The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - How Ready Is The Vaccine Distribution System? -- One Of The Top Decision Makers in The Country Answers That Right Here.

Episode Date: December 3, 2020

General Rick Hillier is in charge of Ontario's vaccine distribution -- and we ask him some of the key questions.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here with the latest episode of the Bridge Daily. It's Thursday, week 38, and I'm excited today because we've got a special guest on the program. Somebody who I've known for, I guess, at least 20 years. Former Chief of the Defence Staff, former Commander of Canadian and International Forces in Afghanistan. And currently, after 35 years in the military, he's retired. He's an author, successful book author, often rumored to be, you know, like, could be the next premier of Newfoundland. Lots of people have said that, but for some reason, the son of Newfoundland has decided that politics is not his game. But the Premier of Ontario has asked Rick Hillier,

that's who we're talking about, obviously, has asked Rick Hillier to oversee the province's vaccine distribution program. So that's a big task. Now, that's happening at different levels right across the country with other provinces and territories and, of course, in the federal government. But I thought we'd take a run at talking to Rick Hillier today. Not only have you got the province, the most populous province in the country to have to be concerned about, but obviously, as well, has some background in some of this kind of stuff. And I can remember talking to Rick Hillier on the battlefields of Afghanistan.

Once Canadian forces got there, I can remember talking to Rick Hillier on the battlefields at Vimy Ridge and other parts of France. When we were remembering what had happened there, especially during the First World War. So the general was good enough to answer my call today, and in a couple of minutes, we're going to talk to him about the challenges that he's facing. And I think you'll, if he's anything like he's always been, you're going to find his assessment will be very straightforward and up to date as to much as he can tell us.

And I want to ask him a few things. If you heard our podcast yesterday, which apparently was very successful, 3,000 downloads on the first night, which is pretty good. It's got to be one of the big numbers for us so far. And that was Smoke, Mirrors, and the Truth, the new podcast within a podcast where I'm joined by Bruce Anderson from Ottawa. And we talked about a lot of things in terms of the vaccine

and the distribution program and the different stories that are kind of out there, the different kinds of reporting, the different kinds of claims by the opposition and by the government. So this is a way of cutting to the truth, right, with what's happening at least in one area, in one province, and how the challenge is being confronted. So there's that. And one of the things I brought up yesterday was this issue of how secure are these vaccines going to be?

You know, are we going to suddenly find there's a black market in vaccines? Are we going to find people Q-jumping? How are we going to prevent that? So I asked the general that specifically. And he said that issue has come up and you're going to hear him talk about that in a couple of minutes when we bring him on stage, so to speak, on the bridge daily. background of the vaccine distribution story because one of the big questions not only is when will it be approved, when will it be ready, who will get it, and who will get it first. Well, the country that's kind of leapt out of front, at least as of yesterday, was Britain because they have now approved it, the Pfizer vaccine. And as a result, they're going to be starting within a couple of days.

And they put out their provisional vaccine eligibility list. And this is the order it goes. And I give you this because ours is probably going to be somewhat similar. Maybe different here and there, but somewhat similar. So this is what Public Health of England is saying about their provisional vaccine eligibility list. Priority goes to number one, residents in a care home for older adults and staff working in care homes for older adults. That's your priority one. Priority two, all those 80 years of age and over, plus health and social care workers. Three, all those age 75 and over.

Four, all those 70 years of age and over, clinically extremely vulnerable individuals, not including pregnant women and those under 18. Five, all those aged 65 and over. Six, adults aged 18 to 65 years in an at-risk group. Seven, all those aged 60 and over. Eight, all those aged 55 and over. And nine, all those aged 50 and over. All right? So there's your top nine. And then I guess it's a free for all after that. But those are your top nine, at least in Britain. We have yet to

see how that will unfold here in Canada. But we may be finding that out very soon. All right. Let's get to the interview with General Rick Hillier. And if you're sort of unsure about General Hillier in terms of his background, 35 years in the Canadian military. Chief of the Defence Staff. As high as you can go, running the place from 2005 to 2008. Controversial figure

at times, no question about that. But very out front. Very deliberate in what he had to say. And his opinions on various issues. As far as he could go as a military officer. Currently, at 65 years of age, he's overseeing Ontario's COVID-19 vaccine distribution task force. And here's what he had to say in our conversation this morning. General, I know you've literally just walked in the door on this latest project and mission of yours, but what's the greatest challenge you face right out of the gate?

