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Premier Doug Ford's Ontario

Thinker said:
A well referenced opinion piece. Best read of the day (for me) https://www.macleans.ca/politics/338canada-the-unwavering-support-for-doug-ford/
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From this link:

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Great piece. 100% on point.
 
Videodrome said:
Yeah, Moderna might be letting us down, but the feds secured eight million more doses of Pfiezer.
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Any company late in delivery should have ALL of its otherwise valid drug patents in Canada repealed for six months for each month of delay in delivery.

Incentives are important.

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In respect of a much less serious matter, it reminds of airlines selling seats they don't actually have (which looks like fraud to me) and then using that to justify bumping passengers.

The companies here have sold vaccine they are unable to deliver.......and/or are taking bids on, on an on-going basis.
 
Northern Light said:
Any company late in delivery should have ALL of its otherwise valid drug patents in Canada repealed for six months for each month of delay in delivery.

Incentives are important.

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In respect of a much less serious matter, it reminds of airlines selling seats they don't actually have (which looks like fraud to me) and then using that to justify bumping passengers.

The companies here have sold vaccine they are unable to deliver.......and/or are taking bids on, on an on-going basis.
Click to expand...

I don't think that's necessarily constructive - and let's face it, you might put them in a position where they'd rather you repeal them for 6 months (which is hardly enough time for you to benefit from) and not give you any vaccines, now or in the future, because it is likely they will not have trouble finding buyers. For these kinds of strong armed tactic to work you need to have enough weight as a market - and I don't believe Canada has it. If you band together with a few other countries, you might be able to - but I think everyone is on the same boat and game theory would come into play (recall Mexico screwing us over during the NAFTA renegotiation).

Now if you have already established manufacturing capacity, you might under the guise of national emergency threaten to break the patent and make it yourself (and even better, sell it at a low price to other countries needing it) - provided you know how to do it, which is uncertain at best. We need to have this capability to make the threat meaningful - but we aren't in this boat either. That's not to mention you'd probably simultaneously displease US and EU.

AoD
 
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Northern Light said:
Any company late in delivery should have ALL of its otherwise valid drug patents in Canada repealed for six months for each month of delay in delivery.

Incentives are important.

****

In respect of a much less serious matter, it reminds of airlines selling seats they don't actually have (which looks like fraud to me) and then using that to justify bumping passengers.

The companies here have sold vaccine they are unable to deliver.......and/or are taking bids on, on an on-going basis.
Click to expand...
We aren't a banana republic. We have rule of law. We can't just go confiscating foreign assets, IP or otherwise.

There would be (or ought to be) provisions in the procurement contract for non-performance. Just like there is fine print on your airline ticket that you might get bumped. Consumers have the choice between airlines who overbook seats and cost 2% less or airlines who don't. All the latter ones went bankrupt because consumers aren't willing to pay a penny more. Overselling seats is also the 'greener' option as it ensures there are fewer wasted seats being flown. I think they should have to pay enough to get a volunteer, up to some significant multiple of the fare paid.
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
I don't think that's necessarily constructive - and let's face it, you might put them in a position where they'd rather you repeal them for 6 months (which is hardly enough time for you to benefit from) and not give you any vaccines, now or in the future, because it is likely they will not have trouble finding buyers. For these kinds of strong armed tactic to work you need to have enough weight as a market - and I don't believe Canada has it. If you band together with a few other countries, you might be able to - but I think everyone is on the same boat and game theory would come into play (recall Mexico screwing us over during the NAFTA renegotiation).

Now if you have already established manufacturing capacity, you might under the guise of national emergency threaten to break the patent and make it yourself (and even better, sell it at a low price to other countries needing it) - provided you know how to do it, which is uncertain at best. We need to have this capability to make the threat meaningful - but we aren't in this boat either. That's not to mention you'd probably simultaneously displease US and EU.

AoD
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afransen said:
We aren't a banana republic. We have rule of law. We can't just go confiscating foreign assets, IP or otherwise.

