Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured his Canadian counterpart on Wednesday that India “will do its best” to help Canada with its lagging COVID-19 vaccination efforts “just as it had done for many other countries already.”
Modi tweeted that he received a call from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Was happy to receive a call from my friend @JustinTrudeau. Assured him that India would do its best to facilitate supplies of COVID vaccines sought by Canada. We also agreed to continue collaborating on other important issues like Climate Change and the global economic recovery.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 10, 2021
“Prime Minister Trudeau informed Prime Minister Modi about Canada’s requirements of COVID-19 vaccines from India,” said a readout of the call released by the Indian side. “[The] Prime Minister assured the Canadian PM that India would do its best to support Canada’s vaccination efforts, just as it had done for many other countries already.”
The Trudeau government has been under fire for the slow rollout of vaccines even though Canada has theoretically secured more vaccines per capita than any other country in the world and was one of the first countries to give regulatory approval to Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.
Canada has administered just over 1.1 million vaccine shots since the first doses of Pfizer-BioNTech and then Moderna vaccines were delivered in mid-December.
But Canada’s vaccination rollout hit a snag in mid-January when Pfizer-BioNTech announced it would cut deliveries to Canada by two-thirds between Jan. 18 and Feb. 14 while it was upgrading its production capabilities at its plant in Belgium. Then Moderna announced that it was forced to reduce last week’s shipment by 20 per cent because of production problems.
No other vaccine has been approved in Canada yet.
Health Canada is reviewing two separate applications for approval of the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University researchers, including a joint pitch from the Serum Institute of India (SII), a private enterprise in Pune in western India.
AstraZeneca Canada filed an application for its vaccine with Health Canada in October. Just last month, Canada’s Verity Pharmaceuticals and SII — which has capacity to produce roughly 2.4 million doses per day — filed a separate application.
India is the world’s largest vaccine producer.
According to the readout of the call, Trudeau told Modi that “if the world managed to conquer COVID-19, it would be significantly because of India’s tremendous pharmaceutical capacity, and Prime Minister Modi’s leadership in sharing this capacity with the world.”
Modi “thanked Trudeau for his sentiments,” the readout adds.
‘A great partner’
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks outside Rideau Cottage Ottawa, Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2021. (Adrian Wyld/THE CANADIAN PRESS)
Speaking to reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday morning, Trudeau called India a “great partner.”
“I can highlight that India has been a great partner in fighting COVID, whether it’s helping us with delivery of other pharmaceuticals or whether it’s working together on potential vaccines,” Trudeau said.
‘We’re going to continue to build on the strong relationship between Canada and India and ensure that we’re looking out for our citizens, while at the same time we’re looking to recover the global economy and create opportunities for everyone.”
The friendly tone of statements by both leaders was in sharp contrast to the tense diplomatic back-and-forth between New Delhi and Ottawa in December, when Indian officials accused Trudeau of interfering in the country’s internal affairs following his comments about the government’s handling of protests by Indian farmers.
Trudeau, speaking to the Indian community in Canada, said in early December that he was concerned about the farmers, most of them from the Sikh-dominated Indian state of Punjab, camped out on the outskirts of Delhi in a protest against farm reforms.
The Indian foreign ministry said in a statement that comments on “issues relating to Indian farmers constitute an unacceptable interference in our internal affairs.”
India and Canada have warm ties, but in recent years there has been concern in India that some Sikh leaders in Canada have ties to separatist groups hostile to India.
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Canada is home to an influential Sikh community and Indian leaders say there are some fringe groups there that are still sympathetic to the cause of an independent Sikh state called Khalistan, carved out of India.
Wednesday’s readout of the call released by Trudeau’s office made a brief reference to the farmers’ protests.
“The leaders discussed Canada and India’s commitment to democratic principles, recent protests and the importance of resolving issues through dialogue,” it said.
“They underlined the need to work collectively in rebuilding a more sustainable and resilient global economy.”
With files from CBC News and Reuters
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