Auditor General’s Report | Millions of doses of vaccine wasted in the country

(Ottawa) The federal government has embarked on the country’s “largest mass vaccination program in history” during the pandemic. Through agreements with seven manufacturers, he was able to secure enough vaccine doses to protect the population against COVID-19, but his efforts to reduce waste were “unsuccessful”.

This is what the Auditor General of Canada, Karen Horgan, finds in her report tabled on Tuesday. In all, 169 million doses were paid for between December 2020 and May 2022. Of this number, the Auditor General notes that 13.6 million have reached their expiry date before being given to other countries and that a still undetermined number could remain unused by the end of the year.

As of May 31, 2022, federal, provincial and territorial vaccine stocks totaled 32.5 million doses worth $1 billion. Most will reach their expiry date at the end of December if they are not used for booster doses.

The Public Health Agency of Canada was unable “to adequately track excess and wasted vaccines” after the vaccines were delivered.

“A lack of data-sharing agreements with provinces and territories has hampered the Agency’s ability to collect information on inventory, wastage and expiry of COVID-19 vaccine doses” , writes Karen Horgan in her report. She also notes that delays in implementing a vaccine management information system played a role.

In the absence of complete data, “the status of these doses was unknown, reducing the Agency’s ability to forecast needs and plan donations. At the time of the audit, 84 million doses had been administered in the country and 50.6 million were considered surplus.

Of these excess doses, 21.7 million could add to the number of wasted doses if they are not distributed through the international donation program. Canada had donated 15.3 million doses by the end of May.

The Auditor General also reviewed the expedited process for licensing vaccines and concluded that it exhibited the “same level of diligence” as the usual process.

Hurry up

Federal government may run out of time to recover $4.6 billion in overpaid benefits during pandemic Canada Revenue Agency has 36 months after payment to verify individual’s eligibility for COVID-related program -19 unless she has reason to believe that a person has made a false statement.

In addition to the overpayments, the Auditor General believes that “more careful consideration should be given to payments totaling at least $27.4 billion made to individuals and employers.”

She points out that efforts to recover “amounts have been limited”. The Canada Revenue Agency has limited itself to responding to calls from people who wanted to make a voluntary refund, which has allowed it to collect 2.3 billion in overpaid benefits as of the summer of 2022.

The Press reported last week that the Canada Revenue Agency wants to recover $3.2 billion overpaid under the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and other personal assistance programs set up during the early pandemic month – Canada Emergency Student Benefit and Canada Recovery Benefit. Since May, 825,000 collection notices have been sent.