Dean Allison: The MP, the Inquiry, and Niagara’s Measles Gap
Niagara West’s MP spent four days on Parliament Hill hearing COVID vaccine-injury testimony. Back home, his region had just spent a year fighting measles.
The short version
- Who: Dean Allison, Conservative MP for Niagara West since 2004.
- His record: a medical exemption from the House vaccine rule in 2021; a 2022 petition to suspend COVID vaccines for pregnant people and adults of child-bearing age; and in September 2026, the “Allison Inquiry,” with Shawn Buckley as counsel.
- His region: Niagara handled 13 confirmed measles cases, 94 possible cases and more than 250 contacts in 2025. Public Health puts children’s immunization at about 87%. Stopping measles takes about 95%.
Who he is
Dean Allison, a businessman and former restaurant owner, has represented Niagara West since 2004 and won an eighth term in 2025. The riding takes in the towns and townships between Hamilton and St. Catharines, including Grimsby, Lincoln, West Lincoln, Pelham and Wainfleet. He also hosts a weekly program, The Hill Update, on The News Forum.
Not all of his health work is controversial. Early in his career he campaigned to raise awareness of anaphylaxis. His record on vaccines is another matter.
His record on vaccines
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| Fall 2021 | When the House of Commons required members to be vaccinated, Allison claimed a medical exemption and attended virtually. During that fall’s election he described himself as pro-vaccine, though he had not been vaccinated, after removing a Facebook post that asked about an alternative COVID-19 remedy (Pelham Today). Readers of the local paper took the remedy to be ivermectin. See our ivermectin page. |
| Sep 2021 | CBC reports that Allison hosted an online show featuring vaccine skeptics, and that he was left out of Erin O’Toole’s shadow cabinet, with O’Toole saying his picks reflected a commitment to addressing vaccine hesitancy. |
| Mar 2022 | Sponsors a petition, written by a B.C. professor, calling on the federal government to suspend COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant people and adults of “child-bearing age.” Doctors said its claims, including that vaccine particles collect in reproductive organs and may cause infertility, were not accurate. The Niagara Falls Review put the story on its front page. On the evidence, see Vaccines in Pregnancy. |
| Feb 2023 | Is one of three Conservative MPs who met Christine Anderson, a German member of the European Parliament from the far-right AfD. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre called her views “vile” and racist. See Anti-Vaccine Rhetoric and Antisemitism in Canada. |
| Jun 2026 | Announces the “Allison Inquiry” at a Parliament Hill news conference with lawyer Shawn Buckley and Teresa Buckley. He describes himself as “pro-vaccine choice,” and says he has the approval of the Conservative caucus and Pierre Poilievre. Poilievre does not attend the hearings. |
| 8–11 Sep 2026 | Chairs four days of testimony in a Parliament Hill meeting room. It is not an official parliamentary inquiry. Shawn Buckley acts as inquiry counsel. Speakers include U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, Dr. Peter McCullough and Dr. James Thorp. Only Conservative MPs take part. Allison says more than 1,400 people applied to testify. |
The Allison Inquiry
The inquiry’s own terms said its panel “may, but are not required to,” refer questions to Parliament. CTV News asked Allison whether he worried about asking injured people to relive their stories with no promise that anything would follow.
The counsel was Shawn Buckley, who also leads the campaign for Bill C-224 and told MPs in 2024 that he wrote its first draft. Buckley was earlier lead counsel to the National Citizens Inquiry, the citizen-funded COVID hearings of 2023–2025. Bill C-224’s sponsor, MP Blaine Calkins, sat on the Allison Inquiry’s panel. Our full analysis of the American witnesses, and the MPs who sat with them, is Imported Experts: The Americans at the Allison Inquiry.
A fair point
Some people are injured by vaccines, rarely but really, and they deserve to be heard and helped. Canada has had a federal no-fault support program since 2021. Launched as the Vaccine Injury Support Program, it has been run directly by the Government of Canada as the Vaccine Impact Assistance Program since 1 April 2026. Complaints that it is slow or hard to use are worth Parliament’s attention.
But testimony without cross-examination or medical review cannot show what caused any one person’s illness. When a sitting MP lends such hearings Parliament’s name, parents hear a message about vaccines in general, including the ones that protect their children.
Meanwhile, in Niagara
- Measles came back. In 2025 Niagara Region Public Health reported 13 of the 2,376 cases in Ontario’s measles outbreak. It managed 94 possible cases and more than 250 contacts. Redeployed staff put in 287 hours, and the infectious-disease team 141 hours of overtime.
- Coverage is short of the target. Public Health told the regional health committee that immunization of children is about 87%. Measles spreads through the air, and stopping it takes about 95%.
- The paperwork gap. In early 2025 Public Health was chasing the records of more than 13,000 students. After the previous year’s review and suspension notices, recorded measles coverage among students rose from 78% to 92%, and polio from 76% to 93%. Some of the gap was missing records, not refusals. It shows how thin the margin is.
- Not new. In 2015, after a measles case in Niagara, the medical officer of health said the elementary-school measles rate was only 85%.
These figures are for Niagara Region as a whole; we have not found published figures for Niagara West alone. Niagara Region publishes school-by-school coverage and exemption rates. For comparison, see Waterloo Region’s immunization record and Southern Alberta’s Vaccine Gap.
A pediatrician’s note
My first patient as a medical student, at Children’s Hospital of Michigan in 1968, was a child in a coma from measles encephalitis. Measles is not a mild rash. Babies under a year old are too young for the vaccine and depend on everyone around them being protected. See Before the Vaccines: What I Saw and what these diseases actually do.
What you can do
- If you live in Niagara West, ask Mr. Allison what he is doing about measles in his own riding. Find his office at ourcommons.ca/members.
- Check your family’s records with Niagara Region Public Health.
- If you believe you were injured by a vaccine, talk to your doctor and apply to the federal Vaccine Impact Assistance Program.
Sources
- Dean Allison, Wikipedia (career; anaphylaxis; medical exemption; February 2023 meeting with Christine Anderson).
- “The candidates: Allison to Niagara West: get vaccinated,” Pelham Today, September 2021; letters, 22 September 2021.
- PressProgress, “Conservative MP Presents Petition To Ban COVID-19 Vaccines for All Canadian Adults of ‘Child-Bearing Age’”; Niagara Falls Review, “Niagara West MP Allison slammed for supporting petition to stop vaccinations,” 11 March 2022, p. A1.
- CBC News, 2021 report on Allison, vaccine-skeptic MPs and the shadow cabinet; LifeSiteNews, June 2026 launch report.
- CTV News, “Why one Conservative MP’s push to probe COVID-19 vaccine injuries is prompting concern,” August 2026.
- Rebel News live coverage, 8 September 2026 and 11 September 2026; Western Standard (1,400 applicants).
- 105.7 The River, “Region updated on measles outbreak” (report to Niagara Region public health committee).
- Niagara Region Public Health via Niagara At Large, “Is your child’s immunization record up to date?”, 14 January 2025.
- Public Health Agency of Canada, Vaccine Impact Assistance Program (formerly the Vaccine Injury Support Program).
- Canadian Press via CBC, “A case of the measles found in Niagara,” February 2015.