After months of hearings in nearly every province, Canada’s National Citizens Inquiry (NCI) on Tuesday released its final 643-page report on the country’s COVID-19 response, addressing the societal impacts of lockdowns, school closures, mask and vaccine mandates and other measures.

The report, compiled by four independent commissioners, included nearly 5,000 additional pages of testimony from hundreds of people who experienced adverse vaccine reactions, destruction of their livelihoods and education, diminished mental health, damaged reputations, professional discipline and/or censorship, according to True North.

The report contained over 80 pages of recommendations for lawmakers, public institutions and citizens, and called for the establishment of a National Crisis Oversight Council that would serve as an “independent, multidisciplinary body tasked with monitoring, policing and investigating government actions during crises,” including pandemics.

In an online press conference announcing the report, NCI commissioners and others discussed the division and suffering the pandemic measures caused, the failure of institutions to serve citizens, and the overreach of government authority that violated rights and freedoms.

They emphasized the importance of unity, open dialogue, accountability and active democratic participation to heal as a nation.

In his opening comments, NCI Commissioner Ken Drysdale, an expert in forensic engineering and investigations, said,

“Our lips may be bloodied, and we may be shamed. But we cannot turn away from the horrors of the past three years. We cannot allow this to happen to our children and grandchildren.”

Commissioner Bernard Massie, Ph.D., author of 138 peer-reviewed papers and owner of 12 patents, said, “One of the greatest dangers to democracy is the tyranny of the majority that has forgotten the primordial importance of truth and liberty grounded in the individual responsibility that cannot and should not be outsourced to the administrative state.”

NCI administrator Ches Crosbie, former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Newfoundland and Labrador, called out Health Canada for approving the COVID-19 vaccines without determining they were safe and effective.

“The expression ‘safe and effective’ is a marketing slogan and a deceptive one,” Crosbie said, adding, “Beyond dispute is that [the] vaccines are adulterated … by the presence of foreign DNA fragments and a sequence from a monkey virus called SV40, suspected of causing cancer.”

Denis Rancourt, Ph.D., co-director of CORRELATION Research in the Public Interest in Canada, told The Defender the NCI report “is a masterful in-depth examination of the COVID response in Canada and the world.”

“Through hundreds of testimonies and thousands of exhibits, the picture that emerges could not be more clear,” he said, adding:

“The entire COVID campaign — from CIA–military planning, to initial Wuhan false flag, to the WHO [World Health Organization] declaration of a ‘pandemic,’ to medical institutional responses, to general lockdowns and impositions on personal behavior, to unprecedented censorship and media alignment, to mandatory vaccination accompanied by dismissals from workplaces, to delicensing medical and legal professionals, to completely biased court rulings, to covering up vaccine harm and deaths, to egregious isolation and mistreatment of vulnerable populations, to shredding of constitutional protections, to criminalizing dissent and demonstrations, to locking away political prisoners, and on and on, in a total blanket of actual totalitarianism in Canada and many countries — has been an outright unjustified vicious assault against people, freedom and democracy.”

A citizen-organized, citizen-run, citizen-funded initiative

The NCI — “funded and staffed by volunteers who believe in a better Canada,” said Crosbie — was established in response to the government’s actions during the COVID-19 pandemic and because “no Canadian government has shown an appetite for a fulsome review of the measures implemented,” according to the report.

Hearings took place over 24 days between March and May in eight cities, from British Columbia to Nova Scotia. More than 300 sworn testimonies from both experts and citizens were collected.

NCI heard expert testimony from doctors, scientists, lawyers, economists, teachers, psychologists, morticians, risk management analysts and experts in public policy, emergency management, occupational health and safety, aviation safety, pharmacy, policing and journalism, according to True North.

Among the 147 experts testifying were Rancourt, known for his analysis of all-cause mortality during the pandemic; Dr. Peter McCullough; Dr. Jay Bhattacharya; Dr. Jessica Rose; Dr. Didier Raoult, the French doctor who promoted early treatment with hydroxychloroquine at the beginning of the pandemic;,Dr. Sabine Hazan; Michel Chossudovsky of Global Research; Catherine Austin Fitts; James Corbett; Dr. William Makis; Dr. Charles Hoffe; Edward Dowd; J. Jay Couey, Ph.D., staff scientist for Children’s Health Defense; Jeffrey Tucker of the Brownstone Institute; Steve Kirsch, founder of the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation; and Dr. Jordan Peterson.

The commissioners invited testimony from representatives of all provincial/territorial and federal levels of government across Canada — including “sixty-three members of government, regulators, and authorities” — but none accepted or testified.

However, NCI was able to obtain records of government positions from court proceedings, policy statements, press conferences and other evidence of their actions, and incorporate these into their hearings and findings.

