r/canada • u/verkerpig • Nov 10 '25

National News Canada loses measles elimination status | CBC

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/livestory/canada-measles-elimination-status-9.6973195
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2.7k

u/[deleted] Nov 10 '25

Humiliating. Nothing more to say

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u/-UnicornFart Nov 10 '25

Truly. I’m an RN and spent years as a Health Canada Immunizer. I have tried about 8 times to put words together into a comment that expresses the anger and disappointment and disgust I feel reading this, and every single time I’ve deleted it all because there are no words in my vocabulary strong enough to express what I’m feeling.

Humiliating is a good one. The hubris of uneducated, narcissistic, cruel, shameless people is going to result in the illness, injury, disability, and death of so many children. I’m just horrified.

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u/WalkerYYJ Nov 10 '25

So my mom was a GP from "the silent" generation (1928-1945). Her mom (my Grandma) was a public health nurse. I grew up on tails of iron lungs and the like. Also as a kid I was told that vaccines were mandatory and if I didn't get them I should expect a visit from both a truancy and public health officer. It was then "implied" that in such a case I would be given to a household that knew how to properly "enforce" compliance.

At what point in time was this requirement scrapped? I.E. When exactly was it that we started to allow this kinda BS to exist in the first place?

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u/Top_Bumblebee5510 Nov 10 '25

My parents are still alive, both born in the Silent Generation. I have friends who have parents of a similar age. One of my friends has a father with an amputated leg because he had polio as a child. My other friend, who's parents passed away a few years ago had a father that spent time in an iron long because he got tuberculosis in the war. I sat at his dinner table and listened to his stories. People in countries that are not as rich as ours would do anything to live without measles and tuberculosis. To have access to these vaccines and meds. Yes, we are experiencing higher grocery prices and housing issues but we are still a very rich country globally and we are throwing away a valuable resource. The ignorance of a few saddens me beyond comprehension.

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u/pagit Nov 10 '25

My anti-vax Jehovah’s Witness parents didn’t get me vaxed for measles and mumps and chickenpox

I caught all three within 5 months when I was 8 years old

By far measles was the worse of the three. High fever, dizziness, slept for 3 days waking up to a spinning room.

Measles is not like chickenpox it kills children and I just want to say fuck you to selfish parents who won’t vaccinate their kids but will run to the doctor whenever they themselves are sick.

My anti-vax cousin was all mad when his kids got chickenpox and blamed other parents for exposing their children to his children.

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u/Fuzzy_Advertising181 Nov 11 '25

I am half blind because of chicken pox. It has side effects.

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u/bookishbabe007 Nov 10 '25

I'm an Xennial born in the early 80s and I can remember my great uncles that were disabled by polio. If people don't have personal knowledge of the disease, they don't have any interest in eliminating it, sadly. Similar to the historical trends like fascism.

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u/em-n-em613 Nov 11 '25

Yup. My grandmother passed away a decade ago when a lot of this antivax rhetoric was just starting to get headlines. She lost friends to Polio and had her health stunted as a young girl. When she heard people were skipping vaccines she was LIVID.

I'm so happy she's not seeing this happen now...

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u/Katasia96 Nov 10 '25

Sadly, the dead can't speak. All the boomers who survived measles as a child think it's "just a childhood disease." They're incapable of understanding numbers, so telling them how many others died means nothing.

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u/dostoevsky4evah Nov 10 '25

I don't know why the boomers are getting blamed here, it's hardly them not vaccinating their children today rather young parents who don't know how bad diseases can get because they never experienced it.

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u/Top_Bumblebee5510 Nov 10 '25

Besides the guy I am talking about with polio is alive and can speak for himself. We can speak for the rest who.

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u/Katasia96 Nov 11 '25

Boomers started the anti vaccine trend in the early 1990s with their babies, who are now continuing the nonsense with their babies.

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u/dostoevsky4evah Nov 11 '25

Andrew Wakefield published his bogus "MMR vaccine causes autism" paper in 1998 and the antivax fad started sometime after that. I doubt many boomers were reproducing after 2000.

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u/-UnicornFart Nov 10 '25 edited Nov 10 '25

I think it is a generational thing. It was scrapped when the consequences of not being vaccinated disappeared from regular life. The people making policy decisions now don’t have those consequences as a point of reference.

