Michael Oesch
Day 2 · September 9, 2026 · 0:27:14
Key points Michael Oesch is an artist and former film, television, and CBC worker who walked across Canada, including Toronto to Labrador and Toronto to Vancouver. He says he was healthy and semi-retired, working as a school bus driver, and got vaccinated to be a caregiver for his parents and in-laws in care homes. He describes receiving four COVID doses, with symptoms beginning 36 hours after his fourth dose in October 2022 when his legs began to drag. He says he blacked out driving a school bus, and an MRI found a 2.8-centimeter lesion on his spine that his neurologist called unusually large. He describes worsening fatigue, intense migraines, and nightly leg spasms, eventually being placed in long-term care and denied neuro rehab as no longer acute. He credits naturopathic treatments including NAC, methylene blue, and antiparasitics with releasing spike protein and restoring some movement and hand function. He says VISP denied his claim without using WHO causality standards, and urges research into mitochondrial dysfunction he believes underlies long COVID.
Speaker 1
0:01 So our next witness is Michael Osh. Speaker 2
0:04 Michael, am I saying that correctly? 0:09 Okay, which do you prefer? 0:12 Osh, okay. 0:13 I'll keep it that way then. 0:16 And can someone put the Bible in Michael's right hand? Speaker 3
0:21 I would rather swear on the charters of rights and freedoms. Speaker 2
0:25 Well, we can't do that. 0:26 We're either swearing on the Bible or we're affirming, and it makes no difference to us. 0:31 I'll just affirmate. 0:31 Okay. 0:32 So Michael Osh, do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? 0:41 I'm very pleased to have you here, Michael. 0:43 And you're a very unusual person. 0:48 So, and I, you knew I meant that as a compliment. 0:51 So just so that people watching Michael understand in 2002, where did you walk from and to? 1:03 Okay. 1:03 Like walked. 1:06 Okay. 1:06 Do we, just hang on, hang on. 1:08 Is his mic on, David? Speaker 2
1:11 Okay. 1:12 So, and then in 2005, where did you walk to? Speaker 2
1:26 Just wait, we're, mic isn't working, so we're going to... 1:30 Start again. Speaker 3
1:36 Can you hear me now? 1:36 Yeah. 1:39 Chodar, can you pull this around a bit? 1:44 And then pull it right around. 1:46 And then push me in just a bit. 1:49 Oops. 1:50 There we go. 1:53 Wheelchair accidents. 1:54 I'm insured, though. Speaker 2
1:55 Yeah, well, we're not. 1:59 So we'll start again. 2:00 So, Michael, because I just want everyone to hear, because I don't know how many people walk across this nation. Speaker 3
2:08 More than you would think. Speaker 2
2:09 Okay, but it's not that many. 2:11 So in 2002, you walked from Toronto to Labrador and back. 2:15 Correct, around the St. Lawrence Valley. 2:17 And then in 2005, you were telling us about your journey. Speaker 3
2:21 At the time, I was working at the Hockey Hall of Fame for the CBC. 2:26 doing Hockey of People's History, the documentary. 2:28 And that was the year of the hockey strike. 2:30 And I quit my job at the Hockey Hall of Fame. 2:32 And I walked all the way to the statue of Lord Stanley in Stanley Park. Speaker 2
2:36 You know, many of us during the hockey strike, I think, felt compelled to do desperate things, but not walk across the nation. 2:44 So, yeah. 2:45 And then, so you did film, television. 2:47 Tell us about that. Speaker 3
2:48 Yeah, I was an artist most of my life. 2:50 Film, television, music, video editor, audio recording. 2:56 I've done everything from rock videos to infomercials in my time. 3:01 And what was your health like before vaccination? 3:04 I was completely healthy, working in my garden, semi-retired, working as a school bus driver, active walking my dog every day. 3:12 A bit heavy than I should have been, but I was still in good health. 3:17 And no medications? 3:20 No medication at all. Speaker 2
3:21 So, David, can we pull up the first photo of Michael? 3:25 So can you tell us about this photo? Speaker 3
3:27 This is a photo walking out the North Shore of Quebec, taken by Mon Ami Christiane Fleury, a photographer from Montreal. 3:34 And it's on my first trip walking out to Labrador. 3:37 Okay. 3:39 And David, do you want to pull up the next photo? 3:43 That is March 30th, 2024, the day before I left to go on my trip to Vancouver. Speaker 2
3:50 Okay. 3:50 Walking. 3:51 From Toronto to Vancouver. 3:53 And there's people watching internationally. 3:57 How many kilometers is that? Speaker 3
3:59 From Toronto to Vancouver is roughly 5,000. 4:04 From Toronto to Labrador and back was 6,800. Speaker 3
4:07 And here I thought you walked a long distance. Speaker 2
4:10 So, okay. 4:11 So you're a healthy, vibrant, really artist, and your genre was more video and film. 4:20 What happens? 4:22 Tell us about your vaccine journey. Speaker 3
