As a person who has strong ties to both Canada and the US, it's disappointing to see the new administration continue the "America First" policy for vaccines at the expense of its closest ally, which (as the article highlights) hamstrung Canada's vaccine supply efforts at the end of 2020. That being said, I have witnessed first hand how well the "America First" policy plays down here, even among moderates and swing voters, so I can understand why they are continuing it on a hot button topic because unfortunately it's always an election cycle down here.
It will take a few years, but it appears one result of this pandemic will be that Canada's ability to manufacture vaccines domestically will be restored. Canada used to have a domestic vaccine manufacturing capacity; however, it was inefficient (even for the '80s) and required modernization. The Mulroney government began the process of selling off the assets rather than upgrading them. The dismantling of the domestic capabilities continued with subsequent administrations (both Liberal and PC) - because it was easy and saved money in the short-term? The H1N1 scare in 2009 should have caused an immediate reassessment by the Harper government about whether Canada should be dependent upon external entities for vaccine manufacturing; they did nothing substantial. Nonetheless, just because Harper dropped the ball doesn't absolve Trudeau from not correcting an obvious error over the 5 years he was in office prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
