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COVID-19

Canadian gov’t admits it gambled in deal with COVID vaccine maker that lost $150 million

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

A contract with Medicago Inc. called for 76 million doses of its own COVID shot to be made, but not one was ever delivered.

Canada’s Public Works department admitted that it took a massive gamble with taxpayer money that resulted in a loss of $150 million of taxpayer money after Quebec-based Medicago Inc.’s plan to build a COVID jab factory using federal funding failed to materialize.

On Monday, the Department of Public Works said it took a “risk” in subsidizing Medicago’s factory, which of note is in the Québec City riding of its own Minister Jean-Yves Duclos.

“We took a risk of putting contracts with various suppliers for enough vaccines for all Canadians,” admitted Joelle Paquette, who serves as the director general with the public works department while testifying before the House of Commons health committee on Monday.

Medicago’s failed contract called for 76 million doses of its own COVID jab to be made. However, not one was ever delivered. Medicago is a subsidiary of Japan-based Mitsubishi Chemical Group.

Last month, LifeSiteNews reported on how the House of Commons health committee has been demanding answers into how more than $300 million of taxpayer money was lost on failed COVID jab ventures with pharmaceutical companies.

It was recently revealed that the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) lost $150 million on an unfulfilled COVID jab contract with an undisclosed entity in 2022. In addition, $173 million given to Medicago Inc., which said it would be shutting down in 2023 due to a failed development of its own plant-based COVID shot, is now lost.

Health Canada only approved mRNA-based COVID shots made in other countries, such as Pfizer’s and Moderna’s, as well as one from Johnson & Johnson.

In September, Health Canada approved a revised Moderna mRNA-based COVID shot despite research showing that 1 in 35 recipients of the booster ended up with myocardial damage.

In 2021, Duclos had gloated to the House of Commons that he had the “privilege of having Medicago in my riding.”

In reply, Paquette said, “Medicago owns the intellectual property.”

Perkins said that it is “just unbelievable” how the failed contract was allowed to proceed, with apparently no accountability.

Paquette admitted that the contact was not normal.

“We did not know at the time which vaccines would actually be authorized,” said Paquette, adding that there was “no vaccine that existed at the time we put these contracts in place. We took a risk.”

Andrea Andrachuk, another director general with the Department of Public Works, said that the $150 million was given to Medicago under a 2020 Advance Purchase Agreement. However, this contract was voided after Medicago announced last February that it was closing the plant.

Andrachuk noted how “Medicago was also facing product challenges and delivery date challenges” and that talks were underway to “revisit the contract.”

“The parent company Mitsubishi announced it was going to discontinue its activities in North America,” she said.

However, as part of the payment terms, a “150 million non-refundable advance payment” was made to Japan-based Medicago in “accordance with the Advance Purchase Agreement,” Andrachuk added.

“Medicago met all terms for the payment,” Andrachuk noted.

However, MPs were told that the terms of the Advance Purchase Agreement were secret. This prompted Bloc Québécois MP Julie Vignola to ask, “Could you tell us something about those conditions?”

In response, Andrachuk said, “No I cannot,” claiming that at the time there was “a lot of risk.”

“We didn’t know which vaccines if any would get Health Canada approval and even if they did, when they would be available,” Andrachuk claimed.

The government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spent some $8 billion on vaccines, with Pfizer alone getting a large chunk of that money. Health Canada ordered 238 million COVID injections from Pfizer Canada, which includes some 30 million for 2023 and 2024.

LifeSiteNews recently reported on how the details of the Canadian federal government’s COVID-19 vaccine contract with Pfizer for millions of doses of the mRNA-based experimental shots was recently disclosed after been hidden for over three years.

The contract with Pfizer shows the government agreed to accept the unknown long-term safety and efficacy of the shots. The details of the Pfizer contract do not disclose how much the government spent on the jabs.

The Trudeau government also signed COVID-19 contracts with AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Medicago, Moderna, Novavax, and Sanofi. According to industry rates, the average price of a shot when sold to the United States was $19.50.

