Every Canadian Can Receive COVID-19 Vaccine by September: Trudeau

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau listens as Chief Public Health Officer of Canada Dr. Theresa Tam speaks via video conference during a news conference on the COVID-19 pandemic in Ottawa, Canada, on March 12, 2021. Justin Tang/The Canadian Press

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday that every Canadian who wants a vaccine will receive one by September.

“Everyone who wants to get vaccinated will be vaccinated by September,” Trudeau said during a press conference on COVID-19, the disease the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus causes.

He added that Canada will receive 1 million doses of Pfizer vaccines each week between March 22 to May 10 and that a total of 8 million doses of vaccines will be delivered to Canada by the end of March.

According to a New York Times article published Thursday, tens of millions of vaccines manufactured by AstraZeneca are sitting in U.S. manufacturing facilities awaiting the results from clinical trials, before countries that have requested the vaccines can receive them.

Trudeau did not give an affirmative answer when asked if his government has reached out to the Biden administration to make a purchase request for the vaccines, but said that delays in foreign countries will not affect the vaccine’s delivery to Canada.

“Our strategy has been … to diversify our supply chains to ensure that Canadians can have products, have vaccines from multiple sources of supply, multiple suppliers, and multiple countries, so that we are not negatively impacted by any control or restrictions that might be placed on us,” Procurement Minister Anita Anand said.

Trudeau said in an interview with CTV News on Friday morning that Canada will not reopen the U.S. border until more Canadians are vaccinated and infection rates stabilize. He said the government has not ruled out waiting until September or even later to open its borders.

When asked if the federal government has considered the idea of “proof-of-vaccination passports,” which have been adopted by some European countries, Trudeau said there are already well-established systems of vaccination certificates for safe international travel.

While some Canadian provinces have also floated the idea of a domestic vaccination certificate, the prime minister said it could raise problems.

“The idea of certificates of vaccination for domestic use, to decide if you could go to a concert, or who can go to a particular restaurant, or engage in certain activities, does bring in questions of equity, questions of fairness,” Trudeau said.

“There are some people who, because of medical conditions or other reasons, will not be able to get vaccinated, there are others who are no on priority list and have to wait much longer before getting vaccinations, these are things we have to take into account.”