4:24 Well, when the pandemic happened, you know, before we go any further, the first thing I want to say is I want to say all my love to my wife, Saskia, who cannot attend today. 4:36 Without her during the past four years, I don't know where I would be. 4:40 And although she can't attend today, I know she's watching. 4:44 And I just want to send her my love and let her know that, 4:48 As much as it is that the injured people who get vaccine injured, it's also the families that suffer. 4:54 And I know she suffered through this with me. 4:56 And I want to acknowledge that and just say, I love you, Ducky. Speaker 2
5:00 And before you go into the vaccine injured story, I also want to, if you can share with us your journey of how you got here and into this committee room, because you've fundraised and you, I was very lucky that the documentary that was done about me, why can't we talk about this? Speaker 3
5:18 brought a lot of attention to me. 5:20 And when I was mentioned that I was coming to the committee here, it's a rather expensive journey for me to rent a wheelchair vehicle, a hotel that's capable of having wheelchair people, and my personal assistant. 5:39 It's costing me almost $4,000 to be here today. 5:45 crowd fundraised for that? 5:46 I'm very lucky that I have a lot of friends who want me to be here today and have raised enough money for me to be here. 5:53 And with that, the wheelchair vehicle that I rented is as large as a city wheelchair vehicle that you can have a five-seater with three wheelchairs can fit in it. 6:04 And I've offered anyone who's here the ability to use that today. 6:08 So if we're moving around to later today, we're going to make sure they get there. Speaker 2
6:13 Right. 6:13 So you're actually helping some other people. 6:16 Well, you know what? Speaker 3
6:17 As bad as my condition is, it doesn't mean that I can't still be of service to others. 6:22 And that's why I choose to live. Speaker 2
6:25 I'll tell you just a personal story. 6:27 So you rent this wheelchair bus. 6:31 Yeah. 6:32 And then you send an internal email basically saying, I'm offering anyone who needs a ride, you know, 6:41 In southern Ontario, yeah. 6:43 Yeah, in this bus. 6:44 We're even here today. Speaker 3
6:45 Yeah, right, because you're doing some ferrying around. 6:48 Well, I'm very lucky. 6:49 I have a friend of mine who's a darts disabled driver from Vancouver, and he's taken time off to be here today to help me and also to help anyone else who needs help with a wheelchair. Speaker 2
7:01 Yeah, so what I wanted to share with you is when my wife, Teresa, read your email, which 7:08 It was in the evening. 7:09 I think she wept for about two hours. 7:12 She was so touched. 7:14 And so you're setting an example for the rest of us that regardless of what our condition is, we're to love other people. Speaker 3
7:21 Well, you know what? 7:21 One of the things I live by now is the motto, taking the dis at a disability. 7:27 Okay. 7:28 So do you want to share with us your journey now? 7:31 Yes, I do. 7:34 You know, starting at the beginning of the pandemic, 7:38 My father-in-law and mother-in-law were in long-term care and assisted care. 7:42 My parents were in retirement homes. 7:48 The need to be a primary caregiver to them made me want to get the vaccine so that I could be there for them. 7:55 And I did my first dose in 2020, late 2020, early 2021. 8:04 I don't have the dates in front of me. 8:05 I did a second dose in mid-2021. 8:09 And then my third dose, which was a Moderna vaccine, in December of 2021. 8:17 And then my fourth and final COVID vaccine was done on the 10th of, sorry, the 13th of October of 2022. 8:30 36 hours after that, my legs started to drag. 8:33 I was actually in my hometown of Waterford, and I was coming back from Pumpkin Festival, which is the big festival in town. 8:40 And I was walking with my granddaughter, and my leg started to drag. 8:47 after walking for probably three or four kilometres around the town with all the events, walking home, I literally could not lift my leg. 8:55 And my stepson basically shouldered me like you'd take a football player off the field all the way back home up the hill. 9:03 And that was the beginning of the journey. 9:08 You know, I went to my doctor the following Monday, and the first thing she said was, don't take another vaccine. 9:17 She showed me on her computer some write-ups about how this vaccine was not what it says it was going to be and that she was going to do everything she could for me. 9:33 The following week, I mentioned I was a school bus driver. 9:37 Driving home from my morning school bus run, I blacked out going down Highway 24. 9:44 Two of my wheels ended up on the dirt. 9:46 And I woke up. 9:47 Luckily, I could stop the bus and pull it over. 9:50 But at that point, my eyes were vibrating and shaking like it was an earthquake. 9:54 And my ears were humming. 9:57 It was rather unusual. 9:58 If I turn my head this way, this air rang. 10:00 And if I turn my head the other way, the other ear would ring. 10:04 I waited for about five minutes. 