Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin, the military commander leading vaccine logistics at the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), said today Canada doesn’t know how many Moderna doses will arrive in the weeks ahead and the company hasn’t said why it has reduced shipments to our country.
Speaking to reporters at a public health briefing, Fortin said 180,000 Moderna doses arrived this morning but the government has no “visibility” on how many more shots will be delivered this month and next.
Despite these unknowns, Fortin said Canada is still expecting 2 million Moderna doses to be delivered by the end of March to meet the prime minister’s promised vaccination targets.
According to a planning document disseminated to the provinces this week, PHAC has already warned provinces to expect disruptions with the next scheduled Moderna delivery, which is set to arrive on Feb. 22.
The Massachusetts-based company, which delivers shots every three weeks, told Canadian officials last week that the shipments for the week of Feb. 1 would be reduced by 20-25 per cent, and now it appears this month’s second shipment is also likely to be lower than expected.
“Moderna reduced shipment quantities for the week of 1-7 Feb. (from 230,400 to 180,000 doses). The week of 22 Feb. will also be impacted, but Moderna cannot confirm allocations for that week yet,” the PHAC document sent to the province reads.
Fortin said he had no idea just how many doses will be on hand by the end of the month, but he knows it will be less than expected.
“I can’t really tell you what the quantity will be. We don’t expect to receive 249,000 at this time,” he said, referencing the figure the company had previously provided. “We’ll soon be able to share that with provinces, in confidence. We just don’t know what those numbers are for certain.”
Fortin conceded that the dearth of information is “a real limitation in the short term,” saying he understood why provinces are frustrated that they’ve had to cancel appointments and push back second doses as a result of the severe delivery disruptions.
“I completely understand that it’s making it more difficult for provinces to prepare clinics,” he said.
WATCH: Canada’s Moderna COVID-19 vaccine delays remain unexplained
Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin says he’s not sure how many doses Canada will receive of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine in the weeks ahead and doesn’t know what’s causing the delay. 2:37
While Pfizer has offered some explanation for why its shipments have been dramatically lower than expected — plant upgrades at a facility in Belgium caused deliveries to drop by 80 per cent — Fortin said Moderna hasn’t said why it’s had to put off tens of thousands of doses to a later delivery date.
“They haven’t shared the specific challenges that they may experience in their yields or in their production,” Fortin said. “I think Moderna has indicated that they are, in good faith, trying their best to provide as many doses as possible.”
In a statement to CBC News, a spokesperson for Moderna said the company is trying to step up production at the European facilities that supply Canada with shots.
“Vaccine manufacturing is a highly complex process. In normal circumstances it may take three to four years to prepare for the industrial launch of a vaccine. Moderna is proud of its achievements to date with the support of its partners,” the spokesperson said.
While Canada’s Moderna supply will be curtailed this month, the company is churning out more shots in the U.S. Shipments there have increased by about 35 per cent in the last week.
We should not be drawing away from poorer countries — we should be having the capacity here. We’re a G7 country and we’re trailing.– Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole
The spokesperson said, because Moderna’s vaccine was partially funded by monies from former president Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, it is obligated to send a certain number of doses to the U.S. this quarter.
“Moderna has provided short term revised delivery guidance outside of the U.S., including to the government of Canada, based on the ramp up trajectory of drug substance manufacturing in Switzerland,” the spokesperson said.
To meet the prime minister’s target of six million COVID-19 shots delivered by the end of March, more than 3.5 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna products will have to be delivered in the month of March alone — or roughly 885,000 doses a week.
Pfizer, which delivers its product weekly, is expected to deliver 79,000 doses this week and an additional 70,000 doses for the week of Feb. 8., before ramping up at month’s end.
Canada ranks 33rd on vaccine effort
Health Canada regulators are expected to approve another promising vaccine candidate — the product from AstraZeneca — in the “coming days,” which could give a jolt to Canada’s stalled vaccination campaign.
But for that product, too, Fortin said he didn’t know how many, if any, doses would be delivered in the coming weeks. He said PHAC has developed a number of possible delivery scenarios if AstraZeneca secures the green light, but that information would not be made public.
Canada has fallen behind other developed nations in the number of shots administered per capita as supply disruptions derail planned vaccinations.
According to data collated by the University of Oxford-based Our World in Data, Canada now ranks 33rd globally, well behind allies like the United States and the United Kingdom but also middle-income countries like Turkey and Serbia.
Canada’s vaccination effort has also been outpaced so far by those in Bahrain, Denmark, Germany, Israel, Italy, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and the United Arab Emirates, among others.
Canada’s decision to tap COVAX supply draws opposition fire
The government, meanwhile, is under fire on another vaccine-related matter. Canada has opted to receive shots from COVAX, a vaccine-sharing initiative funded by wealthier countries to ensure low- and middle-income countries have access to shots.
In announcing funding for the initiative last year — Canada is among the most generous financial donors to the program — the prime minister said the country intended to draw on the COVAX supply to bolster the vaccination campaign at home.
But now some opposition leaders say it is an embarrassment that Canada is intending to rely on this program for additional doses. COVAX has said Canada will receive at least 1.9 million AstraZeneca doses from the program by the end of June.
