A healthcare worker administers a Pfizer/BioNTEch coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine to personal support worker Derek Thompson at The Michener Institute, in Toronto on Dec. 14, 2020.
CARLOS OSORIO/Reuters
Canada’s national vaccination campaign to stop the spread of COVID-19 began with joy and relief on Monday, while challenges facing the mass inoculation plan rose to the surface as hundreds of Quebec nursing-home workers passed on the shot for now.
Gisèle Levesque, an 89-year-old resident of a Quebec City nursing home, did not flinch as she received her needle in the arm at 11:25 a.m. A short time later and about 250 kilometres to the southwest, Gloria Lallouz, 78, received her dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at a nursing home on the west side of Montreal. Anita Quidangen, a Toronto personal support worker who has worked with seniors since 1988, received the vaccine just after noon.
“I feel happy, I feel good,” Ms. Lallouz told reporters gathered outside her nursing home after her shot. “I’ve been stuck in my room for eight months. Eight months, without leaving my room. I hope everyone gets the vaccine. It’s important to live again.”
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Federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu said she wept hearing Ms. Lallouz describe her wish to find her life once more. Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé chimed in, saying he choked up as well.
The campaign to bring the vaccine to Canada’s 38 million people started at a rate of about six people an hour at four locations in Ontario and Quebec on Monday.
Quebec received 4,875 doses this week, and Ontario got 6,000. Each Quebec site planned 150 injections on Monday and to ramp up to 500 a day, while Ontario started with five vaccinations in Toronto. Other parts of the country expect to begin vaccinating people later in the week.
In Montreal, Ms. Lallouz and most of the other 326 residents of the Donald Berman Maimonides Geriatric Centre in Montreal enthusiastically welcomed the vaccine, but workers proved more reluctant. While 95 per cent of residents signed up, only 35 per cent to 40 per cent of the home’s 500 workers did, according to Francine Dupuis, associate chief executive officer of the west-central health district of Montreal Island.
“They’re not against it, they’re hesitant. They don’t want to be first,” Ms. Dupuis said. “They said, ‘Yes, but not now. We’ll wait for the next wave when we see how people react.’ ”
Mr. Dubé said he is not concerned. “I don’t think we should read too much into those numbers,” Mr. Dubé said. “In the first groups we will see the most enthusiastic people. In coming weeks, I’m convinced more will sign up.”
The public shows more interest in getting vaccinated quickly, according to a poll from the Angus Reid Institute. Results published on Monday showed 48 per cent of Canadians want to be vaccinated as soon as possible, a rise of eight percentage points from one month earlier. Seventy-nine per cent of Canadians said they would get vaccinated soon or eventually, a rise of three percentage points from one month earlier.
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Noni MacDonald, a Dalhousie University professor who researches vaccine safety and policy, said it’s normal for some people to hesitate.
“For anything that’s new, it doesn’t matter if it’s technology, a health care intervention, a different car, whatever, there are early adopters, and there are people who want to wait and watch. It doesn’t surprise me that there’s some health care workers who want to wait and watch,” Dr. MacDonald said. But she added she was surprised by the number, because the vaccine is an important way for workers in health care facilities to protect themselves.
The federal public-health agency is planning an education campaign for the new year to target priority groups. Spokesperson Natalie Mohamed said the campaign will cover vaccine safety, the regulatory process, and the need to continue to follow public-health advice to limit the spread of COVID-19.
That campaign should target Canadians where they get their information, Dr. MacDonald said.
“Seniors are not on TikTok,” Dr. MacDonald said. “So how I might want to reach a 20- to 30-year-old is very different than how I would want to reach an over-80-year-old.” Similarly, she said some new Canadians and refugees are less likely to trust a government message, so the campaign has to be adapted.
Federal officials could not give a precise timeline for the arrival of 249,000 doses expected by the end of the month. Canada is to receive 30,000 doses this week, but officials are less certain about 30,000 that had been scheduled for next week.
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“We’re not expecting 30,000 next week,” said Major-General Dany Fortin, who is leading the logistics for the Public Health Agency of Canada. “But at this time, I’m not prepared to speak to the exact numbers.”
Christina Antoniou, a spokesperson for Pfizer Canada, said the company will be able to “deliver on our full committed volume and meet the needs of Canadian vaccination points by the end of the month.”
Ontario Premier Doug Ford warned Ontarians of the long road ahead, asking people to follow public-health rules in the meantime. “This is a watershed moment — the beginning of the end of this terrible pandemic,” Mr. Ford said.
The province intends to vaccinate 2,500 health care workers in hospitals and long-term homes this week and save the rest of the vaccine for the second dose required in three weeks. The Ontario vaccine went to Toronto’s University Health Network and The Ottawa Hospital.
Quebec plans to give out all of its first shipment as first doses, concentrating on nursing home residents and workers.
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B.C. and Alberta each received 3,900 doses on Monday. B.C.’s will be administered on Tuesday at two sites in the Vancouver Coastal and Fraser Health regions, while Alberta’s will be administered on Wednesday at two hospitals in Edmonton and two in Calgary.