NCI considered testimony on pharmaceutical interventions (use of drugs, vaccines and other treatments) and non-pharmaceutical interventions (masking, lockdowns, closures of public facilities and quarantines), and analyzed their impacts in the following categories:

  1. Social — including restricted public meetings, movement and ability to interact and meet with other people.
  2. Civil — the abridgment of rights and freedoms, the imposition of restrictions and forced mandates, assessed at the personal, institutional and organizational levels.
  3. Economic — the shutdown of businesses and the characterization of “nonessential” businesses, restrictions to employment and overall impacts.
  4. Health — forced medical procedures, lack of access to patients due to mandates, doctors treating virtually; injuries resulting from forced medical procedures and isolation.

“These testimonies provide irrefutable evidence that an unprecedented assault has been waged against the citizens of Canada. Not since World War II has the nation experienced such a devastating attack on its people,” Drysdale told True North.

Commissioner Janice Kaikkonen, an educator and public policy researcher, said at the press conference that her experience with NCI had been “quite the journey,” and that “the picture being painted was much deeper, all more devastating and divisive, and the response from our public institutions on every Canadian far more destructive” than she expected.

Kaikkonen said society still needs to address “the impact on … children of being isolated from their friends and their social networks and their structures being taken from them.”

“The juncture Canadians face in moving forward must include exposing the forces that willingly subscribed to destroying our beloved country from the inside out,” she said.

Breakdown of legal system

NCI heard extensive evidence that Canadian courts failed to uphold the rule of law during the pandemic, leading to “a breakdown in confidence and an erosion of trust in a Canadian legal system,” according to the report.

None of the legal experts who testified or consulted with NCI reported success in any court across the country against the measures or mandates.

Similar to the U.S., the Canadian system of government is comprised of executive, legislative and judicial branches. However, during the pandemic, “much of the rule-making power in Canada coalesced into the executive, which resulted in unelected public health offices across the country ruling as petty tyrants, without accountability or oversight,” the report stated.

The report attributed this in part to the “overgrowth of the administrative state,” resulting in “Canadian courts … pay[ing] more and more deference to the powers of unelected administrative bodies,” leading to “a perfect storm” where unelected officials who are “not subject to oversight through an election” have “powers over Canadians” that are “largely unchallengeable in court.”

The most obvious example of administrative overreach — enforced by professional bodies that regulate various health professions — was the public health orders, the report stated, which “subvert[ed] rights on the premise of ‘protecting the greater good.’”

Commissioner Heather DiGregorio, senior partner in an Alberta law firm, said during Tuesday’s press conference that her position as a lawyer made her pay particular attention to the testimony about the Canadian legal system, the Canadian Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“By guaranteeing that the government cannot tread on my neighbor’s rights, we guarantee our own,” she said. “This is never more important than when things are difficult in times of fear and uncertainty.”

The evidence gathered from the NCI hearings “all points one way: to a significant breakdown of Canadian institutions,” DiGregorio said.

She cited such undesirable pandemic outcomes: “The division of our society. Neighbors pitted against neighbors. Families torn apart. Individuals suffering grievous injuries that their own doctors won’t acknowledge. Feelings of isolation. Depression. Suicides. Pain and grief.”

“Canadians have been left with a feeling that there is no person to protect them from government overreach,” the report stated. “This is worrisome evidence of a breakdown of the rule of law.”

Despite the grievous lapses in the legal system during the pandemic, DeGregorio said, “Seeing the strength of ordinary Canadians, even in the darkest times of their lives, gave me renewed hope.”

Proposals, outlook going forward

In addition to the establishment of a National Crisis Oversight Council — which the report said should include enforceable subpoena powers — the NCI report called for a full judicial investigation of the COVID-19 vaccination authorization process in Canada, leaving open the possibility of criminal liability under existing Canadian law.

It also called for an in-depth review of how Canadian courts handled all pandemic-related cases to “rebuild public confidence in the justice system.”

Citing the need to ensure “proper checks and balances,” the report recommended examining and reforming the extent of executive authority during emergencies and establishing laws that require administrative bodies “to demonstrate their expertise and rationale for decisions, particularly when those decisions infringe on individual rights.”

Regarding healthcare, the report called for establishing a clear framework for oversight of public health authorities’ decision-making processes during emergencies, and an “independent, multidisciplinary inquiry into the governance of professional colleges, especially those governing medical professionals,” to ensure transparency,  accountability and adherence to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

During the press conference, DiGregorio called for “accountability for the actions of others,” but said we also need to “look at our own actions and take accountability for the part that each of us have played.”

Kaikkonen called for “Each and every one of us saying we’ve had enough, this is not going to happen again, and we’re going to stand with people who say no, who have that strength,” and with “people who are being shamed publicly or abused or trodden over.”

Voicing his hopes for the report, Drysdale said, “In the end, it is not the report itself that wields the power of transformation. … It remains just a tool, lying dormant on a shelf … until thousands or millions of people choose to wield that tool.”

Massie said it’s going to take time before things change, but that “it’s not going to take the majority of people to wake up to make a difference. … You just need a critical mass of people … to move [on the] political front, provincial, federal, [and in] court.”

Rancourt told The Defender:

“Canadians may have produced the most comprehensive report, which is an historic landmark. Now, will there be accountability? To what degree, and what form will it take?

“Every citizen’s awakening is one unit of the needed accounting, and this report has been a process that catalyzed more awareness.”