THE OLD GUARDIAN
theoldguardian.ca | Independent Investigative Journalism
Five parts of primary source documentation. Six comparison entries. What Health Canada’s internal records show regulators knew, and what Canadians were told instead. The gap is documented. The documents are public. What happens next is a choice.
By Chris Allen | The Old Guardian | September 2026
Primary source: ATI Release A-2025-001410, Health Canada, July 15, 2026
On November 22, 2022, Anthony Fauci stood at the White House podium for the final time before his planned retirement. A reporter asked about the congressional oversight hearings expected from the incoming Republican majority. Fauci’s response was unambiguous.
‘We can defend and explain and stand by everything that we’ve said. So I have nothing to hide.’
On July 29, 2026, Fauci appeared before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee under subpoena. He invoked the Fifth Amendment more than one hundred times. He declined to answer what day it was. He declined to answer what colour tie he was wearing. He declined to state what colour the carpet in the committee room was. The Homeland Security Committee voted to hold him in contempt of Congress. He subsequently declined a voluntary appearance before a second Senate panel.
On August 18, 2026, Dr. David Morens, Fauci’s senior adviser at NIAID, pleaded guilty in federal court to plotting to conceal COVID-19 research records during the pandemic. The Department of Justice alleged he had used his personal email account to intentionally circumvent public records laws and concealed or destroyed records related to COVID-19 research grants.
Fauci was not charged in the Morens case. The guilty plea is Morens’. The contempt proceeding and the text message accountability questions are separate Fauci threads.
Together they form an institutional portrait that does not require editorial comment. A man who said he had nothing to hide. Surrounded, by 2026, by a contempt finding, a guilty plea from his senior adviser, and 34,000 text messages still being reviewed by Senate investigators -- including a January 25, 2021 message in which he privately told the CDC Director that the vaccine ‘theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester’ while publicly saying there were no red flags.
This is the opening of Part 6 not because this series is about Anthony Fauci. It is not. It is about what happened in Canada.
It opens here because Canadian public health policy was downstream of American decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic. When Fauci said masks were unnecessary in February 2020, Canadian public health messaging reflected that. When the six-foot rule became American policy, it became Canadian policy within days. NACI guidance tracked CDC guidance closely. The policy transmission belt between Washington and Ottawa operated in real time.
The architect of the American policy framework that Canadian guidance was downstream of is now the subject of contempt proceedings, while his senior adviser has pleaded guilty to records destruction. Canadian parliamentarians have never been asked to account for what Canadian guidance adopted from that institutional environment.
That question belongs in this piece. So do the documents.
The Comparison: Six Entries
What follows is a direct comparison of specific public statements against specific internal findings from ATI Release A-2025-001410. Each entry is sourced. Each internal finding is verbatim or closely paraphrased from the documents. No editorial conclusion is appended. The comparison speaks.
ENTRY 1 -- MYOCARDITIS
Public -- June 3, 2021 -- Health Canada / PHAC communique to health practitioners:
‘No clear association has been established between myocarditis/pericarditis and mRNA vaccines, and to date, no regulatory action has been taken in Canada or internationally.’
Internal -- May 15, 2021 -- Health Canada SMSR review (ATI p.62):
Health Canada’s internal assessment concluded: ‘A possible link between the second vaccine dose and the onset of myocarditis among young men aged 16 to 30.’ Three deaths in the global case series. 70% of cases within 7 days of second dose. Israel confirmed rate higher than background in young males.
Gap: Internal conclusion of possible link -- May 15, 2021. Public communication that no clear association established -- June 3, 2021. Nineteen days.
ENTRY 2 -- PREGNANCY SAFETY
Public -- Throughout 2021-2022 -- Health Canada and PHAC communications:
COVID-19 vaccination characterized as safe for pregnant people. No prominent public communication that clinical trial data for pregnant women was absent.
Internal -- Health Canada pregnancy ad-hoc review (ATI pp.208, 225, 229, 242, 271):
‘The safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines have been demonstrated in adults across a range of demographics, except on pregnant and lactating women due to the protection by exclusion during the clinical development stages.’ No observed versus expected analysis for Comirnaty pregnancy outcomes. Canada not tracking vaccination status by pregnancy at population level. Pregnancy registry request to Pfizer -- declined. Health Canada accepted.
Gap: Pregnant women excluded from trials, vaccinated on extrapolated evidence, no O/E analysis, no population tracking, registry declined -- none of this communicated to pregnant Canadians with the clarity available in the internal documents.
