Rethinking the objectives of a pan-Canadian immunization information system

Emerging from the pandemic and the largest mass vaccination campaign in history, governments at all levels are once again calling for the development of comprehensive vaccination registries. Yet these calls have persisted for decades at the federal level, and little progress has been made. At the heart of the challenge is the need to clarify the objectives of federal vaccine data collection and how these objectives dovetail with the federal government's constitutional role and jurisdiction in public health. We suggest that pan-Canadian immunization information collection initially focus on vaccine safety and effectiveness, as these would be most concordant with provincial/territorial aims and would fall under the federal government's jurisdiction. The federal spending power could be utilized to further support provincial/territorial systems to facilitate pan-Canadian data collection for coverage.