Green Party Leader Annamie Paul said Canada’s move to take doses from COVAX could prolong transmission of the virus elsewhere and allow more variants to mutate.
“This is the wrong decision, this is the wrong time to make this decision,” she said.
“People in Canada do not want this kind of decision made in their name. So, we are asking for the government to either rescind this decision, or alternatively make up for whatever doses it has taken out by returning them to the COVAX facility so that our international neighbours can enjoy the same protection we do; so we can get out of this pandemic together.”
As the only G7 country slated to draw doses from the COVAX facility, Paul said the decision also harms Canada’s international reputation.
During question period, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland defended the Liberal government’s decision to tap into COVAX vaccine supply. 1:06
Speaking in question period, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said the government will do it all can to bolster Canadian supply, even if it means tapping a program principally designed for developing countries.
“Our government will never apologise for doing everything in our power to get Canadians vaccinated as quickly as possible,” Freeland said. “We’ve been clear from the start: no one will be safe until everyone is. We’re focused on getting Canadians vaccinated while making sure the rest of the world is vaccinated too.”
Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole declined to say if he would accept the supplies from COVAX if he were prime minister, insisting Canada would not be facing this dilemma under his leadership.
“It’s hard for me to divorce the inaction of the government over the last 10 months with what I would do today. We would not be in this position today because last year I was asking for independence on everything from PPE to vaccine manufacturing,” he said.
“We should not be drawing away from poorer countries — we should be having the capacity here. We’re a G7 country and we’re trailing,” he said.
While a laggard compared to many other wealthy nations, Canada has administered more shots per capita than G7 partner Japan.
Japan, with a population of 126 million people and just 5,400 COVID-19-related deaths, hasn’t yet started its vaccination campaign. Unlike Canada, Japan is planning to produce 90 million shots of the AstraZeneca vaccine domestically.
Religious persecution
Misguided religious and cultural traditions
Fear of those who challenge the established order
Long ago a horrid thing happened in Europe and in many European Colonies. It was called the Inquisition, an instrument of the Catholic Church and used by the present-day public authorities to quell political and social protest and challenges from those considered rebels(Heretics).
In that day the Church of Rome was seen as the very roots of Western society, that which kept society on a path of righteousness and functioning practice. The political rulers of the day, kings, nobles and lords allied themselves to the church with absolute reason for doing so. The church kept them in power you see. There was a hierarchy prescribed to the present-day society where authority flowed from God to the Pope, Noblemen, Cardinals, and Priests to the public. Church law was often edited for the benefit of the higher classes. Therefore rebels standing against local or regional lords were viewed as heretics who stood against the wishes of the pope, church laws and God himself. This church-established a council of the Inquisition roamed Europe looking for heretics, those different, rebels, witches and those in league with the devil. Any form of social, cultural or political wrongdoing was dealt with with a heavy hand. The rich may have been accused of a wrongdoing, but able to seek their freedom through financial donations. The poor faced the Inquisition with terror and fear since no one was there to represent them. The church-Lord alliance maintained the most severe of punishments.
The Inquisition evolved into the massive witch-hunting movement. Millions of people perished having been accused of witchcraft and being in League with the Devil. There actually existed witch hunters who simply went to a village, watching who was odd, different, threatening to the authorities and voila, a witch was found and declared. Strange methods of finding a witch were developed. One involved sticking a pin into the back side of a person, usually a woman and if she did not cry out in pain, she was possibly a candidate for interrogation. The interrogators usually got a confession leading to that person’s death.
There exists today religious authorities with similar powers to prosecute and punish those deemed different or contrary to established religious or cultural practices. Arrest, torture and disappearances happen daily in places such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and many African Nations. Fanatical Religious Dogma has cost millions of people their lives, and for what? The Acquisition and use of power. Power encompasses every aspect of control of others whether it be through intellect, threat or violence.
Never should such horrors happen in a civilized world. Just one question needs to be asked. Do we live in a civilized world?
TORONTO – An arbitrator has awarded Ontario’s doctors a nearly 10-per-cent compensation increase for the first year of their new Physician Services Agreement.
The province is in the midst of negotiations with the Ontario Medical Association for the four-year agreement, but an arbitrator was tasked with setting increases for the first year, while the two sides work on the 2025-2028 period.
The OMA had proposed a five-per-cent general increase plus 10.2 per cent as a catch up to account for inflation, while the government proposed three per cent.
Arbitrator William Kaplan concluded that while the OMA’s target was unprecedented, the government’s suggested three per cent was “completely unrealistic.”
He writes that other health-care workers like nurses have received far more for the same time period, and they do not have to pay the overhead costs of running a practice out of their compensation, as doctors do, so he awarded a three-per-cent general increase plus a “catch up” of 6.95 per cent.
The Ministry of Health’s arbitration arguments angered doctors, as the government wrote that recruitment and retention of doctors was “not a major concern” and there was “no concern of a diminished supply of physicians.”
Kaplan wrote that there is a physician shortage.
“Somewhere between 1.35 million and 2.3 million people in the province are not attached to a family doctor,” the arbitration decision said.
