A new vaccine demands new logistics Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings. 944,600: That's the number of vaccine doses headed to Canada this week, says Procurement Minister Anita Anand, who said half-a-million AstraZeneca doses are coming from India. (Less than a month ago—two years in pandemic time—Indian PM Narendra Modi said he'd "do his best" to get doses to Canada.) The new vaccine comes with a time-sensitive hitch. Many of the incoming doses will expire in early April , which puts pressure on provinces to ramp up immunization campaigns. The Tories are challenging the feds on a discrepancy between the experts on who should receive the AstraZeneca shot. The National Advisory Committee on Immunization isn't recommending it be administered to anyone aged 65 or older. Health Canada's approval, however, set no such limits. Yesterday, Theresa Tam said NACI's advice isn't "static," and that Canadians should "watch this space." But that wasn't enough for Tory health critic Michelle Rempel Garner, who wants the Commons health committee to sort out the conflicting advice and determine what's in the "best interest" of Canadians. Meanwhile in the United States, President Joe Biden announced that country will have enough vaccines for very adult by the end of May. As long as the Two Michaels and Meng Wanzhou remain on opposite sides of the Pacific, Canada's trading relationship with China is fraught on a good day. Erin O'Toole made a pitch for closer ties with a different regional economic powerhouse: India. The Tory leader wrote in the National Post that the world's biggest democracy could vault to No. 2 on the list of Canadian trade partners. But could the Tories face political consequences for championing Indo-Pacific relations? First, the good news from Statistics Canada: the nation's GDP grew 2.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2020, slower than the third quarter's 8.9 per cent but certainly not shrinkage. Now, the bad news that everyone expected: Canada's economy shrank 5.4 per cent in 2020—the worst year on record. Another housing market warning sign: residential mortgage debt "expanded significantly" between 2019 and 2020. The pandemic did not slow home resales. Hey, over here! NDP leader Jagmeet Singh presented his party's recovery plan for small business, the economic sector that finds a theoretical champion at every point on the political spectrum. More list than plan, Singh pledged an excess profit tax, an extended wage subsidy, an extended rent subsidy and a "hiring bonus" that would subsidize employer portions of EI and CPP contributions for new or rehired staff. The Canadian Press noted the party unveiled no cost estimate for the measures. The guy behind North America's top public health tweets: Anyone with a Twitter account, a residence in Ottawa and an interest in pandemic safety is probably familiar with Ottawa Public Health's voice on the platform—and maybe that viral tweet in the aftermath of the Super Bowl. The man behind the curtain is Kevin Parent, and Shannon Proudfoot talked to him about his day job : The best days at work now remind Parent of his bartending days, when someone would stalk into the bar having had One Of Those Days and they’d leave hours later, glad-handing their way out of the place, hoarse from revelry. “It’s the people that will reply to something and be like, ‘Thank you, I was having a rough day and I needed this today,'” he says. “Best feeling in the world.” Back to the future: Last year, middle-class minister Mona Fortier pitched a new "quality of life framework" for post-pandemic policymaking. Ottawa paid Earnscliffe Strategy Group a total of $82,423 to poll the nation , and the firm found that 53 per cent of the people think strong GDP growth "is important to their day-to-day life"—but 71 per cent said the feds "should move past solely considering traditional economic measurements." This isn't Ottawa's first attempt at redefining quality of life. Witness this archived study from the year 2000, which proposed—you guessed it—a quality-of-life framework. Fisheries and Oceans Canada recently awarded a $25,000 contract for "Miscellaneous Items" to Quebec-based W-Produits et Solutions. The notice on the federal procurement website includes no further details. We've asked the department for more information. Any guesses on the nature of these mysterious goods? Maclean's Alberta correspondent Jason Markusoff dug out a federal website that tracks all the official provincial and territorial symbols. Pop quiz: What is Newfoundland and Labrador's floral emblem? Hint: Here's a picture. And here's the answer . Your morning smile: Gurdeep Pandher, a Yukoner who immigrated from India (and a well-known bhangra dancer who's not afraid of frigid Arctic temps), celebrated his first COVID-19 vaccine shot by jubilantly dancing on a frozen lake. —Nick Taylor-Vaisey | 