Frankly, education, I guess. Peter, getting up to speed on the incredible amount of work that's been done, and there has been a huge amount done in preparation for this. I mean, ever since the pandemic struck in the winter of this year, as we all know, people have been thinking about a vaccine. And now as we got closer to the realization of that thought that we're going to have a vaccine, you know, people have been thinking about it, planning for it, preparing for it. And now is to get on top of all that work and then to be able to bring some value to it. So we've got incredible work done in four or five work streams, you know,

whether it's kind of the logistics part or the clinical part or the public education portion or the information technology stream. The key now is to get educated about all those things and then to be able to bring them together in one operation. So education, really. You've faced a lot of challenges in your military career, whether it was overseas in the Middle East, whether it was in Europe, whether it was in Haiti. Lots of big challenges on delivering certain outcomes. Does anything compare with what's facing you right now?

Yeah, every single major opportunity, adventure, challenge that I've ever encountered in my life. And the first thing about all of these things is you learn you can't do anything by yourself. No person is stronger than a team. And so you've got to get to know people as quickly as possible. Ideally, have some people around you that you do know and are comfortable working with and they know you, and then bring people together

as a team. All hands on deck to get this operation done, I think, would be our credo here. And that's what we're trying to do. Like I said, pile on the work that's been done before. And so much of that has been bring it together. So we do link thoroughly the small pieces of, you know, the logistics of receiving a vaccine at a specific place and time, storing it, handling know, the syringes, the PP&E, and the location, and the organization to be able to actually vaccinate people. And then to educate, of course, the population about who is going to get the opportunity to receive the vaccine first. And then certainly to record what occurs, which is kind of like, you know, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody sees it, did it actually fall? Well, if a vaccine is administered to any individual and we haven't recorded it and understood that that individual has to be back

21 days from now, we're not doing the job as effectively as we need to. And so we may have some bumps and hiccups at the start. In fact, I'll remove that may part. We will have some, but we'll sort those out very quickly and learn and do it right. So all hands on deck, one team, use and be part of the professionals that have done this. And Peter, let me just say, I've met in this last week here, so many incredible, motivated, intelligent, professional folks who've worked hard. They've been at this nine, ten months now. They're all tired, but they want to see this across the finish line. Building that team, that team aspect, that team approach is crucial. You know, Canadians have heard a lot of things about the different vaccine candidates, the leading vaccine candidates, and one of them is this issue with, I think it's

Pfizer specifically, where there is a heavy-duty storage issue in terms of the temperature that the vaccines have to be kept at, you know, somewhere between minus 70 and minus 100 degrees. Are we ready for that kind of challenge in terms of being able to store a vaccine that needs that kind of control in terms of its storage and transportation? Peter, in lieu of any other information about vaccines initially, I think that single item has taken more attention than imaginable. And actually, I don't think it's such a big issue. And I said to some of the team around here yesterday, I said, look, I really don't want to hear about minus 75 and storage and the challenges,

and we've got to have special handling aprons and gloves and tongs for it we have hospitals here in ontario that do that kind of stuff on a regular basis and so when something is frozen if you got a freezer that freezes at minus 75 or a freezer that freezes it at minus eight for perhaps some of the other vaccines it's irrelevant to us as long as they're freezing it at those appropriate temperatures. We handle it properly, take it out, thaw it, mix it, and then, you know, decant it, mix it, and then have our medical professionals vaccinate people with it. So that part actually is going to take a small part of our time. I think we've got that part right. Our capacity is not what we'll need it to be, but we do have a lot of capacity at that

ultra-low temperature level. And we've got more ordered. And of course, the federal government has more ordered. So by the time we get the larger amounts of vaccines, whenever that is, we'll have the capacities to handle no matter what comes our way. Where does your responsibility start and where does it stop? Like, where's the handovers involved in this? Well, I mean, our mission is to help Ontario deliver an efficient and expeditious vaccination program for COVID-19. And so started with accepting the mission, obviously, and then starting to pull together the awesome work that's been done, pushing the cabinet at the right time with crisp recommendations, we hope, for the right kind of decisions that we'll need from them,

and then enabling the professionals to go out and do the jobs that we have. So really it's end-to-end, our responsibility, not mine specifically, but the government of Ontario using me as one of their agents to do this. It's end to end to get that vaccine, to educate people and to get it to them, and then to make it part of an overall recovery from this terrible pandemic. And so we want to win this war. And the vaccine obviously is clearly a part of it. So end to end, Peter, is what I would say. You know, one of the, I guess, the issue for a lot of people is when could this start?

Now, I know that's dependent on, obviously, health authorities giving the final okay to various vaccine candidates. But when you watch what happened across the pond yesterday in Britain, where they came up with that approval, and right away they are starting the process of getting it into arms. Hopefully, I think they said by the beginning of next week, which is a pretty fast turnaround. Is that the kind of turnaround one could expect in Ontario or in Canada overall, if and when the approval process is completed? Yes. Can I stop there? Yeah. We're prepared that quickly to be able to turn it around. Assuming we have the actual vaccine in hand.

