This column is an opinion by Jason Nickerson, humanitarian affairs advisor for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Ottawa, and a respiratory therapist with more than a decade of experience in clinical patient care and global public health response. For more information about CBC’s Opinion section, please see the FAQ.
Vaccines are on their way for Canadians. Health Canada’s authorization of the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccine on Dec. 9, following the announcement that Canada should expect to receive 249,000 doses by year’s end, has sent positive signals that an end to the pandemic could soon be in sight for this country.
But not everyone can share in Canada’s good news.
As COVID-19 vaccines start becoming available for use here and in a few other high-income countries, people living elsewhere will have to wait. From a global health perspective, that raises two major concerns — and some hard questions for Canada.
The first concern is that it will be months, perhaps years, before we have the billions of doses needed to vaccinate everyone around the world. No single manufacturer today has the capacity to meet global demand, and although there is much to celebrate in the unprecedented and rapid development of these COVID-19 vaccines, their global roll-out appears poised to be inequitable and uneven.
The second concern is that this pandemic is having a disproportionate impact on people living in poverty – in Canada, certainly, but also profoundly in countries affected by conflict and crisis. Ending this pandemic is a matter of global humanitarian urgency not just because of COVID-19 itself, but because of its knock-on effects.
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)’s medical teams have seen a significant increase in emergency health needs, from malaria to sexual and reproductive health and beyond, with women and girls being disproportionately affected and facing greater dangers. These are the ripple effects of the pandemic, a result of imposed lockdowns and reductions of health services. Hard-won gains in reducing poverty and improving the health of billions are not only in jeopardy, they are actively being compromised.
Dr. Kerry Bowman, with the University of Toronto’s Joint Centre for Bioethics, spoke to the CBC’s Adrian Harewood about how officials decide who should be first in line for a COVID-19 vaccine. 6:33
Which brings us to Canada’s vaccination plan. The Canadian government has announced that it expects to receive at least 194 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from different manufacturers, with options to purchase an additional 220 million. Given that most vaccines will require two doses, that’s enough to vaccinate all 38 million Canadians — plus an additional 169 million people.
That’s a significant surplus, which has raised questions about whether Canada and other high-income countries are hoarding doses of a much-needed vaccine.
These disparities in access are meant to be addressed by COVAX, a global mechanism designed specifically for the purpose of developing COVID-19 vaccines, negotiating their purchase and distributing them equitably around the world. The Canadian government is one of the largest investors in COVAX, which is the right thing to do. But funding alone is not enough to solve this problem.
High demand and low supply mean that even if lower-income countries can count on money in the COVAX bank, there may simply not be enough vaccine doses available for them to purchase.
That could mean that high-risk people in low-income countries — front-line health workers, people in vulnerable groups — may not be vaccinated until low-risk people in high-income countries have received their doses first.
Vaccine nationalism, when rich countries buy up vaccines making them unavailable for other countries, could hinder the global fight to end the COVID-19 pandemic and a program to have vaccines available everywhere is still not fully funded. 4:12
How can Canada find the right balance between protecting its citizens at home while ensuring access to COVID-19 vaccines for people around the world who need them most? There are three things that can be done right now.
The first is to unambiguously commit to donating any surplus vaccines.
This is an obvious commitment to make, yet Canadian leaders have so far been evasive. Sources recently suggested that the government is moving towards such a plan; Canada should simply commit to it immediately and get working on the details.
Canada is not the only country that needs certainty in assessing when its doses will arrive in order to begin vaccinating high-risk populations, so we must also be clear about how many doses of which vaccines Canada intends to actually take possession of. We can then release the doses we don’t intend to purchase back into the global supply, which will give the world a better overview of potential availability.
The second thing is to continue investing in COVAX as a donor with policy influence.
Committing to donate surplus vaccines is one thing, but what’s really needed is not charity — it’s fundamental change to the way the global pharmaceutical industry operates. The inequities in the global supply of essential medicines are not new or unique to the COVID-19 pandemic; they are part of how the industry has operated for decades, for virtually all diseases.
COVAX can address some of the systemic problems in the way medicines are developed, such as by ensuring that vaccines with a more global yet less profitable profile still see the light of day. Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have significant cold chain requirements that will make them challenging to use in resource-constrained environments, for example. It’s essential that governments continue to push to ensure that other vaccines more suitable for global use continue to be developed.
On both sides of the border, small companies are taking on a big role in helping perfect the cold chain to keep the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine cold enough for safe delivery. And one key component is making sure there’s enough dry ice to keep the vaccine cold enough. 2:06
Earlier in the pandemic, the federal government announced $126 million of funding to increase the capacity of the National Research Council of Canada’s biomanufacturing facility in Montreal, ostensibly to produce vaccines. We should not squander this opportunity to invest in a pharmaceutical research and development ecosystem that can meet not only domestic needs, but global ones too.
Beyond COVID-19, this is about adopting a model of medical research, development and manufacturing that is guided by public health needs, and the principles of global, equitable and affordable access — not just by market returns.
Canada has the talent and expertise to invest meaningfully in a needs-driven, open-science approach to drug development. In 2018, Parliament’s Standing Committee on Health agreed that this is the path we should take for developing new medicines, and made recommendations on how to do this. Let’s put that into action.
For months, Prime Minister Trudeau has committed publicly to ensuring “affordable and equitable access” to COVID-19 vaccines, at a time when other countries were looking mostly inward. We should celebrate this. But Canada’s recent plans to potentially procure hundreds of millions of doses of high-demand, low-supply vaccines have raised eyebrows among global public health experts. There are legitimate concerns that if all of these options are exercised, Canada will have a surplus of vaccines, putting us out of sync with these global equitable access commitments.
