Procurement Minister Anita Anand says 1.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine on loan from the U.S. will arrive in Canada by truck on Tuesday.
The shipment is the first Canada expects to receive from manufacturing plants in the United States — which has so far ensured that all vaccines produced in the U.S. go to Americans.
At a press conference today, Anand said those doses are part of a surge in vaccine deliveries set to take place over the coming weeks.
“We have said from the beginning that the first quarter of this year would represent a period of increasingly supply as vaccine manufacturers ramped up production, and this would be followed by significant supplies coming to Canada,” Anand said.
“We are now seeing that supply surge and it is set to continue.”
Canada had received just over 6.1 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and the Serum Institute of India as of yesterday, according to federal government data.
Pfizer has confirmed it plans to ship at least a million doses per week to Canada from now until the end of May, while Moderna will ship every two weeks, with 855,000 doses of its vaccine shipping to Canada the week of Apr. 5 and 1.2 million doses shipping the week of Apr. 19.
Vaccine supply challenges remain
Despite the projected surge in deliveries, Canada’s vaccine supply continues to experience major challenges — even as health officials warn that COVID-19 case counts are set to rise rapidly in the coming weeks as virus variants take hold.
The AstraZeneca doses arriving from the U.S. were manufactured in facilities that haven’t yet received Health Canada approval. Dr. Supriya Sharma, Health Canada’s chief medical adviser, said yesterday the doses will need to be stored until the regulator completes a regulatory review.
And a shipment of 590,400 Moderna doses that was supposed to arrive Saturday has been delayed by a backlog in the company’s quality assurance process.
Anand said she was assured in a conversation with Moderna executives that the delay is not related to new European Union export restrictions meant to address vaccine supply shortages on the continent. She said the delayed shipment has been approved already for export and will arrive “a few days later.”
“We are closely monitoring the global environment, including export restrictions in a number of jurisdictions,” said Anand. “Given the profound period of global demand for vaccine, there will continue to be bumps along the way and we will continue to work every day to ensure that vaccines arrive in this country.”
FedEx workers offload a plane carrying doses of the Moderna COVID‑19 vaccine from Europe at Pearson International Airport in Toronto on Wednesday, March 24, 2021. A shipment of over half a million Moderna doses scheduled to arrive Saturday has been delayed because of a backlog in the company’s quality assurance process. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press)
Meanwhile, the fate of 1.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India bound for Canada is uncertain, after India reportedly placed a temporary hold on all major vaccine exports to allow it to meet domestic demand.
While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said earlier this week he’s seen nothing to indicate that April and May deliveries to Canada will be affected, India’s deputy high commissioner in Canada said the delivery schedule “remains under discussion.”
And despite being approved three weeks ago by Health Canada, Johnson & Johnson still hasn’t confirmed delivery dates for the any of the 10 million doses of its one-shot vaccine that Canada has ordered.
Ford criticizes Ottawa on vaccine supply
At a press conference Friday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford criticized Ottawa for not supplying enough vaccines to the provinces and territories. Ford has mostly avoided attacking the federal government directly on the topic of vaccine supply, even as other conservative leaders — including Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe — have done so regularly.
“I have been very diplomatic and I’ve been very complimentary and collaborative with the federal government [but] enough’s enough. This is becoming a joke,” said Ford. “We need more vaccines.”
Ford said pharmacies in the province have tens of thousands of appointments booked but are running out of doses.
Data that Ontario’s Ministry of Health shared with CBC News late Friday evening show the province has received 2.35 million doses from the federal government, and has administered 1.83 million doses.
The ministry said Ontario has the capacity to administer 150,000 doses per day. Slightly less than 83,000 doses were administered in the province yesterday.
According to a vaccine tracker maintained by CBC News, Canada is behind 34 countries in terms of the percentage of the population that has received at least one dose of vaccine.
The tracker, which only includes countries that report vaccine data publicly, shows that 10.73 per cent of Canadians have received one dose, while only 1.7 per cent have been fully vaccinated.
The opposition Conservatives led off question period today by pressing the government on vaccine deliveries.
Conservative MP Gérard Deltell cited the delay of Canada’s Moderna shipment and the uncertainty created by export restrictions in the EU and India.
“Canada needs vaccines, so why are there delays?” asked Deltell in French.
Liberal MP Steve MacKinnon responded by saying the government was proud to meet its original target of 6 million vaccine doses delivered before the end of March. MacKinnon added that another 3 million doses are expected to arrive next week.
“We are determined to continue our momentum forward with regard to vaccine imports and supply for all Canadians,” MacKinnon said.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
