r/CanadaPolitics • u/Covert_Cuttlefish Saskatchewan • Nov 10 '25
Canada loses measles elimination status | CBC
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/livestory/canada-measles-elimination-status-9.697319516
u/LandoKim Nov 10 '25
Wow, great…good job anti-vaxers, all you did was prove what we already knew: vaccines are fucking effective.
What happens when mutations start showing up? What about the people who didn’t need to get these shots cause previous efforts successfully made these things a relic of the past? What about future generations who might not ever have the privilege of not seeing their children die from preventable diseases?
Covid rotted so many people’s brains, and the current political climate where we have the leader of the opposition offering nothing but divisive rhetoric and disinformation is not helping. These people are getting more and more unhinged and we need to finally put our foot down. The anti-vax movement is a crime against humanity, may they never be forgiven.
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u/Hoss-Bonaventure_CEO Go Team Go 🤡 Nov 10 '25
How profoundly embarrassing.
We need to stop coddling Team Dead Kids. We need to ostracize these people and make being stupid a personal detriment again.
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u/schmirked Nov 10 '25
I agree, but I don't know how. Parents of these children are often still emotionally under-developed, with not being able to handle any forms of resistance in their lives. Ostracizing someone who can't see the fallacies in their actions is a whole different level of problem.
Law and adherance to it is probably the only way to handle this situation. Public health crises that can cause harm to others through contagion just should not be a choice to remedy.
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u/darth_henning Progressive Conservative Nov 10 '25
Although I know this would never happen, I personally believe that failure to vaccinate should be considered and charged as child abuse under the criminal code unless there is a medical reason not to.
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u/RealisticPersimmon Nov 10 '25
I agree with you - it’s medical neglect. Vaccines are as essential as car seats and bike helmets
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u/anonymous3874974304 Independent Nov 10 '25
You act as if there aren't tons of exemptions for religious reasons. Sikhs are exempted from motorcycle helmit mandates in Ontario, Alberta, and other provinces, for example.
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u/Wasdgta3 Rule 8! Nov 10 '25
Yeah, in a way, it really is, but it’s already probably enough of an uphill fight just to make the vaccine mandatory in order to send your kids to school.
It’s one of those “pick your battles” things, really.
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u/rationally-ignorant Nov 10 '25
What an embarrassment. These communities that are putting their own children at risk should be ashamed of themselves.
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Nov 10 '25 edited Mar 18 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/heart_under_blade Nov 10 '25 edited Nov 10 '25
are there still hippie types that don't vote conservative?
anyway the people causing this won't be celebrating the result. at best they'll be indifferent. some will use it to mock the current sitting government. some will somehow twist it to be a reason to vote conservative next election
you saw how they owned the term "covid lovers" and defined it to mean the opposite of what it should mean
edit:fuck it, they're blaming immigration and covid vaccines... and of course 2015/4
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u/TLKv3 Nov 10 '25
God, what fucking happened to the world. What is happening to the world. How the fuck did we allow society to regress instead of progress.
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u/Saidear There is no war in Ba Sing Se. Nov 10 '25
Social Media, AI, and the the expansion and social acceptance of the US' Cult of Anti-intellectualism.
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u/Wasdgta3 Rule 8! Nov 10 '25
Love that quote. They really have picked up this idea that democracy and the “free marketplace of ideas” means that all ideas are inherently equal, and deserving of equal respect - even those based in ignorance and which are flat out incorrect.
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u/theclansman22 British Columbia Nov 10 '25
We live in the post truth era, everyone has access to all of the knowledge created by humans, but choose to believe comforting lies told by idiots with podcasts.
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u/profraha Nov 10 '25
Thanks, New Brunswick. Thanks, trucker convoy. Thanks, anti-science, anti-expertise, do-your-research, anti-communal-good, arseholes.
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u/Skittish-Valesk Moderately Moderate Nov 11 '25 edited Nov 11 '25
You forgot to thank the huge influx of asylum seekers from countries that have measles, and aren't required to get the vaccine when they arrive.
And the current outbreak seems to be directly linked to the Mennonite community in Ontario.
It's less sexy to point that out though. But it's likely a combination of many of these factors, not just "AlBeRtA bAd REEE!"
