What PHAC Actually Put on the Record About COVID-19 Deaths by Vaccination Status

 Researched and written by ChatGPT

When MP Cathay Wagantall asked for straight answers, the federal government tabled them in writing. The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) provided average weekly death counts by vaccination status for three windows in summer 2022. These are not rumours or blogs; this is the formal return to Order Paper Question Q-2741. NationBuilder

The Numbers PHAC Reported (Crude Counts)

PHAC’s own summary (their wording, my emphasis): during June–August 2022 they changed the vaccination-status categories on their epidemiology page, creating gaps (June 28–July 4 and July 19–24). They also stress these are crude numbers—no denominators, no age stratification. Translation: you can’t infer risk from these totals alone. NationBuilder

What’s inside those charts comes straight from PHAC’s return:

• June 13–27, 2022 (average weekly deaths):

Unvaccinated 23.3; Not yet protected 1; Partially vaccinated 8.3; Fully vaccinated (primary) 73.3; Fully vaccinated + additional dose 144.

• July 4–18, 2022:

Unvaccinated 13; Fully vaccinated (primary) 23.5; Fully + one additional dose 63; Fully + two or more additional doses 20.

• July 25–Aug 29, 2022:

Unvaccinated 28.7; Primary series completed 7; Primary + one additional dose 109.3; Primary + two or more additional doses 46.3. NationBuilder

PHAC adds a defensive line referencing their August 2022 claim that the unvaccinated were “8× more likely to die” than those with a primary series plus an additional dose. That’s rate language—but the tables they provided to Parliament are counts. Mixing the two is how confusion happens. NationBuilder

What These Totals Do—and Don’t—Tell Us

Let’s be precise.

1. These counts show where most deaths occurred, not who was at higher risk. If a group is massive (e.g., “primary + one dose” covered about half the country at the time), you expect more total deaths in that bucket even if individual risk is lower. PHAC itself spells this out in their caveats. NationBuilder

2. PHAC changed category definitions mid-summer and admits data gaps. That matters for week-to-week comparison and any trend claims. NationBuilder

3. The return doesn’t separate death with COVID from death by COVID, doesn’t stratify by age/comorbidity, and doesn’t show time-since-dose—all crucial for risk interpretation. In other words, the dataset is intentionally non-diagnostic. NationBuilder

The Accountability Gap

Wagantall’s broader questions—excess mortality spikes in younger Canadians, communications “winning strategies,” and discrepancies in the “ill-defined causes of death” category—weren’t substantively resolved in the return. The Privy Council simply reported “no information found” on the alleged memo, and PHAC didn’t fill the holes on youth excess deaths or the mortality-category discrepancy. That’s not transparency; it’s box-ticking. NationBuilder

Bottom Line

PHAC has the information that would settle this—denominators by age and health status, stable categories, and rate tables matched to those denominators. Instead, they tabled crude counts and pointed elsewhere to an “8× risk” talking point. That’s not how you earn trust.

If you want to be taken seriously, publish the full, age-adjusted rates for each vaccination group for the exact same weeks, with stable definitions and no gaps. Anything less is posturing.