New Parliamentary petition!

Please sign and share our new parliamentary petition for Canada to do its part for vaccine access and justice worldwide before December 30th, 2021. At more than 500 signatures, the petition will be introduced in the House of Commons and the government has to respond to it. Keep sharing it even after 500 signatures - the more support the better. Thank you!

Change.org petition: Increase the global supply and availability of COVID-19 vaccines

To Justin Trudeau, Mary Ng, Chrystia Freeland, Jagmeet Sing, Annamie Paul, and Erin O’Toole

The COVID-19 pandemic remains an ongoing and deadly health threat around the globe. While life saving vaccines have brought Canada, America, and the wealthy nations of Europe to a far better place in our fight against COVID-19, the same is not true for most people around the world. According to the Duke Global Health Speedometer, high and upper-middle income nations have procured over 8.2 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses, while low and lower-middle income nations have only procured around 2.1 billion doses. Only 0.3% of all global doses administered have been in low-income nations. COVAX, which was supposed to bridge this gap, is woefully behind schedule.

This divide is morally and ethically unacceptable. Simply sending money to COVAX is not sufficient to solve the logistical and supply problems. Without immediate action to greatly increase the supply of vaccines in low and lower-middle income nations we face the very real possibility that more people will die of COVID-19 after the creation of vaccines. Indeed, this has already happened in India. To let it be repeated elsewhere would be a cruel tragedy and must be avoided.

To that end, we are asking the Government of Canada and all opposition parties to rise to the occasion and become a global leader in the fight for vaccine equity by taking the following four actions:

First, a timely, urgent, and bold plan to vaccinate the world now is desperately needed. The emergence of the Delta variant, which is recognized to be even more transmissible than the Alpha variant, is a grave threat to unvaccinated peoples around the world. These more transmissible variants have rapidly changed the global situation and mean the window to prevent even more catastrophic levels of infection and death in low and middle-income nations is rapidly closing. For example, South Africa is currently on the verge of a third terrible outbreak, driven by the Delta variant. With hundreds of thousands of new COVID-19 cases everyday, Delta is also unlikely to be the last variant of concern that arises. This is a direct threat to Canadian health security, as we cannot afford a vaccine resistant variant arising and reigniting the pandemic here at home. Initiatives like the recent announcement of donations from the Biden administration are welcome, but the timelines are far too lengthy. We do not have years to slowly vaccinate the world, it needs to be done immediately.

Second, we demand action to remove barriers to global vaccine access and production. Every nation must have access to purchase or produce vaccines at affordable rates. Canada must wholeheartedly support the WTO TRIPS waiver proposed by India and South Africa which would temporarily waive intellectual property rights on COVID-19 vaccines and related technologies, and must take the lead on pushing this waiver forward through our positions of influence within the WTO, G7, UN, and other international institutions. Canada must also lead and support efforts to enable COVID-19 vaccine knowledge and technology transfers through initiatives like the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Technology Access Pool and the mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub being established in South Africa. While any vaccine is better than no vaccine, it is not acceptable for wealthy nations to hoard the more effective mRNA vaccines while the rest of the world has to make do with what we don’t want. We must dedicate both financial and knowledge resources to ensuring these initiatives are successful so that everyone has access to all vaccines.

Third, we ask that Canada reaffirm its commitment to donating excess doses, and move up the timelines for doing so. Canada has contracts in place for 10 doses per inhabitant, which is far more than realistically needed. These excess doses must be re-routed to vulnerable populations in low and middle-income nations, and it must be done as soon as possible. Canadian jurisdictions currently have thousands of doses that are on the verge of expiry. We cannot allow vaccines to go to waste here at home when they could be saving lives elsewhere. These doses are needed immediately, not 6 months or a year from now.

Fourth, we ask you to immediately and urgently pledge Canadian manufacturing resources and knowledge to scale up all parts of the global vaccine supply chain. Canada may not have domestic vaccine dosage production capabilities at present, but surely we have financial resources to spare and the ability to produce other crucial elements which are needed, such as vials, syringes, and needles. The Government of Canada must dedicate Canadian manufacturing capabilities to produce whatever parts of the vaccine supply chain we can in short order, using emergency powers to requisition resources if necessary. This is a global emergency of the highest order and Canada must respond in kind.