Canadians take it upon themselves to import masks from China

While paramedics, hospitals, provincial and federal governments are scouring the globe for millions of masks and respirators anywhere they can find them, small businesses, individuals and entrepreneurs have been using their connections in China to bring in small shipments to Canada.

The Star spoke to four people who have taken it upon themselves to import masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE). Their stories reveal how competition has driven up prices, shipping companies are overwhelmed with orders and the provincial and federal governments are, in some cases, not acting quickly enough to secure supplies before they could be snapped up by someone else.

"We're hearing from our sources in China: 'You have to take this product. You have to take this product,'" said Dan Bailey, co-founder of Merit Precision, a plastic manufacturing firm in Peterborough. "It's been a nightmare."

"I want to be able to look my kids in the eyes and say: 'I did everything I could.'"

Last week, the federal government set aside $2 billion to purchase PPE for frontline healthcare workers. Thanks to government efforts, by the end of this week, 16 million surgical masks and 2.3 million N95 respirator masks should have arrived in Canada.

The first batch of 500,000 3M masks from the U.S. arrived Tuesday night after the Canadian government negotiated an exemption from President Donald Trump's export ban. Purolator began delivering the masks to frontline healthcare workers Wednesday.

"It's a very complicated situation in the whole world and there's a real race on internationally for medical equipment," said Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland Wednesday.

In addition to these efforts, both the Ontario and federal government have set up web portals calling on local businesses to help secure PPE.

Three of the individuals who spoke to the Star filled out these web forms but none has received a call back. Meanwhile, the window to secure their shipments is closing.

"Right now we've got 30,000 face masks ready to ship to us (from China). We can get them in here within the week," said Bailey. "Our hold up is trying to get the government to agree."

The federal and provincial governments did not respond to questions about individuals offering to procure PPE before deadline end of day Wednesday.

Bailey, who has developed relationships with Chinese suppliers over the last 15 years, said Chinese factories are ramping up production of PPE, but the U.S. is aggressively buying up much of the supply.

"If we don't start picking them up now, the U.S. will be scooping them all up. Unfortunately, they've got bigger buying power," he said.

Bailey has reached out to government. The response? "Crickets."

The federal and provincial governments have been pursuing a dual approach to securing PPE - buying internationally and retooling local manufacturing to produce at home. Shifting mass production from auto parts to ventilators will take weeks, if not months. In the meantime, the race is on to secure any small part of global supply that we can.

"Public Services and Procurement Canada is aggressively and proactively buying in bulk from all available suppliers and distributors here at home and around the world," said federal procurement minister Anita Anand Tuesday. "The reality is that we are in a highly competitive global environment and international logistics are challenging."

Anand said the different levels of government are coordinating their purchasing efforts with a "Team Canada" approach - even sharing space on cargo flights.

"We will not rest until these supplies are in Canada, in our hands, and ultimately in the hands of the many healthcare workers on the frontlines of this crisis," she said.

Alison Griffiths isn't normally involved in international supply chains, but when her sister-in-law contacted her about bringing a shipment of masks in from Shanghai, she set to work finding those in need in Milton, where she lives.

"Every article is saying 'shortage, shortage, shortage,' and I thought that people are going to be crying out for them," said Griffiths, a writer and former Star columnist.

Her local fire department signed up for 200 masks and a long term care home signed up to take some, too, she said. The shipment of 6,000 masks has arrived in New Brunswick, where her sister-in-law lives, and the two have started thinking about a second, larger shipment.

"I asked my sister-in-law, 'well, how many could you get?' And she said: 'They produce 700,000 a week.' I'm sure we could do an order for one to 2 million."

But even with a proven track record of getting masks to Canada, Griffiths says she hasn't been able to even figure out who to talk to.

"I went down the rabbit hole trying to find anybody who has the authority to make a bulk buy," she said. "But it was just one person to another person to another."

"It's kind of surprising to me that at the municipal, provincial and federal level, there isn't a readily accessible team or individual who is coordinating these emergency purchases."

Griffiths filled out the form on the federal procurement website but hasn't heard back in the 10 days since. She has also reached out to her local MPP, who hasn't been able to help.

"I'm working very hard to find someone who can make a decision."

Vancouver-area management consultant Jonathon Karelse specializes in supply management, but had no experience in the medical supply market. After watching COVID-19 sweep across the world, he decided to use his connections to secure 10,000 surgical masks and 5,000 N95s to donate to Eagle Ridge hospital in Port Moody, B.C.

He questions whether the worldwide shortage of masks is real.

"I know certainly that there's a lot more sudden demand now than there is short-term supply. I think a lot of that is driven by panicked buying behaviour. I hope over the next few weeks as the situation begins to normalize, we will see a recalibration of supply versus demand as people work through procurement options," he said.

"The situation is very fluid, but in my experience, we had multiple options for mask sourcing in China," said Karelse. "The issue for us was they wanted profiteering level money for them: Sometimes 10 times normal and (they) wanted massive order sizes."

In normal times, surgical masks can wholesale for a nickel each. Now, Canadians are being quoted $1. The more sophisticated N95 respirator masks once sold for 50 cents. Now they're going for as much as $5.

Global competition for scarce PPE is assumed, but a worse situation is emerging where different levels of government are competing against each other for the same supplies - driving up the price even further.

"It's like being on eBay with 50 other states bidding on a ventilator," said New York governor Andrew Cuomo last week. "We all wind up bidding up each other and competing against each other, where you now literally will have a company call you up and say, 'Well, California just outbid you.' "

Bidding against ourselves isn't happening in Ontario, said an executive of a bulk medical supply purchasing company who asked not to be named because he has government contracts and is not permitted to speak to media.

"The conversations in our region have been very collaborative," said the executive. "We're building new relationships. Everyone is concerned about avoiding silos."

While the executive conceded that prices for masks and other equipment have gone up, they said this is due to unprecedented global demand and supply constraints caused by the U.S. border closure and the various export bans in Asia and Europe.

Clothier Eric Sana, who has 12 sewing shops across Canada, thought he could save his employees' jobs by making scrubs and gowns for healthcare workers. He quickly figured out that he wasn't going to be able to get his hands on the specialized material needed for production.

"I never thought in my dreams I would be doing what I'm doing now," he told the Star as he sat in his car in the parking lot of the Munro airport in Hamilton on Wedneday, waiting for pallets full of masks to clear customs.

After securing an order of several hundred thousand masks from St. Joseph's hospital, Sana has been negotiating their journey from China, via the U.S. to Canada and into the hands of emergency workers.

His first shipment was broken into smaller pieces because the shipping company imposed weight limits on each customer due to overwhelming demand for space on its planes, said Sana.

"They're trickling in, trickling in, slowly," he said, emphasizing that everyone is going above and beyond during these trying times, including his shipper, who has been taking seats out of passenger planes to increase cargo capacity.

"It's an ongoing battle. We seem to be lucky. Things are moving through," he said.

Marco Chown Oved is a Toronto-based investigative reporter. Reach him at moved@thestar.ca. Follow him on Twitter: @marcooved

Sara Mojtehedzadeh is a Toronto-based reporter covering work and wealth. Follow her on Twitter: @saramojtehedz

Joanna Chiu is a Vancouver-based reporter covering both Canada-China relations and current affairs on the West Coast for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @joannachiu