Trudeau’s government pushed COVID jabs on people with help of provincial governments

The COVID shots were heavily promoted by the Trudeau government, with the help of all provincial governments. During the so-called COVID pandemic, Trudeau referred to those who chose not to get the experimental COVID shots as terrible people.

In 2021, Trudeau said Canadians “vehemently opposed to vaccination” do “not believe in science,” are “often misogynists, often racists,” and questioned whether Canada should continue to “tolerate these people.”

In April, he came under fire after claiming he did not “force” anyone to take the COVID-19 shots.

There is mounting evidence that mRNA-based COVID injections carry extreme risks, including for children.

A recent study done by researchers at the Canada-based Correlation Research in the Public Interest  found that 17 countries have a “definite causal link” between peaks in all-cause mortality and the fast rollouts of the COVID shots and boosters.

LifeSiteNews reported last month how the Polyomavirus Simian Virus 40 (SV40), which is a monkey-linked DNA sequence known to cause cancer when it was used in old polio vaccines, has been confirmed by Health Canada to be present in the Pfizer COVID shot, a fact that was not disclosed by the vaccine maker to officials.

Canada’s Conservative Party, although silent early on during the COVID crisis, later came out opposing COVID mandates.

A recent bill championed by party leader Pierre Poilievre that would have given Canadians back their “bodily autonomy” by banning future jab mandates was voted down after Trudeau’s Liberals and other parties rejected it.

Adverse effects from the first round of COVID shots have resulted in a growing number of Canadians filing for financial compensation over injuries from the jabs via the federal Vaccine Injury Program (VISP).

VISP has already paid over $6 million to those injured by COVID injections, with 2,000 claims remaining to be settled.

COVID-19

Freedom Convoy leader slams Canadian gov’t agency for praising its treatment of protesters

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Tamara Lich begs to differ with the Department of Public Safety’s claim that it acted with high ‘moral’ standards during the Freedom Convoy protests.

Freedom Convoy leader Tamara Lich is calling out Canada’s Department of Public Safety for “lies” after it boasted via an internal audit that it acted with a high “moral” standard in dealing with the 2022 protest against COVID mandates. 

Lich made the comments on X earlier this week regarding a recent Department of Public Safety internal audit that heaped praise on itself for having “ethics” as well as a “moral compass” in dealing with the 2022 protesters.

The reality is that the self-boasting report comes after it was made known the Department of Public Safety had a role in spreading false claims that the Freedom Convoy was violent and was somehow funded by Russia.

As reported by Blacklock’s Reporter, the audit did not mention the false claims it made against the Freedom Convoy, which were used to allow then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to impose the Emergencies Act (EA) to clear out the protesters.

Indeed, in 2023, as reported by LifeSiteNews, disclosed records showed that Canada’s Department of Public Safety fabricated a security bulletin that claimed the Freedom Convoy protesters had plundered federal office buildings in an apparent attempt to discredit the movement.

The fake bulletin was sent out on January 28, 2022, at 3:54 p.m. and read: “We have received confirmation that protesters have started to enter office buildings in the Ottawa downtown core and are allegedly causing damage.” 

The department’s recent boasting about itself, however, claimed that “(v)alues and ethics serve as a moral compass, guiding and establishing benchmarks for behaviour, decisions, actions and culture within organizations, including the public sector.”

“Federal public servants have a duty to preserve public trust and uphold a professional, non-partisan public service,” the internal audit noted.

Lich: Trudeau officials spread ‘lies, misinformation, disinformation, and division nationwide’

“It revealed a cycle between media and law enforcement, each repeating unverified talking points from the other. Despite widespread support along highways, overpasses, and communities, the CBC and other taxpayer-funded media missed an opportunity to unite Canadians,” she wrote.

Lich believes that Trudeau’s governmental departments “instead” spread “lies, misinformation, disinformation, and division nationwide.”

“Consequently, some of us face regular death threats, hate mail, threats of violence, and public harassment,” she wrote.

“Thankfully, we receive much more love and support, but the damage is done, which is exactly what they were aiming for.”