10:07 And I was only about a kilometer from the bus depot. 10:09 So I drove the bus home and went back to my doctor immediately after that. 10:15 You know, at that point, we started looking at getting MRIs done. 10:20 And two weeks later, we got an MRI. 10:24 And we found that there was a lesion on my spine, about a quarter inch from my brain, that was 2.8 centimeters. 10:32 If you don't know, that is an incredibly large lesion to stretch across two vertebrae that close to your brain. 10:40 My neurologist 10:42 later said that he's never seen a lesion that size that wasn't a result of an impact. 10:47 And he said, I'm lucky to be alive. 10:51 You know, at that point, the fatigue had set in, but I still had enough mitochondrial energy to continue to walk for a bit. 11:00 I couldn't run. 11:01 I couldn't do anything really that took a lot of physical endurance, but I was still able to move around in 11:12 May and March and April of that year, 2023, I got corticosteroids done, two large doses, and I felt like Ben Johnson. 11:24 I could get up, I went out, I went picking strawberries in my yard, but it only lasted about a week. 11:32 And then the deterioration started setting in. 11:35 the fatigue kept coming, migraines so intense that I actually had put ice on the back of my neck to the extent that I was getting frostbite on my neck. 11:47 That's what I had to do to get rid of the pain. 11:51 The spasms started happening in my legs and it was pretty intense. 11:58 At that point, I could still get up and at times pull myself up the steps 12:06 and dragged myself with a walker. 12:09 But by October, a year in, I was hospitalized for the first time. 12:14 And at that point, it was funny because I went to the hospital and I remember this doctor in the emergency room coming up and he said, you're vaccine injured? 12:25 I said, yes. 12:26 And he handed me a note that had the artist protocol on it, bromelain Q10, 12:34 and all the things that are on the artist. 12:36 And he said, here, do this, but don't tell anyone that I gave it to you. 12:41 You know, that's kind of the ongoing story. 12:44 The doctors wanted to help me. 12:46 You know, my GP, six months after I got injured, she closed her practice here in Canada. 12:55 And what I know now, she's actually back in Africa practicing medicine there. 13:01 So she left Canada as opposed to continuing on treating. 13:06 So many of my doctors believed this was a COVID vaccine injury, but they were afraid to write it down. 13:13 You know, the ability to write that down eventually, I'm sure, is what made VISP deny my claim, one of the reasons. 13:24 But the magnitude of the pain kept getting worse. 13:28 By year two, 13:30 July of 2024 at this point, I was having spasms seven hours a night. 13:37 Imagine someone driving a nail spike into your sciatic nerve every 30 seconds for seven hours every night. 13:46 The pain, you said I'm an unusual person and that's the truth. 13:52 When I walked over the Rockies 13:54 By the time I got to the Rockies walking over Canada, I had shin splints and plantar fasciitis and I lost three toenails. 14:02 And I walked over the Rockies. 14:04 You know what? 14:05 I carried a smile on my face through that. 14:07 I learned that pain is inevitable and suffering is optional. 14:14 And the only way I could get through those spasms that I was having was to actually embrace the pain to the point where I could go through it for seven hours 14:24 Every 30 seconds, my leg would shoot with pain from my sciatic nerve. 14:30 My leg would straighten out, and it felt like lightning bolts were coming out of my toes. 14:35 The fatigue, just the most simplest thing, having a conversation for 10, 20 minutes was enough to make me fatigued to the point where my body would get stiff. 14:48 And you'll notice that right now, if you see, I can kind of straighten my hand. 14:52 By the end of this interview, my hands will be totally clenched. 14:55 I won't be able to open them. 14:57 My shoulders will be pushed more in. 15:00 And the fatigue will come. 15:01 I probably need to rest and meditate for an hour after this session. 15:05 And fatigue is something I think we all, as vaccine injured people, we suffer. 15:11 And the byproduct of it, whether it's 15:15 neurological, like in my case, cardiovascular, like in other cases, or respiratory or turbo cancers. 15:22 They're all the side effects. 15:24 But I believe that the base of long COVID is a mitochondrial dysfunction. 15:30 And for me, that is how I have approached this disease. 15:34 You have to understand that after being in the hospital two years ago, the only option for me was long-term care. 15:45 And I was shipped off to a long-term care. 15:47 I want to first of all say that all the PSWs who work at St. Joseph Villa, where I currently stay, they're a blessing. 15:55 The work they do, I know I couldn't do it. 16:00 And I'm very grateful for all that they've given me. 16:04 But at the same time saying that, I'm in long-term care. 16:08 I've been denied the ability to go to neuro rehab twice from two different neuro rehabs because my condition is not acute enough. 16:16 It's too long since the original injury for them to consider me. Speaker 2
