Come hell or high water, the Prime Minister’s Office insists the country will get the promised four million doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine by the end of March.
It comes after a chaotic morning of questions prompted by planning data sent by the federal government to provinces, who promptly raised the alarm at the numbers showing they could receive only 3.5 million doses rather than four million.
But officials insisted those numbers are only “minimums” and come amid a push by Pfizer to get Health Canada to approve squeezing an extra dose out of each vial of vaccine.
“Pfizer certainly intends on fulfilling their contractual obligations,” Gen. Dany Fortin, who is overseeing logistical planning for Canada’s vaccine distribution efforts, told reporters in Ottawa on Thursday.
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“We are providing as much visibility as possible to the provinces and territories.”
Sources from multiple premiers’ offices told Global News Thursday that data provided to them by federal officials showed that Canada’s goal of four million vaccines by March had been reduced to 3.5 million.
One source told Global News that Alberta’s total shipments under that timeline could be 13 per cent less than previously expected.
3:04 Pfizer wants to relabel COVID-19 vaccine vials from 5 to 6 doses
Pfizer wants to relabel COVID-19 vaccine vials from 5 to 6 doses
Fortin said the data was for provinces to “plan against” and was “a baseline” provinces can build on while sorting out vaccination logistics.
“The numbers are accurate in terms of planning, but we know those numbers will grow to meet the target of four million doses by the end of March,” Fortin said.
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“There’s a number of variables still at play.”
The key variable is whether Health Canada approves a request from the company to boost the number of doses it extracts from each vial of the vaccine from five to six.
It would allow the company to send fewer vials to Canada, while still meeting its contractual obligations.
1:00 Coronavirus: Over 902,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses administered across Canada, says federal health official
Coronavirus: Over 902,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses administered across Canada, says federal health official
A source from the Prime Minister’s Office tells Global News that it is expected Health Canada will change the doses from five to six. When that happens, Canada will hit its four million target with the same number of trays of vials being shipped by Pfizer.
However, if Health Canada does not give the green light, the source said Pfizer will increase the shipments of vials to fulfill its contractual obligation of four million, nonetheless.
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As it stands, federal officials are “doing the math” with five doses per vial, Fortin said, while Pfizer is doing so with six doses.
“That decision (by Health Canada) has not been made yet, so that decision reflects in the data,” Fortin said.
“Planning figures can be misleading, but we will assure we have good, meaningful, bilateral discussions to assure them of what we’re currently thinking.”
The reduction stems, in part, from a production delay at Pfizer’s factory in Europe. The company is scaling up its manufacturing capacity in Belgium — a move it said would impact the vaccine’s production for a “short period.”
Canadian officials have maintained that the reduction in shipments for January and February would be made up when deliveries “ramp up” in March.
Fortin told reporters on Jan. 15, the day the European production delay was announced, that shipments would be reduced by an average of 50 per cent over four weeks.
He did, at the time, acknowledge that the brunt of the delivery reduction would be felt in late January.
“But Pfizer assures us they will recover from that quite significantly and rapidly,” he said at Thursday’s press conference.
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3:26 Coronavirus: Anand says despite Pfizer delay, Canada to have about 20 million doses available by June
Coronavirus: Anand says despite Pfizer delay, Canada to have about 20 million doses available by June
Fortin and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have both said they were confident the delays would be “temporary” and that Canada would still receive four million doses of Pfizer’s shot by the end of March
To date, Canada has received about 1,122,450 doses of both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, according to a vaccine tracker by the University of Saskatchewan. A tally by the Public Health Agency of Canada shows the total number of vaccines delivered as 1,119,225.
Pfizer has indicated to Canada that vaccine deliveries would also be impacted through February. The next two weeks will be lower than initially planned, Fortin said, with 79,000 doses next week and approximately 70,000 the second week of February.
From there, Fortin expects things to still scale up to meet the four million target.
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But it’s a “long game,” Fortin added.
Canada has set a goal to obtain enough approved vaccines for anyone who wishes to be vaccinated by the end of September. Fortin maintained Thursday that he is confident that goal will be met.
Several provinces have already used up nearly all their vaccine supply and have been forced to push back their vaccination schedules.
This week, Ontario announced it would pause vaccinations of long-term care staff and essential caregivers due to upcoming delivery delays. Saskatchewan announced Sunday it had exhausted all the doses it had received so far, while Quebec said it had used up more than 90 per cent of its supply.
Concerns about the slow pace of the vaccine rollout are rising in Canada and around the world.
2:42 Canada ranks 18th on world stage for vaccine rollout
Canada ranks 18th on world stage for vaccine rollout
The researchers predict widespread vaccination won’t happen in Canada until mid-2022.
“Every government around the world has promised its population that they would get access to coronavirus vaccines soon. However, our index shows that this is not a realistic pledge,” Agathe Demarais, global forecasting director of the EIU and author of the report, told Global News in an email.