The sentencing trial for Lich and fellow Freedom Convoy leader Chris Barber took place in July at a hearing. Earlier this year, they were found guilty of mischief in their roles in the 2022 convoy.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, Lich revealed that the Canadian federal government is looking to put her in jail for no less than seven years and Barber for eight years.

A sentencing hearing has been scheduled in their case for October 7 in Ottawa.

The Freedom Convoy protest took place in early 2022 in Ottawa and featured thousands of Canadians calling for an end to COVID mandates. 

In response, Trudeau’s federal government enacted the Emergencies Act on February 14, 2022, to shut down the popular movement.  

Trudeau had disparaged unvaccinated Canadians, saying those opposing his measures were of a “small, fringe minority” who hold “unacceptable views” and do not “represent the views of Canadians who have been there for each other.”  

Trudeau revoked the EA on February 23 after the protesters had been cleared out.  

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COVID-19

Why FDA Was Right To Say No To COVID-19 Vaccines For Healthy Kids

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Monique Yohanan

The FDA’s decision not to authorize COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children has drawn criticism. Some argue: If parents want the shot, why not let them get it for their kids? That argument misunderstands what FDA authorization means — and why it exists.

The FDA often approves drugs that carry risks or have imperfect evidence of effectiveness. This is a tradeoff we sometimes accept for people who are ill: when someone is already sick, the alternative is untreated disease. Vaccines are different. They are given to millions of healthy children. This requires a higher standard, not just evidence for safety and immune response, but clear, durable clinical effectiveness. Approval for optional use isn’t neutral; once the FDA authorizes a vaccine, it carries the full weight of institutional endorsement.

Measles provides an example for how the FDA approaches vaccine approvals. Before the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, the U.S. saw 3 to 4 million infections, ~48,000 hospitalizations, ~1,000 cases of encephalitis, and 400-500 deaths each year. Infants bore the brunt of the most severe outcomes.

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That created a natural instinct: why not vaccinate the youngest and most vulnerable? The initial measles rollout was to 9-month-olds, but within two years that timing was changed to children who were at least 1 year of age. This was not because younger babies were not at risk or that the vaccine was riskier for them, but because it just didn’t work well enough to justify a universal campaign.

The knowledge of the particular risk younger infants face has led to continued research on the effectiveness of measles vaccination in that group. A 2023 trial of the combined measles/mumps/rubella (MMR) vaccine in infants aged 5-7 months, and subsequent safety and immune studies in 2024 and 2025, produced consistent results—safety and the ability to generate antibodies were demonstrated, but a durable response and protection against hospitalization were not.

That is why the FDA does not approve MMR for routine use in healthy children younger than 12 months of age. It is also precisely why getting back to herd immunity for measles is so essential: the youngest infants can only be protected if the rest of us are immunized.

What’s the evidence for COVID-19 vaccination in infants and children? It generates robust antibodies, often higher than in adults. But clinical benefits are modestshort-lived, and inconsistent. It is nowhere near the level of proof U.S. regulators require before making a vaccine universally available to healthy kids.

Some argue that even if benefits are modest, parents and pediatricians should be free to choose. But FDA authorization is not about personal preference; it is a stamp of approval for more than 70 million healthy children. Statistical safety is not enough. At that scale, even rare risks mean real harm to real children. COVID-19 vaccines were originally authorized in the hope that immune responses would translate into population-level benefits. For healthy children, the initial optimism sparked by early encouraging signals has steadily given way to three years of disappointing clinical results.

The lessons from measles are clear: safe but minimally effective isn’t enough. We don’t authorize MMR for 5-month-olds, even to parents who might want their children to get it. COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children should be judged similarly. This is not because there is a lack of any benefit, but because it doesn’t rise to the level we use for other vaccines. Only if and when proof of clinical effectiveness becomes available should authorization be reconsidered. At this time, the FDA is right to say no.

Monique Yohanan, MD, MPH, is a senior fellow at Independent Women, a physician executive and healthcare innovation leader, and Chief Medical Officer at Adia Health.

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