B.C. Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry said she expects the vaccine to be available to health care workers at nine sites next week, with plans to expand to 30. Alberta Health Minister Tyler Shandro expected his province to have eight vaccination sites in coming weeks.
Manitoba is expected to receive enough vaccine to immunize 900 people beginning on Wednesday. The first group will be mainly older health care workers. As of Monday, 668 health care workers had booked appointments, Premier Brian Pallister said.
With a report from Andrea Woo
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MONTREAL – Travel company Transat AT Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter compared with a profit a year earlier as its revenue edged lower.
The parent company of Air Transat says it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31.
The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue in what was the company’s third quarter totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.
Transat chief executive Annick Guérard says demand for leisure travel remains healthy, as evidenced by higher traffic, but consumers are increasingly price conscious given the current economic uncertainty.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Dollarama Inc.’s food aisles may have expanded far beyond sweet treats or piles of gum by the checkout counter in recent years, but its chief executive maintains his company is “not in the grocery business,” even if it’s keeping an eye on the sector.
“It’s just one small part of our store,” Neil Rossy told analysts on a Wednesday call, where he was questioned about the company’s food merchandise and rivals playing in the same space.
“We will keep an eye on all retailers — like all retailers keep an eye on us — to make sure that we’re competitive and we understand what’s out there.”
Over the last decade and as consumers have more recently sought deals, Dollarama’s food merchandise has expanded to include bread and pantry staples like cereal, rice and pasta sold at prices on par or below supermarkets.
However, the competition in the discount segment of the market Dollarama operates in intensified recently when the country’s biggest grocery chain began piloting a new ultra-discount store.
The No Name stores being tested by Loblaw Cos. Ltd. in Windsor, St. Catharines and Brockville, Ont., are billed as 20 per cent cheaper than discount retail competitors including No Frills. The grocery giant is able to offer such cost savings by relying on a smaller store footprint, fewer chilled products and a hearty range of No Name merchandise.
Though Rossy brushed off notions that his company is a supermarket challenger, grocers aren’t off his radar.
“All retailers in Canada are realistic about the fact that everyone is everyone’s competition on any given item or category,” he said.
Rossy declined to reveal how much of the chain’s sales would overlap with Loblaw or the food category, arguing the vast variety of items Dollarama sells is its strength rather than its grocery products alone.
“What makes Dollarama Dollarama is a very wide assortment of different departments that somewhat represent the old five-and-dime local convenience store,” he said.
The breadth of Dollarama’s offerings helped carry the company to a second-quarter profit of $285.9 million, up from $245.8 million in the same quarter last year as its sales rose 7.4 per cent.
The retailer said Wednesday the profit amounted to $1.02 per diluted share for the 13-week period ended July 28, up from 86 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
The period the quarter covers includes the start of summer, when Rossy said the weather was “terrible.”
“The weather got slightly better towards the end of the summer and our sales certainly increased, but not enough to make up for the season’s horrible start,” he said.
Sales totalled $1.56 billion for the quarter, up from $1.46 billion in the same quarter last year.
Comparable store sales, a key metric for retailers, increased 4.7 per cent, while the average transaction was down2.2 per cent and traffic was up seven per cent, RBC analyst Irene Nattel pointed out.
She told investors in a note that the numbers reflect “solid demand as cautious consumers focus on core consumables and everyday essentials.”
Analysts have attributed such behaviour to interest rates that have been slow to drop and high prices of key consumer goods, which are weighing on household budgets.
To cope, many Canadians have spent more time seeking deals, trading down to more affordable brands and forgoing small luxuries they would treat themselves to in better economic times.
“When people feel squeezed, they tend to shy away from discretionary, focus on the basics,” Rossy said. “When people are feeling good about their wallet, they tend to be more lax about the basics and more willing to spend on discretionary.”
The current economic situation has drawn in not just the average Canadian looking to save a buck or two, but also wealthier consumers.
“When the entire economy is feeling slightly squeezed, we get more consumers who might not have to or want to shop at a Dollarama generally or who enjoy shopping at a Dollarama but have the luxury of not having to worry about the price in some other store that they happen to be standing in that has those goods,” Rossy said.
“Well, when times are tougher, they’ll consider the extra five minutes to go to the store next door.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
TORONTO – The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has ordered TD Bank Group to pay US$28 million for repeatedly sharing inaccurate, negative information about its customers to consumer reporting companies.
The agency says TD has to pay US$7.76 million in total to tens of thousands of victims of its illegal actions, along with a US$20 million civil penalty.
It says TD shared information that contained systemic errors about credit card and bank deposit accounts to consumer reporting companies, which can include credit reports as well as screening reports for tenants and employees and other background checks.
CFPB director Rohit Chopra says in a statement that TD threatened the consumer reports of customers with fraudulent information then “barely lifted a finger to fix it,” and that regulators will need to “focus major attention” on TD Bank to change its course.
TD says in a statement it self-identified these issues and proactively worked to improve its practices, and that it is committed to delivering on its responsibilities to its customers.
The bank also faces scrutiny in the U.S. over its anti-money laundering program where it expects to pay more than US$3 billion in monetary penalties to resolve.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
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