Viral Contradictions: Canadian Exceptionalism and Covid-19

The paper examines Canada's pandemic response, highlighting how a strategy of virus mitigation over suppression, combined with the privatization of long-term care and a lack of workplace protections, disproportionately harmed racialized people, women, and Indigenous communities. It further critiques Canada's international conduct, specifically its hoarding of vaccine doses and opposition to waiving intellectual property rights for vaccines in the Global South.

• Canada's long-term care (LTC) sector experienced a catastrophic failure during the pandemic, with approximately 80% of the country's Covid-19 deaths occurring in these facilities, the highest percentage globally.
• The privatization of long-term care led to significantly higher mortality rates, with for-profit homes recording a death rate four times higher than that of public homes.
• The pandemic disproportionately affected marginalized groups, including women, racialized people, and migrant agricultural workers from Central America and the Caribbean, who faced substandard living and working conditions.
• Indigenous populations on reserves faced severe health inequities due to a lack of basic services, with 57 communities remaining under long-term boil water advisories during the pandemic.
• Canadian authorities prioritized a 'mitigation' strategy to protect the economy over a 'suppression' strategy, which the author argues resulted in higher human and economic costs.
• Canada engaged in vaccine hoarding by securing preliminary agreements for more doses per capita than any other nation, enough to vaccinate its population five times over, while opposing the waiver of intellectual property rights for vaccines at the WTO.

APA

Murray, A. (2021). Viral Contradictions: Canadian Exceptionalism and Covid-19. Public Affairs Research Institute. https://pari.org.za/covid-19-states-and-societies-canada/

Chicago

Murray, Adrian. Viral Contradictions: Canadian Exceptionalism and Covid-19. Public Affairs Research Institute, 2021. https://pari.org.za/covid-19-states-and-societies-canada/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Murray |first1=Adrian |title=Viral Contradictions: Canadian Exceptionalism and Covid-19 |publisher=Public Affairs Research Institute |date=22 February 2021 |url=https://pari.org.za/covid-19-states-and-societies-canada/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{murray2021viral, author = {Murray, Adrian}, title = {{Viral Contradictions: Canadian Exceptionalism and Covid-19}}, institution = {Public Affairs Research Institute}, year = {2021}, month = feb, url = {https://pari.org.za/covid-19-states-and-societies-canada/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }