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Ontario Premier Doug Ford and former head of the Canadian Armed Forces Gen. Rick Hillier walk to the Premer's office at the Ontario Legislature, in Toronto, on Nov. 27, 2020.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press

Ontario has unveiled the members of its COVID-19 vaccine distribution task force, which includes former Toronto police chief Mark Saunders.

The nine-member group, chaired by retired general Rick Hillier, will help advise the government on planning and executing the province’s COVID-19 immunization program. Federal officials have asked provincial governments to prepare their first vaccine reception sites by Dec. 14, although the actual doses will likely arrive in the new year.

Along with Mr. Saunders, who retired as Toronto police chief in July, the task force include medical specialists, First Nations leadership and business representatives – although no members are from Public Health Ontario, the province’s public health agency.

“The task force we have assembled will play a key role in developing and implementing Ontario’s immunization program,” Heath Minister Christine Elliott said in a statement.

“I am confident that with the collective knowledge, experience and advice from these experts, Ontario will be ready to deliver the vaccines in an ethical, timely and effective manner as soon as they are available.”

Premier Doug Ford will participate in the group’s first meeting on Friday, and will not hold a daily news conference to take questions.

Mr. Ford offered few new details on Thursday about his province’s plan to distribute the vaccine. After facing opposition accusations about leaving Ontario unprepared, Mr. Ford said provincial officials have been readying “for months,” but blamed the federal government for not answering key questions, including when vaccines would arrive, what kinds would be sent and how many the province would receive.

The NDP on Friday said Ontario should have struck the task force earlier, arguing other provinces have provided more details about their plans.

“Doug Ford waited until the eleventh hour to get started on a vaccine plan,” NDP deputy leader Sara Singh said.

In an interview on Friday before the meeting, Dr. Bogoch said he first heard inklings about the task force about a week ago but only learned that he was part of it in a phone call on Thursday evening. He said he is looking to promote under-represented communities at the table.

“I’m going to be reaching out to health leaders and community leaders from disproportionately impacted populations,” he said. “We need to hear from public health voices, we need to hear from primary care — like family physician voices — we need to hear from Indigenous voices, we need to hear from South Asian voices, we need to hear from Black community voices, we need from voices that represent impoverished populations.”

The government said the task force will focus on delivery, logistics, clinical guidance, public education and outreach.

Ontario’s chief coroner Dirk Huyer, who is co-ordinating the province’s outbreak response, will join the task force, as will Homer Tien, a trauma surgeon and president and CEO of Ornge, which provides air ambulance services.

The other members are: Maxwell Smith, a bioethicist and assistant professor at the University of Western Ontario; Isaac Bogoch, an infectious diseases specialist at Toronto’s University Health Network; Ontario Regional Chief RoseAnne Archibald; Regis Vaillancourt, director of pharmacy at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario; Linda Hasenfratz, CEO of Linamar Corporation, an auto parts manufacturer that has retooled operations to make ventilators; and Angela Mondou, president and CEO of Technation, a national technology industry association.

In September, Linamar received $2.5-million from the government’s Ontario Together Fund, which helps businesses produce personal protective equipment.

Mr. Hillier is being paid $20,000 a month to run the task force. The other members who are not employed by the Ontario Public Service will receive a per diem of $398.

Meanwhile, the independent commission reviewing Ontario’s long-term care system on Friday released a second set of urgent recommendations to the government focused on accountability and improving inspections.

The three-member long-term care commission, led by Associate Chief Justice Frank Marrocco, said in a new report that the government should address the immediate risks of COVID-19 in long-term care homes. Since Oct. 23, more than 100 homes have had outbreaks and 300 residents have died, the commission said.

The recommendations include improving the province’s oversight and inspections of homes, and better enforcement. The commissioners call for the resumption of proactive inspections that were phased out in 2018 on the recommendation of the auditor-general to prioritize inspections based on complaints. The proactive inspections, known as Resident Quality Inspections, were intended to discover systemic issues in homes, such as infection control problems. Between March 1 and Oct. 15, however, only 11 homes received a proactive inspection. The commission also calls for more funding in next year’s provincial budget to train and hire new inspectors.

Long-Term Care Minister Merrilee Fullerton said the government recognizes the urgency of the situation and has invested $750-million into homes during the pandemic.

“Many of the areas identified by the Commissioners are consistent with our efforts currently under way as we continue to work hard to solve the long-standing and systemic challenges facing the long-term care system, which have been exacerbated during COVID-19,” she said in a statement.

Canadian authorities are assessing COVID-19 vaccine candidates while trials are underway, speeding up any eventual approval for wide use. But science reporter Ivan Semeniuk says it’s likely high-risk people will be prioritized for receiving any vaccine first, with some possibly getting it as early as the first part of 2021.

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