For vaccinations, what matters most is the start line, not the finish line!

Like many of you this Christmas, we did not see our parents. They are 80 years old and terrified of Covid-19. So I started to research when the vaccine would be available for them. I could not find a definitive schedule. But according to Deputy Chief Public Health Minister, Howard Njoo, it should be sometime before the end of December, 2021. So just stay in your house for another 12 months grandpa and grandma. PM Trudeau stated in November that what matters most is not when we start vaccinating, "but when we cross the finish line." Wait...what?? Wouldn't it be better to start asap and finish sooner? Do we really think it is okay to have months more of hospitalizations, deaths, and economic shutdowns? Why would Trudeau make such a ridiculous claim? Is it because his government has failed on the vaccine front? The slow rollout of the vaccine is an indictment of this Liberal government.

In 2009 when H1N1 struck, the vaccine was developed in Canada by GlaxoSmithKlein, and administered in just several months. This is because the Harper government had improved the data protection and patent legislation of vaccines. However, there was still only one company that could supply the vaccine. Although the government did not want to have just one supplier of a pandemic vaccine again, there was no follow up planning to ensure that we had secure sources of supply. Then the Trudeau government removed the data protection and investment into vaccine facilities declined.

On Nov.25, 2020 a government minister blatantly lied and stated that GSK had since closed its manufacturing for vaccines. That is simply not true; GSK continues to make the influenza vaccine each year. They are not capable of making the mRNA vaccine such as the one being used right now because it requires a different process. GSK is working on a vaccine in partnership with Sanofi. Why would the minister lie? Did he not have his facts straight? Or is the government just blaming "Big Pharma" for their mistakes in not getting the vaccine soon enough. Canada is 4 months behind the U.S., U.K., and the E.U.

In April the government spent millions of dollars at the National Research Council in partnership with CanSino China. This seems strange considering we have such a strained relationship with China: they will not buy our canola and have illegally detained the two Micheals. And yet the Trudeau government thought it a good idea to only deal with China? By August, China had not yet delivered the materials for the clinical trial. So 4 months after other countries had bought contracts, Canada's procurement agency scrambled to buy vaccines from 7 other companies. PM Trudeau then stated, "We are better on vaccines than any other country." We have 7 contracts, the EU has 7 contracts, the US has 8 contracts. So...maybe we're not better? We have purchased 5 times more than needed for our population. Why? Wouldn't that money have been better spent elsewhere? Like Longterm Care Facilities?

The Liberal government does not seem to want the Pharmacy Industry in Canada. In 1968 Pierre Trudeau eliminated pharmaceutical patents by implementing compulsory licensing. "This led to a number of multinational innovative companies immediately closing down their research centres in Canada. It also led to the creation of a powerful generic industry that does no innovative research." (Lucas) These pharmaceutical companies delivered tremendous value to both our economy, as it employed highly educated staff, and to our healthcare system with early access to new medicines and vaccines. "Although the Mulroney and Harper governments supported the innovative industry by improving the patent landscape, Canada only partially recovered, and to this day does not have globally competitive patent protection for innovative medicines."(Lucas) These pharmaceutical companies have competitive patent production in the US, the UK, and in Europe. In fact, Canada has such a poor relationship with pharmaceutical companies, that we weren't even included in the trials.

To make matters worse, on January 1, 2021 new regulations will be enacted to the Patented Medicines Pricing Review Board. This is not supportive of the pharmaceutical industry; investment will decline more, and more companies will leave. Why would we hurt pharmacy in Canada during a pandemic? Health Canada is already one of the slowest regulatory agencies in approving new medications and vaccines. The Federal laws & regulations in Canada appear as if the Liberal government doesn't want the pharmacy industry in Canada.

Although the Liberal government has been handing out money to everyone during the pandemic, it has not done a good job of handling the pandemic.The Liberals defunded the Global Public Health Intelligence Network. It would have warned us sooner about Covid-19 and we could have (& should have) closed the border sooner. The Liberals threw out the outdated stockpiles of PPE in 2019 and did not restock. Saskatchewan health care workers used their outdated N95 masks because they were stored properly and passed infiltration tests. So maybe the other 2 million N95 masks did not have to be thrown in the landfill? When we needed the PPE, the production of it had been outsourced to China, so then we had to buy from China. Over one million of these masks had to be thrown out due to being sub-standard. How much did that cost? Why can we not have private industry here to make PPE? Why does Canada need to impose so many regulations that industry leaves the country?

We need to be asking these questions of our government because our media does not seem to be doing so. Why will the US have all of their health care workers (Doctors, RNs,RPNs, Nurse Practitioners, LPNs, Respiratory Therapists, Health Care Aides, Public Health Nurses) vaccinated by the end of 2020? Why won't Canada? Why is the US plan to have everyone vaccinated by the end of May and Canada will not for at least another four months after the US and possibly even seven months later? The Liberal plan seems to be to keep us in lockdown and hand out money so that we are so far in debt my great-grandchildren will still be paying it off. In the meantime, our grandparents wait alone for a vaccine that could have been produced in Canada.

Works Cited:

Danner and Steib, "What we Know About the US Covid-19 Vaccine Distribution Plan," Dec.18 2020, The Intelligencer, nymag.com

Lucas, Paul, "Canada's Vaccine Development Capacity and the Federal Government's Management Plan of Covid-19," December 1, 2020, www.canadianhealthpolicy.com

Bnn.bloomblerg.ca/ "Trudeau Expects Most Canadians Could be Vaccinated by Sept.2021"

uk.reuters.com "More than 600,000 people in UK get first Pfizer Covid-19 Vaccine dose," December 24, 2020