QUESTION PERIOD — Health
COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout
March 15, 2021
Honourable senators, my question is for the government leader in the Senate. Senator Gold, Canada is the only country in the world that recommends delaying the second dose of COVID-19 vaccines from three or four weeks to four months. Last week, the Prime Minister said this recommendation was “grounded in science.” In fact, it was based on Canada’s poor vaccine supply. The chair of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization made it clear in her remarks before a House committee that the decision to delay was based on the vaccine delivery schedule.
Leader, if we had a better vaccine supply, the advisory committee would not have considered a four-month delay between doses.
Why did the Prime Minister say the four-month delay was based on science when it was, in fact, based on his government’s vaccine procurement failure?
Thank you for your question, senator. This government has succeeded in achieving what many in this chamber did not think possible: that is delivering a large and increasing supply of vaccines, with increasing numbers and frequency, to Canada. The government’s position remains that as the science develops and as data is accumulating — with regard to the efficacy of the first injection of different vaccines that are available to Canadians — the prudent thing to do is to vaccinate as many people as possible with the first injection, as the provinces are doing.
I’m not sure how that came close to answering the question I asked.
One of the reasons we have as many doses available to us is because four European countries have rejected one of the vaccines that the Trudeau government is now saying we have an extra supply of.
The Trudeau government’s slow vaccine rollout is having terrible consequences on lives and businesses in our country. As a group of senior Canadian scientists said in a joint letter last week, the four-month delay between doses could make Canadians vulnerable to vaccine resistant variants. Dr. Mona Nemer, Canada’s Chief Science Advisor, said a four-month delay between doses amounts to “a population-level experiment.”
Is the doctor right or wrong?
I have enormous respect for the doctor’s opinion. She was referring to a decision by the B.C. government to take that step. As I said before, the government has successfully negotiated and is implementing a series of arrangements.
With regard to AstraZeneca, to name the vaccine you alluded to, we have been advised that none of the doses expected in Canada come from the lot around which some questions have been raised recently.