16:20 So you're saying that because it's taken too long, you can't get that care, but there was a time when it wasn't too long. 16:29 Why didn't you get care then? Speaker 3
16:30 The thing about it is they, for neuro rehab, they want someone 16:34 At three to six months from the initial injury, well, six months into the injury, I could still walk. 16:41 It took me two years to get to the point where I couldn't walk. 16:45 The mitochondrial energy in me continues to fade lower and lower to the point where basically a year ago in June, I was laying in my hospital bed and I was unable to move. 16:58 I could not open my hands. 17:00 I could not move my hands. 17:01 And literally, I thought I would be dead within the next three months. Speaker 2
17:06 But I want you to talk about, because you've, outside of the medical system, you've done some things that have actually allowed you to improve so that you could be here today. 17:16 Can you speak about those? 17:18 Because I think there's a lot of people out there that may not understand that there's other things that may be of some assistance. Speaker 3
17:26 I totally concur with that statement. 17:29 Allopathy has nothing for me. 17:33 Where in most of my cases, naturopathy is my key to healing. 17:39 I'm very lucky that I have a friend, Tiffany, who came to my bedside last June and brought me something called augmented NAC. 17:52 And 17:53 NAC, N-acetylcysteine, is known to help release the spike protein from the ACE2 receptors of the body. 18:00 There's other things like nicotine, nitric oxide, which I get through breathing techniques. 18:09 All of these things help release the spike protein from the ACE2 receptor. 18:13 We know this from science. 18:14 I've read the reports. 18:17 But the problem with that is once the spike protein is released from the ACE2 receptor, it's now in your blood biome and it's floating around and it can reattach to any of the cells in your body. 18:28 And that's where, for me, an antiparasitic comes in handy. 18:33 Antiparasitics can break down the spike protein into smaller bits that will allow them, that will stop them from reattaching to your cells. 18:43 I tried ivermectin. 18:44 It was not effective for me, but I know it is effective for others. 18:47 Fenbendazole, hydrochloroquine, all these are antiparasitics. 18:51 For me, methylene blue was the one that worked for me. 18:55 It may not work for you or for anyone else, but the idea of fighting the spike off of your cells and then getting out of your body is the beginning to reestablishing your mitochondrial energy. 19:10 You have to understand that 19:11 Five days after starting to take NAC and methylene blue, my hands started opening again. 19:19 Within a month, I was able to bend over and touch my toes in my wheelchair. 19:23 And within two months, I was able to stand up with assistance. 19:30 And it's been a good progress. 19:34 It's not a cure. 19:36 I'm basically fighting back the 19:39 the tide and trying to like bail, bail a rowboat with a thimble, you know, and there are good days and there are bad days still. 19:49 And it's, it's a struggle, but I'm hopeful that there is a way forward for me. Speaker 4
20:03 You know, it's, it's tough when, Speaker 3
20:08 you're denied vaccine injury. 20:11 Actually, there was an incident just a few days ago. 20:14 My wife met someone and mentioned that I was vaccine injured. 20:19 And they said, you must be an anti-vaxxer. 20:21 And that's not the case. 20:23 You know, for me, when I was a very young boy, I had severe allergies and I went to an immunologist and they devised a treatment and gave me allergy shots and cured my allergies from wheat, from flour, from potatoes. 20:39 I had all these allergies that were killing me. 20:41 I believe in medicine, but sometimes the science doesn't necessarily follow. 20:49 The technology doesn't follow the science. 20:52 And I think in this case, the COVID vaccine is something that was maybe not designed properly and the rollout didn't work. 21:03 And it didn't injure everyone, but it did injure many of us. 21:08 And I know there's what, 1400 people who applied to speak here at the inquiry and only 50 are being here speaking. 21:16 You know what, if anyone out there who applied 21:19 can hear anything in my story that makes them relate, I'm very grateful that I can speak and that their truth can be spoken through me. 21:29 Thank you. 21:29 I'll let the MPs ask their questions. Speaker 5
