OTTAWA—Declaring the COVID-19 pandemic a crisis like none Canada has seen before, the federal government is rallying the country’s industrial strength to rapidly manufacture extra medical supplies that will be needed if infections surge and hospitals are swamped with sick patients.

The government said Friday it will free up money dedicated to support businesses and tech innovation to help factories crank out key equipment like ventilators, testing devices and protective medical gear.

Three companies have already signed on to work with the government to ramp up production, while auto parts manufacturers are preparing to retool facilities to make medical supplies, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday.

“These are historic times in which we need to do everything we can to support Canadians and mobilize all our efforts in smart ways,” Trudeau said, speaking outside Rideau Cottage, where he has been working under quarantine since March 12.

“There are people who are talking about historical echoes, whether it’s wartime or (the) Great Depression,” he said. “We know that Canada has never faced a situation like this and we will face through it together.”

Alongside its industrial strategy, Trudeau said Canada will start turning away irregular asylum seekers who enter the country from the United States as the bilateral deal to ban tourism and recreational trips across the border was set to kick in at midnight Friday.

Just a day earlier, the federal government was preparing to set up some form of temporary shelter for irregular asylum seekers who come to Canada from the U.S., to make sure they follow Ottawa’s diktat to self-isolate for two weeks after returning from abroad.

The border crossers who avoid official entry points have been a hot political issue, with Conservatives in Ottawa frequently attacking the Liberal government for being too lax with refugee claimants who enter Canada this way. Until now, the Trudeau government has resisted calls to shut down the border to these irregular asylum seekers.

But the prime minister said Friday that it is necessary to do so temporarily to protect Canadians from the new coronavirus that has spread around the world and killed more than 10,000 people since it emerged in China almost three months ago.

On Friday, Canada identified 1,085 confirmed and presumptive cases with Toronto reporting the number of cases was at 161, a jump of 33 within the last 24 hours. And a Canadian man in Japan died from complications related to COVID-19.

Sean Rehaag, director of York University’s Centre for Refugee Studies, slammed the decision on social media, where he described the move as a contravention of international law.

“The experience with closing safe routes for asylum seekers elsewhere…shows that people don’t stop crossing borders, they just use more dangerous routes,” Rehaag wrote.

In a press release, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers said it is “deeply concerned” about the decision and urged the Trudeau government to reconsider.

While the border restriction will be in place until the government decides it is no longer needed, Trudeau said he is “confident” most people trying to enter irregularly into Canada can remain legally in the U.S. and won’t be deported from there to their countries of origin.

“We are comfortable with this process as being in line with Canada’s values on the treatment of refugees and vulnerable people,” he said.

Canada’s response to the pandemic increased dramatically over the past week. Imploring all Canadians —even those who feel healthy — to stay home if possible and not to leave the country, the federal government has called for large gatherings to be cancelled and for people to practice “social distancing” by keeping two metres away from others in public.

Ottawa also shut the border to all “non-essential” travellers this week, and will extend that to include American visitors at midnight Friday. Canadians with symptoms are also barred from boarding flights to the country, as airlines cancel routes and lay off employees amidst huge declines in international travel.

Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, said the measures in place are designed to slow the rate of infections so the health-care system doesn’t get overwhelmed and needed supplies don’t start to run low.

It’s still too soon to say how things will change in the coming months, but Tam said that preventions taken now will “buy time” while researchers around the world — including in Canada — race to create a vaccine for the virus.

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“We urgently need diagnostics, critical health supplies, treatments and vaccines if we are to have the best chance of saving lives and bringing this epidemic to an end,” she said.

That’s where the new plan to harness Canada’s industrial base comes in as Ottawa prepares to refocus industrial policies to funnel money to companies that can “rapidly scale” to make products needed in the fight against COVID-19, Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains said Friday.

As the government buys all the extra supplies it can, Bains said the industrial strategy is meant to fill any outstanding need for medical equipment that could come up as the disease spreads.

He said the government is now inviting companies to apply through a simplified and sped-up process to sell stock of medical supplies to the government, and reconfigure factories to manufacture essential items like masks, disinfectant, ventilators, thermometers, and more.

Three companies have already signed on, he said — including a Toronto firm that makes ventilators, an Ottawa business that makes portable diagnostic kits, and a Montreal company that makes medical masks.

“Our goal is to be overprepared,” said Anita Anand, the federal procurement minister. “For example, we have been able to secure 11.3 million N95 masks, which is over and above the order we received for 7.3 million, with deliveries beginning immediately.

“We are anticipating future needs and we are working very hard to ensure that Canadians are safe,” she said.

Experts have pointed to the importance of critical care ventilators, which are used to help dangerously sick patients breathe. Some places have experienced shortages of these machines, such as Italy, where thousands have died as hospitals are overwhelmed with patients. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said this week that the state will need 30,000 ventilators — almost six times the current estimated supply.

On Friday, federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu said it’s not simple to say how many ventilators are available in all the provinces and territories, but insisted Canada has “what we need for the current situation.”

That’s based on forecasts being drawn by government experts, who are working on a range of scenarios as infections continue to spread across the country, she said.

A 2015 survey of 286 hospitals across Canada found there were almost 5,000 critical care ventilators in the country. And a new “preliminary” report published this week by scientists in Toronto estimated that Ontario’s supply would be filled in 37 days under a “conservative” infection-rate scenario.

Provinces are already ordering hundreds of additional ventilators. Ontario, for instance, is buying another 300 of the machines to add to its existing surplus of 210. Saskatchewan is ordering 250 more ventilators on top of the 91 it already has, and Quebec currently has 1,000 ventilators in intensive care units, spokespeople told the Star this week.

Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, said Friday that the federal government is expecting there will be a need for more ventilators and placed an order for 550 of the machines.

“That might change, that might evolve, and we’re trying to secure contracts as we speak. That’s without waiting for the specific numbers that provinces are currently needing,” Tam said.

Thornhill Medical, the company in Toronto that has signed on with the government plan, said in a statement Friday that it is ready to work with Ottawa to ramp up production of its portable ventilators.

There are also discussions going on about how provinces and territories can share equipment like ventilators — as well as the professionals who operate them — so that resources can be concentrated in areas that may see especially sharp jumps in sick people, Hajdu said.

“Those conversations are what reaffirm for me that we are in a good position as a country to be able to meet those anticipated surges,” she said.

With files from Nicholas Keung

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