Canada In The News

[~ocean]

Originally Posted by C0LLETTE

Trump’s tariffs on Canadian softwood breached global trading rules, says WTO


A World Trade Organization panel has found the United States broke international trade rules with some of its 2017 tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber, which the U.S. set at 20.23 per cent after accusing Canadian federal and provincial governments of subsidizing softwood.

However, it is unlikely that the ruling will take affect since the U.S. is blocking the WTO’s dispute-resolution system.

The U.S. had claimed that the Canadian governments charged lower-than-market rates for companies to cut down trees on Crown land. South of the border, most lumber is on private lands. However, the WTO has found that the U.S. was wrong, and that the Canadian governments had taken measures to ensure prices were comparable to market rates. The panel wrote that the U.S. had improperly rejected those measures.

The ruling still needs to be upheld by the WTO’s appellate body before taking effect; however, the body currently cannot decide any cases at it is down to only one member since the Trump administration has blocked attempts to appoint new ones. Until the case can reach a conclusion, the tariffs will remain.


BULLY TACTICS AGAINST A MUCH SMALLER ALLY. THIS IS WHAT FEEDS RESENTMENT.

.

maybe you should express your anger << rightfully so to the TRUMP admin. ~ they don't need to treat an ally like Canada this way.

[C0LLETTE]

Originally Posted by ~ocean

maybe you should express your anger << rightfully so to the TRUMP admin. ~ they don't need to treat an ally like Canada this way.

Unfortunately, the Trump admin. treats just about every ally this way.

BTW. Thanks for the support, Ocean. I'm going to send you a free truckload of softwood lumber. lol

[Cin]

Justin Beach sums it up best:
The CPC has decided to replace Andrew Sheer with a slightly angrier version of Andrew Scheer, from Ontario. Congratulations Erin O'Toole.

[PlatinumPearl]

Canada has effectively moved to block China's Huawei from 5G, but can't say so.

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada is the only member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network that has not formally blocked Huawei from 5G networks, but it has effectively done just that, delaying a decision long enough to force telecom companies to exclude the Chinese gear maker.

The strategy allows Canada to keep on the right side of both China and the United States as they tussle over Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, say six well-placed sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

Canada and its Five Eyes allies — the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia — are under pressure from fellow member the United States to squeeze out Huawei on security grounds.

5G networks offer data speeds up to 50 or 100 times faster than 4G networks and are expected to power everything from telemedicine and remote surgery to self-driving cars.

Canada has been mulling whether to disbar the firm’s next-generation equipment for the better part of two years, brushing off increasing signs of industry impatience.

In June, Bell Canada (BCE.TO) and rival Telus Corp (T.TO) - two of the biggest wireless providers - teamed with Sweden’s Ericsson (ERICb.ST) and Finland’s Nokia Oyj (NOKIA.HE) to build fifth-generation (5G) telecoms networks, ditching Huawei for the project despite using Huawei 4G gear.

“The absence of a solution will eventually settle all problems,” said a source directly familiar with the approach taken by the Liberal government of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Rogers Communications Inc (RCIb.TO), Canada’s other large wireless operator, announced in 2018 it was using Ericsson 5G equipment.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration said it would further tighten U.S. restrictions on Huawei, aimed at cracking down on its access to commercially available chips.

Operators in Canada feel the U.S. curbs mean they have no choice but to sideline Huawei in 5G networks, at least for now, say the sources, who requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation.

“They’ve done the political calculus and said ‘The best thing for us is to do nothing and if we do nothing we don’t upset the Chinese, we don’t upset the Americans’,” said a source familiar with what government officials are saying.

Staying on the right side of China has become an important consideration. Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou is fighting extradition to the United States since Canadian police detained her in December 2018.

In response, Beijing arrested Canadian citizens Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, charging them with espionage. Canada says gaining their freedom is a top priority.

“If it weren’t for the two Michaels, Canada would have already said it would not be using Huawei 5G technology,” a diplomatic source said. Government officials deny the fate of the two men is linked to 5G.

In 2018, both Australia and New Zealand blocked service providers from using Huawei 5G equipment.

To be sure, Canada will one day make a decision. Two other people who have consulted with Canadian officials say they think it is only a matter of time before Ottawa unveils a ban.

But a source directly familiar with government thinking stressed that Ottawa had not yet come to a firm conclusion and would not be rushed, adding that officials were taking their time to avoid Britain’s predicament.

The British government said last month it would ban Huawei from 5G networks by ordering companies to remove the equipment by 2027. In January, it had initially said Huawei could have a limited 5G role.

“That underscores why you need to get this right and why you only get one chance ... we don’t want to find ourselves in a situation like the Brits where we’re having to go back and put the toothpaste back in the tube,” said the source.

