Joint Letter - 8 April 2022
The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, P.C., M.P.
Prime Minister of Canada
justin.trudeau@parl.gc.ca
Dear Prime Minister:
On March 31, 2022, scientific director of the COVID-19 Science Advisory Table Dr. Peter Juni, referring to a steep rise in daily infections in Ontario based on wastewater estimates and hospital admissions, was quoted in the Toronto Star as saying “Basically. we’re in either a resurgence, (or) a sixth wave…” That same day in an interview on CBC Radio’s The Current, two pandemic experts from India and Nigeria warned that if wealthy nations continued to exercise vaccine hoarding while many in low income countries have yet to receive their first COVID-19 vaccine, the pandemic will continue for several years with new variants likely to emerge every six months.
We understand that as Prime Minister of Canada you have some difficult decisions to make in
how best to respond to COVID-19 challenges both at home and abroad. However, we feel that
Canada is failing the world community in the choices it is making and by doing so it is also
increasing the risk of infection and death for Canadians.
Several groups from Northumberland County in Ontario sent you a letter dated May 3, 2021
requesting that your government actively support a joint proposal made in October 2020 by India
and South Africa to temporarily waive certain patent obligations under the WTO Agreement on
Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) until the COVID-19 emergency is
over. Unfortunately, a year has passed by and Canada, along with a handful of other wealthy
nations, continued to obstruct this call for a waiver at WTO TRIPS Council meetings. Since our
May 3, 2021 letter to you, the world and Canada have been hard hit by both the Delta and
Omicron variants with deadly consequences.
The COVID-19 pandemic is the most severe global health and economic crisis in generations. In
Canada and around the world the virus has disproportionately impacted women, migrant and
lower-wage workers, racialized and other marginalized groups. Millions of lives have already
been lost to this virus with some 270,000 recorded deaths from COVID-19 in low - and lower
middle-income countries in the last six months alone.
If wealthy nations had agreed at the WTO to lift vaccine waivers when it was first requested in
2020, world-wide production for domestic and regional use would be a reality by now. While
there is talk of a compromise in the works to pave the way for a waiver, we are concerned by the
numerous flaws that the draft text contains, which could severely limit its impact. Specifically,
we draw your attention to the following flaws in the compromise proposal:
• It does not cover all of the intellectual property barriers to COVID medicine access;
• It excludes entire countries so many countries with significant manufacturing capacity for
COVID-19 vaccines will be unable to make use of the waiver;
• It does not cover tests or treatments at a stage when these are critically important;
• It could impose new barriers to production of generics.
Canada must help ensure that vaccines, treatments and other pandemic-related products are
treated as global public goods available to all.
We are calling on Canada to be on the right side of history and at the June WTO Ministerial meeting reject the compromise waiver proposal in its current form. Canada shouldn’t settle for anything less than an immediate and comprehensive waiver package to break down all existing barriers to the scaling up of the manufacture and the supply of lifesaving COVID-19 medical tools across the world. The world has waited long enough.
Endorsed by the following organizations from Northumberland and Peterborough:
- Northumberland Chapter of the Council of Canadians;
- Northumberland Coalition for Social Justice;
- Northumberland Coalition Against Poverty;
- Northumberland Chapter of Amnesty International
- Peterborough and Kawarthas Chapter of the Council of Canadians
- Peterborough and District Labour Council
- Peterborough Health Coalition
Contact: Rick Arnold rickarnold@xplornet.com
