It's not a lie if you believe it Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings. Canada was expecting four million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine by the end of March, and—despite mounting evidence that such a number probably won't be reached—the feds are sticking with it. Multiple sources across various levels of government confirmed that the true number will be closer to 3.5 million—about 500,000 short. The situation has gotten serious enough that Pfizer has requested Health Canada approve administrators squeezing six injections out of each vial of vaccine instead of five. But Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin insists Pfizer is still planning to fulfill its complete promise come springtime. Meanwhile, Canada has dropped several places globally in per-capita vaccine distribution: we now rank 20th, behind Bahrain, Denmark, Germany, Israel, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and the United Arab Emirates, among others. According to an analysis by The Economist, Canada won't see widespread vaccination until mid-2022. In the coming days, an international organization known as the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility (COVAX) will reveal how many doses Canada can soon receive. Canada was one of the biggest single-state investors in COVAX, putting in $440 million in exchange for a guaranteed number of vaccines to cover 20 per cent of the Canadian population. However, Health Canada hasn't approved all the vaccines COVAX will be doling out, such as AstraZeneca—so unless COVAX swoops in with 7.6 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, Canadians are going to be waiting a while longer still. In Maclean's, Scott Gilmore bemoans the tragic—and fatal—state of Canada's pandemic strategy, which ranks among the worst in the world. Out of 98 countries ranked by the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank, Canada ranks 61st. The only thing our leaders are doing well is blaming others. The premiers, who utterly failed to impose effective lockdown measures when there was still a chance to stop the pandemic in its tracks, and who are currently failing to distribute the few vaccines they do have, are blaming the federal government. The federal government is blaming the manufacturers. And, recently, both levels of government have been blaming international travellers, which is an interesting scapegoat. In the run-up to the 2019 election, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to plant two billion trees over the next decade. After some stumbles—including a year where none got planted—in comes the Parliamentatry Budget Office to reveal that the cost of the tree spree will be roughly twice what was promised: closer to $6 billion than $3 billion. Yesterday, Trudeau appeared on CTV's daytime talk show, The Social, to talk about mental health and promote the mental-health awareness campaign run by CTV's parent company, Bell. You can watch the four hosts lightly grill the PM on the Julie Payette controversy for the first three minutes, before pivoting into a broader conversation about mental health in Canada. Several former employees at Rideau Hall say they're considering legal action against Payette in the wake of her resignation as Canada's governor general. Others, who left during Payette's tenure, are now trying to return to Rideau Hall—something the government is actively encouraging former staffers to do. Flying high. The feds have tapped the CEO of Vancouver Airport Authority, Tamara Vrooman, to chair the Canada Infrastructure Bank. Vrooman has formerly worked as British Columbia’s deputy minister of finance and the CEO of Vancity, Canada's biggest credit union. She takes over the gig from Michael Sabia, who held the post for eight months before being thrust into the role of Canada's deputy minister of finance. Two against one. As many know, in order to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, you (so far) require two doses of a vaccine. But the Ontario government got a little confused about that: yesterday, they admitted that their publicly available data, which claimed about 100,000 Ontarians had been vaccinated, was incorrect. They meant they've administered 100,000 doses. That means only half as many—about 55,000—have actually been fully vaccinated. This news broke the same day that Ontario's COVID-19 advisory table updated their modelling , confirming that cases are trending downward, but the new B117 variant could become the dominant strain by March. The slightly good news: anyone who received at least one dose is indeed slightly immune. As Patricia Treble writes in the latest edition of Vaxx Populi for Maclean's, Israel has seen a precipitous drop in infection and hospitalization rates among those who've received a first dose, after 14 days. Ain't no scaffold high enough. An Alberta cabinet meeting came to an abrupt end yesterday when a dude in a black hoodie scaled scaffolding outside the building where the meeting was taking place, prompting police to swiftly escort the politicians, including Premier Jason Kenney, to safety. Cops swarmed the building, worrying about echoes of the Trumpian insurrection on the U.S. Capitol earlier this month. But CBC News asked an anonymous government official about it later, who believed not only that the man wasn't a protester or anarchist, but that he probably didn't even know there were politicians inside. A controversy over the leadership of the Canadian Museum of History will soon draw to a close. An investigation into the museum's long-time CEO, Mark O'Neill, has finally wrapped up and been submitted to Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault. O'Neill's management style and temperament have come under scrutiny, and O'Neill has been on sick leave since last summer. The report came up with a single recommendation, but that's TBD for now. Remember last summer, when Trudeau prorogued Parliament and said it was so his government could reset its priorities, but critics and opposition politicians felt it had more to do with dodging hard questions about the WE scandal? That fight isn't over yet. The Procedure and House Affairs committee met yesterday to hear three expert opinions on the government's reasoning for prorogation. NDP MP Charlie Angus said the prorogation smacked of "toxic disdain for democracy", and Conservative committee members are calling on the PM and his chief of staff to appear before the committee to answer questions directly. The committee will consider the motion next week. —Michael Fraiman | 