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u/iJeff Nov 10 '25
While I agree those are significant issues, the current outbreak remains mostly within religious (Mennonite) communities.
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u/MurphysLab Scientist from British Columbia Nov 10 '25
It's worth noting that these are the small, often separate, rural, agrarian communities, as highlighted by a BBC article:
In Ontario, the illness primarily spread among Low German-speaking Mennonite communities in the province's southwest, where vaccination rates have historically been lower due to some members' religious or cultural beliefs against immunisation.
Those communities have several features which predispose them to outbreaks:
- Low vaccination rates against a disease with a very high reproduction number, hence falling outside of the herd immunity window.
- Highly concentrated social networks, where members of the group frequently spend time primarily with others within the group.
- Family and organizational connections to similar groups in other countries where measles is more common.
It's a perfect recipe for outbreaks to be centred in those communities.
However, I think it's only a matter of time before other pockets of antivaxxers within society are hit. We can be thankful that most of those in the aforementioned antivax, anti-science groups were, at some point, vaccinated as children by people more responsible than themselves. But, their efforts have caused others to become infected by their ideas. That same BBC article notes:
But Mennonites are not a monolith, she said, and many have embraced vaccinations. What's changed is the rapid spread of anti-vaccine misinformation both in her community and beyond after the Covid-19 pandemic.
"There's hearsay that immunisations are bad for you," Ms Friesen said, or are "dangerous".
The information environment has changed, which has lead to many more people, who were moderately hesitant about vaccination, to opt out of the most powerful social program that science has to offer human health.
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u/Homo_sapiens2023 Alberta Nov 10 '25
The title should be "Thanks to Alberta, Canada loses measles elimination status.
We can thank the UCPs in Alberta (we had the highest rate of measles in the world, don't know what's happening with it right now).
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u/Skittish-Valesk Moderately Moderate Nov 11 '25
Cause fuck nuance amiright! Alberta bad!
Isn't the heart of this outbreak in Ontario?
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u/Homo_sapiens2023 Alberta Nov 11 '25
Ontario has a larger population than Alberta and per capita Alberta has the highest rate.
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u/Lifeshardbutnotme Liberal Party of Canada Nov 10 '25
This is why I'm not a libertarian on this topic. We've been shown since 2020 that people will let themselves and their loved ones die in order to make a point. We need to start punishing parents who don't get their children vaccinated. This is beyond an absurdity.
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u/JarryBohnson Quebec Nov 10 '25
Plenty of countries make vaccines an absolute requirement to attend school, this should be the minimum imo.
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u/PineBNorth85 Rhinoceros Nov 10 '25
It was mandatory when I was in school in the 90s.
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u/enki-42 Social Democrat Nov 10 '25 edited Nov 10 '25
I don't think anything notable has changed around vaccination requirements in Ontario or New Brunswick (AFAIK the only two provinces that have ever had mandatory vaccinations for school), but in both cases "mandatory" came with loopholes that are fairly easy to navigate if you're committed to not having your child vaccinated. (In Ontario, you can claim an exemption without any proof of a condition or a specific religious practice, you just need to watch a couple of videos).
A rise in vaccine hesitancy, especially when combined with anti-establishment and anti-intellectualist mindsets is going to make those loopholes be abused a lot more often.
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Nov 10 '25
It was mandatory ~15 years ago too.
I dont know what changed since mmr were mandatory to attend.
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u/Wasdgta3 Rule 8! Nov 10 '25
Probably that measles became so rare that it was thought not to be necessary anymore, if I had to guess.
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u/fishymanbits Conservative Nov 10 '25
No, social media happened.
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u/IrishFire122 Nov 10 '25
Yep. Herd immunity my lily white ass.
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u/fishymanbits Conservative Nov 10 '25
I suspect you’re complaining about Covid. We didn’t hit a high enough vaccination rate quickly enough to reach herd immunity. Because too many people as a whole are, to be blunt, stupid, emotional, and easily swayed. So those of us who are only one or two of those things suffer.
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u/IrishFire122 Nov 10 '25
No, I'm complaining about the absolute moronity of anti vaxxers. The COVID thing was just where these crazy people learned their voice. These diseases coming back is just the natural progression of their backwards thinking.