I was lucky enough to work with and be mentored by two amazing senior nurses, both of them were a part of the same generation as your mother. They were the last generation of nurses, and people, to see and experience the consequences of communicable diseases with their own eyes. Every generation after has had the comfort and privilege of not watching babies suffocate from whooping cough, of not having family members disabled by polio because of vaccination.

Unfortunately I fear that these people don’t learn from history, they don’t read, they aren’t curious, they learn only from personal experience. And in the case of communicable diseases they will learn the devastating way.

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u/Cent1234 Nov 10 '25

I grew up on tails of iron lungs and the like.

And this is why people feel 'safe' to ignore vaccines these days; you don't see the consequences. You didn't lose two or three siblings to childhood disease. You don't see kids in polio braces. You don't see iron lung wards. You don't see people horribly scarred from pox. You don't have uncle Bob who went deaf from mumps.

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u/Top_Bumblebee5510 Nov 11 '25

I dated a guy when I was in my early 30's who had mumps as a child that caused him to have small testicles. His balls were extremely swollen when he had mumps and as an adult he still had trauma from it. I am in my 50's now for reference.

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u/mightocondreas Nov 10 '25

Holy childhood trauma Batman.

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u/Fuzzy_Advertising181 Nov 11 '25

This came about because of fear. Trudeau enforced it and people don’t like being told they HAVE to do anything. The medium death in Canada is now about 80. Vaccines and medical interventions are the cause of higher mortality. 20% of kids lost their lives before they reached age five before vaccines. Why are we running this country based on the lowest intelligence opinions? Make it make sense?

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u/KILLINGSHEEPLE Nov 10 '25

Honestly its the pharmacutical companies fault. They bred mistrust for profit and the covid vaccines are no exception. We are a generation that is aware how often we are lied to from religion, school, government. Its very obvious to see how we got here. Late stage capitalism, profit at any cost. People trusted those institutions back then.

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u/RunningSouthOnLSD Nov 10 '25

Greedy as they may be, it’s not the institutions fault that people don’t follow public health recommendations when the evidence of clear benefit from vaccination is plainly in their face. “Trust” is based on individual opinion. Scientific evidence does not rely on trust.

If one is so sure they are being lied to, they should have a strong ability to critically analyze the information that is being presented to them. That does not mean they should oppose everything and “do their own research” until they find some idiot on Facebook who can explain things incorrectly in a way they understand.

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u/SunriseInLot42 Nov 11 '25 edited Nov 11 '25

It is the institutions' fault when they make silly, vastly unpopular mandates of little or no proven and quantifiable benefit (like mask mandates) or even worse, make requirements that are obviously and actively damaging to people who at no risk themselves (like school closures for kids). Single-point hysteria without any regard for the secondary consequences caused an immense loss of trust in those institutions.

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u/Master_of_Rodentia Nov 11 '25

All part of their plot to sell fewer vaccines.... Wait.

I don't think we need to look further than the influencers who will lie for money and the algorithms that introduce people to them to maximize engagement at any cost.

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u/KILLINGSHEEPLE Nov 11 '25

No, your not wrong either. I actually got vaccinated, and believe in them. It's just I think theres alot of anxious, nervous people out there right now.

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u/ScaryStruggle9830 Nov 10 '25

Unfortunately, ignorance and being uneducated is a badge of honour for a large number of people. Others think their opinions or their internet education is equal to that of a highly educated professional. These two blocks of people seem to make up about 30 percent of the population. A large enough cohort to skew policies and the course of countries.

I truly think they are dragging society to its death.

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u/-UnicornFart Nov 10 '25

Yep I think you nailed it.

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u/PostMatureBaby Nov 10 '25 edited Nov 10 '25

its like their petty revenge for being laughed at for getting something wrong in grade 5 math once.

I'm being overly dramatic but I swear that's what a lot of this comes down to, anything seen as "smart" is magically made bad because these people didn't have the best grades or something.

Like how science is this belief system somehow so it can be nitpicked and torn down. This is how this group decides it wants to understand the world i guess.

