Almost 70 per cent of Canadians surveyed want child vaccines to be mandatory: poll

Public health nurse Lauri Bidinot demonstrates how to give a measles shot to a young girl at Southwestern Public Health in St. Thomas, Ont. on Tuesday, March 4, 2025.THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Geoff Robins

A new poll suggests nearly 70 per cent of Canadians support mandatory childhood vaccinations, but at least one public health official says she’s uncomfortable with the idea of forcing parents to immunize their kids.

The Angus Reid Institute survey landed Thursday as Public Health Ontario said 93 new measles cases have emerged in the province over the past week, bringing the total number of infections there to 1,888 since October.

The poll found 69 per cent of respondents said proof of immunization should be required for kids to attend daycare and school. That’s an increase from the 55 per cent of respondents who said the same thing last year, before a measles outbreak emerged in multiple provinces and infected mostly unvaccinated infants, kids and teens.

Dr. Sarah Wilson said she’s a strong advocate for immunization but also feels it’s better to let families come to these decisions on their own terms.

“I think it’s really challenging to establish trust in vaccination and trust in public health if we’re forcing interventions, including vaccination on individuals,” said Wilson, a medical epidemiologist at Public Health Ontario.

Proof of vaccination is mandatory for kids to attend school in Ontario and New Brunswick, unless they have a valid exemption, but that’s not the case in other provinces, says the Angus Reid report.

The percentage of poll respondents who favoured proof of vaccination was slightly lower than the national rate in Alberta, at 60 per cent, but higher than the 48 per cent of Albertans who supported a mandate last year.

In Alberta, 26 new cases of measles were confirmed on Thursday alone, bringing the provincial total to 654 cases since the beginning of March.

Government data shows that about 500 of Alberta’s cases have been in youth under 18, with 200 of those cases being in children under five.

Alberta’s online measles dashboard also shows that three people are currently in hospital, with two receiving intensive care.

Ontario officials said Thursday measles has sent 141 people to hospital so far, including 101 unvaccinated infants, kids and teenagers, and 10 people who required intensive care.

While Wilson said she was hesitant to make projections, she was encouraged to see this week’s case count was substantially lower than last week’s numbers, when the province reported 173 new cases May 22. The previous week saw 182 additional cases.

“I’m hoping that we’ll continue to see a gradual decline in the number of cases each week,” she said.

Half of the poll respondents in Ontario and Alberta said they believed more should be done to control the outbreak at all levels of health management, from the premier to the chief medical officer of health.

A Canadian Journal of Public Health article published in October 2024 found approximately 76 per cent of seven-year-olds were vaccinated against measles in 2023, down from just over 86 per cent in 2019.

The poll, which spoke to 1,700 Canadians between May 20 and 23, also found 37 per cent of respondents in Alberta said they had no confidence in their provincial government’s response to measles, while 30 per cent said the same in Saskatchewan and 27 per cent said that in Ontario.

The polling industry’s professional body, the Canadian Research Insights Council, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.

Southwestern Public Health, which has consistently recorded Ontario’s highest weekly case count, reported 26 new cases, down from 63 last week. Several health units, including London and Hamilton, reported no new cases.

In a recent interview, Southwestern Public Health’s director of infectious disease cautioned against reading too much into the ebb and flow of weekly case reports until there’s a sustainable trend.

Susan MacIsaac said she earlier thought the outbreak might have reached its peak in February.

“But that actually has kind of evolved over the last few months and we’ve seen peaks and valleys,” MacIsaac said.

Article by Hannah Alberga.

With files from Jack Farrell in Edmonton.

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