Excess deaths continue to be a significant problem in Canada, according to a study conducted by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF). .“More people are dying than statisticians had expected,” said the JCCF in a report. .“And yet, excess deaths no longer occupy the attention of politicians, public health officials, media or the broader Canadian public.” .The JCCF said deaths “matter, whether they can be attributed to an epidemiological emergency or not, and deaths are particularly concerning when mortality rates are higher than expected.”.It added Canadian reporting agencies, politicians and health authorities should care about every death, especially when they are data points in unexpected, unexplained mortality rates. .Excess deaths in Canada increased by 75% in 2022 over 2021. A reported 38,500 of them occurred in 2022, and 16,300 were attributed to COVID-19. .Excess mortality rates were particularly high among Canadians aged 0-44 and 45-64. .The JCCF said the problem is more significant than excess deaths. With respect to causes of death, it said 24% of 2022 deaths have been classified as information unavailable or ill-defined or unknown causes. .Statistics Canada has not released its annual tables on detailed causes of death for 2021 as of June. It alleged the causes of a significant number of deaths have not been explored by statistical agencies. .The JCCF concluded by saying democracies do not function without access to data. It said people “must have access to vital statistics if they are to be expected to trust and accept government interventions of the kind seen during the COVID-19 pandemic.” .“Governments, reporting bodies and statistical agencies must begin to capture data about excess deaths and investigate their causes,” it said. .Former University of Ottawa physicist Denis Rancourt told the National Citizens Inquiry in June Alberta’s excess mortality during COVID-19 times differed from that of Ontario and Quebec and went up after vaccines. .READ MORE: Physicist tackles Alberta excess deaths for NCI.Rancourt said Canadian excess mortality had six spikes in the pandemic era. .The first spike followed dramatic lockdown measures in 2020, and others correlated with COVID-19 vaccine rollouts. The only exception was the fourth spike, which was associated with a heat wave in British Columbia.
