While both the prime minister and deputy prime minister stated they would be at QP today, only the latter was present in the Chamber. Erin O’Toole led off, script on mini-lectern, and he led off worrying about the CanSino deal, and news reports that some scientists objected to it. Justin Trudeau, appearing from home, said that they had looked at every option and didn’t close any doors. O’Toole was not mollified, and Trudeau reiterated that CanSino had success on the Ebola vaccine, and they had hopes they could help with COVID. O’Toole then insisted that the government wasted five months and didn’t attempt a made-in-Canada vaccine solution — which doesn’t match the timeline — and Trudeau reiterated that they got a broad portfolio of vaccine candidates so that they didn’t rely on a single source. O’Toole switched to French to raise the PornHub story, insisting that the government had done nothing about it, to which Trudeau insisted that they were moving regulations that would help tackle illegal online content. O’Toole insisted that the alarm was raised months ago, and Trudeau repeated his response. Yves-François Blanchet was up for the Bloc, worrying that not enough vaccines had been procured, to which Trudeau reminded him that they have contracts for more doses than any other country. Blanchet was not impressed, but moved onto his usual demand for increased health transfers, to which Trudeau reminded him that vaccine rollout depends on their production, and that he has given the provinces have everything they need from the federal government. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and in French, he was concerned that the Pfizer vaccine had too many transportation problems and wondered when the Moderna vaccine was coming, and Trudeau reminded him that it was one of four candidates under regulatory approval, and that it would take different kinds of vaccines to protect everyone. Singh repeated the question in English, and got the same response.
Tag Archives: Public Health
Roundup: Some vaccine doses arriving soon
The prime minister was out this morning with a significant announcement about the vaccine roll-out, in that Canada could see its first 249,000 doses being delivered within about a week, pending Health Canada approval. As well, the box from Pfizer that will serve as the “dry run” of the roll-out plans also left Belgium and was heading for Canada for the exercise. The whole vaccine roll-out is going to be taxing to supply chains for things like dry ice, and there is already talk about lowering some expectations for how soon some long-term care residents can receive doses, because the Pfizer vaccine loses effectiveness if it is jostled too much, as it is with transport, so that may mean trying to find ways of getting those residents to vaccination centres instead of the other way around. We’ll see how this goes.
this feels relevant to the whole concept of "the line" for vaccines and Canada's position therein https://t.co/r5PVm2u476
— James McLeod (@jamespmcleod) December 7, 2020
There is an interesting story in the Globe about a private vaccine manufacturer in Montreal, which is right next door to the National Research Council facility that is currently under construction, which is believed to be capable of manufacturing at least one of the potential vaccine candidates, but they appear not to have been asked by the government, or engaged in any meaningful way. I have questions, however, because it doesn’t really specify which type of vaccines could be manufactured (and yes, this does matter), so it may be a case of waiting to see the viability of one of the later candidates for approval before they go too far with licensing or engaging.
The problem with this is that it assumes that any of the leading #COVID19 #vaccine producers would have licensed their candidates for production in the small / high cost Canadian market with no obvious export potential. I have seen no evidence of that. https://t.co/DRku4BibSq
— Mark Warner (@MAAWLAW) December 8, 2020
Meanwhile, Conservative leader Erin O’Toole has the audacity to blame the Liberals for the anti-vaxx petition that his MP, Derek Sloan, has been sponsoring. O’Toole says that because the Liberals have been so lacking in transparency that these kinds of things are bound to happen – which is some grade-A horseshit if I ever heard it. This as O’Toole spent the morning shifting the goalposts on what he deems to be sufficient transparency from the government. Of course, O’Toole doing the bare minimum and saying he doesn’t support the petition Sloan is sponsoring, but doing little else to stop the misinformation that he has had an active hand in spreading is quite something. Then again, there does seem to be a tendency among many conservative leaders to shift blame and deny that they are responsible for anything, and we apparently are seeing that again here.