ENTRY 3 -- SURVEILLANCE RIGOR
Public -- Throughout authorization period:
Post-market surveillance described as ongoing and rigorous. No public communication about reduction in monitoring intensity or removal of specific reporting requirements.
Internal -- BBRS Signal Tracking document, multiple entries (ATI Excel file, ATI pp.329, 349, 365):
Fatal reports observed versus expected analysis removed from monthly bivalent reporting at Pfizer’s request. Health Canada accepted. Monthly safety report requirement for all Comirnaty DINs formally closed May 29, 2023 -- internal memo language: ‘Repeal/close the following Ts&Cs: The requirement to submit monthly safety reports for all DINs within the authorized Comirnaty product line.’ Standard drug reporting applied by 2023.
Gap: Surveillance intensity was progressively negotiated down through bilateral exchanges with Pfizer and formally wound down by May 2023. This was not communicated to Canadians as a change in oversight.
ENTRY 4 -- THE DATA GAP
Public -- No public communication on this specific gap:
No Health Canada or PHAC public statement disclosed that real-time CAEFISS adverse event data was unavailable to Health Canada during the rollout.
Internal -- Health Canada internal pharmacovigilance review, June 2022 (ATI p.198):
‘A detailed description of the adverse events reported to CAEFISS is not currently available to Health Canada.’ 58,112,512 Comirnaty doses administered in Canada at this date. Two federal agencies. One national adverse event surveillance database. Unavailable to the regulator responsible for vaccine safety assessment in real time.
Gap: This finding was never publicly disclosed. It exists only in the internal document obtained through ATI Release A-2025-001410.
ENTRY 5 -- PEDIATRIC AUTHORIZATION
Public -- Authorization communications for children 6 months to 4 years:
Authorization presented as based on available evidence. No prominent public communication that no primary series clinical trial data existed for this age group.
Internal -- Health Canada internal RMP review memo (ATI p.392):
‘While clinical data for the use of Comirnaty Original and Omicron BA.4/BA.5 vaccine as a primary series is not yet available, based on extrapolation of clinical data from its use as a booster dose.’ Terms and Conditions for this age group were not finalized at the time of authorization -- Pfizer’s response to proposed terms was documented internally as ‘not acceptable,’ content ‘under negotiation.’
Gap: Youngest Canadians authorized on extrapolated data with no primary series clinical trial data, before safety commitments were finalized. Current Comirnaty Product Monograph (August 10, 2026) states safety is ‘inferred primarily’ from older population data. Confirmed in two independent primary sources.
ENTRY 6 -- THE CANADA-US TRANSMISSION BELT
Public -- Throughout pandemic period:
Canadian public health guidance presented as independently derived from Canadian evidence. No public communication that guidance was substantially downstream of American institutional decisions.
Internal -- Multiple primary sources, 2020-2026:
NACI guidance tracked CDC guidance closely throughout the pandemic. The six-foot rule, masking guidance, and vaccine safety communications all reflected American institutional positions with minimal lag. Fauci privately flagged first trimester miscarriage risk January 25, 2021 -- same period Health Canada internally flagged pregnancy as special monitoring category. American policy was made by an official who invoked the Fifth Amendment 100 times rather than defend those decisions under oath. His senior adviser pleaded guilty to records destruction.
Gap: Canadians were never told that the guidance shaping their lives originated substantially from an American institutional environment whose principal decision-maker will not defend his decisions under oath. Canadian parliamentarians have never been asked to account for what Canadian policy adopted from that environment.
The Government’s Response
On September 16, 2026, The Old Guardian sent a formal media request to the Office of Federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel, care of press secretary Emmanuelle Ducharme. The request summarized the five primary findings documented in this series and asked four specific questions:
Whether Health Canada acknowledges the CAEFISS data sharing gap documented in its own June 2022 internal review, and what steps have been taken to address it.
Whether the Minister has a response to the documented internal conclusion of a possible myocarditis link in May 2021 and the public communication that no clear association had been established nineteen days later.
What the Minister’s response is to the testimony of fifty Canadians at the Allison Inquiry, several of whose described injuries are consistent with adverse event categories tracked in Health Canada’s own internal pharmacovigilance records.
Whether the Minister supports a formal parliamentary inquiry into Health Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine pharmacovigilance conduct.
A response was requested by September 25, 2026.
