By Scott Taylor
Last week it was announced that the Canadian military has received formal orders to participate in planning the nationwide distribution of the COVID-19 vaccinations.
In an interview with the Canadian Press, Chief of Defence Staff, General Jonathan Vance admitted that long before the order was delivered the Canadian Armed Forces had been preparing for such an eventuality.
It was also announced that Major-General Dany Fortin will be commanding the Canadian military response team at National Defence Headquarters. Fortin’s most recent posting was in Iraq where he headed up the NATO mission to train Iraqi soldiers.
By all accounts, Fortin is a charismatic and extremely capable officer and at his initial press briefings he has proven to be very telegenic.
From a government public relations perspective this has been a very successful formula. The CAF has earned the trust and respect of the Canadian public to the point that simply handing over responsibility to the military and having an officer in uniform command the operation appeases our pandemic-fearing population.
The problem with this equation is that the military solution to vaccine distribution provides little in the way of actual resources. The challenge of rolling out vaccines across Canada is both logistical and medical.
The military does have an entire Logistics Branch and a truck fleet. However they have no where near the distribution capacity of existing private sector companies like Purolator, FedEx, UPS & DHL just to name a few.
The military also does not possess the specialized refrigeration equipment necessary to store and transport some of the vaccines.
It was reported that one asset the CAF could use would be its fleet of cargo aircraft – either the C-17 Globemasters or the C-130 Hercules – to rapidly deliver vaccines to Canada from either the U.S. or Europe.
One would think it would be far more efficient and cost effective to ship these vaccines using private sector airfreight companies. The aviation industry has been economically hard hit by the pandemic and using air force planes to deliver freight would only further exacerbate their lost revenue.
In terms of a medical challenge, one of the biggest concerns will be in determining who receives the vaccines first, and who in turn is to wait in line the longest.
Despite his sterling career and many martial accomplishments MGen Fortin does not have a doctorate of medical ethics on his resume. He is an artillery officer who commanded troops in Iraq.
Of course Fortin can add a civilian medical ethicist to his team but this is not currently a military profession. If Fortin is not a logistician nor a public health expert, other than disciplined leadership what exactly is he contributing to the vaccine distribution task force?
This observation should in no way be interpreted as slight to the capabilities of the men and women of the CAF and certainly not to Fortin personally. I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the CAF is not among the best militaries in the world – it is the best in the world.
What they are not is a delivery company with a nationwide distribution network.
I do believe the military will be able to assist in bringing the vaccination teams into remote regions and for this they are uniquely qualified and equipped. However we have to remember that such aid to the civil power, which has also included flood relief and fighting forest fires, is not the primary role of the CAF.
The CAF personnel are just as susceptible to the COVID-19 virus as the civilian population and their close proximity workspaces (ships, aircraft, barracks etc) means that any outbreak could spread through their ranks like a wildfire.
The raison d’etre of the CAF is to provide a combat force capable of defending Canada’s interests at home and abroad.
As much as it seems to reassure us to have a uniformed soldier handing out vaccines, it would make more sense if that same delivery were made by a guy in a Purolator jacket.
