In the spring of 2020, Canada rushed to shore up supplies of medical and personal protective equipment as Covid-19 case numbers climbed. Dire headlines out of Italy and New York warned of an acute shortage of ventilators for those who were critically ill. A global surge in demand meant Canada could no longer rely on international supply chains.
In response to the crisis, the federal government quickly ordered just over 40,000 ventilators at a cost of C$1.1 billion, the vast majority from Canadian manufacturers that started building the life-saving machines from scratch.
At the time, it was billed as a success story for Canadian ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit. By May 2021, more than 27,000 ventilators had been delivered. But the worst-case pandemic scenarios never came to pass, and most of the machines were never needed.
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