MP asks to send more doses to poor countries
OTTAWA A Liberal MP from Toronto is calling on the federal government to redouble its efforts to share COVID-19 vaccines with poorer countries, arguing it is past time Canada and other rich nations learn one lesson from the Omicron surge: the whole world needs shots as soon as possible.
Beaches—East York MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith provided the Star on Monday with the text of a new motion he intends to table in Parliament after the House of Commons returns on Jan 31.
The motion calls on the Liberal government to devote another $1.1 billion to the fair global distribution of COVID-19 vaccine doses, including $780 million — on top of the $1.3 billion Canada has already pledged — to the ACT-Accelerator, an initiative launched by the World Health Organization to share COVID shots, treatments and tests around the world. The motion also seeks $290 million in aid to help countries defend against the pandemic and deliver vaccines.
Erskine-Smith also wants Canada to speed up deliveries of the 200 million doses it has promised by the end of 2022 to the ACT-Accelerator’s COVAX program, which is meant to “guarantee fair and equitable access” to COVID-19 shots for all countries.
He described the proposals as the fulfilment of a “moral obligation” to poorer countries, as well as a “matter of self-interest” to try to prevent another variant such as Omicron from emerging in countries where populations don’t have access to the same number of shots.
According to data compiled by the One Campaign, an international organization devoted to fighting poverty and disease that helped Erskine-Smith craft his motion, only around 10 per cent of people in Africa — the world’s poorest continent, per capita — are fully vaccinated with two doses against COVID-19.
In Canada, as of Jan. 21, more than 77 per cent of the total population had received at least two doses, according to the federal government.
“Canada has played a leading role in global efforts, but those global efforts have been mediocre and underwhelming and insufficient,” Erskine-Smith said by phone on Monday.
“We’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars on our own domestic pandemic response,” he added. “We can spend a fraction of what we spent to protect the world and protect ourselves.”
“This is a call to arms for the government to say we can do more, we should do more.”