“Based on a host of indicators, including supply deals, production constraints, vaccine hesitancy, the size of the population, and the availability of healthcare workers, we believe that the immunization of 60-70% of the Canadian population will be completed in early 2022.”
The report ranked countries by their vaccine timelines to date and the assessed likelihood that they will hit those.
Canada came up on par with Brazil, while the United States and Europe were all on track for widespread vaccination by the end of this year.
Demarais notes that Canada’s unique and vast territory will be a “specific hurdle,” making it hard for vaccines to reach remote regions. Production delays, like the ones unfolding in Belgium, will also be part of the constraint, she said.
— with files from The Canadian Press and Global News’ David Akin, Rachel Gilmore and Amanda Connolly
TORONTO – TD Bank Group, which is mired in a money laundering scandal in the U.S., says chief executive Bharat Masrani will retire next year.
Masrani, who will retire officially on April 10, 2025, says the bank’s, “anti-money laundering challenges,” took place on his watch and he takes full responsibility.
The bank named Raymond Chun, TD’s group head, Canadian personal banking, as his successor.
As part of a transition plan, Chun will become chief operating officer on Nov. 1 before taking over the top job when Masrani steps down at the bank’s annual meeting next year.
TD also announced that Riaz Ahmed, group head, wholesale banking and president and CEO of TD Securities, will retire at the end of January 2025.
TD has taken billions in charges related to ongoing U.S. investigations into the failure of its anti-money laundering program.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.
“Communication is one of the most important skills you require for a successful life.” — Catherine Pulsifer, author.
I’m one hundred percent in agreement with Pulsifer, which is why my evaluation of candidates begins with their writing skills. If a candidate’s writing skills and verbal communication skills, which I’ll assess when interviewing, aren’t well above average, I’ll pass on them regardless of their skills and experience.
Why?
Because business is fundamentally about getting other people to do things—getting employees to be productive, getting customers to buy your products or services, and getting vendors to agree to a counteroffer price. In business, as in life in general, you can’t make anything happen without effective communication; this is especially true when job searching when your writing is often an employer’s first impression of you.
Think of all the writing you engage in during a job search (resumes, cover letters, emails, texts) and all your other writing (LinkedIn profile, as well as posts and comments, blogs, articles, tweets, etc.) employers will read when they Google you to determine if you’re interview-worthy.
With so much of our communication today taking place via writing (email, text, collaboration platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, ClickUp, WhatsApp and Rocket.Chat), the importance of proficient writing skills can’t be overstated.
When assessing a candidate’s writing skills, you probably think I’m looking for grammar and spelling errors. Although error-free writing is important—it shows professionalism and attention to detail—it’s not the primary reason I look at a candidate’s writing skills.
The way someone writes reveals how they think.
Clear writing = Clear thinking
Structured paragraphs = Structured mind
Impactful sentences = Impactful ideas
Effective writing isn’t about using sophisticated vocabulary. Hemingway demonstrated that deceptively simple, stripped-down prose can captivate readers. Effective writing takes intricate thoughts and presents them in a way that makes the reader think, “Damn! Why didn’t I see it that way?” A good writer is a dead giveaway for a good thinker. More than ever, the business world needs “good thinkers.”
Therefore, when I come across a candidate who’s a good writer, hence a good thinker, I know they’re likely to be able to write:
Emails that don’t get deleted immediately and are responded to
Simple, concise, and unambiguous instructions
Pitches that are likely to get read
Social media content that stops thumbs
Human-sounding website copy
Persuasively, while attuned to the reader’s possible sensitivities
Now, let’s talk about the elephant in the room: AI, which job seekers are using en masse. Earlier this year, I wrote that AI’s ability to hyper-increase an employee’s productivity—AI is still in its infancy; we’ve seen nothing yet—in certain professions, such as writing, sales and marketing, computer programming, office and admin, and customer service, makes it a “fewer employees needed” tool, which understandably greatly appeals to employers. In my opinion, the recent layoffs aren’t related to the economy; they’re due to employers adopting AI. Additionally, companies are trying to balance investing in AI with cost-cutting measures. CEOs who’ve previously said, “Our people are everything,” have arguably created today’s job market by obsessively focusing on AI to gain competitive advantages and reduce their largest expense, their payroll.
It wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that most AI usage involves generating written content, content that’s obvious to me, and likely to you as well, to have been written by AI. However, here’s the twist: I don’t particularly care.
Why?
Because the fundamental skill I’m looking for is the ability to organize thoughts and communicate effectively. What I care about is whether the candidate can take AI-generated content and transform it into something uniquely valuable. If they can, they’re demonstrating the skills of being a good thinker and communicator. It’s like being a great DJ; anyone can push play, but it takes skill to read a room and mix music that gets people pumped.
Using AI requires prompting effectively, which requires good writing skills to write clear and precise instructions that guide the AI to produce desired outcomes. Prompting AI effectively requires understanding structure, flow and impact. You need to know how to shape raw information, such as milestones throughout your career when you achieved quantitative results, into a compelling narrative.
