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On Thursday's episode of The Ezra Levant Show, Conservative MP Dean Allison told Ezra Levant that Canadians injured by COVID-19 vaccines have been left to fight for recognition on their own, and that his newly launched hearings are meant to finally let them speak. The Niagara West MP said his four-day sitting, dubbed the Allison Inquiry, will hear from roughly 50 witnesses starting September 8 on Parliament Hill, after more than 1,400 people came forward wanting to share their stories.

"There's absolutely no rhyme or reason," Allison said of the federal Vaccine Injury Support Program, describing rejected forms, missing files, and applicants told they needed more information. 

Allison said his effort is not a formal judicial inquiry — he has no subpoena powers and a limited budget — but rather a chance for MPs to do what he says is their basic job: listen.

"I do a bunch of things, but at the very fundamental, what I do is I listen to people, and I go to bat for them," said Allison.

He pointed to government records which show close to 60,000 reported vaccine injuries, of which roughly 11,000 were seriously reviewed, 3,500 applied for compensation, 3,000 were accepted, and only 252 people were ultimately paid out.

"That's point four of a percent," Allison said, adding that of the $55 million set aside for the compensation program, more than $35 million went to overhead rather than to the injured.

Allison cited Dr. Charles Hoffe, a rural British Columbia physician who has treated a Lytton-area First Nations community for decades, as an example of the barriers doctors face. Allison said Hoffe identified patients from the local community with vaccine injuries and tried filling out nine-page reports on his own time, only to have them rejected repeatedly.

"He said, 'I have over almost 30 injured people,'" Allison said, quoting Hoffe, "'and I have not been able to submit those forms.'"

Ezra opened the segment by replaying a 2021 leaders' debate clip in which every federal party leader, following public health messaging, urged Canadians to get vaccinated, calling it proof that "the opposition did not oppose" and that doctors, journalists and even the courts largely fell in line during the pandemic. He noted the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear COVID-related cases for years, unlike its American counterpart.

Ezra drew a comparison to Canada's tainted blood scandal of the 1990s, recalling how then-health minister Allan Rock resisted compensating Canadians who were poisoned by tainted blood supplies.

"It really feels the same now," he said, adding that public messaging at the time was designed to "maximize the problem from the virus" while downplaying vaccine injuries.

Allison said the goal is not to relitigate who should have been vaccinated, but to give those left with lasting harm — and, in some cases, families of Canadians who were actually killed — a public forum after years of being "gaslit" by the system meant to help them.

"I don't think there's any way that you can start the healing process with these individuals," he said, "until you'll actually start and take the time to listen to them."

Canadians can apply to testify or follow the proceedings at AllisonInquiry.com.