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Comment by version_five | Hacker News Reader

The canadian government is big into the business of making these kind of "declarations" these days, so our PM can demonstrate to everyone how progressive he is.

Although I don't think Mother Jones is a legitimate news source, so would be careful about taking anything in the article at face value.

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So the weird thing is: I can’t find a CBC report on this announcement on Wednesday. Nor any other Canadian news source, even in the weeds ones like iPolitics. Maybe I’m just not searching properly, but I don’t see any other reporting.

I mean, they absolutely promised they’d ban single-use plastics, and I was under the impression that was definitely a real thing:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/government-to-ban-single-us...

I just cannot find an actual press release from a government agency as of this week. I’d be appreciative if someone could actually dig that up.

I agree it is a bit weird. I also wasn't able to find a recent press release from the government and some of the articles about this from the past week have been using quotes from 2019 (giving the impression, to me, as though they are recent).

But in the interest of proving to myself that this isn't all some big hoax I did manage to find the government page listing all the schedule 1 toxic substances [0]. Hopefully that helps a bit. The final item on the list when I write this is "Plastic manufactured items"

[0] https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services...

In the same way Fox News and the Murdoch owned press has an agenda, so does Mother Jones.

However, their reporting is mostly factual. I'd say more so than Fox News https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_controversies

Most progressive folks I know are pretty disillusioned with the Canadian PM for being a Liberal and not at all a Leftist. His treatment of indigenous people in particular is something they've repeatedly pointed out as glaringly terrible.

Why do you find Mother Jones to be an illegitimate news source?

> Although I don't think Mother Jones is a legitimate news source

I'm calling this out.

Does Mother Jones have an agenda? Absolutely.

However, unlike some "news" sources, their reporting of actual facts is generally correct.

> so our PM can demonstrate to everyone how progressive he is.

Maybe he should focus on providing vaccines instead (Canada's vaccination rate sits at barely 4% while the US is at 38%) [0] and stop pushing pipelines to export some of the most environmentally destructive oil on the planet [1].

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccina...

[1] https://news.yahoo.com/trudeau-stresses-disappointment-keyst...

The Canadian vaccination rate is not 4%. It's as of today in Ontario at 60% of adults single dosed (49% of the population, and 58% of those 12+). The Canadian strategy is to get herd immunity on single doses before moving onto second doses. And judging from what I've seen happen in other countries, and from the emerging data about single-dose effectiveness, it's turning out to be the best strategy.

If Canada (Ontario in particular) has such a clever strategy, why are we living under a stay at home order where police have been deployed to prevent us from doing anything but grocery shop? I dont see how anyone living in Ontario could have anything good to say about what I would argue is our governments complete failure to serve its citizens in any way, whether protecting vulnerable people form covid, or even affording basic freedoms ot its citizens. It's amazing to me that in the face of an utter failure by our government, people can pretend that we're doing well.

I see you have an axe to grind, but those are two separate issues. And two different levels of government. The federal gov't does not issue stay at home orders.

FWIW I think this provincial gov't is mind bogglingly incompetent, and also a bit malevolent.

> FWIW I think this provincial gov't is mind bogglingly incompetent, and also a bit malevolent.

Sounds like we're on the same page then :) I'm confused about the rest of your comment - healthcare, and whatever emergency powers they have unconstitutionally used to try and get us to stay home, are the responsibilities of the provinces. Does the federal government have a role in this at all? Are they somehow setting the overall vaccination policy?

I think the federal government is responsible for acquisition and logistical delivery to provinces, but not the administration of vaccines.

> why are we living under a stay at home order where police have been deployed to prevent us from doing anything but grocery shop?

Wait, that's a joke right? We're talking western nation here, not Cuba or Venezuela...

It's a ridiculous exageration. The police have not been deployed. The provincial gov't made noises, and the police basically told them to bugger off.

Over 40% of Canadians are partially vaccinated

As one of that number I was glad to see this: a single shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine is 80% effective in preventing infection (vs the ~90% of two shots):

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/29/cdc-study-shows-single-dose-...

I'm extremely skeptical of these numbers. I've seen reports as low as 27% effective for first shot of Pfiser and as high as 95%.

I'm still getting my first one this weekend but I'm not gonna assume I'm really much safer than I was before.

I'm skeptical too, and I wouldn't gamble on a strategy that wasn't tested during the clinical trials.

Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. It's a pretty risky move to try it out.

Not an expert in the oil sands but personally I think there are benefits from getting oil from a virtually uninhabited area in northern canada vs relying on other suppliers.

I completely agree on the vaccine issue, Canada had failed miserably vs. comparator nations in this regard.

What comparator nations? Do you mean the ones with their own vaccine manufacturing, and the ones that put in place protectionist measures to prevent their trading partners and allies from buying vaccines from them?