[ This section will be updated with the Minister’s response or with documentation of non-response upon the September 25 deadline. ]
Three Data Points: An Institutional Portrait
The accountability record assembled in this series is Canadian. It is built on Canadian government documents, Canadian regulatory processes, and Canadian compensation program failures. It does not require the American accountability record to stand.
But the American record exists. And because Canadian policy was downstream of American decisions, it belongs in any complete accounting of what happened.
Three documented events. No editorial interpretation required.
November 22, 2022
‘We can defend and explain and stand by everything that we’ve said. So I have nothing to hide.’ -- Anthony Fauci, White House podium, final appearance before retirement. On the record. Unprompted.
July 29, 2026
Fauci appeared under subpoena before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. He invoked the Fifth Amendment more than one hundred times. He declined to answer what day it was. Senator Josh Hawley asked him what colour tie he was wearing. Fifth Amendment. What colour is the carpet. Fifth Amendment. The committee voted to hold him in contempt. He subsequently declined voluntary appearance before a second panel. A man with a sweeping presidential pardon who still would not answer questions on the record.
August 18, 2026
Dr. David Morens, Fauci’s senior adviser at NIAID, pleaded guilty in federal court to plotting to conceal COVID-19 research records. The Department of Justice alleged he used his personal email account to intentionally circumvent public records laws and concealed or destroyed records related to COVID-19 research grants including an effort to revive a controversial coronavirus grant. Source: Associated Press, August 18, 2026.
The man who said he had nothing to hide is surrounded, by 2026, by a contempt finding, a guilty plea from his senior adviser, and 34,000 text messages still under review. Canadian policy was downstream of his decisions. Canadian parliamentarians have never been asked to account for what they adopted from that environment.
The Human Record
The documents in this series are 2,460 pages. The people in this section are not pages. They are Canadians whose experiences are consistent with the documented failures this series has mapped across five previous parts. They testified publicly under their own names at the Allison Inquiry in September 2026. Their accounts are part of the public record.
Cameron Hitchcock
Twenty-nine years old. Active and healthy. Second Pfizer dose, 2021. Diagnosed with nephrotic syndrome. Five months in hospital. Kidney failure. Dialysis six days a week. Waiting for a transplant. He arranged his dialysis schedule around travelling to Ottawa to testify. His Vaccine Injury Support Program claim was approved -- making him one of 252 Canadians the government acknowledged as vaccine-injured out of 3,557 who applied. He is recognized. He arranged dialysis around a trip to Parliament Hill because no formal accountability mechanism existed to hear him publicly.
Michael Oesch
He walked across Canada. Thousands of kilometres on foot. Fourth COVID dose, October 2022. Thirty-six hours later, walking with his granddaughter, his leg began dragging. Eventually he could not lift it. Severe neurological problems and spasms. An MRI revealed a 2.8 centimetre lesion near the top of his spinal cord close to his brain. He lost the ability to walk. He now lives in long-term care. His Vaccine Injury Support Program claim was denied. He walked across Canada. Now he can’t walk. His VISP claim was denied.
Jamie Daniel
She spent her career as a medical professional helping people in emergencies. Following COVID-19 vaccination she developed severe neurological symptoms. She was repeatedly dismissed. Called a drug seeker. Eventually diagnosed with transverse myelitis. While hospitalized, in severe pain, asking for help, a psychologist was brought in to discuss MAiD. She was in her early thirties. She had two young children at home. ‘I was asking for help,’ she told the inquiry. ‘And instead, they offered to euthanize me.’
Scott Gorry
A former parliamentary staffer. He developed myocarditis following COVID-19 vaccination. He wanted to testify at the Allison Inquiry. He died on July 4, 2026 before he could. His sister Dr. Crystal Luchkiw testified in his place. She told the inquiry he had wanted his story told. She was telling it for him.
These four Canadians. Their injuries are consistent with the adverse event categories documented in Health Canada’s internal pharmacovigilance records obtained through ATI Release A-2025-001410. The surveillance system that was supposed to detect what happened to them had documented gaps before they received their doses. The compensation system that was supposed to acknowledge their injuries produced different outcomes for each of them -- one approved, one denied, one still waiting, one dead before he could testify.
The Accounting
More than thirty democratic countries, including most G7 and Commonwealth nations, have launched major COVID-19 inquiries examining lockdowns, mandates, vaccines, and government decision-making. The United Kingdom. Australia. New Zealand. Ireland. Sweden. Denmark.
Canada has not.
The closest Canada came was four days in September 2026. A privately organized forum. Volunteer effort. No government funding. No subpoena power. No findings of fact. Fifty witnesses out of 1,400 who came forward. Built by a Conservative MP, a constitutional lawyer, and their wives, asking each other whether they were supposed to do this.
