But perhaps grift:
At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries scrambled to secure enough ventilators to help those experiencing health complications from the respiratory virus. But the introduction of COVID-19 vaccines, coupled with the discovery that elderly patients did not fare well on ventilators, meant their usage declined in late 2020.
Back in June 2022, more than 40,000 ventilators the Canadian government had ordered earlier in the pandemic were sitting unused in the federal emergency stockpile. Just over 2,000 of them had been deployed in Canada or abroad.
The Department of Public Works would not say how much it paid for the devices, and said in a statement that it did not take delivery of all ventilators it ordered, according to Blacklock’s. A spokesperson added that while the initial value of the contract was $15,820,000, it would not disclose the price per unit or total number purchased to “protect commercial confidentiality.
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Pandemic ventilators bought from a Toronto company by the Public Health Agency under a $169.5 million sole-sourced contract were sold as scrap, records show. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had praised the manufacturer by name as a Canadian success story: “This is exactly the kind of innovative and collaborative thinking we need.”
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The Department of Health continues to take delivery of millions of new Covid-19 vaccines even as it throws away nearly $2 billion worth of expired shots, records show. “Overall wastage increased,” said a department briefing note.
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The Canada Border Services Agency yesterday said fears of transmitting Covid by paper Customs forms prompted it to spend $59.5 million on the ArriveCan app. Federal health authorities at the time said there was little chance of getting sick by handling paperwork: “The risk is not really out there.”
More on that debacle later.
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