OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla by phone Thursday, the same day the company informed Canada delays to its shipments of COVID-19 vaccines are going to be even worse than previously thought.
Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin, the military commander now overseeing the vaccine logistics for the Public Health Agency of Canada, said last week a factory expansion at Pfizer’s Belgium plant was going to slow production, cutting Canada’s deliveries over four weeks in half.
In exchange, Pfizer expects to be able to ship hundreds of millions more doses worldwide over the rest of 2021.
Tuesday, Fortin said Canada would receive 80 per cent of the previously expected doses this week, nothing at all next week, and about half the promised deliveries in the first two weeks of February.
Today, I spoke with the CEO of Pfizer Global, Dr. Bourla, about the timely delivery of COVID-19 vaccines to Canada. He assured me that we’ll receive 4 million doses by the end of March. We’ll keep working together to ensure Canadians can get a vaccine as soon as possible.
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) January 22, 2021
Thursday, he said the doses delivered in the first week of February will only be 79,000, one one-fifth of what was once expected. Fortin doesn’t know yet what will come the week after, but overall, Canada’s doses over three weeks are going to be just one-third of what had been planned.
Trudeau has been under pressure to call Bourla, as the delayed doses force provinces to cancel vaccination appointments and reconsider timing for second doses.
Fortin said some provinces may be hit even harder than others because of limits on the way the Pfizer doses can be split up for shipping. The vaccine is delicate and must be kept ultra frozen until shortly before injecting it. The company packs and ships specialized coolers, with GPS thermal trackers, directly to provincial vaccine sites.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said earlier this week he doesn’t blame the federal government for the dose delays but wanted Trudeau to do more to push back about it.
“If I was in (Trudeau’s) shoes … I’d be on that phone call every single day. I’d be up that guy’s yin-yang so far with a firecracker he wouldn’t know what hit him,” he said of Pfizer’s executives.
Trudeau informed Ford and other premiers of the call with Bourla during a regular teleconference to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic. Until Thursday, all calls between the federal cabinet and Pfizer had been handled by Procurement Minister Anita Anand.
Ford also spoke to Pfizer Canada CEO Cole Pinnow Wednesday.
Trudeau didn’t suggest the call with Bourla made any difference to the delays, and noted Canada is not the only country affected.
Europe, which on the weekend thought its delayed doses would only be for one week after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke to Bourla, now seems poised to be affected longer. Italy is so angry it is threatening to sue the U.S.-based drugmaker for the delays.
Mexico said this week it is only getting half its expected shipment this week and nothing at all for the next three weeks. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain also reported delays getting doses. Pfizer Canada spokeswoman Christina Antoniou said more countries were affected but wouldn’t say which ones.
Fortin said Pfizer has promised to deliver four million doses to Canada by the end of March and that is not going to change with the delay. With the current known delivery schedule, the company will have to ship more than 3.1 million doses over 7 1/2 weeks to meet that commitment.
Deliveries from Moderna, the other company that has a COVID-19 vaccine approved for use in Canada, are not affected. Canada has received about 176,000 doses from Moderna to date, with deliveries arriving every three weeks.
Moderna has promised two million doses by the end of March.
Both vaccines require first doses and then boosters several weeks later for full effectiveness. Together Pfizer and Moderna intend to ship 20 million doses to Canada in the spring, and 46 million between July and September. With no other vaccines approved, that means Canada will get enough doses to vaccinate the entire population with two doses by the end of September.
A St. John’s woman says she won’t be paying many more visits to Tim Hortons, after an email from the coffee chain led her to believe that she’d won a new boat — when she hadn’t won anything at all.
“I go to Tim’s quite a lot, seven days a week. I’m afraid now that’s going to change to no days a week,” Carol Evans told CBC News on Thursday.
Evans said she received an email from Tim Hortons on Wednesday afternoon while on a break from her work as an licensed practical nurse.
The email recapped the prizes she’d won in the annual Roll Up the Rim to Win contest, but there was one extra prize included — a brand new boat and trailer, valued at about $55,000.
Unfortunately, the excitement was over by the time she got home from work.
“I was just so excited, really excited. I thought I really won a boat and a trailer, $55,000 worth, and to find out at five to six, I had an email from them come in telling me it was a technical error,” she said.
“I don’t get my boat and I don’t get my trailer.”
Carol Evans of St. John’s was elated when she got an email from Tim Hortons saying she won $55,000 worth of prizes. Another email from the coffee giant a few hours later, telling her it was an error, had her crushed — and fuming.
Evans said her win was the talk of her co-workers.
“I work with about a hundred people in the run of a day, and more than that outside the OR, and everybody was so happy for me. They couldn’t believe it, I finally won something in my life,” she said.
