Dear Neighbours and Friends,

Protecting Canadians has been our central focus these last fifteen months of the COVID-19 pandemic. From a personal standpoint, what adds additional motivation is knowing at the end of each day we have done everything we can to protect frontline healthcare workers like my wife Shauna, and done everything to accelerate the day we can see our families and give them a hug.

It's the reason I give my all to support every initiative to increase the supply of vaccines, and support every initiative that accelerates their distribution in our community.

The opportunity to access cross-border vaccines in Michigan first landed on my desk more than a month ago on April 21, 2021. A Michigan contact reached out about a hospital interested in sharing surplus vaccines. This was about a week before the story hit the news. I immediately reached out to Windsor Regional Hospital CEO David Musyj and asked about the possibility of a hospital-to-hospital transfer of vaccines and whether they had done those before with Detroit. The answer was positive.

Our office quickly got to work with over 100 phone calls and emails over the next five weeks with:

• Minister of Health; Public Safety; Global Affairs and the Prime Minister's Office
• Canada's Consul General Joe Comartin who communicated with Michigan Governor G. Whitmer
• Communication with Dr. Ahmed of WECHU; David Musyj and Dr. Saad of Windsor Regional Hospital
• Mayors Drew Dilkens and Gary McNamara
• Michigan state officials and stakeholders

There were three options that we explored - or as I like to say, three doors we kept knocking on:

• Simple hospital-to-hospital transfer of vaccines from Detroit to Windsor
• Resident travel across border to the Detroit hospital
• Resident travel to customs Port of Entry (POE) without technically entering US territory

We felt the first one held the most promise but pursued all three with vigour.

We worked hard behind the scenes, and we consciously did not go to the news media because there were two key things we knew we needed to confirm first:

• The United States who owns the vaccines had to give the OK to export across the border
• The US Customs and Border Protection agency had to give the OK to allow Canadians to cross

Sure enough - last week the US border agency came out with the following statement clarifying that Canadians crossing the border for the sole purpose of obtaining a vaccination is prohibited.

This was not a new development - but a restatement of the existing border policy in place.

Rest assured - we continue to pursue all avenues. We continue to knock on all doors. We continue our communication with officials from the US and the State of Michigan. Indeed, we will continue to work with all partners - locally, across Canada and the US - to accelerate supply and distribution of vaccines.

On that note there is excellent progress:

• Windsor-Essex has vaccinated 85 percent of adults 60+ & 65 per cent of all adults - leading Ontario
• Canada has secured 25 million vaccines to date, with 2.4 million coming every week
• Canada has the fastest vaccination rate of all G20 countries & all countries with 10M+ people
• Canada passed the US in percentage of people vaccinated last week
• Ontario has 1.8 million surplus vaccines not yet in arms - provincial distribution is the key now

From the start, we believed out of the three options we had for securing cross-border vaccines - the direct transfer of vaccines across the border was the simplest and most direct option. The hospital-to-hospital transfer also had precedence even before the pandemic. Like a good neighbour sharing a cup of sugar, it was not uncommon for Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital for example to share medical equipment and drugs with Windsor Regional Hospital. This is the focus of our present advocacy.

I join our Prime Minister and local partners in continuing to advocate strongly with our American friends and neighbours. Working together as a team remains the true path forward.