Canadian companies join forces for recovery
Facing economic turmoil, advisory group comes together to assist federal vaccine rollout
Citing a “race against time” to avert total economic devastation, some of Canada’s largest companies have banded together to help the federal government speed up its pandemic recovery efforts.
On Tuesday, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce unveiled an advisory group of 20 chief and senior executives poised to help facilitate Ottawa’s vaccine rollout and encourage rapid testing in businesses.
The COVID-19 Recovery Leadership Council, expressing frustration with government efforts to manage the pandemic’s toll on the private sector, says it wants to take matters into its own hands to avoid further lockdowns and tighter restrictions.
“We’re looking for ways that businesses can take direct action without having to wait on the government to move ahead,” said Perrin Beatty, CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, on Tuesday.
The group’s formation comes at a critical time during the COVID-19 pandemic as Canada approaches the one-year mark since lockdowns began and smalland medium-sized businesses grow increasingly restless with the ongoing restrictions. Without a faster vaccination rollout that can ease the impact on the private sector, groups including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce fear the country could spiral into an economic
disaster that will take years to recover from.
The group includes the presidents of vaccine-makers Pfizer Canada and Providence Therapeutics, as well as executives from Shoppers Drug Mart, WestJet and BlackBerry.
In partnership with federal and provincial governments, the group’s leaders say they can offer support to businesses that need help administering tests or vaccinations.
“Our council will bring together a cross-section of Canada’s foremost business leaders to focus on how to protect our physical and economic health,” said Beatty.
Items on the group’s agenda include offering facilities for administering and storing vaccines, encouraging employees to receive vaccinations and tests, and developing protocols for rapid tests that have sat idly in warehouses despite repeated requests from companies to use them.
The impact of longer lockdowns and restrictions will be “devastating” on small businesses, says Beatty.
“They don’t have the capacity to sustain this through to the fall.”
Despite being one of the first to receive vaccines in December, Canada has fallen well behind other countries in administering doses.
To date, Ottawa says it has distributed nearly 1.2 million doses, vaccinating less than three per cent of the population, while the United States, in comparison, has vaccinated approximately 11.5 per cent of its population and the United Kingdom has vaccinated 22.2 per cent.
In the U.K., the private sector has played a more prominent role in vaccine distribution. At the outset of the pandemic, the British government tapped Kate Bingham, a well-connected venture capitalist with a background in pharmaceuticals, to head the country’s vaccine task force and work with business people and scientists to distribute the drug. The country now administers roughly 440,000 doses a day.
Beatty says the chamber’s council has been in contact with the Prime Minister’s Office and federal cabinet ministers and is willing to offer its services and resources if needed.
“I’ve shared this with members in the federal government and told them we’re anxious to work them to better protect public health,” he said.
A worst-case scenario report from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business found that more than 200,000 Canadian small businesses could shut permanently due to COVID-19 restrictions, jeopardizing nearly three million private-sector jobs across the country.
The report estimated that 181,000 small-business entrepreneurs seriously considered shutting down following new government-imposed restrictions in late January.
Falling behind other countries will make an economic recovery all the more challenging as Canadian businesses struggle to compete with international rivals, Beatty says. For example, Canada’s tourism sector, a key to the country’s economic recovery, will falter if restrictions are as stringent in the summer.
“If a province like British Columbia is still heavily restricted during the summer, whereas its neighbour, Washington state, is at the point of reopening, then all the tourism money will go to the U.S., not us,” Beatty said.
The Bank of Canada has offered a marginally more optimistic view of the matter, predicting that real gross domestic product would contract by 2.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2021 before improving if restrictions lift to four per cent growth overall in 2021, followed by 4.8 per cent in 2022 and 2.5 per cent in 2023.
But Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem has also said the country’s first-quarter decline may be worse than expected if restrictions are tightened or extended.
During the first wave of the pandemic, Beatty said many small businesses accumulated debt as high as $150,000. Without eased restrictions or greater government relief, many will be forced to close.
“We’re quite literally racing against time,” said Beatty. “These businesses are straining their capacity to survive.”