Author Archives: Dale

About Dale

Journalist in the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery

Roundup: Domestic vaccine production…eventually

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There was a sliver of positive news yesterday, when it was announced that the federal government had signed a deal with Novavax to produce their vaccine in the future National Research Council facility in Montreal. The catch? That facility won’t be completed construction until summer, and then it will require Health Canada approval, so it may not be able to produce new doses until the end of the year – at which point, most Canadians should already be vaccinated using the Pfizer and Moderna doses we’ve contracted for. That doesn’t mean this facility still won’t be for naught – it’s possible we will need booster shots for the other vaccines, possibly do deal with different variants (and Novavax has shown success with the B.1.1.7 variant first spotted in the UK), and it also means that we will be able to produce for export to other countries who will need it.

Of course, this started back in on the same questions about why we weren’t able to produce vaccines domestically earlier, and why this plant is taking so long. Of course, this plant is actually moving faster than is usual – Good Manufacturing Practices facilities to produce vaccines usually take two or three years to build, not a single year, and there are several other facilities under construction across the country for other vaccine candidates. As for the same questions about why we didn’t contract to produce other vaccines here, it was because there were no suitable facilities – particularly from the approved ones. (This NRC facility was in talks to produce the AstraZeneca vaccine, but there is also talk about why the PnuVax facility in Montreal has not yet been tapped – but it may yet be for a future candidate once approved). And for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, we simply didn’t have facilities in this country that could produce mRNA vaccines to scale (most existing mRNA production was on a single-dose system for tailored vaccines used for treating particular cancers). And these are things we a) can’t build overnight, and b) didn’t know were even viable because it’s a new technology that had not yet been approved for a vaccine, especially on the scale of the one we’re dealing with now. It would have been a hell of a gamble to build a facility to GMP standards for a vaccine technology that may not have panned out.

Why I’m particularly annoyed about the return of these questions – particularly from the likes of Jagmeet Singh as he appeared on platforms like Power & Politics – is that they pretend that any vaccine facility can produce any vaccine, ignoring that not all vaccines are created equally, or that the technology to produce vaccines isn’t different across platforms. Singh’s notion that a nationalised vaccine producer should have been able to handle this is also farcical because again, what platform would it have bet on? All of them? It’s ridiculous and dishonest – as have been the demands to make the vaccine procurement contracts public (which no other country has done), because all that would do is allow other countries to look at what we paid, and then offer the companies more money to break the contracts with us. (And FFS, both Singh and Erin O’Toole are lawyers and should know this). The kinds of point-scoring that is taking place right now is getting to be beyond the pale, and it’s obscuring the actual kinds of accountability we should be practicing.

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QP: Demanding a Line 5 tantrum

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It was another day of the Liberals showing contempt for Parliament by only putting Mark Gerretsen in the Chamber. Erin O’Toole led off in person, demanding that the prime minister stand up for Enbridge Line 5, to which Justin Trudeau, by video, reminded him of everything his government had done in order to push back against American encroachment. O’Toole said that this wasn’t raised in any call for the past several weeks, to which Trudeau dismissed Conservative armchair quarterbacking, asserting that they got the job done. O’Toole then pivoted to praise Northern Ireland for getting written assurances that they would be exempt from EU export controls on vaccines, and demanded assurances in writing, and Trudeau stated that they got “strong assurances” that Canada would not be affected by these transparency measures. O’Toole switched to French to call out the contradiction between the prime minister and industry minister as to when the Montreal vaccine facility would be able to produce the Novavax candidate — by summer, or the end of the year. Trudeau said that he had stated that the facility should be finished by the summer, and can start production before the end of the year. O’Toole then demanded a plan on vaccine delivery, to which Trudeau accused him of fear-no getting, and reiterated the talking points on the quarterly delivery commitments.

Yves-François Blanchet rose for the Bloc, and moaned about health care transfers and that the federal government wants national standards — taking a swipe at the NDP while he was at it. Trudeau stated that they would increase health transfers, that they already had increased investments, and there would be more discussions going forward. Blanchet then railed about national standards over Quebec standards, to which Trudeau reminded him that the Canadian Forces stepped in to help those Quebec long-term care facilities.

Jagmeet Singh then got up for the NDP, and demanded paid sick leave, and fixing the existing federal benefit. Trudeau reminded him that they created a federal programme to help people immediately but it was great to see some provinces step up (because this is 94 percent provincial jurisdiction). Singh switched to French to raise his meeting with François Legault to demand an increase in federal health transfers, and Trudeau stated that they would continue to increase them, and reminded him of the tens of billions sent to province through the pandemic.

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Roundup: Not another Supreme Court reference

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The medical assistance in dying bill is finally before the Senate’s legal and constitutional affairs committee, as the (extended) deadline approaches for it to be passed to comply with a Quebec court ruling, and we have justice minister David Lametti saying that there is always the possibility that they could yet refer this bill to the Supreme Court of Canada to get their judgment on whether it will meet the courts’ requirements. And I just cannot with this.