There would be (or ought to be) provisions in the procurement contract for non-performance. Just like there is fine print on your airline ticket that you might get bumped. Consumers have the choice between airlines who overbook seats and cost 2% less or airlines who don't. All the latter ones went bankrupt because consumers aren't willing to pay a penny more. Overselling seats is also the 'greener' option as it ensures there are fewer wasted seats being flown. I think they should have to pay enough to get a volunteer, up to some significant multiple of the fare paid.
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While I was engaging in a bit of over-the-top hyperbole............its not as if there aren't countries with very large economies that regularly ignore IP rights; largely without consequence.

Both India and China do this, the former, overtly when it comes to pharma.

That said, while I'm not seriously suggesting emulating either; I think we tend, as a nation to under-estimate our ability to apply pressure.

I'm also going to add; the United States not so long ago, thumbed its nose at all of its obligations under international trade law and binding agreements, in the name of 'national security'; without a modicum of evidence in support of same.

I think the pandemic provides rather better cover for the use of some muscle, whether strictly legal or not.
 
Now you know why Doug Ford wants to give the Chair of Chartwell (Retirement Residences CSH-UN-T), Mike Harris, the Order of Ontario medal. Ford is Harris' heir at Queen's Park.

Chartwell hikes executive bonuses, gives high marks for pandemic response​


From link.

Executive bonuses rose last year at Chartwell Retirement Residences CSH-UN-T +0.08% as the company said it responded effectively to the COVID-19 pandemic and gave itself perfect scores for employee engagement, customer satisfaction and its reputation with the public.

The corporate scorecard meant Chartwell paid out bonuses a higher level of its target goals than it did in 2019. Chartwell paid all four of its top executives in excess of $1-million, and each of the four received bigger bonuses than in 2019, when they served in lesser roles.

Chartwell is Canada’s largest operator of retirement homes. Long-term care, specifically, is only about 10 per cent of Chartwell’s business. In the COVID-19 crisis, however, the company has attracted outsized attention from critics of the deregulation of the long-term care sector in Ontario more than two decades ago. Former Ontario premier Mike Harris presided over that effort, and he has served as the chairman of the company’s board since 2003, collecting $223,000 in director’s fees in 2020.

In management’s discussion and analysis reviewing the 2020 year, Chartwell said 12 of its retirement residences and four of its long-term care homes had been declared by public-health authorities as of March 4 to be in COVID-19 outbreak. “Despite extraordinary efforts, COVID-19 tragically claimed the lives of some of our residents. Our thoughts are with those who lost loved ones to this disease.”
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The pay information is included in the company’s proxy circular, which also includes two unitholder proposals. (Chartwell, structured as a trust, technically has “unitholders” rather than shareholders.)

One, from IBVM Foundation of Canada Inc., asks for a “human capital disclosure” on how Chartwell manages employees and the risks to them. The second, from Vancity Investment Management Ltd. on behalf of the IA Clarington Monthly Income SRI Class fund, asks the company to undertake a study of possibly implementing a living wage for its employees. Both proposals cite COVID-19 as a reason for them.

Chartwell asks unitholders to vote against both. It says increased human-capital disclosure in the 2021 circular should be satisfactory. And it says the living-wage proposal is oversimplified, restrictive and an inefficient use of resources. About 80 per cent of Chartwell’s employees are represented by labour unions, the company said.

Chief executive officer Vlad Volodarski, promoted to CEO on March 16, made $1.91-million, including a $323,967 bonus. It was more than double his 2019 pay, when he served as chief financial officer. His predecessor, Brent Binions, made $2.46-million in 2019.

Three other top executives made bonuses between $187,187 and $207,627, with total paycheques ranging from $1.04-million to $1.17-million.

Chartwell said its board decided to tweak its compensation plans in light of the pandemic. It divided the year by what occurred through March 15, and what happened after, awarding 100-per-cent bonuses for beating cash-flow targets through March 15. It awarded 50 per cent of bonuses for the post-March 15 performance.

All told, Chartwell reported adjusted funds-from-operations per unit of 81.4 cents, versus a goal of 98 cents. The company also made no payouts based on one- and two-year unitholder return, which had weights ranging from 15 per cent to 20 per cent of bonus for the executives. Chartwell units dropped by 14.5 per cent in 2020.

Overall, Chartwell paid out at 85 per cent of its targets until March 15, and ranges of 50 per cent to 67.5 per cent of target for the remainder of the year.