So, what’s the best way to gain and enhance your writing skills? As with any skill, you’ve got to work at it.
Two rules guide my writing:
Use strong verbs and nouns instead of relying on adverbs, such as “She dashed to the store.” instead of “She ran quickly to the store.” or “He whispered to the child.” instead of “He spoke softly to the child.”
Avoid using long words when a shorter one will do, such as “use” instead of “utilize” or “ask” instead of “inquire.” As attention spans get shorter, I aim for clarity, simplicity and, most importantly, brevity in my writing.
Don’t just string words together; learn to organize your thoughts, think critically, and communicate clearly. Solid writing skills will significantly set you apart from your competition, giving you an advantage in your job search and career.
Nick Kossovan, a well-seasoned veteran of the corporate landscape, offers “unsweetened” job search advice. You can send Nick your questions to artoffindingwork@gmail.com.
MONTREAL – Politics, public opinion and salary hikes south of the border helped push Air Canada toward a deal that secures major pay gains for pilots, experts say.
Hammered out over the weekend, the would-be agreement includes a cumulative wage hike of nearly 42 per cent over four years — an enormous bump by historical standards — according to one source who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. The previous 10-year contract granted increases of just two per cent annually.
The federal government’s stated unwillingness to step in paved the way for a deal, noted John Gradek, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made it plain the two sides should hash one out themselves.
“Public opinion basically pressed the federal cabinet, including the prime minister, to keep their hands clear of negotiations and looking at imposing a settlement,” said Gradek, who teaches aviation management at McGill University.
After late-night talks at a hotel near Toronto’s Pearson airport, the country’s biggest airline and the union representing 5,200-plus aviators announced early Sunday morning they had reached a tentative agreement, averting a strike that would have grounded flights and affected some 110,000 passengers daily.
The relative precariousness of the Liberal minority government as well as a push to appear more pro-labour underlay the prime minister’s hands-off approach to the negotiations.
Trudeau said Friday the government would not step in to fix the impasse — unlike during a massive railway work stoppage last month and a strike by WestJet mechanics over the Canada Day long weekend that workers claimed road roughshod over their constitutional right to collective bargaining. Trudeau said the government respects the right to strike and would only intervene if it became apparent no negotiated deal was possible.
“They felt that they really didn’t want to try for a third attempt at intervention and basically said, ‘Let’s let the airline decide how they want to deal with this one,'” said Gradek.
“Air Canada ran out of support as the week wore on, and by the time they got to Friday night, Saturday morning, there was nothing left for them to do but to basically try to get a deal set up and accepted by ALPA (Air Line Pilots Association).”
Trudeau’s government was also unlikely to consider back-to-work legislation after the NDP tore up its agreement to support the Liberal minority in Parliament, Gradek said. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, whose party has traditionally toed a more pro-business line, also said last week that Tories “stand with the pilots” and swore off “pre-empting” the negotiations.
Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau had asked Ottawa on Thursday to impose binding arbitration pre-emptively — “before any travel disruption starts” — if talks failed. Backed by business leaders, he’d hoped for an effective repeat of the Conservatives’ move to head off a strike in 2012 by legislating Air Canada pilots and ground crew to stick to their posts before any work stoppage could start.
The request may have fallen flat, however. Gradek said he believes there was less anxiety over the fallout from an airline strike than from the countrywide railway shutdown.
He also speculated that public frustration over thousands of cancelled flights would have flowed toward Air Canada rather than Ottawa, prompting the carrier to concede to a deal yielding “unheard of” gains for employees.
“It really was a total collapse of the Air Canada bargaining position,” he said.
Pilots are slated to vote in the coming weeks on the four-year contract.
Last year, pilots at Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and American Airlines secured agreements that included four-year pay boosts ranging from 34 per cent to 40 per cent, ramping up pressure on other carriers to raise wages.
After more than a year of bargaining, Air Canada put forward an offer in August centred around a 30 per cent wage hike over four years.
But the final deal, should union members approve it, grants a 26 per cent increase in the first year alone, retroactive to September 2023, according to the source. Three wage bumps of four per cent would follow in 2024 through 2026.
Passengers may wind up shouldering some of that financial load, one expert noted.
“At the end of the day, it’s all us consumers who are paying,” said Barry Prentice, who heads the University of Manitoba’s transport institute.
Higher fares may be mitigated by the persistence of budget carrier Flair Airlines and the rapid expansion of Porter Airlines — a growing Air Canada rival — as well as waning demand for leisure trips. Corporate travel also remains below pre-COVID-19 levels.
Air Canada said Sunday the tentative contract “recognizes the contributions and professionalism of Air Canada’s pilot group, while providing a framework for the future growth of the airline.”
The union issued a statement saying that, if ratified, the agreement will generate about $1.9 billion of additional value for Air Canada pilots over the course of the deal.
Meanwhile, labour tension with cabin crew looms on the horizon. Air Canada is poised to kick off negotiations with the union representing more than 10,000 flight attendants this year before the contract expires on March 31.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
