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.
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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.
“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.
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Fortin said the data was for provinces to “plan against” and was “a baseline” provinces can build on while sorting out their own 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.
“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.
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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.
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 nationwide reduction in vaccines 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.”
Shipments have been reduced by an average of 50 per cent over a four-week period between January and February.
Over the next two weeks, Canada is to receive 149,000 doses of that vaccine — one-fifth of what had previously been promised.
Officials have maintained that the reduction in shipments for January and February would be made up when deliveries “ramp up” in March.
“Pfizer assures us they will recover from that quite significantly and rapidly,” he said at Thursday’s press conference.
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 and beyond.
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.
Provincial governments decried the latest projections from the federal government.
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said on Twitter that Ottawa had lowered its estimates for total Pfizer vaccines in-hand by the end of March from four million to 3.5 million.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford expressed his disappointment with Pfizer later Thursday, saying the delays are “unacceptable.”
“They’ve let the people of Ontario down, they’ve let the people of Canada down.”
Several provinces have already used up nearly all their vaccine supply and have been forced to push back their vaccination schedules.
Ontario announced this week 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.
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Canada is not the only country concerned about the slow pace of vaccine rollout. Worries about supply and speed are brewing around the world.
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
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