Yeah. Number one, we don't know when the vaccine is coming. Number two, we don't know when the approval will be given. If it is, we assume and anticipate that it will be given. And that will be relatively soon. Those are assumptions. And so we wait for that actual approval, obviously, before we move on from it. But then we're prepared, and we believe that soon after approval, we'll get some vaccines, just in very small amounts. And that's part, of course, the production challenge that Pfizer and Moderna might have. But Pfizer specifically for the earlier approval, we'll get small amounts of vaccine and we're going to be prepared to receive that, to to handle it and to get it to the medical professionals at a vaccination site, whether that's a site that's already in existence or a new one that's being set up and get it to the people that we want to get it to

first. So yeah, we're expecting a short flash to bang time, as we said in the Army. And we want to be ready for that. In fact, I just left a conference where we're actually walking through that detail. We're going to do a little bit of war gaming tomorrow to walk through the practicalities of all those things and make sure we got it right. We expect it'll be quick after approval. We expect the amounts will be relatively small to start with. And we don't know when they'll come. And then we don't know when the amounts after that will follow, but we want to be ready for it.

We know it's going to be quick. Can you give us a hint as to what wargaming this would look like? Well, we just walked through it. We received, let's say, 100,000 vaccines, and they're arriving tomorrow or the day after that. They're arriving by airplane or they're arriving by ground transport. They're going to arrive at Pearson International or some other airport. What are the priorities?

Where do we want it to go first? Who meets that shipment? Do we have the handling capability with it to handle those kinds of boxes? Where does it get transported in that first shipment coming in to meet that number one priority where it's going to go? Who receives it there? And then how do they handle it over the next 24 hours to commence the thawing? Is the vaccination center going to be up and running? And if so, who is going to be there in charge of it, running it? Have the public been educated as to which people we would like to show there in that number one priority and so forth?

So we'll walk through many of those issues tomorrow morning. We won't walk through it. We'll crawl through that very slowly and walk through it with the folks. And then, you know, we'll do another exercise next week and another one the week after. And we'll exercise it every week until we get our first vaccinations and prove it. Two quick last questions.

One, is there a security issue around these vaccines when they start coming to Canada? And I ask that question over concerns about a black market in vaccines or queue jumping or whatever it may be? Are there security issues around the arrival of vaccines in Canada?

That's an area that I don't really know in great detail, first to say. I've talked with some of the folks about this. Yeah, there's always a security issue, however small it may be, about something that's valuable and high profile. And obviously, those vaccines, when they arrive, will be high profile. So yeah, there will be a security concern that we will want to listen to and then manage and do what's appropriate, common sense, and right. And we've got some folks looking at that, and they will bring forward the solutions for it. I don't think it will be onerous. I don't think it'll be challenging that part of it. But we will certainly want to have our eyes wide open on any possible risk to

those vaccines or the program itself. Last question. You and I have talked in many different parts of the world. And one of the questions I've seemingly asked you more than a few times, I certainly can remember asking this of you in Afghanistan, was what do you worry about? Is there something on this challenge you're facing now that that you worry about? Well, I'm just trying to really word this smoothly or correctly, I guess. You know, the center of gravity in a vaccination program of this magnitude for this horrible virus is public trust. And, you know, what we don't want to do is turn ourselves inside out and drop our lives and come in to pile on to the incredible

professionals that have been doing the work all along to produce a program. And then people say, no, thanks. I'll wait till sometime down, you know, down the road next year, year after. Public trust in this one is crucial. We've got to get the information about the vaccine out there more clearly. We've got to get more information about the vaccine out there. And then, you know, people have to make their own decisions about what they're going to do. But, you know, while they're making those decisions, you got, people have got to continue

with the health measures. And they got to wear their mask. They got to wash their hands, not touch their face. Stay away from me. Stay away from everybody else. Stay home if they possibly can. And fight the virus that way. If you're worried, do testing. and then move the vaccine up the middle and crowd out all those

things and get back to as near normal a society as we possibly can. I worry about the public trust because I think there are three groups out there right now, and we just want to provide education so people can make up their mind intelligently and common sense-wise. Number one is there's a group of people, it's almost like a bell curve. There's a group of people on the right, I think, who say, hey, where's the vaccine? I want it now because I want to get back to a normal life. Then there's a group of people on the left-hand side, or just the other end of the bell curve, should I say, that are anti-vaxxers, if that's the way to describe them. And they're saying nope never kind of thing and in the middle is a big group of people who are maybes some of them say yes but not

first some of them say i don't know because they don't know the information that group of people are the ones that need the information they need to be able to educate themselves and then they need to be able to make up their minds intelligently that all of the things that occur with COVID-19 are much worse than anything that they might fear about a vaccine coming in. And we just need to provide them that information overwhelmingly. And we have not been able to do that yet because we don't have much of it ourselves, as you appreciate. But that's what we aim to do. Public trust is my concern because without that trust and confidence in a vaccine, it won't be the successful program that we need. General, it's been a treat as always to talk to you

