OTTAWA —
Today’s planned delivery of Pfizer doses has been delayed by one day due to inclement winter weather in the United States, the pharmaceutical giant has confirmed to CTV News.
The short delay is to just one of what Pfizer says will be a few shipments slated to arrive in Canada this week. Overall this week’s delivery total is expected to be 403,650 doses.
“Unfortunately the inclement weather in the U.S. has caused a short delay of today’s planned delivery. As a result, our delivery scheduled for today will be delayed by one day. However, the majority of our deliveries this week are scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday and those remain on schedule,” said spokesperson Christina Antoniou in an email.
“We are doing everything we can to try and reduce the delay as much as possible and sincerely regret any inconvenience this may have caused,” she said.
As a result of “significant weather events,” the United Parcel Service (UPS) closed its Worldport shipping facilities in Louisville, Ky. on Monday.
While Canada’s doses are being shipped from Europe, they pass through the U.S. facility in Louisville along the way.
Weather delays have been considered a potential issue by the federal government and those leading Canada’s national vaccine rollout, though during a press conference in which the vaccination campaign was discussed, Procurement Minister Anita Anand did not mention this delay.
This holdup follows a month-long slowdown as it made changes to its facility in Belgium, resulting in deliveries of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine to Canada dropping off completely for one week and significantly reduced in others.
As of this week, and in the weeks between now and the end of March, Canada is expecting to receive weekly shipments of more than 400,000 doses.
Before the brief delay was announced, Cole Pinnow, president of Pfizer Canada, was asked on CTV News Channel about Canada’s vaccine rollout, where he stated the pharmaceutical giant is “confident” it will meet its target of four million doses delivered to Canada by the end of next month.
Pinnow noted that the company has moved up its timeline for all 40 million guaranteed doses to the end of September, instead of the end of the year.
Canada currently receives its doses from the Belgium facility, but some have suggested the government could turn to the U.S. state of Michigan, also home to a Pfizer production facility, for help with more doses.
Pinnow acknowledged that the company is considering that as an option for the second part of 2021, but is confident that Belgium will satisfy the dosage needs for now.
Though Canada has faced criticism for its lack of domestic production capacity, Pinnow said that vaccine manufacturing is so complex — particularly with a product as innovative as the Pfizer mRNA vaccine — that there could have been “a bottleneck in the process” even with a Canadian facility in play.
“It’s important to note, regardless of who’s making which part of any given product, that there is a global supply chain and it’s really in all of our best interest to support open borders and open trade,” Pinnow said.
He also said that from his perspective, Canada was doing “quite well” in the global vaccine race.
Canada is currently 19th in the world when it comes to total vaccines administered as a percentage of population, according to CTV News’ vaccine tracker.
While more than 975,000 first doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been administered across the country over the last two months, amounting to less than three per cent of the population, other nations have far surpassed the Canadian speed. In the U.S., nearly 53 million doses have already been administered. In the U.K., now a global leader for immunizations, nearly a quarter of the population has been inoculated.
“When you look at over 50 countries that Pfizer is contracted with, Canada is doing exceptionally well on deliveries. But what we’re trying to manage is a global supply chain to meet our obligations to all 50 countries,” said Pinnow.
In the House of Commons on Tuesday the federal government continued to face a series of questions from the opposition parties about the state of Canada’s vaccination efforts, all pushing for more details and an accelerated pace so that the country doesn’t fall further behind other nations when it comes to tacking the virus, and restarting the economy.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
