Canada is about to get a big boost in vaccine doses, with a first cross-border shipment from the United States, as the southern neighbour ever-so-slightly eases the tight grip on its supply.
The White House confirmed Friday that the U.S. will allow exports of four million AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine doses to Canada and Mexico, with 1.5 million doses headed to Canada.
That’s equivalent to a more than a one-third boost in total doses administered in Canada, an influx that will still leave Canada far behind the U.S. in its overall rate of vaccinated citizens.
The shipment dates are still being finalized, though one Canadian official said vaccines could arrive in Canada within a few days.
“We’re able to announce that we are lending a portion of our releasable AstraZeneca vaccines to Mexico and to Canada,” said Jeffrey Zients, the White House co-ordinator for the COVID-19 response.
“This action will allow our neighbours to meet a critical vaccination need in their countries, providing more protection immediately across the North American continent.”
Zients’ colleague Andy Slavitt also tweeted the news. The White House had said Thursday the countries were finalizing plans, and, amid numerous conversations between the capitals, the news was made official Friday.
The Canadian official said the vaccine doses have expiry dates in May and June, leaving ample time to get them administered to Canadians.
Vaccines were sitting unused in the U.S.
White House officials, aware of the potential for political blow back at home over exporting vaccines during a pandemic, said the decision would not affect the U.S.’s own immunization schedule: the country plans to have enough supply for all Americans by May 31.
This transfer involves a product Americans aren’t currently using. The U.S. has yet to approve the AstraZeneca vaccine, and is sending some of the doses it has stockpiled before they risk the threat of expiring.
The country has also vaccinated its residents at a rate four times faster than Canada’s. On Friday, the U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration celebrated news that 100 million vaccine doses have been administered in 58 days, well ahead of its stated target.
Canada and Mexico will return the doses to the U.S. later this year, Zients said. He said the return would be handled through AstraZeneca.
The Biden administration said earlier this week that it was working on a deal to loan vaccines to Canada and Mexico. On Friday, Jeff Zients, the co-ordinator of the White House COVID-19 response, seen here in December, confirmed it’s going ahead. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
Marc-André Gagnon, a pharmaceutical policy expert at Carleton University in Ottawa, says the export of these particular vaccines, at this particular time, makes obvious sense.
He said the U.S. couldn’t sit on unapproved doses for much longer, lest it invite the worrying scenario of coveted vaccines going to waste in U.S. warehouses.
Why this is happening now
“I think that the expiry consideration can be the best explanation [for] why the U.S. would waive the export ban,” he said in an email.
At the same time, he said, it would have been politically toxic for the Biden administration to export other vaccines Americans are currently using — so he said shipping Astrazeneca doses was the safest political bet.
But he said the fact these AstraZeneca vaccines haven’t been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration raises a worrying question: Why?
The delay in approval is problematic whether it stems from a valid scientific concern or non-scientific considerations, he said.
Steve Morgan, a pharmaceutical-policy expert at the University of British Columbia, said the threat of vaccines expiring also looms large.
“The Biden administration would far rather loan these vaccines to neighbours than wear the potential disaster of having millions of vaccines expire in the U.S.,” he said.
Another consideration at play: migration.
The continental migration angle
Some border-state lawmakers have urged the administration to get vaccines next to Canada and Mexico, in order to help get America’s land borders reopened earlier.
The shipment also potentially buys some goodwill with Mexico, whose help the Biden administration needs to stem a surge in undocumented migrants coming from Central America.
White House reporters have pressed Biden’s spokespeople on whether the vaccine shipments are intended as part of a plan to get Mexico to clamp down on migration.
Canada has been importing COVID-19 vaccines from overseas, as with this batch overseen by Canada Border Services Agency personnel on March 3. Expect a shipment soon from the U.S. (via REUTERS)
Biden spokespeople have replied that they’re having different conversations with Mexico at the same time.
“As you can imagine, when you’re when you’re having conversations with different countries, you’re talking about different issues,” deputy White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Friday on Air Force One.
“So that is that is what’s happening. … When you think about Mexico, when you think about Canada, those are our neighbours, we have similar interests,” Jean-Pierre said.
“And we want to make sure that we’re doing our part in beating back this pandemic. There are no borders when it comes to the pandemic.”
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.
