VANCOUVER, BC – As talks continue at the WTO in Geneva to consider temporarily waiving COVID-19 patents, NDP MP Don Davies urged the Canadian government to strongly support this measure.
NDP MP Don Davies is calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government to act quickly to introduce a single, secure, national proof of vaccination after CBC News reported that cybercriminals are offering to sell fake Canadian provincial vaccination certificates online.
"If the federal government hurried up with a national vaccine passport, it would cut down on the opportunity for forgeries and alternatives as well as provide an effective and efficient standardized and convenient passport for all Canadians," said Davies, the NDP's health critic in the last Parliament.
Nonetheless, New Democrat health critic Don Davies said the government should have played a more direct role in setting guidelines for Canadians attending or competing in the Games.
"Normally matters of international sport are not squarely within the sights of government. But I think given the context in which these Games are being taken and the fact that it engages direct federal policy on a number of fronts, it really should have received more attention by parliament and by the government," Davies said in an interview.
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NDP deputy public safety critic Don Davies agrees there should be more transparency and more opportunity to appeal.
"Trusted travellers who have had their NEXUS cards revoked need to know that they were revoked for a good reason," he said. "And I think they are owed an explanation as to why their passes were revoked, and there needs to be some sort of timely and fair process for challenging that where there may be a valid reason for thinking that the revocation wasn't valid."
NDP health critic Don Davies said in a statement that data collection is “critical” to pandemic policy-making, highlighting its importance “to help inform and plan proper public-health responses.”
“From PHAC to CBSA, there has been a continuing failure to ensure we have fulsome and accurate data,” Mr. Davies said. “The failure of CBSA to collect data on returning Canadians is a glaring example. We must identify and close these gaps.”
What first sounded like a generous set-aside of about a quarter of the total portfolio of roughly 400 million doses that Canada pre-purchased turns out to be a “disingenuous” promise to provide doses Canada does not have in hand, or hasn’t approved, or will decline to take from the global sharing program COVAX that Ottawa never should have dipped into in the first place, said New Democrat MP Don Davies.
NDP health critic Don Davies said he's frustrated that the committee's order for unredacted documents was ignored.
"After months of dogged work the opposition finally got Canada's vaccine contracts," he said on Twitter. "Predictably, Liberals released them late on a Friday with barely a week left in the session. Predictably, they redacted them in violation of the House Order."
Last October, the opposition successfully passed a motion in the House of Commons directing the government to produce a variety of COVID documents, including vaccine contracts to the Health Committee, no later than December 7 2020. After six months of stalling, the Trudeau government finally delivered the contracts, but in a redacted form. Predictably the Liberals released these document late on Friday in June with barely a week left in the Parliamentary session. Worse, they removed information from the contracts in full violation of the House order. Nevertheless this is a victory for transparency and accountability for the opposition.