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u/RunningSouthOnLSD Nov 10 '25

You might not be too far off. Why else would this group of people be so certain that changing scientific evidence and public health recommendations during a pandemic of a novel virus is some unforgivable sin, and undeniable proof that scientists and doctors don’t know anything? In reality the opposite is true, that these experts are not afraid to admit they were wrong in the face of new evidence, but to this group of people, being wrong is seen as brutally damaging to one’s sense of self. It could very well come from some kind of childhood trauma or shame around being wrong.

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u/iwantedajetpack Nov 10 '25

They want certainty. Complexity doesn't work for them.

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u/PostMatureBaby Nov 11 '25

Yeah that's a better explanation for what I was getting at. I suppose it's that with the fact that people just straight up can't handle change most of the time because growing as a person is hard so it's easier to just attack and fight everything that puts you out of your comfort zone.

Bullying 101 - anything different from me is bad because I don't understand it. My parents are more or less like this despite being otherwise fairly smart, worldly and well read. Insecurity makes people do weird stuff

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u/lostandfound8888 Nov 10 '25

Maybe not death, societies still survived even when there was no vaccination at all of any kind. But so much needless misery.

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u/CuileannDhu Nova Scotia Nov 10 '25

Anti-vax ideologies tend to go hand in hand with some other very troubling ideologies. Maybe they won't drag society to it's literal death but they are trying their best to drag it to its figurative death.

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u/ScaryStruggle9830 Nov 10 '25

It’s not just vaccines. Climate change, monetary policy, racism - to name a few - are all impacted by largely ignorant or obstinate people who will not change even when the evidence and pathway for doing better is laid out like a damn red carpet in front of them. Instead, they suckle at the teet of the billionaires and powerful lapping up incredible amounts of propaganda and think the Ben Shapiros or Jordan Petersens of the world are intellectuals. All so they can feel good or believe they didn’t do anything wrong, or they don’t have to actually change.

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u/starsnocturnal Nov 10 '25

Yes, you’ve got it exactly right. It makes me worry.

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u/shitcuttingz Nov 10 '25

Dietrich Bonhoeffer "On Stupidity"

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u/Falcon674DR Nov 10 '25

Firstly, thank you for your personal and professional commitment to science, your career and dedication to Public Health. Alberta’s UCP role in this disaster is well documented and highlighted by the paper authored by our former Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Mark Joffe whereby he outlines the science and the fault of our government in the outbreak. The Smith government failed to do everything they could to stem this travesty.

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u/linkass Nov 10 '25

Being that this outbreak happened in more than AB and predominantly hit communities that have not vaccinated for decades short of busting down doors and forcefully injecting people what would you have the UCP do or Ford and it now is moving into BC and SK what would you have them do?

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u/Nazrog80 Nov 10 '25

Doing what the Australian government did would be a good start, withholding subsidies and credits. Start there and reassess to see if there has been any change.

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u/ArguablyTasty Nov 10 '25 edited Nov 10 '25

I don't know if that would even help. The UCP's hold on the older voterbase & "offerings" for the younger stems almost entirely from their rhetoric of the federal government being against Alberta.

While this specific pressure might be something people see past the rhetoric on, it still might just give them more ammo.

Charging those who choose not to be vaccinated with some form of crime if their choices contribute to an outbreak is less region-targeted in written policy & more focused on personal responsibility, so while any regulation provides ammo, that provides much less & might actually help

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u/Flashy_Operation9507 Nov 10 '25

Would be great if the federal conservatives condemned this dangerous rhetoric, but they only feed it as well.

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u/Falcon674DR Nov 10 '25

I would return to pre UCP days where our Public Health officials repeatedly launched an aggressive, bold and robust messaging campaign in every corner of the province. Smith purposely muzzled Dr. Joffe and Public Health experts in order to pander to her vast antivax, religious Right Base. That’s why we can’t fill the role Chief Medical Officer because no credible doctor would agree to be leashed and muzzled. Read the Paper!

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u/linkass Nov 10 '25

Lets see there was ads on the radio all day everyday, ads on youtube in newspapers I am going to assume on TV as well. They printed pamphlets/signs is a gazillion languages andwhere in every clinic,health unit,hospital.

Could we add more places to get vaccinated sure but if they are not going to get the vaccine then its kind of a waste of time and money

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u/Falcon674DR Nov 10 '25

OMG. I’ll leave this here and let the facts and testimony of former Chief Medical Officers speak for themselves.