The office of Canada Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains - who is formally charged with making a decision on Huawei and 5G - said in a statement that it could not comment on a particular company. It did not say when an announcement would be made.

A Bell spokesman noted that in May, Chief Executive Officer Mirko Bibic said he had no insights into government thinking on Huawei and 5G. Telus did not respond to a request for comment.

Huawei said in a statement that it believed Ottawa “when it says it is taking the time to make a considered decision”.



Source: reuters.com
Website: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-c...0xGnYvZkSUKhxE
Date: August 25, 2020

[PlatinumPearl]

U.S. drug company Novavax signs deal to supply 76 million doses of possible COVID-19 vaccine to Canada.


A volunteer takes part in a COVID-19 vaccine study at Research Centers of America on Aug. 7 in Hollywood, Fla.
Research Centers of America is currently conducting COVID-19 vaccine trials, implemented under the U.S. government's…

Canada's federal government has signed agreements with two U.S. drug companies to secure up to 114 million doses of potential COVID-19 vaccines under development.

Maryland-based biotechnology company Novavax announced in a press release Monday that it has struck a deal to produce 76 million doses of a vaccine it is working on for the Canadian government, should the vaccine ever get Health Canada approval.

Later in the day, Ottawa announced it has signed a separate deal with a subsidiary of New Jersey-based drug conglomerate Johnson & Johnson to secure up to 38 million doses of the company's potential vaccine, which is completely different from Novavax's.

The vaccines are two of dozens in development around the world, each of which targets the virus that causes COVID-19 in a different way.

At last count, the virus has killed more than 846,000 people around the world since the start of this year.

Novavax's vaccine is known as a "protein subunit" vaccine, which has the advantage of being manufactured faster than some other types of vaccine but generally doesn't produce as strong an immune response as some other potential options.

The company released promising results of a very small clinical trial earlier this month, which showed it produced higher levels of the antibodies in healthy volunteers after two doses than those found in recovered COVID-19 patients.

The initial trial tested 106 subjects aged 18 to 59 with the vaccine, along with 25 people who received a placebo.

The next phase of testing currently underway in the U.S. and Australia will include many more people, and at least half of them will be between the ages of 60 and 84, an age bracket that faces the highest risk of having the worst outcomes from being infected, based on what is known about the virus.

The company plans to start much larger late-stage clinical trials soon, and told Reuters last month that if all goes well, they expect they could obtain regulatory approvals as early as December.

The company said Monday the vaccine, should it work and be safe, would be available to Canadians as early as the second quarter of 2021.

"We are pleased to work with the Canadian government on supply of our COVID-19 vaccine, an essential step to ensure broad access of our vaccine candidate," said CEO Stanley C. Erck in a release.

The agreement with Novovax "will give Canadians access to a promising COVID-19 vaccine candidate," said Anita Anand, Canada's minister of public services and procurement, in a news release.

"This is an important step in our government's efforts to secure a vaccine to keep Canadians safe and healthy, as the global pandemic evolves."

Novavax has signed similar deals with the United Kingdom, India, the Czech Republic, South Africa and Japan to supply doses of the potential vaccine.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Johnson & Johnson's vaccine candidate, whose full name is Ad26.COV2.S, targets the virus in a completely different way than the Novavax candidate.

It is what's known as non-replicating viral vector vaccine, which are viruses that have been genetically engineered so they can't replicate and cause disease then injected into the body to provoke an immune response.

A phase 1 and 2 trial of that vaccine is underway in the U.S. and Belgium.

The deals with Novavax and Johnson & Johnson come on the heels of similar ones that the federal government has signed with other drug companies, including one for at least 20 million doses of a potential vaccine from Pfizer and up to 56 million from Moderna.

While the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are both RNA vaccines and thus functionally similar, they are completely different from the Novavax and Johnson & Johnson candidates, which means that Canada has potentially secured access to millions of vaccine doses that work in three completely distinct ways.

At a press conference on Monday, Anand said the government is also in the final stages of negotiations with drug firm AstraZeneca, which is working with Oxford University on a promising non-replicating viral vector vaccine.

"Taken together, our vaccine agreements will give Canada at least 88 million doses, with options to obtain tens of millions more," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at a press conference on Monday morning, during which he also announced $126 million to expand a bio-manufacturing facility in Montreal, to produce drugs and vaccines to combat COVID-19 and other things.

"In the weeks and months ahead, our government will continue to take the steps needed to make sure Canada gets a COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible," Trudeau said.

"Once a vaccine is proven to work, we'll also need to be able to produce and distribute it here at home."

Novavax's vaccine is one of roughly a dozen that has been singled out by the U.S. government for funding under the so-called Operation Warp Speed plan to speed up treatments for the coronavirus that has swept the world into economic chaos this year.

Source: msn.com
Website: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canad...ignout#image=2
Date: August 31, 2020