Vaccine Injury Support Program
The Vaccine Injury Support Program (VISP), also referred to as the Pan-Canadian Vaccine Injury Support Program, is a financial compensation scheme intended to provide support to individuals injured or killed by COVID-19 vaccines.
The program was commissioned by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) and is administered by OXARO,[1] previously called Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton.[2]
History
On December 10, 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the implementation of Canada's first nationwide vaccine injury compensation program in preparation for the rollout of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.[3]
In February 2021, a call for proposals to develop the program was launched. The call closed on February 24. The Public Health Agency of Canada established a committee to review proposals the following month, swiftly and unanimously choosing Raymon Chabot Grant Thornton to act as "third party administrator."[4]
VISP was launched on June 1, 2021, at which point it began accepting claims. Program statistics were first reported publicly on December 1, 2021.[2:1]
Program details
In order to apply to the program, individuals must have received a "Health Canada authorized vaccine, administered in Canada, on or after December 8, 2020."[2:2]
Despite operating under PHAC's purview and funding, the agency "is not involved in individual cases, including in the determination of decisions regarding causality or compensation." Furthermore, "PHAC will never receive disaggregated data on details on the nature of injuries for which claims are being submitted or approved from RCGT and Québec."[2:3] The Province of Québec administers its own Vaccine Injury Compensation Program through the Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ).[2:4][5]
Statistics
Data on VISP is updated twice a year. The most recent update includes data up to December 1, 2024.[6] Neither the Wayback Machine,[7] Archive.today[8] or the Ghost Archive[9] are able to capture or display the data.
VISP Data - December 1, 2024
| Total number of claims received | 3060 |
|---|---|
| Number of claims pending review for eligibility | 435 |
| Number of claims with review completed | 2625 |
| Number of claims deemed inadmissible | 303 |
| Number of claims deemed admissable | 2322 |
| Number of claims in process of collecting medical records | 855 |
| Number of claims pending assessment by the Medical Review Board | 47 |
| Number of claims that have been assessed by the Medical Review Board | 1049 |
| Number of claims approved by the Medical Review Board | 209 |
| Number of appeals received | 328 |
| Number of appeals assessed by the Medical Review Board | 90 |
| Number of appeals approved by the Medical Review Board | 10 |
| Total amount of compensation approved | $16,674,972 |
External links
McIntosh, A., & Jarvis, C. (2025, July 2). Canada set up a $50M vaccine injury program. Those harmed say it’s failing them. Global News. https://globalnews.ca/news/11247648/covid-vaccine-injury-program-visp-oxaro-workplace-phac-2/ ↩︎
Government of Canada. (2023, April 19). Inquiry of Ministry Q-1416 - Vaccine Injury Support Program. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/inquiry-of-ministry-q-1416-vaccine-injury-support-program ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Jones, A. M. (2020, December 10). Canada to implement its first national vaccine injury compensation program. CTV News. http://archive.today/2020.12.11-171133/https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/canada-to-implement-its-first-national-vaccine-injury-compensation-program-1.5226609 ↩︎
Public Health Agency of Canada. (2022, December 28). Understanding Canada’s Vaccine Injury Support Program: Public Health Agency of Canada Vaccine Confidence Webinar Series. Government of Canada. http://archive.today/2023.06.06-185111/https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/immunization-vaccines/vaccination-webinars-webcasts-health-professionals/understanding-vaccine-injury-support-program.html ↩︎
Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. (2023, May 31). Gouvernement du Québec. https://web.archive.org/web/20230606192448/https://www.quebec.ca/en/health/advice-and-prevention/vaccination/vaccine-injury-compensation-program#c3895 ↩︎
Program Statistics. Vaccine Injury Support Program. Retrieved July 3, 2025, from https://vaccineinjurysupport.ca/en/program-statistics ↩︎
Program Statistics. Vaccine Injury Support Program. Retrieved May 10, 2023, from https://web.archive.org/web/20230510192718/https://vaccineinjurysupport.ca/en/program-statistics ↩︎
Program Statistics. Vaccine Injury Support Program. Retrieved June 6, 2023, from http://archive.today/2023.06.06-191145/https://vaccineinjurysupport.ca/en/program-statistics ↩︎
Program Statistics. Vaccine Injury Support Program. Retrieved June 6, 2023, from https://ghostarchive.org/archive/M2fy6 ↩︎
Open Records Disclosures
Liam Sturgess
Further reading
Andrew McIntosh