Vaccine injury program prompted by rollout of COVID shots taken over amid backlog of cases

Empty COVID-19 vaccine vials are shown at a pharmacy in Toronto on Wednesday, April 6, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

OTTAWA — The federal public health agency is taking over administration of a program that compensates people who have been injured by vaccines, and pledging to review claims that were refused by a third-party administrator for being filed too late.

The vaccine injury support program began accepting claims in June 2021, after the widespread rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine in Canada.

People who experienced a “serious and permanent injury” as a result of receiving a vaccine authorized by Health Canada after Dec. 8, 2020, are eligible to make a claim.

It’s also been the subject of complaints from claimants who say the process is slow and communication is poor.

The government signed a contract with a third-party administrator, Oxaro, to run the program with an initial budget of $50 million over five years.

That contract expired on Tuesday and a news release said the Public Health Agency of Canada will take over the renamed vaccine impact assistance program. Another $17.6 million has been allocated for the transition.

Applications submitted to the old program will transfer to the new one automatically. Quebec has a separate compensation program that will continue to be administered by the province.

“PHAC will be working to address the existing backlog of applications, while improving the consistency and transparency of the claims process,” the news release said.

More than 105 million COVID-19 vaccine doses were given out in Canada between December 2020 and December 2023, and data shows adverse effects were extremely rare.

Health Canada reported that 58,712 adverse event reports were made in that time -- representing 0.056 per cent of all shots -- and that 11,702 of those were considered serious -- 0.011 per cent of vaccines given out.

Kayla Pollock, 39, is one of the people who says she was injured by the vaccine.

The Ontario woman says she was athletic and outgoing before getting her COVID-19 booster shot in February 2022. Today, she is paralyzed from the chest down with limited function in her arms.

She was diagnosed with acute transverse myelitis, inflammation of the spinal cord that can cause sudden and irreversible damage.

Pollock applied for compensation in 2022 and said her claim still has not been finalized. She’s dealt with multiple case workers in that time.

“I thought my case would be really simple because it’s really severe,” she said.

But Pollock isn’t convinced the government will do a better job.

“I think it’s very fitting that the fools are to take over on April Fool’s Day,” she said.

Officials from the Public Health Agency of Canada said they do not have service standards for the new program to process claims and it will take several months to collect and process the data from Oxaro to better understand its operations.

The program will have a more flexible eligibility going forward, so 225 people whose claims were denied because of a three-year cutoff will now have those claims reviewed. The Public Health Agency of Canada said this will allow people whose symptoms developed gradually to apply for compensation.

An investigation by Global News last year alleged Oxaro was unprepared to handle the influx of claims, and that two-thirds of the funding was spent on administrative costs.

In a written response to questions from a member of Parliament last fall, Health Minister Marjorie Michel’s office said she asked PHAC to accelerate an audit of Oxaro’s management of the program in May 2025, “following allegations of mismanagement by the third-party company.”

A spokesperson for Michel said that audit is not yet complete but a summary will be made public later this year.

The government’s response to Parliament also noted that the public health agency tasked Dr. Kumanan Wilson with analyzing similar programs put in place by other countries in 2024.

That evaluation found that other G7 countries -- and Quebec -- were managing their programs without a third-party administrator.

Dr. Wilson said in an interview that he has advocated for Canada to set up a compensation program for decades, and that it’s something all other peer countries had in place before the pandemic.

“It’s the government’s responsibility, as part their social contract,” he said, to provide compensation in the rare event that a person is harmed by a vaccine.

Dr. Wilson said he recommends the program have “operational independence from those that advocate for vaccines” to build trust.

“We’re seeing vaccine hesitancy rise, we’re seeing outbreaks of otherwise vaccine-preventable diseases, and the old ways of doing things aren’t working. People are expecting the government to engage with them differently, and this can be symbolic of that,” he said.

Data from the vaccine injury support program shows 3,557 people made a claim as of Dec. 1, 2025.

Of those, 451 were found inadmissible and just over 3,000 claims were sent for a medical review. More than 850 people were still collecting medical records in December, and the medical review board had assessed just over 1,400 claims.

The 252 people whose claims were approved have collected more than $21 million in compensation.

The program’s website does not provide wait times but says collecting medical records can take a significant amount of time.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 31, 2026.