Civil Rights Group Concerned About Excess Deaths and Lack of Data, Interest in Topic

People are seen in silhouette while walking along the shore of Lake Ontario on Oct. 5, 2022. Alex Lupul/The Canadian Press

A civil rights advocacy group known for fighting COVID-19 public health restrictions in court says not enough is being done to examine the current phenomena of excess mortality in the country.

In its report “The rise of excess and unexplained deaths in Canada” published on Aug. 25, the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) raises a number of questions about an issue for which there are currently few answers.

The report points to lagging reporting from Statistics Canada on causes of deaths and says there is a lack of interest from government agencies in investigating what is causing excess mortality.

Excess mortality takes place when there are more deaths than expected according to trends and modelling.

The report notes how governments reacted to COVID-19 by providing daily death counts and imposing harsh restrictions to prevent deaths. Meanwhile, excess deaths continue to be high and yet “no longer occupy the attention of politicians, public health officials, media, or the broader Canadian public.”

“Excess deaths appear to be ‘out of sight, out of mind,’” it says.

The JCCF says Canadians do not have access to any “comprehensive analysis” of the “approximately 79,000 unexplained deaths that occurred in 2022,” and questions why so many deaths don’t have a cause assigned.

“What are the scientific, institutional, and political causes behind this failure to capture and understand Canadian data?”

The group, which has fought multiple court cases involving vaccine mandates and lockdown orders, says citizens need to 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.”

The Epoch Times reached out to Statistics Canada but didn’t immediately hear back.

‘Causal Link’

The JCCF does not come to any conclusion about what could be the causes of excess mortality, instead emphasizing the need for more data and investigations.

“The Justice Centre is not in a position to comment on actual causes of 2022 excess deaths,” JCCF Director of Communications Luke Neilson told The Epoch Times.

However, it notes that Statistics Canada’s excess mortality estimate increased 75 percent from 2021 to 2022, from 21,094 excess deaths in 2021 to 36,979 in 2022.

While not expressing any opinion on the cause of excess mortality, the JCCF report presents a graph, drawn from Statistics Canada data, which shows that around the fall of 2021, the cumulative excess mortality estimate started to overtake the cumulative COVID-19 mortality.

This coincides with the imposition of vaccination mandates and passports, but the JCCF doesn’t draw any inference.

“We are not in position to identify a causal link between vaccination rates or the implementation of vaccine passports on downstream excess deaths,” said Mr. Neilson.

“We are simply proposing that statistical agencies and governments should take seriously the possibility of a causal link between COVID-19 pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions.”

Mr. Neilson added that excess mortality is an important matter and that governments and health authorities should examine what is causing the “alarming rise.”

The Epoch Times has conducted previous investigations into the matter, and health authorities have attributed the higher rate of excess mortality among young people to drug overdoses. Some data, however, show that that doesn’t explain the whole story.

Data covering the period January 2020 to June 2023 out of the University of Toronto looks at excess mortality among the 0–44 age group after subtracting excess deaths attributable to toxic drugs, heat waves, suicides, and accidents. It shows that this group experienced 18 percent excess mortality, compared to 9 percent for all ages.