The Canadian federal government has launched the Vaccine Injury Support Program. It aims to “ensure that all people in Canada who have experienced a serious and permanent injury as a result of receiving a Health Canada authorized vaccine, administered in Canada on or after December 8, 2020, have fair and timely access to financial support.”

This aligns with Health Canada’s media advisory from December 9, 2020, when the agency first approved the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. Pfizer submitted hundreds of thousands of pages of safety data to Health Canada on October 9, 2020 as part of the regulatory process in seeking Emergency Use Authorization. Health Canada stamped the approval exactly 60 days later.

As detailed by Blacklock's Reporter, a department memo stipulated that a “total of $75 million in funding has been earmarked for the first five years of the program. The expense includes administration costs and financial supports to eligible claimants.”

In Canada, we have an flawed vaccine side effect reporting system called the Canadian Adverse Events Following Immunization Surveillance System.

As of March 11, 2022, the COVID-19 vaccine-specific segment has recorded 81,128,413 total vaccine doses administered to Canadians.

Of those, 40,891 have resulted in documented adverse reactions, with 8,556 considered serious. Three safety signals continue to be monitored — thrombosis, Guillain-Barre syndrome, and myocarditis/pericarditis.

The reporting system has faced criticism for publishing data that is not being age stratified or detailed in terms of the severity of reactions that occur.

Despite this tabled program, vaccine-injured Canadians claim that there is not adequate support for the costs associated with navigating vaccine injury.

Health Canada was unable to provide an estimate on the number of compensation claims that it expected under this support program.

We have filed an Access to Information request to find out how many complaints have been made and how much the government has paid out so far. Please consider supporting this work at Rebel Investigates.

If you’re suffering a vaccine injury and are not able to get adequate compensation, I want to hear from you. Please send me an e-mail at [email protected].