Tristan Hopper;

Let’s go back to April of 2020. The world is still very much in the first wave of COVID-19, and governments around the world are scrambling to find some way to get back to normal. On May 6, the Government of Canada announces a deal with CanSino, a Chinese company that was developing what was then one of the world’s most promising vaccine candidates.
 
The arrangement was that Canada would conduct human trials for the CanSino vaccine and then, once it was approved, we’d manufacture it within our own borders.
 
But there’s just one problem. When CanSino tried to send Canada its first shipments of the vaccine, it was arbitrarily blocked at the border by Chinese authorities. Why? Probably retaliation for Canada’s arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou for extradition to the United States.
 
As a result it wasn’t until Aug. 5 that Canada could finally announce a contract with Pfizer and Moderna, makers of the two most widely used vaccines. The Canadian government has weirdly refused to publicize their contracts with these companies, but what’s emerging is that we are definitely not at the front of the line for these shots.
 
But wait, there’s more. Evidence is continuing to emerge that Ottawa repeatedly turned down domestic offers for vaccine production. PnuVax approached the federal government in mid-2020, promising that they could be cranking 1 million doses out of their Montreal facility by December. The feds ignored them, and decided to instead centre all of Canada’s vaccine production at an under-construction government facility that won’t be completed until next year.
 
Or there’s Calgary’s Providence Therapeutics, who had a vaccine candidate that was showing early success in mice. They petitioned the federal government for support to bring it to clinical trials, but they got no answer as well (they’ve since struck a deal directly with the Manitoba government).
 
Ever since this pandemic began, COVID-19 has cost 1,800 Canadian lives per month and at least $500 million per day. We’re so far behind the rest of the developed world that as of right now, it looks like we won’t achieve mass vaccination until SIX months later than everyone in Europe and the United States.