Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
A national vaccine injury compensation program, first announced in December 2020, was officially launched Tuesday, allowing Canadians who have experienced severe adverse reactions to an approved COVID-19 vaccine to apply for compensation.
The Vaccine Injury Support program, announced in a statement issued by Dr. Theresa Tam, will provide financial support to those determined to have experienced a serious and permanent injury after receiving a Health Canada-authorized vaccine in Canada on or after Dec. 8, 2020.
Anyone who experiences a severe adverse reaction to a COVID-19 vaccine will be eligible for compensation under the program by submitting a claim that answers the following questions:
According to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), financial support will also be available to the dependents of those who have died after receiving a vaccination. That support may include income replacement, payment for injuries, death benefits including funeral expenses, and other eligible costs, such as uncovered medical expenses.
The amount of financial support provided will be determined on a case-by-case basis, but compensation will be retroactive from the date of the injury or death.
In terms of what constitutes a severe or permanent injury, PHAC says patients must have experienced “life-threatening or life-altering injuries that may require in-person hospitalization, or a prolongation of existing hospitalization, and results in persistent or significant disability or incapacity, or where the outcome is a congenital malformation or death.”
Although the compensation program will cover all current and future Health Canada authorized vaccines, calls for the long-awaited program have grown as Canada’s COVID-19 vaccination efforts ramp up.
Details around the program have remained sparse since the government’s initial announcement in December 2020, prompting concerns from advocates and outrage from those adversely affected by COVID-19 vaccines.
And while serious reactions to vaccines are extremely rare -- less than one in a million, according to PHAC -- they have happened.
As of May 21, there have been 5,989 reports of adverse events in Canada following a COVID-19 vaccine, representing 0.029 per cent of all doses. Of those, 1,126 were considered serious, representing 0.006 per cent of all doses.
As of last week, there were just over two dozen confirmed cases of vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia, also known as VITT, in Canada related to the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, with another 14 under investigation. Five people have died of the condition.
Advocates in Canada have been calling for a VISP since the 1980s. Until now, Canada was the only G7 nation without such a program, though Quebec has had a provincial version in place since 1987.
There is also a fund for 92 low- and middle-income nations provided through the World Health Organization and the COVAX program.
These programs are meant to support those who experience serious side-effects from a vaccine or treatment, without placing the blame on the pharmaceutical companies who might be slower to develop a treatment if they’re held liable for every adverse effect from a vaccine.
Canada’s program will be administered by RCGT Consulting on behalf of PHAC and is already accepting claims.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.