“The impact of the pandemic on Chartwell’s business was largely out of Management’s control,” the board explains in the circular. “For example, Chartwell’s business was significantly impacted by federal, provincial and local regulatory directives which prevented or delayed the acceptance of new residents into Chartwell residences as well as by the costs on the business to provide additional staffing in Chartwell residences and to provide appropriate personal protective equipment to Chartwell’s employees.”

The determining factors in executive pay, the board said, included its view that “Chartwell effectively responded to the many challenges presented by the pandemic,” including “sourcing of sufficient quantities of personal protective equipment,” and “providing meaningful and frequent communication to residences, residents, families and employees, and advocacy through industry associations and supporting sector peers.”

Also, it added, “None of Chartwell’s long-term care residences in Ontario required regulatory intervention in the operation of the residences.”

When Chartwell tweaked its plan in March, if shifted emphasis in the bonus plan away from the cash-flow goals and added weight to its employee engagement and “customer satisfaction and reputation” goals.

Chartwell said in surveys, 96 per cent of its residents and 95 per cent of residents’ families and friends responded that Chartwell “took important steps to keep them safe” and 94 per cent of residents’ families said the residents were safe living at Chartwell.

Chartwell said 44 per cent of employees in residences and 58 per cent of employees in the corporate offices strongly agreed with the statement “I am satisfied with Chartwell as a place to work,” up from 43 per cent and 52 per cent, respectively, in 2019.
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Now, an editorial note on the above.

I've been up for several hours, so decided to head out at 8am to grocery shop and grab a coffee.

At the coffee shop, I made a moment's small talk as the only customer ( I was, at 9am, only the 5th customer of the day, apparently)..................

But I digress.

The young woman, a University student, working behind the counter, expressed that she wondered if the risk of random police stops was affecting traffic............
then volunteers, that so far, in the pandemic, Toronto Police have pulled her over twice.......for no actual moving violations, just to inquire who she was, and where she was going. Of relevance to this......she was a woman of Asian-descent.

She wasn't actually complaining; but I expressed by distaste on her behalf; and noted that I as a middle-aged white man had not yet had that experience.........and I have grave concerns that that had happened to her, not once, but twice.

Looking back at the above..............I'm concerned about its accuracy.
 
Northern Light said:
While I was engaging in a bit of over-the-top hyperbole............its not as if there aren't countries with very large economies that regularly ignore IP rights; largely without consequence.

Both India and China do this, the former, overtly when it comes to pharma.

That said, while I'm not seriously suggesting emulating either; I think we tend, as a nation to under-estimate our ability to apply pressure.

I'm also going to add; the United States not so long ago, thumbed its nose at all of its obligations under international trade law and binding agreements, in the name of 'national security'; without a modicum of evidence in support of same.

I think the pandemic provides rather better cover for the use of some muscle, whether strictly legal or not.
Click to expand...

I know India does, but the problem is they have little to lose in any IP fights, we on the other hand does. And also keep in mind India has domestic production capacity - what are you going to do, not export drugs/vaccines that a) they are not buying and b) they are going to make for themselves *anyways*? That's not the situation here in Canada.

As to "banana republic" - capacity and might makes right. We don't have either to make any threats believable and consequential.

AoD
 
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Northern Light said:
Now, an editorial note on the above.

I've been up for several hours, so decided to head out at 8am to grocery shop and grab a coffee.

At the coffee shop, I made a moment's small talk as the only customer ( I was, at 9am, only the 5th customer of the day, apparently)..................

But I digress.

The young woman, a University student, working behind the counter, expressed that she wondered if the risk of random police stops was affecting traffic............
then volunteers, that so far, in the pandemic, Toronto Police have pulled her over twice.......for no actual moving violations, just to inquire who she was, and where she was going. Of relevance to this......she was a woman of Asian-descent.

She wasn't actually complaining; but I expressed by distaste on her behalf; and noted that I as a middle-aged white man had not yet had that experience.........and I have grave concerns that that had happened to her, not once, but twice.

Looking back at the above..............I'm concerned about its accuracy.
Click to expand...
I never understood this. I mean, most of the virus imports to Canada came via the US and Europe/ME.
 
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