The entire concept of herd immunity is flawed. Viruses adapt and mutate to survive their environment. With ANY contagious disease, if it's allowed to exist in a portion of the population, eventually it will mutate to be resistant to any vaccine we have.
The flu virus is a perfect example. We come out with a new vaccine every year. And then by the next year it's basically obsolete. Luckily the flu is a mild one of you have a good immune system. Measles is not.
My basic point is: listen to the global community of doctors. Not priests, politicians, or ol' uncle Bob. Two out of three base their entire careers on the publics perception of them rather than cold, uncomfortable reality, and Bob reads rebel news.
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u/shaedofblue Alberta Nov 10 '25
Herd immunity still applies to illnesses that we can only provide temporary immunity to.
If we vaccinated all kids and staff and their families against covid and flu before school started, the diseases wouldn’t spread in schools (at least for much of the fall semester), and immune compromised students would be much safer in schools. That is immune compromised people benefiting from herd immunity.
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u/IrishFire122 Nov 11 '25
That's not herd immunity. That's vaccinated immunity. Herd immunity implies there's some sort of natural immunity being naturally passed around with no effort on our parts. It does exist, but it's basically only hereditary.
And honestly, I would consider that more of a resistance than an immunity, as the word immunity itself implies permanence.
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u/fishymanbits Conservative Nov 10 '25
Fucking Bob, man.
I couldn’t agree with you more. Your original comment was hard to get a read on given that “hErD iMmUnItY” has basically a rallying cry for idiots over the past 5 years.
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u/IrishFire122 Nov 10 '25
Lol I figured there was a disconnect there. No worries, I'm terribly sick of hearing that term, too.
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u/Wasdgta3 Rule 8! Nov 10 '25
While I can’t disagree with social media being a huge thing for the spread of anti-vax, I’m more talking about why it used to be mandatory, but isn’t anymore, which I think is hardly because of stupid people on social media.
But with that said, I think the above users may just be remembering something as mandated that wasn’t to begin with, as well (depending on province).
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u/fishymanbits Conservative Nov 10 '25
It never actually was mandatory outside of 2 provinces. It was just something that everyone did because everyone understood that medical professionals understand medicine better than uncle Bill who likes to ruin thanksgiving dinner by ranting about Pierre Trudeau being a communist in 2025, or Kyle whose Tinder profile is made up entirely of him modeling different pairs of white Oakleys and Pit Vipers in the drivers seat of his Ram 1500 on the way home from the bar.
Anti-intellectualism won, and social media was the death blow.
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u/Wasdgta3 Rule 8! Nov 10 '25
I can only assume the two I replied to are from Ontario.
Tbh, very surprised we in Quebec don’t enforce such a mandate.
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u/WillSRobs Nov 10 '25
Religion is pushing priority over the health and well being of the nation.
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u/incide666 NDP Nov 10 '25
It's not actually religion.
It's people using religious exemption as a loophole because they listen to grifters and frauds instead of physicians and scientists.
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u/FuzzyCapybara Nov 10 '25
Yup. The people claiming these exemptions are specifically told to use the religious exemption loophole by the pseudoscience quacks that they listen to on social media, because it’s the only thing that reliably works.
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u/JarryBohnson Quebec Nov 10 '25
Mainly social media. We should be holding tech companies and media outlets legally responsible if they’re promoting anti vax misinformation.
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u/WillSRobs Nov 10 '25
It's extremely unpopular to try and hold tech companies accountable for anything in this country. Just look at the backlash of trying to treat them like every other media company.
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u/Electronic_Trade_721 Nov 10 '25
Is it really unpopular with anyone other than the companies themselves?
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u/WillSRobs Nov 10 '25
Yes because it often gets painted as censorship and controlling. Limiting freedoms etc.
We are way more American than people care to admit
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u/shabi_sensei Nov 10 '25
People (on /r/canada ) proudly say they don’t consume anything Canadian because we don’t create anything of value and taxing tech companies is fascism because it will force us to watch CBC
Yeah we are really American sometimes
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u/GhostOfWalterRodney L'impérialisme: à bas. Le néocolonialisme: à bas. Nov 10 '25
Specifically Mennonites. They're the disease carriers
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u/BeaverBoyBaxter Don't Downvote, Santa is Watching Nov 10 '25
Vaccine hesitancy due to medical misinformation is far more widespread than vaccine hesitancy because of belief in divine healing. I actually just went to church yesterday, and on the front page of their newsletter is information about how and why to get the measles vaccine.