“These are real numbers. The Ministry’s own documents – which we ordered disclosed – demonstrate that there is a problem to address.”
Kaplan cites a ministry document that showed the growth rate for family doctors was 1.4 per cent, which was below the growth rate for the population, at 1.6 per cent.
“What was being said, in other words, in the Ministry’s words, in this Ministry document, was that the problem is structural: the number of new family doctors needs to significantly exceed population growth and until and unless it begins to do so, the attachment problem will persist and deteriorate.”
The OMA said in a statement that while it is encouraged by the award, there is still much to be done to address the fact that more than two million Ontarians do not have a family doctor.
“The OMA also remains concerned about access to care, particularly in northern and rural Ontario, and ensuring that specialist consults, surgeries, and diagnostic tests are provided to patients in a timely manner so that people receive the best outcome possible,” the group wrote.
Health Minister Sylvia Jones said in a statement that the agreement also provides for specific funding to be allocated to “targeted investments” to help enhance and connect people to primary care.
“This agreement builds on the $17.5 billion the province currently spends to connect people to family doctors, primary care and other services across the province, 50 per cent more than when we took office in 2018,” she wrote.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Ongoing controversy over the documentary “Russians at War” has brought scrutiny to Ontario’s public broadcaster, which has said it will not air the film it helped fund.
One media expert says TVO is getting “the worst of all worlds” by investing in a project that can no longer be shown or monetized.
“TVO created a thing which their audience doesn’t get to see, other audiences will get to see and they’ve footed the bill and gotten no reward for it,” Chris Arsenault, chair of Western University’s master of media in journalism and communication program, said in an interview.
“I can’t think of a worse outcome for a network than what’s happened.”
“Russians at War,” a film rebuked by the Ukrainian community and some Canadian politicians, was part of the Toronto International Film Festival’s lineup until organizers suspended all screenings this week due to “significant threats” to festival operations. It shows the disillusionment of some Russian soldiers on the front lines of the war in Ukraine.
TVO had planned to air the story in the coming months, but the network’s board of directors withdrew support for the film on Tuesday, citing feedback it received. The Ukrainian Canadian Congress, Ukraine’s consul-general in Toronto and others have called the film Russian propaganda and a “whitewashing” of Russian military war crimes in Ukraine – claims the film’s producers and TIFF have rejected.
The TVO board’s announcement came just days after the network defended the film as “antiwar” at its core. It was an about-face the Documentary Organization of Canada said “poses a serious threat” to media independence and raises questions about political interference.
TVO has not responded to requests for comment and board chair Chris Day declined to elaborate on the decision to pull the film.
“Suffice it to say, we heard significant concerns and we responded,” Day wrote to The Canadian Press in an emailed response to an interview request.
Arsenault, who has not seen the documentary and could not comment on its content, said he’s nevertheless worried about the spectre of board intervention in independent editorial decisions, which he said “opens the doors” to further meddling in the production of documentaries and journalism.
“Russians at War,” a Canada-France co-production, was funded in part by the Canada Media Fund, which provided $340,000 for the project through its broadcaster envelope program. A spokesperson for the fund said TVO independently chose to use that money to support the production of the documentary.
One of the film’s producers, Cornelia Principe, said that TVO also had to pay a licensing fee to air the documentary. Such fees can range from $50,000 to $100,000, she said.
Principe, who has defended the documentary and its Canadian-Russian director Anastasia Trofimova, said she was shocked by the TVO board’s decision.
“Anastasia and I have been working with TVO on this for two and a half years.… I was a little bit out of it for hours. I just couldn’t believe it.”
What happens next, she said, is “uncharted territory” for TVO.
“This has, as far as I know, never happened before,” said Principe, who has worked with the broadcaster on various documentaries over the years.
TVO’s board has said the network will be “reviewing the process by which this project was funded and our brand leveraged.”
Ontario’s Minister of Education Jill Dunlop said in a statement that the decision made by TVO’s board of directors “was the right thing to do,” but did not elaborate.
As a non-profit government agency, TVO has a mandate to distribute educational materials and programs but the ministry is not involved with its broadcasting arm due to CRTC licensing rules.
Another public broadcaster, British Columbia’s Knowledge Network, has confirmed that it made a licence fee contribution of $15,000 for “Russians at War” so that it can be a “second window” broadcaster for the film.
Asked whether the documentary will still air at some point in British Columbia, a spokesperson for the network said it’s “working on a public response.”
Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland has denounced the use of public funds for “Russians at War,” saying she shares the “grave concerns” Ukrainian officials and community members in Canada have raised about the film.
The Ukrainian Canadian Congress has said it will keep protesting “Russians in War” since TIFF has said it will still screen the doc at some point. A demonstration in downtown Toronto was set to get underway Friday afternoon.
“Russians at War” is scheduled to screen at the Windsor International Film Festival, running from Oct. 24 to Nov. 3. The festival announced Friday that the documentary is among 10 nominees for its WIFF Prize in Canadian Film, worth $25,000.
— With files from Queen’s Park correspondent Allison Jones in Toronto.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