Let’s have some clarity on the federal government’s intentions for these surplus doses and, if needed, a course correction to ensure Canada remains a champion of global health through both its words and its actions.
OTTAWA – The New Democrats confirmed Thursday they won’t help Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives topple the government next week, and intend to join the Bloc Québécois in blocking the Tories’ non-confidence motion.
The planned votes from the Bloc and the New Democrats eliminate the possibility of a snap election, buying the Liberals more time to govern after a raucous start to the fall sitting of Parliament.
Poilievre issued a challenge to NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh earlier this week when he announced he will put forward a motion that simply states that the House has no confidence in the government or the prime minister.
If it were to pass, it would likely mean Canadians would be heading to the polls, but Singh said Thursday he’s not going to let Poilievre tell him what to do.
Voting against the Conservative motion doesn’t mean the NDP support the Liberals, said Singh, who pulled out of his political pact with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a few weeks ago.
“I stand by my words, Trudeau has let you down,” Singh said in the foyer outside of the House of Commons Thursday.
“Trudeau has let you down and does not deserve another chance.”
Canadians will have to make that choice at the ballot box, Singh said, but he will make a decision about whether to help trigger that election on a vote-by-vote basis in the House.
The Conservatives mocked the NDP during Question Period for saying they had “ripped up” the deal to support the Liberals, despite plans to vote to keep them in power.
Poilievre accused Singh of pretending to pull out of the deal to sway voters in a federal byelection in Winnipeg, where the NDP was defending its long-held seat against the Conservatives.
“Once the votes were counted, he betrayed them again. He’s a fake, a phoney and fraud. How can anyone ever believe what the sellout NDP leader says in the future?” Poilievre said during Question Period Thursday afternoon.
At some point after those comments, Singh stepped out from behind his desk in the House and a two-minute shouting match ensued between the two leaders and their MPs before the Speaker intervened.
Outside the House, Poilievre said he plans to put forward another non-confidence motion at the next opportunity.
“We want a carbon-tax election as soon as possible, so that we can axe Trudeau’s tax before he quadruples it to 61 cents a litre,” he said.
Liberal House leader Karina Gould says there is much work the government still needs to do, and that Singh has realized the consequences of potentially bringing down the government. She refused to take questions about whether her government will negotiate with opposition parties to ensure their support in future confidence motions.
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet hasn’t ruled out voting no-confidence in the government the next time a motion is tabled.
“I never support Liberals. Help me God, I go against the Conservatives on a vote that is only about Pierre Poilievre and his huge ambition for himself,” Blanchet said Thursday.
“I support the interests of Quebecers, if those interests are also good for Canadians.”
A Bloc bill to increase pension cheques for seniors aged 65 to 74 is now at “the very centre of the survival of this government,” he said.
The Bloc needs a recommendation from a government minister to OK the cost and get the bill through the House.
The Bloc also wants to see more protections for supply management in the food sector in Canada and Quebec.
If the Liberals can’t deliver on those two things, they will fall, Blanchet said.
“This is what we call power,” he said.
Treasury Board President Anita Anand wouldn’t say whether the government would be willing to swallow the financial implications of the Bloc’s demands.
“We are focused at Treasury Board on ensuring prudent fiscal management,” she said Thursday.
“And at this time, our immediate focus is implementing the measures in budget 2024 that were announced earlier this year.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
OTTAWA – Treasury Board President Anita Anand has been sworn in as federal transport minister at a ceremony at Rideau Hall, taking over a portfolio left vacant after Pablo Rodriguez resigned from cabinet and the Liberal caucus on Thursday.
Anand thanked Rodriguez for his contributions to the government and the country, saying she’s grateful for his guidance and friendship.
She sidestepped a question about the message it sends to have him leave the federal Liberal fold.
“That is a decision that he made independently, and I wish him well,” she said.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was not present for the swearing-in ceremony, nor were any other members of the Liberal government.
The shakeup in cabinet comes just days after the Liberals lost a key seat in a Montreal byelection to the Bloc Québécois and amid renewed calls for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to step down and make way for a new leader.
Anand said she is not actively seeking leadership of the party, saying she is focused on her roles as minister and as MP.
“My view is that we are a team, and we are a team that has to keep delivering for our country,” she said.
The minority Liberal government is in a more challenging position in the House of Commons after the NDP ended a supply-and-confidence deal that provided parliamentary stability for more than two years.
Non-confidence votes are guaranteed to come from the Opposition Conservatives, who are eager to bring the government down.
On Thursday morning, Rodriguez made a symbolic walk over the Alexandra Bridge from Parliament Hill to Gatineau, Que., where he formally announced his plans to run for the Quebec Liberal party leadership.
He said he will now sit as an Independent member of Parliament, which will allow him to focus on his own priorities.
“I was defending the priorities of the government, and I did it in a very loyal way,” he said.
“It’s normal and it’s what I had to do. But now it’s more about my vision, the vision of the team that I’m building.”
Rodriguez said he will stay on as an MP until the Quebec Liberal leadership campaign officially launches in January.
He said that will “avoid a costly byelection a few weeks, or months, before a general election.”
The next federal election must be held by October 2025.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said he will try to topple the government sooner than that, beginning with a non-confidence motion that is set to be debated Sept. 24 and voted on Sept. 25.
Poilievre has called on the NDP and the Bloc Québécois to support him, but both Jagmeet Singh and Yves-François Blanchet have said they will not support the Conservatives.
Rodriguez said he doesn’t want a federal election right away and will vote against the non-confidence motion.
As for how he would vote on other matters before the House of Commons, “it would depend on the votes.”
Public Services and Procurement Minister Jean-Yves Duclos will become the government’s new Quebec lieutenant, a non-cabinet role Rodriguez held since 2019.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
— With files from Nojoud Al Mallees and Dylan Robertson
