Hello,
As Canada struggles to get COVID-19 vaccine shots into arms, the federal government said today it had some good news: It has signed a prospective deal to produce vaccines here in Canada.
Unfortunately, there are a couple of big caveats. One is that the drug, made by Novavax, has not yet been approved by Health Canada. That could come in the spring.
The other is that the facility that would make the vaccine is still under construction, and it might not be ready until late summer.
“At the end of the year we will be [in] a position to be producing vaccine,” Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne told reporters.
That means vaccines produced in Canada likely won’t be available to Canadians for many months yet.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, though, reiterated his pledge that every Canadian who wants to receive an inoculation will be able to get it by September. Those doses just won’t be coming from Canadian facilities.
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TODAY’S HEADLINES
Sunwing Vacations and Sunwing Airlines are taking out $375-million in loans from the government under the little-used Large Employer Emergency Financing Facility program. The companies were heavily affected by the pandemic and the recent decision from the government to end travel to Mexico and the Caribbean.
Serena Fleites told the House of Commons ethics committee she was 13 when a naked video of her surfaced on Pornhub, and the website – founded by a Montreal-based company – did little to help. The committee is investigating the website and allegations that it is abetting sex trafficking.
Department of National Defence says new warships, once expected to be built by the mid-2020s, will now be available in the early 2030s at the soonest. However, Defence says the procurement will stay within the $60-billion budget because it has plenty of “contingencies.”
The Chinese government has criticized Canadian diplomats for purchasing T-shirts that riff on the logo and name of the rap collective the Wu-Tang Clan by saying “Wu-Han” instead.
Advocates for Hongkongers facing the threat of political persecution say Canada needs to make it easier for people from Hong Kong to claim asylum here.
And Alexey Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition figure, had his day in court today, in which he denounced the Russian government for continuing to prosecute him while not investigating the poisoning that put him in a coma. The reason, of course, is that it is the Russian government who is accused of poisoning Mr. Navalny. He urged Russian citizens to continue protesting President Vladimir Putin. “You can’t lock up millions and hundreds of thousands of people,” Mr. Navalny said in court. “I hope very much that people will realize this. And they will. Because you can’t lock up the whole country.”
André Picard (The Globe and Mail) on overcoming our current pandemic challenges: “Canada’s supply problem will be resolved with time. By summer, we will likely be swimming in vaccine and, instead of bemoaning lack of supply, the provinces will be complaining that they don’t have the fridge space for all the doses Ottawa is sending their way. (Rule No. 1 of federal-provincial relations: The glass is always too empty or too full.)”
Ashley Nunes (The Globe and Mail) on government help for airlines and how those companies handle refunds: “What carriers should do is deliver on the promises they have made fliers. When Air Canada says a travel voucher, ‘can be used multiple times, is fully transferable and has no expiry date,’ carrier execs should be held accountable to delivering on that promise. And when those promises falter, then – and only then – should government intervene. Put another way, I don’t fault Air Canada for not offering full refunds. I do fault the airline for making it near impossible to use the alternative that has been offered.”
Christine Van Geyn (National Post) on legal questions around the government’s quarantine orders for travellers: “It is unlikely that a government quarantine facility will adequately meet the needs of individuals recovering from surgery or chemotherapy, or that it can accommodate highly specialized diets. These individuals must be permitted to quarantine at home. But because the government announced the blanket policy without announcing the exclusions, thousands of Canadians are left in a bind. How do you decide what to do when obtaining potentially life-saving therapy for your child requires exposing that child to a potentially life-ending government quarantine facility?”
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Chris Hannay