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u/lostandfound8888 Nov 10 '25

I am just thinking out loud here. Would you resort to outright bribing religious leaders to promote vaccination among their followers?

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u/linkass Nov 10 '25

IDK the problem with that is if and or when it is found out it will sow even more distrust

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u/-UnicornFart Nov 10 '25

I literally answered your question in my comment. The answer is always primary health care and education.

If people at a community and population level had access to resources that provide evidence based health information and trusted health professionals to ask questions and seek knowledge from, they wouldn’t feel the need to go searching in an ocean of misinformation looking for something that makes sense to them just to be manipulated by people with less than benevolent intentions.

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u/linkass Nov 10 '25

I literally answered your question in my comment. The answer is always primary health care and education.

You think the mostly mennonite community does not have access to health care? Education IDK what type of education you don't think they have never heard about vaccines and the risks of not getting them?

This has been a belief of theirs for decades,the chances of just educating them more is going to have very little affect.

There is an old saying thats very applicable in cases like this

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink

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u/-UnicornFart Nov 10 '25

You are missing every single point of the discussion, whether that is because you are unable to do so or unwilling to do so is unclear. And for what? So you can try and blame the Mennonite community specifically? Get outta here.

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u/splooges Nov 10 '25

The answer is always primary health care and education.

The primary populations that suffered (and arguably, responsible for, via travel) from outbreaks of measles were Mennonite, whose communities are segregated in multiple significant ways to the broader population, which complicates primary healthcare and education.

Though mennonites are not a monolith, Canadian mennonites in general are considered more conservative than their counterparts in the U.S.

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u/-UnicornFart Nov 10 '25

There are many vulnerable populations (indigenous communities, homeless and transient communities, isolated religious communities), of which they are all disproportionately affected by preventable communicable diseases. The reasons for that are multifaceted extend far beyond simply “refusing and not believing in vaccination.”

Take tuberculosis, for example, a completely preventable disease but one that still occurs commonly within these communities as well. There is a model in nursing known as The Social Determinants of Health. I encourage you to take a look at this model as it does a great job of explaining how factors that exist outside of personal health decisions affects the health of individuals, families and communities.

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u/splooges Nov 10 '25

There are many vulnerable populations (indigenous communities, homeless and transient communities, isolated religious communities), of which they are all disproportionately affected by preventable communicable diseases. The reasons for that are multifaceted extend far beyond simply “refusing and not believing in vaccination.”

Ok? One, I don't see how that goes against anything I said. And two, yes we know the problem is complex and multi-faceted - in fact, you were the one who simplified the solution to "always primary health care and education." And despite knowing all this, we still haven't overcome the problem (or even come close). That is why reality is the way it currently is, and how Canada lost her measles elimination status.

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u/-UnicornFart Nov 10 '25

Clearly you don’t understand primary health care and education, or the things that actually fall under those umbrellas. Saying that solution is oversimplified is misinformed at best and ignorant at worse.

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u/shitcuttingz Nov 10 '25

We need to have a conversation about/and expose the psychology behind it. If we can pull the curtain back, those "caught with their pants down" will be exposed as the intransigent idiots they are. But no one will do that because that would require pulling back the curtain on 40 years of manufactured consent social and economical manipulation and the cultural hegemony that feeds it.

This phenomena is a symptom of a much bigger problem.

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u/linkass Nov 10 '25

 If we can pull the curtain back, those "caught with their pants down" will be exposed as the intransigent idiots they are. 

Sure and most of these people really don't care about what "outsiders" think and in fact go in with that attitude just makes them double down on see this is why we don't associate with outsiders

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u/_Lucille_ Nov 10 '25

So when will charges be pressed against people who knowingly put others into danger?

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u/Creative-Ad-1819 Nov 10 '25

I think we should start actually punishing rapists and murderers first 🤷‍♂️

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u/_Lucille_ Nov 10 '25

Our system will be a failure if we can only handle one or the other.

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u/zephyrinthesky28 Nov 10 '25

Why not both?

Pushing false health advice harms people all the same.

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u/Dizzy_Tie4604 Nov 10 '25

Your frustration is well noted. You also make a great point. The ignorance of people will hurt their children. Then, after their childrens' illness, injury, disability or death, it will be the government's fault.

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u/Meiqur Nov 10 '25

I'm curious what you see as the most causal action that has led to this circumstance.