This is part of a pattern in this country where anytime there is a contentious or “moral” issue, parliamentarians of all stripes get afraid to put their necks on the line for something – no matter how right the cause is – and insist that the courts weigh in so that they can do the performative action of looking like they were dragged, kicking and screaming, into complying. They did this with lesbian and gay rights, they did this with safe injection sites, they did this with prostitution laws, and they did this with assisted dying – and in the cases of both prostitution laws and assisted dying, the laws drafted to replace those that were struck down were not going to comply with the court’s rulings, and yet they went ahead with them anyway so that they could force a new round of court challenges to really put on a show of kicking and screaming. It’s spineless, and it causes so much more unnecessary suffering (and in some cases, like with prostitution laws, deaths) when better laws could and should be drafted, but those MPs and senators who push for full compliance get sidelined by the skittish majority. And in the case of assisted dying, so many of those pushing to go back to the courts are simply seeking to re-litigate the action, which is not going to happen. A unanimous decision is not going to be scaled back on a second hearing.

While I am encouraged that Lametti did try to say that this option is not the best one, and his office later clarified that they have no plan to have yet another reference on assisted dying, but the fact that you have his clamour of people who don’t want to either make a decision, or who want to re-litigate the same issues, clamouring to send this back to the Supreme Court is disappointing. That parliament can’t respond to the Court’s ruling in a reasonable manner is one of the most irritating things about how we run this country, and it would be great if our MPs (and some senators) could forego the theatrics.

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QP: Not taking yes for an answer on Line 5

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It was yet another day where the Liberals had only a single MP in the Chamber yet again, no matter that there were plenty of other of their MPs in the building, continuing to show their contempt for Parliament as a result. (A second MP joined him for a few minutes, then left again). Candice Bergen led off virtually, and she railed about the threats to Enbridge Line 5, to which Seamus O’Regan agreed that the pipeline was vital and they were working to secure it. Bergen was not mollified and grumbled that the prime minister didn’t answer before demanding he do more to protect it. O’Regan assured her they were working on the file and it served no purpose to conflate it with other issues. Bergen railed that Trudeau had failed under three successive presidents to protect the energy sector, and O’Regan repeated his assurances that they were doing everything possible. Richard Martel took over in French to demand more vaccines, to which Anita Anand first started off by acknowledgement Black History Month and let it be known that she works to reach out to the Black community for procurement needs, before turning to the question and assuring him that there are two vaccine shipments arriving this week. Martel was not impressed and demanded vaccines immediately, and Anand assured him that factories were ramping up production to meet demand.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he demand a guarantee that vaccine deliveries were going to get back on track, to which Anand assured him that a Pfizer shipment was en route. Therrien railed that this was not good enough, but Anand insisted that they shared this priority of getting vaccines to Canadians, and that the overall schedule was not affected. Jagmeet Singh led for the NDP, and in French, he demanded all non-essential flights be cancelled, to which Omar Alghabra reminded him that they have some of the toughest measures in the world, and listed them. Singh repeated the demand in English, and got the same answer,

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Roundup: Not fussed about Payette’s pension

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For the past week, in the wake of Julie Payette’s resignation, we have seen the various cheap outrage stories and QP attacks circling around. How dare she get her generous pension if she voluntarily resigned under a cloud of scandal? Why should Canadians have to pay for this? (Usually followed by the usual republican nonsense that falsely equates how much Canada’s contribution to the monarchy is and which grossly underestimates how much more an elected head of state would cost compared to the system we have in place now).

While Parliament could theoretically alter the laws that guarantee Payette her pension, trying to do so retroactively would invite a lawsuit that the government would be hard-pressed to win. Not to mention, the fact that she walked away without causing a constitutional crisis is probably worth the pension (because seriously, that could have been very ugly and messy). As for the additional annuity that former GGs are afforded to support any duties related to their time as GG that carry on afterward, be it speeches or answering letters, I’m less fussed about that because I think it’s healthy that we have people who are interested in keeping up civic duties once their term is over (especially as we don’t have ready-enough access to members of the royal family for that kind of thing), but would welcome additional transparency and reporting around that. It does, however, help make the somewhat ageist case that we shouldn’t appoint GGs that are too young because what do they then follow it up with after holding the second highest office in the country? (See: Michaëlle Jean’s time as head of the Francophonie). We also have to remember that things like a GG’s pension are made generous enough because it’s part of institutional independence – we don’t want a prime minister to threaten that pension if they aren’t going to get their way. It’s actually the same logic behind why you want a monarchy to be rich – so that they have independent wealth and that can’t be used as leverage by a government. Of course, Canadians have been conditioned to revel in hairshirt parsimony after the Reform Party years and media that delights in the response they get from cheap outrage stories, so we’re going to keep getting them, no matter how inappropriate and damaging to our institutions that they actually are.

