The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Members-Only Pod: Episode 5

Episode Date: February 5, 2021

This is a sample of the Munk Members-Only Podcast. To access the full length episode consider becoming a Munk Member. Membership is free. Simply log on to www.munkdebates.com/membership to register. Under your membership profile page you will find a link to listen to the full length editions of Munk Members Podcast. The Munk Members Podcast provides a focused, half-hour masterclass on current events with Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author. Rudyard Griffiths, Chair of the Munk Debates, is the podcast moderator. Janice and Rudyard unpack the big issues in the news and drill down into the people, events and trends that are shaping our lives in this extraordinary moment. The full length episode digs into three big stories in the news this week — The slow vaccine rollout in Canada and Europe; why are some countries so much better at inoculating their populations? — Protest and power; are the spate of protests for more democracy everywhere from Russia to Hong Kong likely to create any kind of lasting reform? — GameStop Redux; with upwards of $20 billion in trading losses for hedge funds and individual investors alike, what did we learn from the latest Wall Street frenzy? If you like what the Munk Debates is all about consider becoming a Supporting Member. For as little as $9.99 monthly you receive unlimited access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, monthly newsletter, ticketing privileges at our live events and a charitable tax receipt (for Canadian residents). To explore you Munk Membership options visit www.munkdebates.com/membership. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, Monk podcast listeners. The following is a sample of the Monk members-only podcast. To access the full-length edition of this episode and all of our regular Monk members-only podcasts, go to our website, www.com, and register for membership. Membership is free, and it's available for you right now at www. Monk Debates.com. Hope you enjoy the program. Hi, Monk members. Welcome to our members-only podcast. This is our opportunity to kind of look back at the week that was to think some big thoughts, to try to tease out some trends. What is the world telling us over the last seven to ten days that we can bring into our thinking about what may happen next week and in the month to come? This is an extraordinary moment. We're all kind of grasping for insight and analysis.

And we're exceedingly fortunate here at the Monk Debates to have as our guide, during these regular monk members' podcasts, Janice Gross Stein. She's the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs, internationally renowned author and academic on international relations. Janice, our members are really enjoying these conversations. So thank you so much for giving your time, your thoughts, lending us your big brain once a week so we can dive in and be refreshed and rejuvenated with some new thinking.

get. I'm enjoying them as well and it's a delight to be with the monk members. Well, here's what we're going to do this week, Janice. Our promise, as always, with these monk member podcasts, is a kind of 30-minute masterclass in global events, big trends and ideas that are shaping our world. This week, we're going to dive into three topics that come top of mind, I think, to many of us. First, the slow vaccine rollout here, Canada, Europe versus other countries, UK, US, Israel. Why is this happening? Why this discrepancy is emerging? So Janice, to our first topic, just give us your thoughts as a kind of, as a political scientist. How are we to understand this growing discrepancy between the speed of the vaccine rollout in, say, Canada versus the United States or the UK?

So I think we start first registered by how frustrated Canadians are. That is, it's just a general feeling across the board. It's not a partisan feeling. It is just everybody looking south of the border where we always look and seeing the roll of accelerate and looking to the UK and they have vaccinated by now a really big chunk of the population. And frankly, we barely started. Now, why did this happen?

The easiest explanation is we don't manufacture vaccines in Canada in a significant way. The United States did, invested billions of dollars in early manufacturing, waiting for, didn't wait for the regular leaders to stand up their manufacturing capacity. That was the big decision. Britain fundamentally did the same thing when all of the, in through the University of Oxford, made a forward-facing decision. And here's the rub, Roger. Governments are caught here. How do you explain to the public that you are financially responsible if you invest in standing up manufacturing capacity and you have to tailor them

for a vaccine that doesn't get approved by your regulator? Are you going to be vilified because you wasted money? What does this really? tell us, we have to, first of all, stand up manufacturing capacity for the future. That's, I think, the big takeaway here. Secondly, we're really late. It's a year late, but we're going to need that capacity. It is not true to say this is a waste because we're going to need booster shots for several years to come before COVID disappears from our awareness. So we're going to need that capacity. But thirdly, and here's to me the big one, We have to enable our governments to take more risk and get off their backs when they make a decision.

And because it's a big bet by definition, some big bets are not going to work out. Agreed on those points. And if you do look at the UK, I mean, they made a big bet way back in May that the AstraZeneca vaccine was worth creating, standing up, new capacity. in England that then allowed for manufacturing to start immediately. In fact, before approval, they were manufacturing as of August. I guess, Janice, when I look at Canada, is it as simple, is the slow vaccine rollout as simple as saying, well, it's because we didn't have the capacity in the first place? I might go a bit further in my criticism and say that it has to do with dysfunctionality

between the federal government and the provinces. It has to do with, as you say, a lack of a sense, you've spoken about this on other podcasts with me, the sense of urgency, of real crisis on the part of our prime minister and on the part, frankly, of our premiers. They seem to pay lip service to it, but their actions do not embrace the intensity of this moment and the financial and public health risks,

the economic risks that we have now incurred as a nation, and that we will irrevocably carry into the future in terms of the deaths of loved ones and in terms of businesses that will be lost forever. I think that you're right here in Rudyard, that there is not the same sense of urgency, which when you evaluate the situation as urgent, you do take more risk.

