By Andrew McIntosh Carolyn Jarvis
A $50-million program the federal government created to help Canadians seriously injured by COVID-19 vaccines is in disarray, current and former staffers say.
The Vaccine Injury Support Program (VISP), created during the pandemic, was designed to compensate people who have been seriously and permanently injured by any Health Canada-authorized vaccine administered in Canada on or after Dec. 8, 2020.
The Public Health Agency of Canada subsequently selected a consulting firm, Oxaro Inc., to administer the program. The Ottawa-based company vowed it had the “people, processes, and tools” to run the initiative with “industry best practices.”
However, a five-month-long Global News investigation, involving more than 30 interviews with current and former Oxaro employees, injured claimants and their attorneys, has uncovered allegations that the company was unequipped to deliver fully on the program’s mission, questions about why the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) chose this company over others, and internal documents that suggest poor planning from the start.
Global News also heard descriptions of a workplace that lacked the gravitas of a program meant to assist the seriously injured and chronically ill: drinking in the office, ping pong, slushies and Netflix streaming at desks.
The overall result: many claimants feel they have not received the “timely and fair” access to support that the government promised.
When the pandemic struck in 2020, Canada was caught flat-footed.
It was the only G7 country without a vaccine injury support program. Millions of Canadians lined up for the shots, which helped reduce emergency room admissions and curtail the impact of the pandemic.
The government reassured the public that they’d be safe, but it acknowledged that in rare cases, people could experience serious side effects.
There have been 11,702 reports of serious adverse events following a COVID-19 vaccination, according to Health Canada. That’s equal to 0.011 per cent of the 105,015,456 doses administered as of December 2023.
Reactions included Guillain-Barré Syndrome, myocarditis, cardiac arrest and Bell’s Palsy.
For those unfortunate few, then-prime minister Justin Trudeau pledged that VISP would look after them. “We want to make sure that Canadians have fair access to support,” he said in December 2020.
Two months later, PHAC invited companies to submit proposals for administering VISP, saying the agency lacked the staff and expertise to operate the program itself, according to a draft 2023 report on VISP by Health Canada and PHAC.
The government viewed the outsourcing decision as “the best option.” That way, it could avoid a conflict of interest that would arise from serving as both the approver of the vaccines and the one that compensated people for the harms vaccines caused, the documents explained.
Four entities responded to the PHAC request and had roughly three weeks to apply.
Among them was Oxaro (then called Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton Consulting Inc.), a firm that vowed to employ “experienced dedicated case managers to support a claimant throughout the application process.”
It won the contract.
The minister of health pushed Oxaro to launch three months ahead of schedule.
But when the program did, in June 2021, some former staffers say the company wasn’t ready.
Oxaro and the Public Health Agency of Canada declined to be interviewed for this story.
In a statement to Global News, Oxaro wrote, “Our process ensures that all cases are treated fairly and with the same care, respect, and due diligence.”