Meanwhile, Erin O’Toole has been making the rounds claiming that Justin Trudeau would be in a “conflict of interest” if he chose the next GG on his own, and I just cannot with this completely illiterate nonsense. There would be no conflict because the GG acts on the advice of the prime minister – he or she is not going to say no if Trudeau decides to call an election, because there are no grounds for them to do so. The only time they have any kind of discretion around this is if the incumbent demands another election right after he or she ostensibly lost one, and if there is a viable alternative, the GG has every right to ask the incumbent to see if they can maintain confidence, and if not, another party can be invited to form government. There is this perception that the vice-regal has a truckload of discretion in these matters, and they simply don’t. More to the point, having the opposition sign-off on a new GG would then allow Trudeau to launder the prerogative and accountability for the decision to advise the Queen on that person, which we do not want. That’s not how Responsible Government works. Yes, there is merit to restoring the vice-regal appointments committee (but it’s too late for Payette’s replacement, because that process should have started months ago), but even then, the PM still has the final say from the names put to him on the short-list, as well he should. O’Toole is trying to sow confusion, and is giving further disinformation as to how our system works, which is very bad because it’s that kind of thing that undermines democratic norms. Knock it off!

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Roundup: Kenney’s boggling re-opening

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Because the state of the pandemic is going so well in Alberta, Jason Kenney announced that they will start lifting some restrictions starting February 8th, and I am boggled. Just boggled. Kenney says that tagging the decisions to lifting restrictions to hospitalisation rates in three-week increments is somehow responsible because it’s a lagging indicator, but that’s precisely why it’s the wrong thing to do. It’s a lagging indicator. When hospitalisation rates go up, it’s already too late. New positives caught by testing can be up to two weeks behind infection, and hospitalisations can be a couple of weeks behind those, and this is a virus where the growth is exponential. It’s too late by then, and we have to remember that the province’s contact tracing still hasn’t been fully re-established after it got overwhelmed.

The notion that you can have “just a little COVID” and re-open the economy does not work – it grows exponentially, and hospitals get overwhelmed. It especially will not work a second time now that there are UK and South African variants in the community, which are way more easily transmitted, and places like the UK saw infection curves that went nearly vertical. Kenney is demonstration that he has learned absolutely nothing over the past eleven months, and he’s willing to let more people die for the economy.

I also wanted to take particular exception to Kenney’s health minister, Tyler Shandro, and his insufferable whinging that because of the vaccine delays, that Canada and Alberta are “not a priority,” to which I am forced to ask why they should be. Why are we so special as a country that we deserve vaccines before anyone else, particularly those countries who have been much harder hit that we have been? And I get that he is counting on the vaccines as their way out because they let the infections spread so badly that their hospitals were overwhelmed, and they had to largely shut down their economy again, but that’s on him. Vaccines were never going to be the solution for many, many more months. This sense of entitlement that Shandro is exhibiting is extremely off-putting, and needs to be questioned and called out.

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Roundup: A freak-out over vaccine math

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With things in a particularly…fragile state around the vaccine rollout, leaking numbers without context should be seen as a Very Bad Thing, and yet that’s what happened yesterday morning, when it appeared to look like Pfizer was cutting the number of vials they were sending us before the end of our Q1 agreement, and there was a freak out. Premiers started demanding federal action (as though Justin Trudeau can just strong-arm Pfizer into producing more doses somehow), or badmouthing Pfizer itself (because that’ll help). And it turns out that it was all for naught.

It turns out that with the possibility that the vials of vaccine will be re-labelled to say that they contain six doses instead of five (which apparently is not uniform, and requires either a skilled operator or different syringes which are in short supply right now), Pfizer decided to rejig the math so that there are the same numbers of doses, but just in fewer vials. Health Canada has not agreed to this re-labelling, and has no timeline on when such a decision could be made, but Pfizer apparently jumped the gun in sending new numbers that got misinterpreted (and misrepresented once the context was actually known), and this government can’t communicate its way out of a wet paper bag at the best of times, so its inability to properly communicate these new figures only made things worse (especially as they didn’t smack it down during Question Period). And if Health Canada doesn’t relabel the vials? Pfizer still sends us the contracted-for number of doses. So the freak-out was for nothing – except maybe yet another kick in the ass for this government to get in the game when it comes to getting ahead of these things.

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Meanwhile, we also found out that Ontario had mis-reported its vaccination figures, and they’ve only vaccinated half as many as they said they did, which really puts the province’s hue and cry into the fact that it was running out of doses into a new light – and also the fact that they have been so desperate to blame the federal government for everything. It’s the “look over there” strategy, that certain members of the media seem to keep falling for, every single time. The absolute incompetence of the Ford government never fails to astound.

