Canada warned U.S. of cutting mask, ventilator shipments

OTTAWA — When the Trump administration restricted shipments of N95 masks and ventilators last spring, Canadian officials pushed back and drafted a list of pressure points Canada could use, even pointing out some U.S. hospitals depended on Canadian electricity.

An email released to the House of Commons Health committee shows Canada’s ambassador to the U.S., Kirsten Hillman, drew up a long list of levers Canada could pull, including Canadians who work in hospitals in Detroit, medical equipment suppliers in Canada, and even the electrical supply for northern Maine, which is dependent on electricity from New Brunswick.

“NB Power is the electricity provider to Northern Maine. There are at least three hospitals in Northern Maine that would get their electricity through NB Power,” reads the email from Hillman.

Hillman sent the list to staff in the prime minister’s office in advance of a phone call between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s chief of staff Katie Telford and Jared Kushner, former president Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor.

Telford and Kushner were in regular contact during the NAFTA renegotiations and stayed in contact throughout the Trump administration. The list of items was also circulated to other Canadian officials as they met with U.S. counterparts to make clear Canada could cause problems for the United States.

Hillman’s list also includes special filters for bio-containment suits from 3M that were made in Canada are necessary for the suits to work, as well as a paper mill in Nanaimo, B.C., that makes the specialized fabric for surgical masks and gowns.

Trump briefly stopped 3M from exporting N95 masks using the defence production act to prevent shipments of the critical masks from leaving the United States. At the time in early April, Canada had no ability to make masks domestically.

A Liberal government source said the point of Hillman’s list was to make clear how interconnected the two economies were and that export restrictions were not in anybody’s interest. They believe they got the message across because Trump relented and allowed shipments of the 3M masks to resume.

N95 masks were a particular problem point for the Canadian government early in the pandemic. Hospitals in several provinces had to advise staff to conserve the masks and they were extremely close to running out of the crucial supplies.

Trump’s initial refusal to ship the masks was just one of many fires Canadians officials had to put out to keep PPE flowing into Canada in March and April.

Canada was ordering millions of masks from China, but many of them were not meeting technical specifications and getting the shipments was proving difficult.