Hello,
Canada is one of several countries who will see a “temporary” delay in shipments of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, the federal government announced this morning.
The multinational pharmaceutical company said the delays are due to production upgrades at a European plant to increase productivity. Pfizer said it should catch up on shipments by the end of March.
Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam said authorities are closely monitoring the number of deaths and serious illnesses in long-term care homes, which were one of the priority spots for the few vaccines Canada has so far received. (Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson said all long-term care homes in his city are expected to finish giving out their first rounds of vaccinations today.)
But more broadly, Dr. Tam warned that the situation in Ontario and Quebec is getting very serious as COVID-19 cases increase at a rapid rate. Given the lead time needed to get vaccines for the general public, we still need to maintain public-health measures to get us throw the current wave. “The vaccine alone is not going to make a dent in some of that,” Dr. Tam said.
This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Chris Hannay. It is available exclusively to our digital subscribers. If you’re reading this on the web, subscribers can sign up for the Politics newsletter and more than 20 others on our newsletter signup page. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.
TODAY’S HEADLINES
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has released new mandate letters for members of his cabinet, which outline how the government’s priorities have changed since the COVID-19 pandemic started. The letters are publicly available, but a few highlights: Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is asked to establish a new fiscal anchor to guide the government’s budget-making; Transport Minister Omar Alghabra’s No. 1 task is helping the airline industry recover, but that must include refunds for cancelled flights; and Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault is to help with a commemoration for the victims and families of those who died last year when the Iranian military shot down a commercial plane.
Social Development Minister Ahmed Hussen said it was unacceptable for his department to deny funding to several Black organizations because, bureaucrats said, the organizations were not sufficiently Black.
The Canada Revenue Agency is telling artists that they may have to pay back emergency benefits because grants, though subject to tax, do not count as income.
Experts in trade and human rights say Canada’s new actions to limit Canadian use of forced labour in China’s Xinjiang region don’t have enough teeth to be truly effective.
And lawyers and former prosecutors who spoke to The Globe said it is possible that Donald Trump could be prosecuted for inciting violence in the capital last week, though it depends in part on the evidence police are gathering about what the President knew about the mob’s intentions beforehand. The FBI, meanwhile, are monitoring the possibility of more violence leading up to Joe Biden’s inauguration next Wednesday.
Robyn Urback (The Globe and Mail) on Donald Trump’s second impeachment: “In the United States, political courage is supposed to be as serious as choosing between re-election or a cushy, lucrative job in the private sector. It is not supposed to mean voting against impeachment out of fear because the President somehow radicalized everyday people – including off-duty cops, an Olympic gold medalist, a Republican state lawmaker and the CEO of a tech company – to storm the Capitol and attempt a violent insurrection.”
Campbell Clark (The Globe and Mail) on Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet’s cowardly attacks on Liberal minister Omar Alghabra: “Mr. Alghabra is a mild-mannered Mississauga MP whose views are as fair game as any other politician’s. But he is not an extremist. He’s been an MP, in two stints, for eight years, and put a lot of those views, mainstream and secular, on the record. Yet some commentators, notably The Rebel’s Ezra Levant, have trumped up claims he is an extremist. Others repeated them.”
Tanya Talaga (The Globe and Mail) on why former premier Mike Harris does not deserve the Order of Ontario: “Indigenous people see a man with blood on his hands being rewarded by the tone-deaf ruling elite in this province, who have signalled that they do not care about having a true relationship with Indigenous people who live here on this shared – not surrendered – land.”
Sarmishta Subramanian (Maclean’s) on Ontario’s stay-at-home orders: “Our politicians, unlike some in other places, did not deny the COVID crisis, and they didn’t willfully lie to us. Well, but for a few suspiciously tanned senior officials turned viral sensations (see ‘I went to a beach resort and all I got was this lousy scandal’). Rather, the COVID message we heard—by which I mean the stew of contradictory directions we’ve had from authorities for months—contained a preponderance of disingenuous, confusing and ultimately unhelpful information, known in common parlance as BS.”
Colby Cosh (National Post) on public leaders caught travelling over the holidays: “We must now take it for granted that Canada is a place that it is hard to resist fleeing for a few weeks a year, just as soon as you acquire the means. That’s what our politicians and other affluent snowbirds are really telling us. It is not necessarily that flabby guidelines and recommendations apply to you and not to them, although the ‘I’m a property owner and gutters don’t clean themselves’ defence has that flavour.”
Got a news tip that you’d like us to look into? E-mail us at tips@globeandmail.com. Need to share documents securely? Reach out via SecureDrop
Chris Hannay