Mr. Speaker, when the pandemic started, it was not known which vaccines would be successful or when they would be available. Experts therefore advised Canada to secure many different types of vaccines. To secure fast access to vaccines for everyone in the country, Canada set up advance purchase agreements, APAs, with seven manufacturers: Moderna, Novavax, Medicago, Pfizer-BioNTech, Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson (Janssen), and AstraZeneca.
To date, Canada has received over 164 million COVID-19 vaccine doses. Over 98 million doses have been administered, including 24,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine. Most of the Johnson & Johnson doses were administered to individuals with a preference for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and/or with a contraindication to other types of vaccine. In April 2021, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization, NACI, issued a preferential recommendation that a complete series with an mRNA COVID19 vaccine, i.e., Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines, should be offered to individuals in the authorized age group without contraindications to the vaccine, while a viral vector COVID19 vaccine, i.e., AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccines, may be offered to individuals in the authorized age group without contraindications to the vaccine to initiate a series when other authorized COVID-19 vaccines are contraindicated or inaccessible.
Given NACI’s preferential recommendation for mRNA vaccines, the adequate supply of mRNA vaccines available in Canada, and a lack of demand from provinces and territories for viral vector vaccines, Canada has terminated its APA with Johnson & Johnson. A small reserve of frozen Johnson & Johnson vaccine continues to be held in inventory in Canada, should it be needed.