Erin O’Toole moves a few goalposts… #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/FF40V1ttNQ
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) December 7, 2020
Here I describe a brief overview of how the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna mRNA vaccines work. Taking a vaccine is one’s personal choice, and I hope this video can help someone make that decision rooted in science. pic.twitter.com/ZjFH0DH5ca
— Rob Swanda (@ScientistSwanda) December 7, 2020
QP: The PornHub panic
While the prime minister was on the Hill and just gave a press conference to announce that vaccines would likely be arriving in a week following Health Canada approval, neither he nor his deputy were at QP. Candice Bergen led off, giving selective information about vaccination roll-outs in other countries, and then said that the announced first batch of the Pfizer vaccine wouldn’t be enough. Anita Anand insisted that this was a wonderful day, and that the light at the end of the tunnel was clear. Bergen then moved to the PornHub story in the New York Times, saying he was allowing rape and sexual exploitation to happen in his own backyard, to which David Lametti reminded her that there are laws in place, including for Internet service providers, and that they were taking this seriously. Bergen insisted that there has been no action, as though there was a magic wand that was not being used, and Lametti repeated his points before declaring his pride in the Digital Charter. Stephanie Kusie then took over in and French to demand refunds for airline consumers, to which Chris Bittle stated clearly that there would be no sector-specific aid without refunds. Kusie worried that any plan would bar executive compensation, and Bittle reiterate the importance of ensuring refunds. Claude DeBellefeuille led for the Bloc to demand increased health transfers with no strings attached, to which Patty Hajdu read in halting French about how much the federal government had transferred to the provinces since the pandemic began. DeBellefeuille was not mollified, and repeated her demand, for which Hajdu read another set of talking points. Jenny Kwan demanded more safe places for women in Vancouver’s downtown east side, to which Maryam Monsef said that she has been working with the advocates in the area. Leah Gazan demanded action on the report from the MMIW inquiry, to which Carolyn Bennett assured her that they were working on this with a new $751 million funding commitment.
Roundup: From the Bank to Finance
Tongues were set wagging late Sunday night as word came down that the government was planning to appoint Michael Sabia, currently the head of the Canada Infrastructure Bank, to be the new Deputy Minister of Finance. There had been a bit of concern over the last week when it was reported that Freeland was interviewing five candidates to replace her deputy, who had announced his resignation the day after the fiscal update, given that it’s unusual for this to happen in our system. But deputy ministers are Governor-in-Council appointees, so while it’s unusual for ministers to choose their own deputies rather than the Clerk of the Privy Council recommending one to the prime minister, capacity for such decisions do exist. One does wonder, however, what signal this sends to the Infrastructure Bank, given that they just put Sabia in charge a couple of months ago, and now they’re moving him again.
This having been said, it was not unexpected that the outgoing deputy would not last there too much longer, because he too was of the generation in the public service for whom it is 1995 and will always be 1995 – and already the pundit class for whom this is the unifying theory are already chirping about his departure. Why this may turn out to be important is because we are going to have to start thinking out federal finances in a different way as the pandemic moves into recovery mode. Why? Because the old obsessions around debt and deficit (which is the mindset of the 1995 crowd) may lead to more damage than good, and we could see ourselves in a Japan-like situation if we’re not careful. And while yes, there are “guardrails” and planned “anchors” once we’re fully into the recovery stage, it may be time for a fresh mindset in the senior ranks – though given how much attention they put on Sabia when they brought him into the Infrastructure Bank, moving him to Finance right away seems mighty cozy, and this will no doubt launch another round of the current witch hunt going on in committees.
https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1335269637769060352
https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1335270894571237378
https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1335271066701344768
The debt scolds hold a prominent place in our media punditry, especially at the Globe and Mail.
— David G (@accfanto) December 5, 2020
Good reads:
- One of Pfizer’s top executives says that Canada could be getting vaccines within 24 hours of Health Canada approval, possibly by the end of this week.
- Major-General Dany Fortin says they are expecting a constant flow of vaccines into the country by January once approvals are completed.
- A (small) rise in cases in PEI has the province moving to a “circuit-breaker” lockdown before the cases start rising – like other provinces should have done.
- An internal review at Global Affairs found no standard process for vetting honorary consuls, and they have since developed a new code of conduct.
- Speaker Rota reflects on his first year in the big chair, at a time of pandemic, “virtual” and hybrid sittings.