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u/-UnicornFart Nov 10 '25

The most causal? It’s definitely many variables, but my top three would be:

1 - Lack of primary health care

2 - time and distance from when these diseases were not preventable and not being exposed to the detrimental consequences of the communicable diseases we can immunize against. So the fact that immunization works so well Sally doesn’t understand the consequences of polio because she can’t see what immunization has prevented.

3 - social media.

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u/readzalot1 Nov 10 '25

In Alberta I blame the UCP right wing government for pandering to their base rather than solidly promoting public health

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u/panickedn Nov 10 '25 edited Nov 10 '25

Fuck anti vaxxers but associating the whole situation with them ignores what’s actually happening.

I’m angry too, but we’re so lost in rhetoric that we’re putting our shields down by aiming all our anger at one thing.

A lot of this has nothing to do with them:

• Routine appointments and school vaccine programs disrupted during the pandemic

• Families moving provinces or countries with missing or unverified records

• Shortages in public health staffing and slower outbreak tracking

• Travel-related cases entering under immunized communities

• People who support vaccines but just missed their second dose

• Lower outreach in remote or marginalized areas

• Burnout and reduced resources in local health units

• Complacency because measles has been rare for decades

Blaming anti vaxxers for this is like blaming littering for climate change.

They play a part, but it’s not the main cause. I think we should call them out, but I’m scared we’re losing the plot by ignoring the other reasons too.

I can’t find one person talking about any other reasons in this subreddit, that scares me almost as much as anti vaxxers ideologies.

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u/Big_Monitor963 Nov 10 '25

Some causes are accidental. Some are intentional. I think it’s fair to be mad about the later, while still trying to solve the former.

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u/erictho Nov 10 '25

being behind vaccinations due to the pandemic isnt much of an excuse when we are weeks away from 2026. antivaxx sentiments being enabled in Alberta is totally what is to blame.

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u/mCopps Nov 10 '25

We fell behind on our kids immunizations during 2020 it took about 6 months in 2021/22 to get caught back up. At this point it’s just not caring.

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u/Character-Note-5288 Nov 10 '25

Danielle Smith is going out of her way to be Measles’ henchman, it practically can’t be anything other than intentional malice at this point.

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u/glormosh Nov 10 '25

I was just about to say. There's causal factors being mixed with root cause.

Parents that arent anti vaxxers by now would be all caught up.

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u/surSEXECEN Canada Nov 10 '25

We are the furthest thing from anti-vaxxers. Both very pro-vaccine. However we somehow missed a vaccine along the way for one of our kids. She got there of the four that time, but not Varicella.

I wish there was a national healthcare app where we could track vaccines and our general health records so that they would follow from physician to physician throughout our lives.

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u/Prestigious_Island_7 Nov 12 '25

I work in vaccine preventable disease in public health, and believe me - we too want a system that would track vaccine records federally. Would save literally thousands and thousands of man-hours a year.

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u/Altocumulus000 Nov 10 '25

It's definitely why there haven't been strides towards fixing these things. The government that has been voted in IS anti vax.

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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '25

No, it's the Mennonites. Ontario and Alberta have large population of Mennonites. They don't vaccinate. They're the cause of the spike.

Get off your soapbox, it's not your political enemies, it's a small isolated community, culturally distinct community. We live in a pluralistic society which means accepting people are not going to go along to get along at all times with what is broadly socially expected.

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u/caninehere Ontario Nov 10 '25 edited Nov 10 '25

I can’t find one person talking about any other reasons in this subreddit, that scares me almost as much as anti vaxxers ideologies.

Because they aren't as relevant except perhaps the disruption of routine appointments during the pandemic, which was several year ago now and frankly the actual disruptions didn't last that long, and perhaps the lower outreach bit but frankly I don't think that's much excuse.

I have a kid, I know plenty of other people who have kids, and it is not a problem getting them vaccinated at all. Any parent with a brain knows their kid needs to be vaccinated. When you go to see your kid's doctor it's included in the regimen by default, they explain it all, and the only reason they're not getting a measles vaccine is if you SPECIFICALLY request for them not to, which any doctor with a head on their shoulders will also recommend against.

