Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole rises during Question Period in the House of Commons on Monday. Canada's lagging vaccine rollout took centre stage as MPs returned to work following the winter holiday break. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang)

House of Commons returns from break–debates vaccine rollout

Canada’s vaccine rollout program took centre stage as the House of Commons resumed sitting on Monday following a six week break.

Canada is not receiving any doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine this week, and future deliveries are expected to drop by 50 per cent over the next four weeks, according to a report from CBC News.

During Question Period, Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole went after the federal Liberal government’s vaccine plan.

“They’ve known for months there were going to be problems with production, they didn’t plan for it,” O’Toole said on Monday.

“This week […] there’ll be no deliveries of the Pfizer vaccine, next week, our order has been cut by 86 per cent, more than any other country. Why are Canadians always paying for this prime minister’s failure to act quickly.”

In response to O’Toole, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the government knew that there would be challenges with global supply chains around vaccines as they were developed and that was why the government set out and signed more contracts with different companies.

“We know that momentary delays are happening on Pfizer, but we will be receiving hundreds of thousands of doses later in February and we are still on track to vaccinating over three million Canadians by the end of Q1 and everyone who wants it by September,” Trudeau said.

In a press conference on Tuesday morning, Trudeau said that over the last few weeks he has spoken with executives from both Pfizer and Moderna and they assured him that Canada is still on track to receive their full doses of vaccines in the provided timelines, which is six million doses from both companies by the end of March.

Trudeau added that he is confident that everyone who wants to get a vaccine will be able to do so by September 2021.

According to data from the Canadian government on vaccination coverage, as of Jan. 16, 516,319 people, 1.36 per cent of the population has received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 37,625 people, 0.10 per cent of the population has received two doses.

When looking at the Health Canada website that tracks the federal government’s vaccine rollout, the table that forecasted the allocation of Pfizer’s vaccine has been replaced with a message.

“The table outlining the forecasted allocation of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to provinces and territories is currently being updated based on changes to manufacturing timelines,” the message says.

Meanwhile, Moderna is still expected to deliver 230,400 doses of their vaccine during the first week of February and 249,600 doses during the final week of February.

According to information from the federal government, Canada, as of Jan. 25, has had 753,011 cases of COVID-19, including 62,447 active cases and 19,238 deaths.

With files from CBC News (John Paul Tasker)

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