- Susan Delacourt details how the Liberals are preparing for a possible election in the spring, even though they don’t necessarily want one.
- Chantal Hébert evaluates Erin O’Toole’s first 100 days as leader, and finds it wanting, not only for the lies, but also the evasion on his own plans.
Odds and ends:
Combining the latest employment figures with COVID case counts is revealing. #cdnecon pic.twitter.com/HQwzZRRpkV
— Trevor Tombe (@trevortombe) December 4, 2020
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Roundup: More doses, and a witch hunt
It looks like we’re going to end the week on yet more talk about COVID vaccines, because that’s all we can talk about anymore. The news yesterday was that Canada has upped its orders for the Moderna vaccine (which we are near the front of the line for), which is also significant because these ones, while also a two-dose vaccine, don’t need the same ultra-cold chain that the Pfizer one does, so that will make distribution much easier. As well, the federal government offered some further refinement of the priority advice, to say that residents and staff of long-term care facilities should get the first doses, as well as Canadians over the age of 80, followed by healthcare and personal support workers in contact with patients, followed by Indigenous communities (who are especially susceptible to the virus given the living conditions in many of those communities).
On a similar vein, here is a further exploration of the delays to the National Research Council’s planned vaccine production facility, including the fact that even when this is completed, it’s not built to manufacture mRNA vaccines so again, it won’t help with the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines – but perhaps it can with the AstraZeneca vaccine if it gets approval.
Meanwhile, the Commons ethics committee hauled former MP Frank Baylis before them to answer questions about his company being subcontracted to help build ventilators, and lo, he had perfectly reasonable explanations for all of the things the opposition parties deemed suspicious, and the actual contractor for the ventilators is a Conservative donor, and didn’t even know that Baylis was a former MP when he contacted the company because they had the kind of clean room he needed to assemble the ventilators. But this whole affair has been a ridiculous witch hunt from the start, full of lies and disinformation because they could make the facts line up in a way that looked damning even though they aren’t. But this is the game we’re playing, where truth is the first casualty to cheap point-scoring.
Roundup: Cutting the expected doses in half
It was another big day for vaccine news, starting with a technical briefing by federal public health officials that gave a bit more clarity on what is happening. Health Canada says we could see approval of the Pfizer vaccine within seven to ten days, while we also got some more information about the roll-out plan, including how the Pfizer and Moderna roll-outs are different, that they have concluded tabletop exercises and found gaps to plug, and that a dry run is scheduled for December 14th, after which they say they will be ready to start receiving vaccines, depending of course on approvals and availability from the manufacturer. But then came the bombshell – raw materials shortages are going to mean that Pfizer has had to cut their expected 2020 production by nearly half, which will mean fewer early vaccine doses to get to healthcare workers and the most vulnerable.
Kind of makes those demands for precise numbers and dates look a bit foolish given how many moving pieces are at work… https://t.co/gEmNzF0kVK
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) December 3, 2020
And then there are the provinces. In Quebec, François Legault had to say that his attempted “moral contract” for Christmas was off the table because cases won’t go down, but he also insisted that he wouldn’t have meaningfully done anything different in handling the pandemic, which is bananas. The continued climb of cases in Ontario means that we are likely facing more lockdowns before too long. In Manitoba, Brian Pallister gave a tearful speech about needing to cancel Christmas – but then also stated that it was “unfair” that early doses were being reserved for First Nations (who are especially vulnerable), which is mind-boggling. As for Alberta, where new cases keep breaking records, we got more details on the planned field hospitals (which are not really going just “contingency planning”), and in spite of yesterday’s insistence to the contrary, they are looking at possible military assistance to staff these field hospitals.