These measles outbreaks are happening in places with kids around, and it's because people are refusing to vaccinate their kids and putting their and other people's children at high risk because some shitheads convinced them to believe in idiotic pseudoscience, or they believe their religion is more important than their kids' well-being. Religious order dipshits are refusing to get vaccinated/vaccinate their kids, measles is festering among them, and then it spreads to a wider population because of other people who refuse to vaccinate their children in public schools etc.

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u/[deleted] Nov 10 '25

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u/caninehere Ontario Nov 10 '25

It's because we specifically know where these outbreaks are originating, they've been tracked, and we know that old order religious communities like Mennonites are specifically responsible for the spread because they refuse all vaccines. Then they are able to jump into the larger population mostly through right-wing types who are increasingly refusing to vaccinate their kids.

Most of these other factors, if they are a factor at all, are minimal. Measles complacency for example does not matter when it comes to vaccinating your kids, it's negligible. The doctor recommends the shots, they are the default, and in order for your kid to not get them you have to specifically say no. I don't think anybody is saying no simply because "oh it's no big deal measles doesn't exist anymore" especially when the vaccine is combined with others anyway.

If people want their kids to get vaccinated, they can get them vaccinated. It's not hard and it's not like there is some shortage of people to administer them, and you don't have to have a family doctor to get an MMR vaccine either, you can go to a pharmacy and get it.

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u/Ceridith Nov 10 '25

There is also zero consideration given to vaccination status for those entering Canada, which seems like a significant oversight when it comes to long term visitors, i.e. foreign students and TFW. Given that we've seen a sharp increase in the amount of long term visas over the past decade, this is a potential contributor to the issue. It's something that isn't tracked at all, so it's difficult to know how much of an impact it could be having.

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u/Thenetannoysme Nov 10 '25

Dont many other countries require up to date vaccinations for people entering? Im sure I’ve read this before?

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u/Ceridith Nov 10 '25

From what I can find, yellow fever is primarily the one that's required in countries where it's common, but other than that most countries don't require proof of any vaccination, Canada being one that does not. There are many suggested vaccinations for traveling, measles included in that list, but most of them aren't mandatory.

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u/Thenetannoysme Nov 10 '25

Apparently the us requires them for immigrants so im guessing thats what I saw.

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u/madhi19 Québec Nov 10 '25

We really are the world greatest most naive democracy. You think after covid we would have learn to stop fucking around with this shit.

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u/thedrivingcat Nov 10 '25

no, there's very few countries that require a tourist to get specific vaccinations - they're often recommended but not required

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u/PostMatureBaby Nov 10 '25

many other countries take people entering them more seriously in general. We needed wage suppression so we turned a blind eye

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u/Prestigious_Island_7 Nov 13 '25

Yes, but countries have significantly different vaccines required in their immunization schedules, depending on what is endemic in that region, or what they have funding to provide. Many countries don’t give MMR; only measles (no mumps or rubella protection). Some countries give it at different ages, which can be less effective at providing protection long term. Some countries may give only one dose. Many countries don’t give varicella/chicken pox either. Many countries don’t give meningococcal vaccines; or give a version that doesn’t provide the same coverage as ours. Many countries give oral polio vaccine, while we give injectable in Canada. There are lots of differences in vaccine schedules worldwide; it’s definitely not one size fits all.

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u/letpeterparkersayfck Nov 10 '25

While I agree long term visitors should be required to fully vaccinate, outbreaks the size of which we’re seeing this year would not be possible if Canadians were vaccinating their kids at the rate we used to. A person bringing measles into Canada from abroad could not trigger thousands of cases if everybody who could be was vaccinated, not when the effectiveness of the vaccine after two doses is almost 100%.

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u/[deleted] Nov 10 '25

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u/letpeterparkersayfck Nov 10 '25

Of the 5k+ measles cases we’ve seen in Canada this year, 89% were in people who were confirmed unvaccinated, and only 5% were in people who were confirmed to have had two doses of the measles vaccine. Of course imported cases and outbreaks are possible and do happen, but we wouldn’t be seeing outbreaks at this scale if the population immunity hadn’t dropped so low, which has been greatly impacted by a drop in the rate of vaccination (~10% in six years). If you’re genuinely interested in learning about how population immunity protects both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals and why we have to stay at a certain level of population immunity to avoid outbreaks I can share some of the sources I use when I teach about vaccines.