“But to find out a few hours later I didn’t, it was disappointing, very disappointing.… I cried, it was so sad.”
Although she may not have taken it out on the water, Evans said winning would have meant a lot to her, like helping fund her retirement after more than five decades in nursing.
“I could have sold the boat and trailer and had some money, paid off some bills, probably could have, who knows, retired after 55 years of work,” she said.
In an emailed statement to CBC News on Thursday, Tim Hortons said the message was meant to show what each customer won over the course of the contest — and the boat was included by mistake.
“We developed a Roll Up To Win recap email message with the best intentions of giving our guests a fun overview of their 2024 play history.
“Unfortunately there was a human error that resulted in some guests receiving some incorrect information in their recap message.”
The company didn’t disclose how many people across the country received the email, but CBC News spoke to another person in western Newfoundland who got it.
Others in Edmonton, Hamilton and Brampton, Ont., were also told they’d won the boat.
By Wednesday afternoon, a Facebook group had formed with more than 200 people expressing outrage about the mistake and threatening to file lawsuits.
Tim Hortons sent the affected customers a letter, telling them to disregard that winning email and that it was sent as a result of “technical errors.”
“Unfortunately, some prizes that you did not win may have been included in the recap email you received. If this was the case, today’s email does not mean that you won those prizes,” the letter read.
“We apologize for the frustration this has caused and for not living up to our high standards.”
It’s a familiar story for Tim’s, however, as last year, its app mistakenly informed users they’d won $10,000.
Evans said two years of big mistakes just isn’t fair. She’d like to see Tim Hortons move away from the Roll Up to Win smartphone app and back to paper cups.
“It’s not fair to the public who spend their hard-earned money to go into Tim’s and buy their coffee every day, buy their lunch, and then think they won a prize and all of a sudden you learn, three hours later, you didn’t win a prize, and it’s not fair.”
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The new regulations will take effect in Bowen Island, Tofino, Pemberton and 14 other communities on Nov. 1
Published Apr 18, 2024 • Last updated 2 hours ago • 5 minute read
With less than two weeks before B.C.’s short-term rental restrictions take effect, visitors staying at an Airbnb, Vrbo or other short-term rental homes are told to check with their hosts to make sure they are not staying in illegal accommodations.
Guests should ask hosts if they are compliant with the new rules, said B.C.’s housing minister, even as he reassured guests they won’t be on the hook.
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“The responsibility to comply with the rules fall with the hosts and the short-term rental platforms,” said Ravi Kahlon at a news conference with Premier David Eby in Langley on Thursday. “We encourage people to continue to explore beautiful British Columbia, and stay in legal short-term rental accommodations.”The new regulations set to take effect on May 1 would restrict short-term rentals to principal residences and either a secondary suite or a laneway home/garden suite on the property.
They apply to more than 60 B.C. communities with populations of more than 10,000 people, as well as 17 smaller communities, including Bowen Island, Tofino, Osoyoos, Pemberton, and Gabriola Island, which have decided to opt in. For these communities, the rules will take effect on Nov. 1.
The new legislation carries penalties of $500 to $5,000 a day per infraction for hosts and reach as high as $10,000 a day for platforms.
Eby said the province’s principal residence requirement is meant to crack down on speculators while allowing homeowners to rent out spaces in their principal residences if they choose to do so.
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He acknowledged the restrictions could put some property owners’ investment and retirement plans into disarray, but made no apologies, saying people with money to invest should put their money elsewhere.
“Do not compete with individuals and families who are looking for place to live with your investment dollars,” Eby said, adding the government will “tilt the deck every single time toward that family.”
The government has set up a provincial enforcement unit, currently staffed by four people, to conduct investigations into alleged non-compliant units.
The enforcement will be largely done digitally and includes the use of a short-term rental data portal that’ll help local governments monitor and enforce regulations.
Municipalities with their own short-term rental restrictions can upload non-compliant properties to the portal, said Kahlon. Platforms will have five days to verify whether the units are on their sites. Local governments without short-term rental licensing can report properties they believe are not compliant.
The platforms will be required to remove non-compliant listings at the request of local or the provincial governments and provide the province with a monthly update of short-term listings on their sites, said Kahlon.
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Companies such as Expedia and Booking.com are working to get ready for the new rules, and he’s hopeful other platforms will follow suit by May 1.
Airbnb said it has been in discussions with the provincial government for months and plans to comply with the new rules, but predicts they will harm the province’s tourism sector by taking extra income away from residents and limiting accommodation options for people, while doing little to improve the housing crunch for residents.
“They’re doing this because they say there’s going to be an impact on housing, that this will free up more housing for people,” said Nathan Rotman, Airbnb’s policy lead in Canada. “That is just not true.”