But remember, you’re still encouraged to socialize in the “structured settings” of bars and restaurants. https://t.co/Dn9w90l5Ub
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) December 3, 2020
https://twitter.com/moebius_strip/status/1334611584824446978
https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1334561390640701441
QP: Misleading on the military’s role
While the prime minister and his deputy were around the building, neither were present for QP. In their absence, Erin O’Toole led off, script on his mini-lectern, and citing leaked military documents demanded to know how many people would be vaccinated by the end of March. Patty Hajdu shrugged off the question and praised the vaccine portfolio. O’Toole then made the lame joke that if the American plan was “warp speed,” the best Canada could do was impulse power, but Hajdu reiterated her response. O’Toole worried that the US or France would get back to normal six months before Canada does, to which Hajdu talked about the importance of having different vaccine options because some candidates could be more suited to certain populations over others. O’Toole changed to French to demand the plan, for which Hajdu pointed to what was revealed at this mornings tech briefing. O’Toole then pivoted to the myth of the “decline of French,” and demanded that Quebec’s Bill 101 be extended to federal workplaces, to which Mélanie Joly listed actions her government has taken. Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he too demanded the extension of Bill 101, and Joly reiterated that they believe in Bill 101 for its provincial goals and that they are in discussion with the Quebec government. Therrien was unimpressed and listed all of the people making this demand, and Joly insisted that they have demonstrated that they were allies of Francophones. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and in French, he spouted some utter nonsense about the government not procuring enough vaccines, to which Hajdu reminded him that they have more than enough doses, and that prioritisation was established nationally and that provinces would refine it further. Singh repeated his accusations in English, and got the same response.
Today’s @the_lineca column gives a pretty good challenge to the current hysteria gripping the House of Commons about the supposed “decline of French” in Montreal. https://t.co/zZmycDp26J
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) December 3, 2020
Roundup: Admission that deadlines will be missed
The federal government announced yesterday that they weren’t going to be able to meet their deadline for fixing all of the boil-water advisories on First Nations reserves, in part because of delays caused by the pandemic. And while they should get some points for at least owning this rather than sending it down the memory hole like their predecessors did, this is yet one more file where they need to do a much better job of communicating what is going on with the file. And Marc Miller is better than many of his fellow ministers, but there needs to be a hell of a lot more candour that about these boil-water advisories, such as each case is unique so you can’t fit the same solution to all of them; it is a huge challenge to build major infrastructure in remote and fly-in communities, and that takes a lot more time to complete a project as a result; that in some communities, the bigger problem is capacity to maintain systems – and in some communities, the problem is that as soon as they train someone to maintain the system, they get a better offer and get poached. Miller did note that in some cases, the state of decay in some of these systems was not adequately appreciated, and that climate change and shorter winters make getting materials up to some communities on ice roads more difficult. The other aspect of note is that there is yet more funding attached to finish the job, as well as better ongoing maintenance and prevention of future advisories, which is all good, but again, they need to communicate what the challenges are, lest we get another round of people who live in cities not being able to appreciate that you can’t throw money at a problem like this and hope it gets fixed overnight.
Evergreen tweet:
Opposition puts forward the notion that throwing money at problems fixes them overnight.
This government sticks to happy-clappy talking points rather than explains why things take time.
Media quotes both sides and lets people decide (19 times out of 20).— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) December 2, 2020
This being said, there is already talk about broken promises, and the dangers of setting deadlines, and so on. I would note that there should be nothing wrong with setting ambitious targets, and there should also be nothing wrong with adjusting them, but that should be accompanied by candour that lays out why plans need to be adjusted. I think this government underestimates how much goodwill can be gained by frank and honest discussions of projects rather than just sticking to the happy-clappy talking points and other pabulum that they spout, but what do I know?
In pandemic news, the Alberta government has requested field hospitals from the federal government and the Red Cross, but they claim that this is just about contingency planning, and that they haven’t requested personnel for them. Given that infections are out of control in the province, and its hospitals are already at the point of being overwhelmed, you can be pretty sure that this line about it being for a “contingency” is bogus, that they know they need to do this because they refuse to lockdown, and this is just softening the ground.
You can still head to the bar with your buddies for a drink tonight, or maybe try your luck at the casino, and Alberta is requesting field hospitals from the Red Cross to deal with the coming COVID surge.
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) December 2, 2020
Alberta's response to the pandemic:
-labour war with doctors
-labour war with nurses
– weakening public health legislationWhat did I miss?
