Canada’s Corrupt Liberal Government

It’s a scientific principle that when a vacuum is created, other forces rush to fill it. The same applies to politics, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is paying the price.

It’s now becoming increasingly clear that as the world mobilizes to immunize itself against COVID-19, Canada is falling seriously behind. At a time when more than half of Israelis have gotten the jab, Canada has only two per cent of its population vaccinated. Recent analysis by The Economist found that while virtually all of Europe will be fully vaccinated by the end of this year, the earliest Canada can hope for is mid-2022. And in one of the sharpest rebukes to Canada’s pandemic performance yet, the federal government has tapped into a global vaccine-sharing pool initially meant for developing nations.

This week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced two deals designed to produce COVID-19 vaccines on Canadian soil by the end of the year. But even that timeline — which won’t see Canadian-produced vaccines until well after the government’s self-imposed deadline of having enough doses to vaccinate the entire population by September — is unlikely to be met, according to an expert with many years’ experience in the industry.

When will Canadians get vaccines delivered? When will we be able to get shots into arms?

The truth is the answers to these questions are getting murkier by the day despite assurances from the Trudeau government that European export controls won’t affect us and despite an announcement that vaccines will be made in Canada.

Canada the only G7 country to take vaccines from fund for developing countries

Canada is the only G7 country to draw on a supply of COVID-19 vaccines meant primarily for developing countries, according to new data released Wednesday.

The COVAX program, co-ordinated by the World Health Organization and Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, pools funds from wealthier countries to buy vaccines for themselves and for 92 low- and middle-income nations that can’t afford to buy on their own.

Information released Wednesday by Gavi shows Canada is among just a few rich countries exercising their options to buy vaccines from the international group. The vast majority of countries receiving the first vaccine shipments from COVAX are low- and middle-income countries.

Despite the enthusiasm Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tried to bring to his announcement Tuesday, when he said that Canada had struck a deal to manufacture millions of COVID-19 vaccines at home, the agreement won’t do much to get us out of the acute phase of this pandemic.

That’s because the deal with Novavax to churn out its vaccine at Canada’s National Research Council (NRC) in Montreal is contingent on the completion of a new production centre, which won’t be finished until summer or early fall.

Pandemic spending this year is expected to hike Canada’s combined federal and provincial debt to $2 trillion, double the $1 trillion debt in 2007-08, according to a new study by the Fraser Institute.

The figures, adjusted for inflation, mean that in the current fiscal year, Canada’ combined debt will equal 91.6% of the annual output of the Canadian economy, up from 65.2% last year.