Vaccines For All Panel and Phone Zap

Start: 2021-06-08 18:00:00 UTC Eastern Daylight Time (US & Canada) (GMT-04:00)

End: 2021-06-08 20:00:00 UTC Eastern Daylight Time (US & Canada) (GMT-04:00)

This is a virtual event

HAPPENING NOW! ZOOM LINK: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82107694298?pwd=djRDM1FnMGR6TTkzd1NQOGVHMktUQT09

Imagine.

It’s June. Canada is in the throes of a third wave of COVID-19 and the healthcare system is collapsing.

On the other side of the world, a group of countries are wrapping up vaccination campaigns and re-opening. These countries have stockpiles of vaccine doses - way more than they need - but they say that Canada must “wait its turn” to get any. Despite the deaths, they refuse to share the know-how to make vaccines publicly. You witness the devastation around you, knowing that it could be prevented with vaccines which already exist.

If you’re thankful that this is just a hypothetical for Canada, remember that this is the reality for most of the world.

Canada and other wealthy countries are hoarding COVID-19 vaccines and blocking the scaling up of global vaccine production.

While rich countries are planning for a "return to normal", at the current rate, the majority of countries in the rest of the world won’t be able to vaccinate their populations until 2024.

Join Dr. Siham Rayale (Scholar and Policy Specialist, Oxfam), Matthew Green (NDP MP from Hamilton Centre), and Stuart Trew (Senior Researcher at Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives) in a panel to discuss what Canada's role is in global vaccine production, and why a waiver of intellectual property relating to COVID-19 vaccines is needed to put people over profits.

After the panel, we will host a phone and email zap to tell relevant political leaders that Canada should commit to ensuring vaccines for all people globally, immediately.

CJTO is demanding that:

- Canada explicitly support a waiver on COVID-19 technologies as proposed by India and South Africa at the World Trade Organization
- Canada must use domestic legislation and negotiating power to transfer vaccine technologies to other countries and make investments in global manufacturing capacity of vaccines

- Canada and others must send portions of their vaccine supply to countries that barely have any.

We believe that everyone around the world is entitled to protection from COVID-19, regardless of the country they live in.

*Access Notes*

RSVP TO RECEIVE THE ZOOM LINK

This event will be on ZOOM and will include closed captioning. There will also be a 10 min break in the middle of the programming. Please RSVP for the ZOOM link.

Can't join the zap? RSVP and we will send you details and a guide script to use on your own time.