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) December 2, 2020
Here's what the Red Cross says about their ERUs/field hospitals. They're not something you set up as a hedge. pic.twitter.com/gdG8hwTvtb
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) December 2, 2020
QP: Going hard on the CanSino conspiracy theory
It being Wednesday, the prime minister was present and ready to respond to all questions put his way. Erin O’Toole led off, script on his mini-lectern, and he immediately started in on his CanSino conspiracy theory, apparently not understanding how vaccine regulation works, to which Justin Trudeau insisted that they signed on with Moderna and Pfizer before the CanSino deal fell apart, and why they put their eggs in as many baskets as possible. O’Toole said that CSIS was trying to warn the government about CanSino for years, but Trudeau again refuted this. O’Toole quoted an unnamed security analyst to say that China played Canada on the CanSino deal, and Trudeau stated that O’Toole was making stuff up, and that when the CanSino deal fell apart, Canada’s vaccine portfolio went from eight candidates to seven. O’Toole switched to French to claim that other countries will have all of their populations vaccinated by June, but Canada wouldn’t by September, to which Trudeau reminded him that Health Canada was studying four candidates and that there are guarantees for doses for Canadians. O’Toole demanded a plan to give the country “hope,” to which Trudeau said that their plan was to protect Canadians and help the economy weather the storm so that we will emerge from the pandemic in a strong state. Yves-François Blanchet got up next for the Bloc, and he demanded increased health transfers to the provinces, to which Trudeau reminded him that they have been working with the provinces since the pandemic began and have already transferred billions of dollars to them. Blanchet tried again, and got a much more emphatic version of the same answer. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and in French, he lamented the lack of a vaccine plan, for which Trudeau reminded him that they have been working with the provinces since the spring to prepare for this. Singh changed to English to decry that the government wouldn’t be able to complete their pledge to end all boil water advisories on time, and read a statement from a First Nations child. Trudeau read a script that they have been working with those communities, and it takes time to overcome decades of neglect.
Roundup: Moving on child care (again)
The fiscal update and its feminist lens, as well was talk of the “she-cession” has given some people to look a bit more closely at the national early learning and child care proposal that the government is putting forward. And immediately you get those on the left chirping that the Liberals have been promising this for decades but never delivering (which is false – Paul Martin did deliver it, and had agreements signed with every province and money flowing, which Stephen Harper immediately killed thanks to the NDP helping him to bring down Martin’s government), and the Conservatives have resumed their 2004-2006 mantra that taxpayer dollars to child care spaces somehow robs stay-at-home mothers of their choice (also a verifiably bogus argument). Oh, and the Conservatives are also talking about refundable tax credits, which didn’t build a single child care space the last time they tried tax credits, nor will it build any should they form government again. Why? Because there is a supply-side problem, which is going to require federal and provincial investment. The first step of this is in the fiscal update – the immediate creation of a federal secretariat, which will do the work of developing policies for a national universal programme, as well as assisting with the federal-provincial negotiations, because child care is provincial jurisdiction, and the federal government can’t create these spaces without the provinces.
With this in mind, here is Lindsay Tedds and Jennifer Robson about the what is needed to make this a reality.
https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1333814949617881088
Some models of supply-side childcare policy that have tried to put a fixed sticker price on the cost per space to build (all over the map, & maybe low-balled if you also want quality) or fix parental fees at $X have maybe, inadvertently, ….
— Dr. J Robson (@JenniferRobson8) December 1, 2020
…whether that is voucher or transfer funded. There is a minimum viable level of funding needed before, as a service operator, you might be willing to invest (in labour, space & overhead) to expand spaces. You need the economies of scale in a sector that has such tight margins.
— Dr. J Robson (@JenniferRobson8) December 1, 2020
families will still face out-of-pocket costs (even if in a transitional period) so I can get behind a move to refundability over deductability. BUT, not by cutting supply-side transfers which is what @fordnation did on their prov. credit. #teambothand.
— Dr. J Robson (@JenniferRobson8) December 1, 2020
A national child care program is expected to be a big item in the 2021 budget, but one economist argues it will actually lead to economic gains — and that's not the only benefit. Dr. @LindsayTedds from the @UCalgary @policy_school outlines the argument with @JenCrosby. #yeg pic.twitter.com/ZAjwYPvKDB
— Global Edmonton (@GlobalEdmonton) December 1, 2020