement, a health minister without health expertise, a procurement minister who was a law professor and a recently departed foreign affairs minister who borrowed $1million from a Chinese bank and then thought better of it when the information became public."

"Getting vaccines for all Canadians was a moral obligation. To rely on an unscrupulous, sworn enemy like China to provide vital supplies is just asking for trouble."

"Canadians deserve answers as to why this has happened, and so do the country's premiers, who run our health-care system."

Diane Francis, columnist, Financial Post

A researcher works in a lab at Chinese vaccine maker CanSino Biologics in Tianjin, China in November 2018. A collaboration between CanSino and the National Research Council of Canada to run the first Canadian clinical trials for a possible COVID-19 vaccine has been abandoned. (Reuters)

Canada, a first-world, technologically advanced country until the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing     COVID-19 became an international menace to life and the wealth of nations, is in the grip of an devastating beast of a virus that has clamped down on a population awaiting the rescue of inoculation against its predatory presence. Each day that lapses without the ability to vaccinate as many people as possible is a day the virus advances, infecting and killing greater numbers of Canadians. The desperate need to create a safe health environment for the country has never been greater.

 

Yet the poor judgement of the federal government has made it clear that while other countries in the same position as Canada -- with equal access to necessary resources, made more practically resolute and intelligent decisions to arm themselves with vaccines as soon as they passed their final trials and were given regulatory approval for public use -- are now inoculating the most vulnerable segments of their populations against the virus sweeping the globe.

 

At present, while other countries forge ahead with their vaccination programs, in Canada a tad over one percent of the country has received one dose of a vaccine requiring two separate doses for ultimate safety. Canada's former finance minister under a previous government and a pharmaceutical industry expert have laid out a case for placing the responsibility where it belongs -- the decision-making of the current Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau. While Mr. Oliver is front and centre, the industry expert, highly placed, speaks on condition of anonymity in defence of his position.

 

It is his contention that it is no mere urban legend making the rounds in his industry and echoing in political circles, that a Chinese businessman who has the prime minister's confidence persuaded the suggestible Trudeau that Canada would do well to buy its vaccines from China. Convinced, Trudeau proceeded to order  the vaccine, signing a contract with CanSino which had a previous Canadian connection, rather than turning to American pharmaceutical companies. The agreement with CanSino was of a partnership between it and the National Research Council for testing of the final vaccine.

 

When the time arrived for the vaccine to be delivered to Canada to allow for the testing to commence through the National Research Council, Chinese authorities extended an ultimatum; the freedom of Meng Wanzhou in exchange for the vaccines. Which translated to the end of the contract signed in naive good faith in the expectation that a contract is a contract. The non-receipt of the vaccine left Canada without defences, and it quickly turned to reliable sources in the west.

 

The fly in that remediative ointment was that the line-up to acquire vaccines was growing longer day by day and Canada's place was at the very end of it. This, in any event, is the pharmaceutical industries' reading of events surrounding the manner in which the Trudeau government handled the urgency of acquiring vaccines. Former Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne who was tasked with moving the Canada-China-relations file forward along with Prime Minister Trudeau are both proteges of former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, a notorious China appeaser. 

 

 CanSino Biologics in China. (Reuters)

Canada was a loser with this contract, but China was not:The failed collaboration was based in part on the National Research Council agreeing to provide CanSino with a license to use Canada’s proprietary biological product HEK293, a line of cells that CanSino had previously used with the Chinese military to develop a vaccine for the Ebola virus. CanSino is linked to the People's Liberation Army of China; a clear warning that anything could go wrong. CanSino's CEO, Chinese scientist Dr. Xuefeng Yu, was educated at McGill University in Quebec and had worked for Sanofi Pasteur, before returning to China.  

"A vaccine is the most powerful weapon to end the novel coronavirus."

"If China is the first to develop this weapon with its own intellectual property rights, it will demonstrate not only the progress of Chinese science and technology, but also our image as a major power."

CanSino’s military partner, Major General Chen Wei