and to listen to your very straightforward and blunt at times answers on some of the key questions a lot of Canadians are asking. We wish you luck on this. And as you say, there's a better day coming. We don't know how long that's going to take, but eventually it will be there. Well, Peter, you know, our aim is to be a part of turning 2021 into a year of lightness compared to 2020 as the year of darkness. And a vaccine is an incredible part of that. It's

not the totality, that's for sure, but it's an incredible part of that. And that's why duty called, and that's why I'm here with the team that we are putting into place and with the professionals that are here working hard to help Ontario get back to something that resembles the normal life that we had before. Thank you. Thank you, General. So there you go, General Rick Hillier, with his thoughts about how he is going to move forward with the COVID-19 vaccine distribution task force in Ontario. Mind you, that's the borders that he's got, Ontario. but there are people in similar positions right across the country, and one assumes with somewhat the same concerns and thoughts in mind as General Hillier did. Okay, before we go, I found this interesting.

It was on something called the Globe Newswire. Because, as you know, language is so important. The words we choose to use to describe certain things. And I found this study interesting, and I'm going to have to try to keep it in mind, because, like everybody else, I get carried away at times in the kind of words I use. So it's a new study conducted by the Beaumont Foundation. Now, that's a foundation in the U.S. that is focused on public health, and they're constantly looking at different health issues. So in this particular study, they're highlighting what language to use

when communicating about COVID. Now, they found that Americans, it's an American study, they found that Americans consider a pandemic, using the word pandemic, is more significant, more serious, and more scary than using COVID-19 or coronavirus. That saying eliminating or eradicating the virus is more effective than using defeating or crushing the virus. Because warlike language can politicize the issue and that an emphasis on the speed of vaccine development turns the public off. Now, we kind of heard that yesterday in those results that Bruce talked about in the latest Abacus study,

that this whole emphasis on speed of vaccine development was not something that most of the public was embracing. The study argues that people are looking for something safe, assured, and effective. The administration's framing around Operation Warp Speed, that's the U.S. administration, and getting a vaccine out quickly undermines public trust that the vaccine is safe. Interesting, eh? I thought that was interesting.

And I will try to remember that in the words I choose. Let's see how far I get. Okay, so that's our Thursday Bridge Daily with our special guest Rick Hillier. Tomorrow, Friday, weekend special.

Last week's weekend special we call Tell Me Something Good. You remember that song? I'd sing it for you, but I can't sing. Tell Me Something Good. You remember that song? I'd sing it for you, but I can't sing. Tell me something good. That's as close as you're going to get. That was a 70s song.

It was written actually by Stevie Wonder. Sung by Chaka Khan. It was, you know, it was right up at the top of the charts for a long time. Anyway, Tell Me Something Good is what we're going to call, or what we called last week's weekend special. We're going to call it the same thing again tomorrow, Tell Me Something Good 2, because I got so many letters from people who wanted to think about something positive about the last eight or nine months that has impacted their life.

And we heard a lot of those letters last week and some great ones, and they've been pouring in again. Obviously, I can't read them all, but I will read some of the best and the one I deem to be the best from the crazy way I pick things. We'll get a signed copy of Extraordinary Canadians, number one for the third straight week on the bestseller sales charts. Number one for nonfiction in Canada.

Number two in the overall nonfiction category, which includes, you know, books coming in from other parts of the world. Number one is Barack Obama. Okay. You know, if you got to play second to somebody, I don't mind placing second to Barack Obama. I'll just catch the draft behind him.

As people go into the bookstore, say, I want that Obama book. And they pick it up and they go, well, you know, I'm Canadian. I really should buy something Canadian too. Look at that book. Extraordinary Canadians. I'll buy that. And that apparently is what some people have been doing. Others have been going straight to Extraordinary Canadians

and getting it first and saying, I should probably help out that former president of the U.S. He probably needs the book sales. Right. Anyway, whatever the reason, I'm sure glad that you're enjoying it. And I can tell from podcast listeners who are the only ones who get this offer, who've been buying the book, showing me they bought the book and want a book plate to stick inside, signed by moi, I'm happy to do that. So co-author Mark Bulgich and I have been ecstatic at the fact that you've been enjoying this book. Anyway, tomorrow's best letter

under the Tell Me Something Good category, two, will get delivered to their home straight from the Stratford Post Office. A signed copy of Extraordinary Canadians. So if you're going to want to get a letter in this week, you better start writing now because it will be tomorrow's podcast. And if you get it in tonight

or first thing tomorrow morning, it certainly will be considered. Okay, that rocks it for this week, or for this day, for this Thursday, for The Bridge Daily. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. Thank you to Rick Hillier for joining us. And we'll be back in 24 hours.