That's part of what enables risk-taking. But we also have to remember, if we look at vaccine access as globally distributed, scarce resource, we are in a cutthroat competition now. We haven't seen the like since the early 1930s when protectionist waves really built. up like this. This is a war of all against all by countries to get vaccine. So let's take the nice Biden administration south of the border that has been elected, you know, turn the page

from Trump, friend to Canada, called our prime minister, all the good stuff that we've always relied on with respect to the United States, except, hey, wait a minute, we are not going to get modern vaccine, which is manufactured in the United States in any accelerated way. He's very clear, we are vaccinating the United States population first. That is our priority. So this is America first. No Trump, but it's America first when it comes to vaccine. There was a bitter fight in the UK with the EU.

This is a, this is an all-out fight. And we're in a tough spot. We're small. we didn't have that sense of urgency a year ago when we needed to. And you're right, Roger, there's a big price for this. And here's the big price. This is a race between the variants and the vaccines. We've lost that race in Canada.

Yeah. So, Janice, again, I sense that you're assigning our slow rollout a lot of the blame to kind of externalities that are outside of our control. I would push back a bit and say, come on. we could have stepped up earlier and like Israel paid more, been more aggressive in our willingness to say, okay, this is what we need to do to bid competitively for this supply. Well, then we are bloody well going to do it. We didn't do that. You know, we were penny smart and pound foolish in the early stages of this pandemic. We ended up, you know, now with a government that

frankly looks desperate this week, Janice, federally, announcing a factory that, will have no ability to deal with the acute situation that we are in at this moment until possibly the end of the year, rating a fund for vaccines for developing countries to make up for our shortfall. I mean, that just seems, I don't know, it just seems so uncharacteristic for Canada and Canadians. I think this is a moment of some national reckoning where I think we have to realize that the slow vaccine rollout is more than just externalities. It's way more than forces outside of our control. It is an indictment of our political culture, our institutional culture, and frankly, the mediocrity of so much that is contemporary Canada today. I hear you, Roger,

but let me just fill in a little detail here. Israel certainly had a sense of urgency, But that, as you rightly say, is the political culture there. Now, here's the deal they made. And let's ask ourselves, what Canada make this deal even today? The deal Israel made early access to the Pfizer vaccine, and not frankly, to get more than a half the country vaccine. But by the way, we're going to give you all the data. They are giving Pfizer all the data from people who are vaccinated.

How de-identified it is, nobody will know. protocols are not published and why does Pfizer want that data? Because they need the data on what happens when you vaccinate a whole country? What do you do to future outbreaks? Well, we're giving all of our data to Google, Facebook and others every day of the week. I think we would have been happy right now to make that deal with 2020 hindsight. I certainly would make that deal. I thought a lot of other Canadians would put their hands up. The reality, I mean, this is tough to say, but the reality is that many hundreds, possibly thousands of people will die over the coming months because we have not been able to inoculate our population. Those deaths are not just random events caused by forces outside

of our control. They are the result of a failure of leadership and the failure of a system to protect its people. That is the basic contract. You know this is a political science. between citizens and the state. And the state is failing on their part of that basic social contract. Let's take your harsh judgment there, Roger, and say, what's the goal forward here? So here's one that people don't really want to think about. Does privacy kill us?

Does, in fact, this relentless emphasis on protecting health data, and siloing health data in this country lead to unnecessary deaths. Have we got the balance wrong? That's a conversation we have to have coming out of this. Because I don't agree with you. I don't think Canadians would put up their hands. Anytime you ask them, they don't put up their hands on this issue. That's a big one.

Secondly, you're right about our risk-averse culture. I agree with you. That has to change. But if we want to change it, we cannot continue to slam our political leaders at the provincial level and the federal level every time we make a bet that goes wrong. And we're great at doing that. And our media live on it, frankly. We can't have it both ways. I agree.

In fact, we should be slamming them on their sloth-like, just inability, seemingly, to deal with complicated, urgent. problems like the inoculation of 36 million people. Well, I hope you enjoyed this sample of our monk members only podcast. To access full-length episodes, please consider becoming a member. Monk membership is free. You can enroll on our website, www.MUNK Debates with an S.com, forward slash membership. As a monk member, you also get access to our video, monk dialogue with Mashegesen and Yuval Harari talking about the rise of authoritarianism in the 21st century and how liberal democracies can push back. Again, all that content exclusive for monk members, registration is free, wwwmunkdebates.com forward slash membership.

Thanks for listening.