Canada is just lucky the EU doesn't behave like the US, and we have been able to source vaccines from Pfizer's EU manufacturing. When the chips were down, we couldn't rely on our friends to the south.

Now that we have supply, Canada's vaccination rate is climbing rapidly. Well over 50% of the eligible (12+) population and climbing.

> and the ones that put in place protectionist measures to prevent their trading partners and allies from buying vaccines from them?

Citation needed? There are no, as far as I'm aware of, any trade restrictions on vaccines being shipped to Canada from the United States. The Trump administration simply invested earlier in promising vaccines, and therefore secured the first deliveries. Canada decided not to do so, and invested later so it wasn't able to secure earlier deliveries. It also wasted time and money backing the SinoVac which failed to deliver anything.

> Canada is just lucky the EU doesn't behave like the US, and we have been able to source vaccines from Pfizer's EU manufacturing. When the chips were down, we couldn't rely on our friends to the south.

All Canada had to do was invest earlier. I fail to understand how the US are "letting Canada down" by simply... getting deliveries they paid for!

https://financialpost.com/news/economy/biden-uses-trumps-ame...

Trump enacted controls (used the US Defense Production Act) which prevented manufacturers from exporting until all domestic orders were fulfilled. It was questionable whether it was enforceable, but manufacturers have followed it. Biden has continued this policy. Even to the point of hoarding vaccines not yet approved in the US (AstraZeneca) though they did eventually relent and give a smattering of expiring doses to Mexico and Canada.

In addition there's recent controversy about US export controls on medical supplies & materials which would be used for administration or production of vaccines as well:

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/04/24/world/covid-vaccine-...

Canada did invest early. With Pfizer's Belgium plant. But so did everyone else.

"There are no, as far as I'm aware of, any trade restrictions on vaccines being shipped to Canada from the United States" -- You're just plain wrong.

Reading the articles, suppliers are simply delivering the doses in the order they were bought. There's no "evil export restrictions".

Other countries simply had to invest earlier, when it was more risky to do so, if they wanted to be the first to get doses.

You didn't read then, it clearly states in the articles (and many others you can google) that the defense production act (or rather the threat of it) and executive order required manufacturers to prioritize domestic orders over exports. To this day manufacturers in the US are still not exporting their supply. What date you put your order in doesn't matter if the supplier isn't allowed to provide it to you until later -- so we didn't order from the US because at that point Trump made it clear we wouldn't be getting any from them. So Pfizer supplied us from Belgium.

FWIW Canada announced their order of the Pfizer vaccine August 5th. The US on July 22nd. Are you seriously trying to suggest that two weeks is the key decider here? Nonsense.

https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-vaccines-...

And an executive order was signed later to make it clear, these vaccines were for America First (despite the R&D on them being done in Europe)

"Trump made his remarks just before signing an executive order intended to ensure that priority access for COVID-19 vaccines procured by the U.S. government is given to the American people before assisting other nations."

You seem to have been mislead here. The act exists, but has not been used so far. Manufacturers are simply following delivery schedules.

> FWIW Canada announced their order of the Pfizer vaccine August 5th. The US on July 22nd. Are you seriously trying to suggest that two weeks is the key decider here? Nonsense.

Two weeks is a huge amount of time! The US was smart to secure it's orders sooner. There's limited supply and one big buyer (the United States) placed a large order first. I don't understand why Trudeau decided to wait a whole week to place his order (but hey, If Canadians prefer to get vaccines later that's good for us). It's like with investing: if you show up a week late to the series A, it's too late!

> for COVID-19 vaccines procured by the U.S. government is given to the American people before assisting other nations.

"Procured by" here is the key. It's only natural that what the US government bought using American taxpayer's money goes to American taxpayers first. This EO does not prevent any company from selling internationally, it prevents the US government from distributing the dose it purchased to foreign countries. This doesn't impact Canadian purchases.

Not sure why there's so much misinformation floating around the Executive Orders and manufacturer's delivery schedules. Maybe the Canadian government is trying to save face?

>hoarding vaccines

If you have any prescription meds, check who it's made by and where it was manufactured.

I just did, and they're generics made here in Canada.

I'm not sure what your point is meant to be, but I'll just mention that the main COVID vaccines (other than Moderna) all had their research and development in the EU.

BioNTech is in fact headquartered in the town my father is from (Mainz, Germany).

Out of three (generic) medications I have at the moment, they're all made by Indian companies, although one has the name of an American subsidiary on it.

(Aurobindo, Lupin, Heritage/Emcure)

My point is just in a very general way, I think of drugs as coming from India in the way consumer products come from China, and I get cognitive dissonance from people talking as though everyone knows they all come from the US.

There was something in the news not long ago about a covid vaccine related factory in India that had a fire while under construction, so I'm pretty sure they are making vaccines.

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