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It goes without saying that the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a steep toll on all Canadians. We have lost jobs, lost income and seen numerous small businesses shuttered. Our collective mental health and well-being has suffered as Canadians increasingly suffer “cabin fever” from pandemic restrictions.
Yet, to our credit, we have as a nation persevered. Most of us (except for a few “bad actors”, as Doug Ford calls them) have rallied around the slogan “We are all in this together.”
In the face of our ongoing sacrifice, it is enraging to witness the persistent incompetence of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government in managing Canada’s response to the pandemic, as we have most recently seen with regards to vaccines.
Since the fall, we have all kept going, continuing to sacrifice because we believed there was a light at the end of the tunnel once vaccines were developed.
Justin Trudeau vowed to us that vaccines would be widely available by the spring and that the majority of the population would be vaccinated by the fall. Once again, his promises are proving to be hollow.
Even before Pfizer announced it was cutting back shipments, Canada was falling far behind other developed countries in carrying out vaccination. While the Liberals were betting all their chips on the Chinese vaccine last spring, other countries were signing deals with AstraZeneca, Moderna, and Pfizer. Our government did not sign deals with those companies for months and Canadians are now paying the price for this failure in leadership. Many countries have vaccinated significant percentages of their population, but Canadians live under restrictions with fears of new COVID-19 variants. The way the Trudeau government has handled Canada’s vaccine strategy is absolutely shameful.
As it stands now, Canada will receive precisely zero new doses of the Pfizer vaccine this week and will likely do no better next week. Other developed countries, such as Israel, have taken their case directly to the Pfizer CEO to lobby for additional doses. Prime Minister Trudeau appears too timid to do so.
We have many other questions. What happened to our supposed special relationship with the producers of the Moderna vaccine? What is the hold-up in approving Oxford-AstraZeneca, which is already in use in other countries? Why did the contract for the CanSino vaccine fall through?
Instead of doing his job or at least being honest with Canadians, Justin Trudeau is more concerned with posturing for the media and blaming the provinces for his government’s failures.
The voters are seeing through this smokescreen and are getting angrier about the vaccine roll-out every day. Trudeau, with his usual arrogance, has hinted that he might call a federal election in the spring. Calling a federal election in the middle of a pandemic would be one of the most irresponsible acts of any government in history. If Justin Trudeau puts the health and safety of Canadians at risk for his own political gain, there will be a price to be paid when we go to the polls.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