21:33 I don't really have any questions. 21:34 I just have a statement. 21:37 You're an inspiration, I think, to a lot of people in the room here today and the people listening across Canada. 21:42 Given the circumstances you're in, to be this optimistic, 21:47 is exceptional, in my opinion. 21:50 I think I can speak to everybody here in the room. 21:54 When you told your story, for a person to cross Canada, both directions from Toronto, and then to go through what you're going through now and still have a smile on your face the whole time you were telling your story, I think is something that everybody can take away from here today. 22:12 So thank you for being here. Speaker 6
22:18 I want to start by saying thank you to your positivity, to the spirit that you carry despite the hardships you have gone through after this vaccine injury. 22:30 You said that you want to take this out of ability. 22:33 The disability. 22:35 So do you see any encouragement or support from the government at any level? Speaker 3
22:41 Not really, no. 22:43 You know, the Vaccine Injury Support Program was ill-devised to start from. 22:49 You know, I mean, it's a third party organization running a vaccine program. 22:54 It's the only one in the world that's a third party. 22:58 And I believe it was run more like an insurance company. 23:00 Actually, the rates of denial for the vaccine injury support program were greater than insurance denial rates. Speaker 6
23:08 In your opinion, what government needs to do to encourage that kind of spirit when it comes to vaccines? Speaker 3
23:13 Well, you know, I'm very seguane in my optimism. 23:16 about the Public Health Agency of Canada taking over the program. 23:20 And I'm hopeful that they can look at the actual claims that come in and instead of finding ways to dismiss them, find ways to actually approve them. 23:33 I mean, my case specifically, 23:39 They did not use the WHO causality standards in evaluating my case. 23:47 They basically used one study from 2021 that said that because there was no gadolinium in my MRI, that it was unlikely that transverse myelitis was the result of vaccine. 24:00 Now, there was a study, and I think it was six out of seven people in that study showed gadolinium expression after a vaccine injury. 24:09 but that was after a first dose. 24:11 And they put that in the thing that after first dose, well, this is my fourth vaccine. 24:16 My immunologist has in my appeal has emphatically stated that the priming of one vaccine to another can precipitate vaccine injuries. 24:30 And I think that's the case in my case, why so drastically after my fourth vaccine, 24:37 it came about was because my immune system was already primed from my third vaccine taken 10 months before. Speaker 6
24:44 Thank you. 24:48 You also mentioned you shared your experience with the alternative medicine or alternative options that you explored or you are still exploring. 24:56 Do you see that we need to do more on encouraging those options to vaccine injured people? Speaker 3
25:03 You know what? 25:04 This whole situation is very reminiscent of the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. 25:09 And back then, AIDS was a gay disease. 25:13 If you didn't want to admit you had AIDS, people were dissing people with AIDS. 25:18 Oh, you must be gay or whatever. 25:20 And there was shaming involved in having AIDS. 25:23 And as a result, the medical profession didn't want to spend money. 25:27 It wasn't until Elizabeth Taylor stepped up to raise money to help AIDS research that we finally stopped getting away from these chemical cocktails that people had to take to survive through AIDS. 25:38 And that same thing is happening today. 25:40 There is no allopathic solution for mitochondrial myopathy or long COVID. 25:46 It's not even being looked at. 25:48 Everything that I'm doing is allopathic. 25:52 and whether it's through supplements, through red light therapy, through physiotherapy, through meditation and yoga, we need to start looking at ways to actually solve the problem to the mitochondrial myopathy, which underwrites all the conditions that go with long COVID. Speaker 1
26:13 Thank you. 26:14 Wonderful. 26:14 That's all the time we have, Michael. 26:16 Thank you very much. 26:16 You're very welcome. 26:17 For being here. 26:18 I 26:18 I understand there's a film about you. 26:19 I'm gonna have to make sure I check it out, so. Speaker 3
26:21 Yeah, tonight at the Tom Brown Theatre at 6.45, they're showing the documentary, Why Can't We Talk About This? 26:27 Which is my journey into hell. 26:30 And we did an epilogue, which is another 30 minutes called Talk About This, which is all about the solutions for me. 26:37 And you know what? 26:38 I'm very glad that I can, you know what? 26:42 We have a choice in life to suffer or be happy. 26:45 And the choice is ours. 26:47 And I always try to look on the positive side of things. 26:50 And that allows me to get through the tough things. 26:53 You know, Winston Churchill once said, if you're going through hell, don't stop. 26:57 Keep going. 26:59 And that's the message I send out to everyone who's still suffering from COVID. 27:02 Keep going. 27:03 We'll find the solutions. 27:04 Thank you, sir. 27:05 Appreciate you being here. Speaker 4
27:06 You're very welcome.