Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday left the door open to the possibility that Canada would invoke a rarely used law to increase the production of medical equipment needed in the fight against the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

“We are considering using any measures necessary to ensure that Canadians and our health-care systems have the supports we need,” Trudeau said in Ottawa on Thursday, as part of his daily address to provide updates on the coronavirus pandemic.

“We have already been engaged with industry on production and ramping up capacity to build and create more equipment. We will of course look at military procurement as a solution as well. There is a range of things we can do and we will do what is necessary.”

Trudeau had been asked by a journalist specifically about using the Defence Production Act to increase manufacturing of equipment for frontline health-care workers. Invoking the act would allow Public Services and Procurement Canada Minister Anita Anand to compel companies to help manufacture goods that the government needs.

Though the government does have an emergency stockpile of medical equipment, multiple provinces have reported shortages of what’s necessary to treat the current 772 COVID-19 patients in Canada, as well as those who are being tested for the illness.

While invoking the Defence Procurement Act would give the government the authority to force companies to produce needed equipment, one military procurement expert doesn’t think it will have to go that far.

“You only need to do that if you can’t address the demands that you have in place right now. Based on all of the kind of commentary I’ve seen from the business community, my guess is everybody that can make anything medically useful right now has already offered to help,” said David Perry, the vice president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

Perry noted that the leaders of many of more than 100 of the biggest non-medical sector companies in Canada signed on a joint letter (published in the Globe and Mail) calling for every business leader in the country to “immediately shift focus to the singular objective of slowing the pace of transmission of this coronavirus.”

Perry also said he doesn’t think forcing companies to make goods, which would require the retraining of their workers, would be a productive option in a moment that’s as time sensitive as the present.

The federal public health lead, Dr. Theresa Tam, said on Thursday that the government has been able to find suppliers to cover 75 per cent of the 7,000,000 masks it needs.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford added on Thursday that Economic Development Minister Vic Fedeli had asked boutique outerwear maker Canada Goose (whose CEO signed the letter in the Globe) about pivoting to sewing medical gowns, and that multiple automakers in the province have offered their workers “at no cost” to produce ventilators.

The Canadian Medical Association (CMA), which represents more than 70,0000 of Canada’s doctors and physicians in training, told members in an email on Thursday that it’s working with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce to see which of the chamber’s members could retool its factories to produce more personal protective equipment (PPE). CMA also said it’s working with Health Canada to find a way to rapidly produce production lines and facilities for the equipment needed by health-care workers.

To treat patients who could or do have COVID-19, doctors and nurses need specific PPE-like gloves, surgical or respirator masks, and gowns. PPE ensures health-care workers are safe from the disease, which is most often passed from person-to-person through contact or by droplets, and that they’re not culpable in spreading it to other patients.

iPolitics reported on Wednesday morning that doctors and nurses at an Ontario hospital were told that “preserving PPE (is) now critical” because the inventory in the province was “critically short.”

There have also been shortages of the swabs needed to test for the coronavirus. Public Health Ontario recently began allowing testing with what it describes as “unvalidated” swabs. Patients who are tested with unvalidated swabs will receive a disclaimer with their test results.

READ MORE: Ontario dealing with ‘critically’ low inventory of protective equipment amid COVID-19 outbreak

There is an approaching shortage of ventilators in parts of Canada as well. Medical ventilators help patients breath and can be necessary to treat COVID-19, which is primarily a respiratory illness.

Eight days ago, the federal government announced a $1-billion re-up for public health care in Canada, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Of that funding, part of $500 million was to be distributed to provinces and territories to support mitigation efforts including to increase access to testing and equipment, while $50 million was to be dedicated to the purchase of personal protective equipment for federal and provincial and territorial governments.

Provincial governments across the country have also announced multi-million dollar emergency health care packages to support their healthcare systems during the crisis.

If Trudeau invoked the Defence Production Act, the prime minister would be following similar actions of countries around the world that have been grappling with their own shortages of medical equipment in wake of the pandemic.

Around the World

With the U.S. facing a shortage in ventilators, President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday authorizing the government to use its comparable legislation to give his administration the power to direct industrial production of materials deemed “essential to the national defense.”

“To ensure that our healthcare system is able to surge capacity and capability to respond to the spread of COVID-19, it is critical that all health and medical resources needed to respond to the spread of COVID-19 are properly distributed to the Nation’s healthcare system and others that need them most at this time,” Trump’s executive order says.

Earlier, Trump said he was invoking the American Defense Production Act “just in case” it’s needed.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had recorded 10,442 cases of COVID-19 in the United States by midday on Thursday, with 150 Americans having been killed by the virus. Cases have been reported in every state.

United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said his government needs to act like “any wartime government” and has blueprints to more than 60 manufacturers, including companies Rolls-Royce, Airbus and Jaguar Land Rover, asking them to make ventilators, which the Guardian reported.

Italy is now the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic. Its COVID-19 death toll on Thursday surpassed that of China, where the coronavirus originated. More than 3,400 people have died from COVID-19 in Italy, where there have been more than 41,000 confirmed cases.

Italy’s government is using the military to help ventilator-maker Siare Engineering International Group, based in the country’s north, to help ramp up its manufacturing. The Globe and Mail reported that about 30 military technicians began working for Siare Engineering this week to increase their production.

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