Despite several years of Airbnb restrictions in Vancouver, for example, rents have gone up while vacancies stayed low, he said.
Kahlon said the pending rules are already having a positive impact on housing availability with short-term rentals being converted to long-term use or being put up for sale.
In March, more than 19,000 entire homes in B.C. were listed as short-term rentals for most of the year, said the province. Even if half of those units are returned to the long-term market, that’ll make a “substantial difference” in communities, said Kahlon.
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Eby said there has been a “massive upswing” in hotel construction in key tourist areas as an unintended result of the new policies.
Bowen Island, a small community of 4,200 whose council voted in March to opt into the province’s short-term rental regulations, has seen increased pressure from tourists and housing demand in recent years.
The decision was council’s way “to balance what is appropriate use in residentially-zoned neighbourhoods while still allowing property owners to still do what they want with their properties,” said Mayor Andrew Leonard.
The principal residence requirement still allows for Airbnb and other short-term rentals on the island, he pointed out. “The vast majority of short-term rental operations are unaffected. This just keeps it in the homes of homeowners instead of speculators.”
Some communities, including Parksville’s Resort Drive area, were granted an exemption last month under the province’s exemption for strata hotel or motels. The area was purpose-built as tourism accommodation more than two decades ago.
The new legislation is being challenged in B.C. Supreme Court by Victoria-based groups and the Westcoast Association for Property Rights, who are calling for a review of the new rules and compensation for financial losses.
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According to Airbnb, Airbnb bookings and related spending generated around $2.5 billion in B.C. in 2023 and created 25,000 jobs.
The company says that for every $100 spent on an Airbnb booking, guests also spent about $229 on other travel spending.
More than three quarters of hosts polled by the company say they use their Airbnb earnings to cover rising costs of living, especially housing.
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Short-term rental platforms that violate B.C.’s pending regulations can face administrative penalties of up to $10,000 per day, officials announced Thursday.
Investigations into non-compliant companies and individual hosts will be conducted by a provincial enforcement unit, which will launch once the new rules take effect on May 1.
The Ministry of Housing said daily penalties will range from $500 to $5,000 for hosts, depending on the infraction, and reach as high as $10,000 for corporations.
Speaking at a news conference in Langley, Premier David Eby reiterated that the purpose of the province’s regulations is to open up thousands of potential long-term housing units that are currently being offered year-round on apps such as Airbnb and VRBO.
“The commitment that we have as government is to ensure that the housing stock that we have – the homes that are actually built – are available for people who are looking for a place to live,” Eby said.
The premier acknowledged his family, like many others in the province, has benefited from the availability of short-term rentals, and stressed that those types of accommodations will not be banned outright next month.
But the government previously calculated there were 19,000 whole homes being used exclusively as short-term rentals last year.
“I can tell you there are 19,000 families and individual that are looking for a place to live … right now that are in competition with people who are looking to operate homes like hotels,” Eby said.
Under the new rules, hosts can still rent out their primary residence, as well as one “additional unit, secondary suite or laneway home” on the same property, according to the ministry.
Those rules apply in every B.C. community with more than 10,000 residents, and to any others that opt in – as several already have, including Tofino, Pemberton, Osoyoos and Bowen Island. The rules will take effect in those smaller communities in November.
And once the regulations take effect, Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon stressed that guests themselves “will not face any fines.”
“We encourage people to continue to explore beautiful British Columbia, and stay in legal short-term rental accommodations,” Kahlon said.
Officials have recommended anyone planning to stay in a short-term rental on or after May 1 reach out to the host to confirm that the unit will be in compliance.
It’s unclear which violations will potentially cost platforms $10,000 per day. The government has said companies will be required to share user data to help municipalities and the province conduct their own enforcement, as the regulations also give local bylaw officers the ability to impose fines of up to $3,000 per day on hosts.
Platforms will be expected to remove listings from non-compliant users under some circumstances as well.
The announcement from officials came hours after Airbnb shared an “economic analysis” estimating that the platform generated more than $2.5 billion in economic benefits across the province last year.
According to the company, for every $100 a guest spent on an Airbnb rental, they spent about $229 on other local goods and services.
“B.C.’s new short-term rental law is going to significantly impact the province’s tourism sector, just as peak tourism season arrives – taking extra income away from residents, limiting accommodation options for guests, and potentially putting at risk billions in tourism spending and economic impact,” Nathan Rotman, Canadian policy lead at Airbnb, said in a statement.
But officials have claimed the pending rules are already having a positive effect on housing availability – addressing a major crisis in the province – as former hosts choose to either become landlords or put their properties up for sale.
Kahlon said some companies, such as Expedia and Booking.com, have been “actively working to get ready for the coming changes,” and that he’s hopeful other platforms will follow suit by May 1.
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