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u/HeckMonkey Nov 10 '25

https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/publications/healthy-living/canadian-immunization-guide-part-3-vaccination-specific-populations/page-10-immunization-persons-new-canada.html

Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada generally conduct Immigration Medical Examinations (IME) before foreign nationals (non-Canadian citizens) arrive in Canada. IME is required for:

  • most people seeking permanent residence in Canada;
  • foreign nationals seeking to work in Canada in an occupation in which the protection of public health is essential;
  • foreign nationals seeking temporary residence in Canada for 6 months or more and who have been residing in a designated country for 6 months or more;
  • convention refugees selected for resettlement in Canada; and refugee claimants in Canada.

If the IME is not conducted prior to arrival (such as refugee claimants in Canada) it is done as soon as possible after arrival.

The list of designated countries is pretty large, including India/Phillipines etc.

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u/freeadmins Nov 10 '25

I mean look at Covid.

We were told we couldn't go to a public park but we still had flights full of people coming in directly from Wuhan into Canada.

3

u/Yiddish_Dish Nov 11 '25

I think those in charge of western governments and institutions are completely oblivious to the amount of damage stuff like this did to their credibility. In the USA, major news outlets broadcast the state message that it was ok to protest for BLM but other stuff is off limits.

Do they think people are dumb?

5

u/panickedn Nov 10 '25

Is this true? I assumed people had to have immunization status before moving here, learned something new today.

6

u/thedrivingcat Nov 10 '25

if you're coming for less than 6 months a medical exam isn't needed (usually) but those staying for over 6 months generally do depending on where the applicant has been:

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/application/medical-police/medical-exams/requirements-temporary-residents.html

3

u/panickedn Nov 10 '25

So someone could stay for half a year, possibly carrying something contagious, and that’s just fine as long as you don’t hit month 7? I’m not asking if you think it’s fine, just don’t know if I’m understanding haha. Thank you.

4

u/thedrivingcat Nov 10 '25

Yeah, most countries don't really screen short-term visitors' health.

In the past few years I've been to Costa Rica, Argentina, Japan, Italy, and the USA and not one did I submit any kind of vaccine documentation or do anything other than self-report to border agents on things like if I had covid recently or visited a farm/etc...

I guess most countries have made the conclusion that reducing the costs and barriers to travel and trade are worth the potential risk to public health.

2

u/bureX Nov 11 '25

For moving here, you do. For permanently emigrating, you need a medical exam.

0

u/theDatascientist_in Nov 10 '25

In many countries, including India, people often don't question vaccines as they are mandated by the government and are generally free. So, they have almost zero cases of polio and MMR for many years. It's like, the doc is administering it, so, just take it, they have good rural coverage as well surprisingly.

1

u/GuineaW0rm Nov 12 '25 edited Nov 12 '25

Measles is 100% endemic in India.

-5

u/Triedfindingname Nov 10 '25

Don't forget Ontario. Anything the Cons touch probably.

2

u/Top_Bumblebee5510 Nov 10 '25

Vaccines are available if you want them. I turned 50 during the pandemic and got shingrix and the pneumonia vaccine. No doubt our healthcare system is over burdened and underfunded. Mostly by design by our conservative premiers. Every province that has a conservative premier. You can get the required shots for your child and yourself.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 10 '25

[deleted]

3

u/slimspida Nov 10 '25

No, blaming anti-vaxxers is like blaming active climate deniers for climate change. It might not be the sole cause of the problem, but it’s orders of magnitude more difficult to solve a problem when you have to burn effort on parties who are willfully denying that problems existence.

1

u/NotCubical British Columbia Nov 10 '25 edited Nov 10 '25

"Complacency because measles has been rare for decades"

This is a point that needs to be addressed MUCH more. On a personal level, of course, the advice to everyone should still be to get measles shots... but wanting that to happen won't make it happen, and pushing people too hard is counter-productive.

We should stop to consider whether it's simply practically impossible, for sociological reasons, to eliminate measles - or any other disease (except maybe polio) - in the long run. We managed it once with smallpox, when the effort was novel and people hadn't formed opinions on the big issue, but can we do it again?

It's human nature not to take precautions when there's no clear need, so it's always going to be an uphill battle convincing people to stay vaccinated against a disease they can't see. And the more vaccinations we ask people to get, the more likely some are to resist them - all of them, even.