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QP: Delay, lag, and disingenuous concern

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It was another bleak day for attendance, when there wasn’t even quorum in the Chamber, because who cares about the gods damned constitution? Erin O’Toole led off, in person, mini-lectern on desk, and he worried about what is happening with Enbridge Line 5 in Michigan, and wanted action on this. Chrystia Freeland, via video, assured him that the understand the importance of the energy sector, and they were working with the American administration. O’Toole tried again, got the same answer, and then he switched to the Economist’s problematic prediction for when Canadians would be vaccinated, along with some disingenuous trolling about the misunderstood vaccine numbers out this morning. Freeland assured him that six million doses would still be delivered by the end of the first quarter, but did not explain the confusion around doses. O’Toole repeated the question in French, and got the same answer from Freeland in French. O’Toole tried to be theatrical in his concern in French — and it came off very badly— and Freeland repeated her assurances about doses arriving. Alain Therrien led off for the Bloc, and he complained about people being quarantined while accessing benefits, to which Freeland assured him that they were working to close this loophole and hoped the opposition would work toward that. Therrien was not mollified and demanded people repay benefits they got, and Freeland assured him, in a calm voice, that they were working on this and would be adding additional measures at the border. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and in French, repeated the false reading about the Pfizer vaccine dose numbers, for which Freeland gave her rote reassurances without explaining the numbers. Singh demanded the vaccine plan in English — never mind that the rollout is almost wholly provincial jurisdiction, and Freeland again repeated her memorised reassurances.

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Roundup: Ford playing up the pandemic theatre

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The state of pandemic theatre in Ontario continues to ramp up as Doug Ford’s current campaign about railing about a) vaccine doses, and b) international travellers reaches a fever pitch. Ford is currently making a big dog and pony show about invoking a section of the province’s Health Protection and Promotion Act to mandate testing for air travellers when they arrive because the federal government has not yet done so (they have made the rule that people must get tested before they get on the plane), but what is telling is that Ontario still has done precious little about increasing lab capacity, and we are still lagging far behind on the kind of genomic testing that would help us identify which strains of the virus are being contracted. Additionally, the number of cases traced to international travel has been around one percent, while other case growth remains exponential, which is more proof that this is about theatre, not deal with the real problems.

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In the meantime, Ford government and their allies in certain media outlets have begun waging a campaign against doctors who are critical about the government’s lack of response, particularly about the carnage in long-term care facilities. One doctor has had his contract terminated from his position because of his criticism, and the Toronto Suntargeted another doctor that Ford later expressed “concerns” about (completely disingenuously) – though it’s worth noting that Chrystia Freeland has come to this doctor’s defence. It has been noted that this is not the first time that Ford and his people have used these particular tactics against their critics, but the fact that they are doing this to the very doctors and health experts who are trying to chart a course out of this pandemic is galling and rather telling about how this government is more concerned about their egos than they are in doing the right thing to protect the lives of people in this province.

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QP: Virtual PMQs in an empty chamber

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It was not only a very late start to QP, but there was once again only a single Liberal in the Chamber, and it wasn’t the prime minister, despite it being the designated day he answers all questions. Erin O’Toole led off, and he thundered about the CanSino deal falling apart a week after it was struck. Justin Trudeau, appearing by video, reminded him that they cast a wide net with several possible candidates in case one didn’t pan out, like CanSino. O’Toole wondered about Providence Therapeutics’ made-in-Canada candidate, to which Trudeau assured him they follow the advice of the immunity task force, and that they have given Providence new funds to complete trials. O’Toole then railed about the fact that we are not producing any in Canada, and again, Trudeau reminded him that their “strong and aggressive plan” got us vaccines as soon as possible. O’Toole switched to French to worry about the vaccine protectionist noises coming out of the European Union, to which Trudeau assured him he just spoke to the president of the European Commission, who said that these transparency measures would not affect Canada. O’Toole then accused the government of not telling the truth about vaccine deliveries, and Trudeau took exception to that, insisting that he has been transparent with all of their dates. Yves-François Blanchet was up next for the Bloc, and demanded that health transfers would be increased in the budget, to which Trudeau reminded him that they have sent billions to the provinces already (and several provinces continue to sit on those funds). Blanchet repeated the demand, and Trudeau asked him in return why Blanchet was resisting pan-Canadian standards on long-term care. Jagmeet Singh took over for the NDP, and in French, he blamed the lack of vaccines on deaths, before demanding laid sick leave (which is 94 percent provincial jurisdiction), and Trudeau reminded him of the sickness benefit they put into place, but he hoped the provinces would agree to implement them, especially as the federal government has spent eight or nine out of every ten dollars in this pandemic. Singh tried again in English and got much the same response.

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