Ottawa approves Air Canada’s $190-million Transat purchase

Province rescinds errant boast that it completed first round of shots

Canada’s travel landscape could soon change after the federal government approved Air Canada’s $190-million purchase of Transat AT, after COVID-19 diminished the deal’s value.

Transport Minister Omar Alghabra announced the approval Thursday evening just days before the deal’s Feb. 15 deadline, saying the government concluded the purchase is in the public interest.

He said it considered a range of factors, including level of service, wider social and economic implications, the financial health of the air transportation sector and competition.

“Given the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the air industry, the proposed purchase of Transat AT by Air Canada will bring greater stability to Canada’s air transport market,” he said in a statement.

The government said the acquisition is the best outcome for workers, Canadians travellers and other industries that rely on air transport.

Transat shareholders in December approved the revised deal, equal to $5 per share and a significant decrease from an earlier $720 million or $18 per share.

Air Canada won support from Transat’s largest shareholder, Letko Brosseau, after sweetening the deal in August 2019 from its initial offer of $520 million or $13 per cent a few months earlier.

Air Canada must ensure that Transat AT provides communications and public services in both official languages.

The country’s largest airline must also preserve the Transat head office and brand in Quebec, maintain 1,500 employees for Transat’s leisure travel business, conduct aircraft maintenance in Canada while prioritizing contracts in Quebec, have a price monitoring mechanism and launch new destinations within the first five years.

It wasn’t clear when the deal will close. It still requires approval by European regulators.

The push to finish COVID-19 vaccinations in nursing homes is continuing after the Ontario government had to rescind a boast that it met Wednesday’s target for completing a first round of shots for thousands of residents.

Health Minister Christine Elliott said a news release went out in error Thursday announcing that initial doses had been given in “every long-termcare home … despite repeated delays and reductions of vaccine shipments.”

“There was a miscommunication internally,” Elliott explained during a mid-afternoon appearance at Queen’s Park. “There are still a few long-termcare homes that still need their residents to be immunized at least with a first dose … We are working on that now.”

A government source said six of Ontario’s 626 nursing homes had not yet been visited by vaccination teams.

“We hope to have it finished within very short order,” Elliott said.

The gaffe is symbolic of troubles with Ontario’s vaccine program, which recently saw the deadline for first jabs in long- term care extended by five days, said Liberal MPP John Fraser (Ottawa South).

“Sadly, I’m not surprised,” he added. “The government has not had a clear plan to get vaccines to our vulnerable seniors … Two months into the rollout, they have still not been able to provide first vaccine doses to every resident.

“Families and residents in long-term care deserve so much better,” Fraser said, noting the province has given more than 426,000 doses since the first vaccines arrived in midDecember — more than enough for first jabs in the arms of 70,900 nursing home residents.

The government said more than 62,000 residents have been vaccinated, with about 34,000 already getting their booster shots to complete the process.

But that means about 9,000 residents have not been given shots, said New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath. “It took Doug Ford’s government a lot longer than many other jurisdictions to actually achieve as much as they have,” she said. “That’s really problematic.”

Long-Term Care Minister Merrilee Fullerton said it is not realistic to expect 100 per cent of nursing-home residents will be vaccinated because some have valid medical reasons for being unable to take the shots and others will decline.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says that if rapid tests for COVID-19 continue to sit on shelves across the country, Ottawa may just start sending them directly to pharmacies.

“We’ve sent over 19 million rapid tests to the provinces. Some are being used, not all,” Trudeau said during a roundtable discussion with healthcare workers on Thursday.

“We’re now looking at, well, can we instead send rapid tests directly to the pharmacies across the country? Would that cause provinces to get upset or will it spark people actually using these things?”

Trudeau’s comments came after he urged provinces earlier this week to not let the rapid tests expire. The federal government sees the tests as a crucial supplement to the mass vaccination strategy going forward, but many provinces have held back on using them.

Ottawa has procured more than 40 million rapid tests from various companies.

The Ontario government has only used about 18 per cent of the 5.4 million rapid tests that Ottawa has sent it since November, even though Premier Doug Ford has called them “game changers.”

Health care falls mostly under provincial jurisdiction, and a move by Ottawa to send rapid tests directly to pharmacies across Canada has the potential to spark tensions.

Although many rapid tests provided by the federal government are still shelved in Ontario, the province has moved to purchase another nine million of them from Abbott Canada.

“Ontario is committed to providing Ontarians with more access to innovative testing options to help stop the spread of COVID-19,” provincial spokesperson Lindsay Davidson said in an emailed statement to the Star.

“Based on successes seen from the use of rapid tests in select settings across Ontario to date, the province is expanding their use for more people in more priority settings to quickly identify cases of COVID-19 and support the safe reopening of schools.”

Davidson declined to comment on Trudeau’s suggestion that Ottawa could bypass the provinces to send rapid tests directly to pharmacies.

Joelle Walker, vice-president of public affairs with the Canadian Pharmacists Association, called Trudeau’s remarks a “good vote of confidence for the great role that pharmacies can play.”

“It makes a lot of sense to bring testing closer to Canadians through pharmacies,” Walker said.