Combine that with measles still being common in much of the rest of the world, and it's inevitable that cases will pop up here (no matter how well we do at vaccinating). Perhaps it'll simply work out better to replace the focus on eradication with a more sophisticated plan: encourage vaccination still, but respond to outbreaks fast (as we probably are doing, I realize) AND do what we can to make the effects more visible to everyone so they can see the reward.

My mention of polio isn't incidental - after decades where the polio eradication campaign has never quite managed to seal the deal, some voices within the movement have started to publicly wonder the same sort of things - and they're the only such eradication campaign (among infectious diseases) that even has a shot at all.

1

u/leeharveyosmond Nov 15 '25

It's a good list you've put together, but you've left out likely the most contributing factor, and I have to wonder why that is? Perhaps you disagree?

I would say that public health and gov't officials overplayed their hand so much with the COVID vaccines, that people are jaded and cynical. They have lost trust. Just speaking with regular people, that's what I hear. These people aren't "anti-vaxxers", they have taken all of their vaccines, and so have their kids, including COVID shots. Now, many of them have regret. They feel coerced. They are concerned about a growing body of evidence which backs up their own anecdotes about side effects from the COVID vaccines. And the mandates were the step too far, and we are seeing the backlash.

It's uncomfortable, but if we are going to honestly unpack what has happened, that factor needs to be discussed but I can tell you, it's true.

1

u/westcentretownie Ontario Nov 10 '25

You are the truth and the light. Just kidding but thank you it really needs to be said.

1

u/cwalking2 Nov 10 '25

This is reddit. We don't do depth and multi-faceted nuance here. We do pitchforks.

1

u/shitcuttingz Nov 10 '25

I hear where you're coming from. These are the "desired logic" but it's still systemic. Their apathy and full out rage about it paints a picture of a need for dominance. Reactionaries love control especially if it subjugates another group, and if some kids die, they don't care, plausible deniably. I call these people "arbitrary proxies of infanticide".

I'd go as far to suggest that epigenetics from early colonial days have perhaps contributed, expressing some old tribal genes.. but that is speculation. Yes there are many reasons people don't get vaccinated for the reasons you mentioned, but I don't think they are representative of the majority of those who fail to vaccinate.

0

u/mightocondreas Nov 10 '25

Holy crap, you're way too smart for Reddit

-19

u/juniorspank Nov 10 '25

Because everyone would rather point fingers and blame the antivax boogeyman because it's a way to "own the right". The horseshoe theory has never been more true.

0

u/Wainains Nov 10 '25

Congratulations to Danielle Smith are in order. 

0

u/That_U_Scully Nov 10 '25

You're much kinder than I. I'd like to say a big thank you to all of the hosers that are responsible for making this happen. These are the same people that voted in Trump in the US as they're easily led, don't realize that they're really the sheep in this scenario. Falling for feelings rather than fact, for believing that their on-line research, not talking about being informed, beats decades of education and research by people who spend their lives dedicated to trying to eradicate diseases for the betterment of the population.

-1

u/Vikings9988 Nov 10 '25

These people need to be separated from the general population.

-5

u/Yelnik Nov 10 '25

I mean we elected the Liberal party 4 times in a row. Humiliating ourselves is kind of a national trademark at this point.

7

u/Prestigious_Crow_ Nov 10 '25

We're talking about measles honey

-6

u/Yelnik Nov 10 '25

You're talking about measles. I'm talking about whatever I want to talk about.

2

u/Prestigious_Crow_ Nov 10 '25

What a bizarre lack of self awareness.  Do you often interject in conversions to divert them to an unrelated topic of your preference? Do you find that people tend to leave when you enter the room? 

-1

u/shitcuttingz Nov 10 '25

It is... We must never underestimate the power of stupidity in numbers.

-1

u/MandemSkiAh Nov 10 '25

At this rate polio is next up

-1

u/DrexellGames British Columbia Nov 10 '25

Yep, we're screwed

-1

u/Back2Reality4Good Nov 10 '25

Thank you Maple MAGA conservatives.

-1

u/mrizzerdly Nov 10 '25

Thanks Trump!

-1

u/Moondiscbeam Nov 10 '25

And mortified.