When the federal Health Minister’s office was asked for comment on the Allison Inquiry’s testimony, the documented response was: ‘Vaccines are safe and effective and they save lives. We have no comment on the Allison Inquiry.’
That was the Government of Canada’s official response to fifty Canadians testifying publicly about life-altering injuries.
The documents are a different response. They are Health Canada’s own internal records. They show what regulators knew and when. They show what was communicated to the public and when. They show the gap between those two things, documented in the regulator’s own language, never intended for public release.
That gap is not a conspiracy. It does not require bad faith to explain. It requires institutional incentives, regulatory capture, the financial architecture of pharmaceutical development, and the political incentives of pandemic management -- operating in a system that was not designed with sufficient transparency to allow the public to know what its regulators were concluding internally.
The documents are now public. ATI file A-2025-001410. Released July 15, 2026. Available on request.
Canada has yet to undertake any parliamentary inquiry into COVID-19. More than thirty democratic countries have. The Allison Inquiry was four days. The Health Minister had no comment. The documents exist.
Cameron Hitchcock is on dialysis six days a week. Michael Oesch lives in long-term care. Jamie Daniel was offered MAiD while asking for help. Scott Gorry wanted to testify and died before he could.
The documents show what the surveillance system was designed to catch. The documents show what the surveillance system was not designed to catch. The documents show what the compensation system did with the people who fell through the gap.
This is the accounting.
What comes next is a choice that belongs to Parliament, to the Minister of Health, and to the Canadians who read these documents and decide what they mean.
The Old Guardian has documented the record. The record is now public. What happens next is not our choice to make.
It is yours.
About This Series
What They Knew is a six-part investigative series published by The Old Guardian between September 8 and September 2026. The series is built entirely on ATI Release A-2025-001410 -- 2,460 pages of Health Canada’s internal COVID-19 vaccine pharmacovigilance documents and 81 Excel files released by Health Canada on July 15, 2026, in response to a request filed by The Old Guardian under the federal Access to Information Act.
All claims in this series are sourced to named primary documents with specific page references. No claim was published without a primary source anchor. The sourcing standard is documented in each part’s editor’s notes.
The series does not claim that COVID-19 vaccines caused mass harm. It documents the gap between what regulatory records show and what the public was told -- and the data architecture failures that made independent verification of that gap impossible from available public information.
The full ATI release is available to journalists, researchers, and parliamentarians on request. Contact: tips@theoldguardian.ca
Primary Sources
ATI Release A-2025-001410
Health Canada, July 15, 2026. 2,460-page PDF and 81 Excel files. All internal citations in this series reference this release.
Comirnaty Product Monograph (August 10, 2026, Control Number 300388)
Current authorized Canadian product label. Independently corroborates ATI findings on myocarditis labelling (October 2024 update) and pediatric authorization evidence base.
Fauci text messages (August 10, 2026)
Released by Senators Ron Johnson and Rand Paul from Fauci’s government iPhone, produced by HHS. Source: ronjohnson.senate.gov. Confirmed by CBS News, The Hill, Newsweek.
Morens guilty plea (August 18, 2026)
Federal court. Source: Associated Press, August 18, 2026. CTV News.
Fauci White House statement (November 22, 2022)
White House press briefing transcript. Public record.
Senate Homeland Security hearing (July 29, 2026)
Fauci Fifth Amendment invocations and Hawley exchange. Confirmed by multiple wire services.
Allison Inquiry public testimony (September 8-11, 2026)
Cameron Hitchcock, Michael Oesch, Jamie Daniel, Dr. Crystal Luchkiw for Scott Gorry. All named witnesses testifying publicly under their own names. Public record.
Schmeling et al. 2023
Batch-dependent safety of BNT162b2. European Journal of Clinical Investigation. DOI: 10.1111/eci.13998.
Minister Michel media request (September 16, 2026)
Sent to emmanuelle.ducharme@hc-sc.gc.ca. Response requested by September 25, 2026. This section will be updated with response or documented non-response.
The Old Guardian -- theoldguardian.ca -- is an independent investigative outlet based in Toronto, Ontario. What They Knew was researched, reported, and written by Chris Allen.
Tips, corrections, and source contact: tips@theoldguardian.ca
The Old Guardian | theoldguardian.ca | tips@theoldguardian.ca | ATI File: A-2025-001410 | What They Knew -- Complete