While I agree the failure is bipartisan, the guy in power has the privilege of shouldering the blame. Trudeau doesn’t get to profit from the sweetness and light narrative - where we’re all friends and partners - when it suits him and dismiss the dangers when it fails us.
We were not prepared, and failed to prepare. They waited until Feb 2021 - nearly a year in - before investing $25M to help NRC and Novavax build domestic production capacity.
This is a classic example of just enough money to fail, just late enough to make no difference - a time honoured Canadian political strategy. It’s almost like they’re trying to disprove the feasibility. Imagine instead $250M to $1B, ten months ago? It need not displace existing medical manufacturing capacities at all. I simply argue that there are domestic industrial capacities that can be marshalled (at a cost) if it’s important enough. They can find a billion dollars for We Charities when it suits their narrative... For what?
I’m not arguing it’s simple or black and white. It’s never simple or black and white, but at times action is necessary. And I think a weakness of this government has been that it tends to over prioritize signalling and image management in policy decisions. That’s not easy for me to say when I tend to agree with many of the signals, but I don’t carry water for the Liberal Party of Canada or any other party. Even if on balance I would probably vote for them, I don’t feel I forfeit my right to criticize them.
I’d argue that it’s become obvious that vaccine production capacities are a matter of national security and that building such capacity today will unfortunately come in handy again in the next 15-25 years.
|