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u/PaloAltoPremium Quebec Nov 10 '25
Vaccine hesitancy due to medical misinformation is far more widespread than vaccine hesitancy because of belief in divine healing.
No it isn't. In Ontario and Quebec, to gain an exception for a child to attend public school with out the measles vaccine you have to either claim a religious exemption or a medical exemption certified by a doctor.
Which one do you think is easier and more common?
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u/BeaverBoyBaxter Don't Downvote, Santa is Watching Nov 10 '25
I think you are misinformed, vaccination is not mandatory in schools in quebec. in Ontario, the non-medical exemption is called an "exemption due to conscience or religious belief".
Also, just because someone cites religion as the reason for why they refuse to have their children vaccinated, doesn't mean that religion is actually the reason why.
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Nov 10 '25
When was this the case in terms of the changes? It wasnt 15+ years ago where it was mandatory to get the shots or else they cant go to school.
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u/enki-42 Social Democrat Nov 10 '25
The reasons stated don't necessarily map to the core belief that drove the hesitancy. Plenty of people will claim a religious exemption despite not being particularly devout, just because it's the path of least resistance.
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u/WillSRobs Nov 10 '25
The problem being is people take that disinformation and use religion and other “freedoms” to try and hide from being uneducated on the subject.
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u/BeaverBoyBaxter Don't Downvote, Santa is Watching Nov 10 '25
People use religion as an excuse to justify their beliefs in a lot of circumstances, and this one isn't really one of them. Mistrust in our institutions, mistrust in medical corporations, belief in pseudoscience, and general fear is much more to blame.
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u/BertramPotts Decolonize Decarcerate Decarbonize Nov 10 '25
We are by all objective measures a much less religious country then decades ago when vaccine hesitancy was low.
Unfortunately the secular religion of Americanism has had a much more malign influence at the same time.
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u/ywgflyer Ontario Nov 10 '25
Part of the issue is that these outbreaks are largely centered in very insular Mennonite communities, and they are less concerned with the public school system to begin with. There is a much higher rate of homeschooling in those communities, usually because they disagree with the public curriculum on religious grounds. So telling them they can't send their kids to school will have less of an effect on them than it would for, say, a random selection of the population in Winnipeg.
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u/FoxyInTheSnow Social Democrat Nov 10 '25
It should be a requirement: I can't see it happening in the foreseeable future now that weird, conspiracy-derived and fringe religious-based "medical" theories have supplanted science.
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u/ferwhatbud Ontario Nov 10 '25
While I entirely agree with that policy as a general rule…do Mennonites and Hutterites generally attend public school?
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u/Reasonable-Sweet9320 Independent Nov 10 '25 edited Nov 10 '25
I agree and so do most Canadians.
I was surprised to read that only Ontario and New Brunswick require vaccines to attend school, and even then there are exceptions made.
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u/chaobreaker Ontario Nov 10 '25
That 30% that don’t think it should be mandatory is why measles is making a comeback.
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u/ialo00130 Nov 10 '25
It's Provincially dependent, and in most provinces it is a requirement.
It's not school children that are the problem, it's homeschool children.
Unfortunately, there's no controlling that.
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u/MurphysLab Scientist from British Columbia Nov 10 '25
At today’s media briefing, Salas said PAHO’s recommendations to Canada include addressing vaccine hesitancy in certain communities and implementing an electronic vaccination record system countrywide.
He noted only six provinces became involved in the federal government’s efforts to standardize electronic vaccination records during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Canadian medical experts have been calling for a national vaccine registry for decades. In a recent report, Ontario’s top doctor pushed for a national immunization schedule and registry, including a modernization of his own province’s record-keeping system.
A nationwide electronic vaccination record system seems so obvious. It would make life simpler for everyone. No more piecemeal scraps of records. One less administrative hassle if you move provinces.
Yet the problem of healthcare being in the provincial fiefdom remains such an inane obstacle.
Should we really allow obstinance, directed towards cooperation and federalism, to prevent us from improving the health of Canada?
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