Anti-vax conspiracies fuelling Canada’s measles crisis

By Lethbridge Herald on April 23, 2025.

By Doug Firby
Troy Media

Measles, declared eradicated in Canada in 1998, is making a big comeback in several provinces and around the world.

The situation has become so urgent in Alberta that Dr. Mark Joffe, the province’s chief medical officer of health, gave in to pressure from prominent health officials and broke his longstanding silence on the topic. He issued an urgent warning.

“Measles is more serious than other common childhood illnesses. It can cause pneumonia, brain swelling and even death,” Joffe said in a statement published online last week. He went on to recommend that the public get vaccinated.

To which one wonders, what took him so long?

Albertans are the most vaccine-hesitant Canadians, according to surveys. In the absence of clear medical direction, they are reluctant to take advantage of the easy and free way to stop the spread: two doses of vaccine. Some even believe that vaccination is potentially more harmful than the disease. It’s a dangerous misperception that needs to be constantly challenged by trusted voices.

As of last Friday, Alberta has seen 58 new cases in 2025, according to Joffe, making it the third highest in the country. Also on Friday, Ontario reported more than 914 cases in 2025, and Quebec has seen the second-highest increase. Only Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the territories have no reported cases this year, although New Brunswick had 50 in 2024.

The World Health Organization (WHO) states that outbreaks in all regions of the world are the result of stagnant or inadequate immunization rates. In particular, it points to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Samoa and Ukraine as hotspots. Worldwide infection rates hit a record 10 million cases in 2018, with more than 140,000 deaths.

The causes of outbreaks vary, but at the root is failure to vaccinate, the WHO states.

Not surprisingly, measles is growing in Canada because more people who visit our country from Europe and other hotspots are bringing the virus with them. And Canadians, perhaps smugly believing the disease was gone for good, have let their guard down.

Measles could easily be prevented if enough parents agreed to get their children vaccinated. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that community immunity, also known as herd immunity, can be achieved when more than 95 per cent of people in a community are vaccinated.

Yet in Canada, vaccination rates for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) declined in 2023 compared with 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study published in October 2024 in the Canadian Journal of Public Health. The first-dose rate of MMR vaccine dropped from 89.5 per cent to 82.5 per cent.

In Alberta, where the most recent statistics are from 2022, just 74 per cent of Alberta children were fully vaccinated against measles, with two doses, by the age of seven. That’s worse than in 2018, when it was 78 per cent. And there are pockets in the province where vaccination rates were as low as 45 per cent.

Measles is one of the most contagious infectious diseases—more contagious than diseases like COVID-19, the flu and chickenpox—and it spreads rapidly in areas with low vaccination rates, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC). The measles virus spreads through the air when an infected person breathes, coughs, sneezes or even talks, and can also spread by touching surfaces or objects that have been contaminated with the virus.

PHAC, the federal agency, has asked provinces and territories to report levels of MMR or measles-mumps-rubella-varicella (MMRV) vaccination. As of October 2024, five provinces and one territory—Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Yukon—have submitted reports to Standardized Reporting on Immunization (STARVAX).

Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, has spoken out publicly, warning that measles is a serious illness, with about one in five infected children requiring hospitalization. Other provinces have also sounded early warnings. In March, Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, stated: “It is critical we work together to mitigate further spread of this vaccine-preventable disease.”

Last week, before Joffe’s statement, an Alberta Health spokesperson told CBC News that Joffe had made no public announcement because he was busy leading the response to the measles outbreaks across the province. “Dr. Joffe and public health officials have been working closely with Alberta Health Services and their public health team to manage the outbreak response. He has been monitoring the situation closely and providing guidance and advice to medical officers of health.”

It’s not surprising that Joffe, appointed by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith after his predecessor was fired, took months to issue the warning. History has shown that too much communication can be a career-killer. It was just November 2022, after all, when Smith fired Dr. Deena Hinshaw and installed Joffe as her replacement.

Hinshaw had been providing daily updates on the COVID-19 pandemic throughout most of 2020 and into 2021. But she stopped holding regular briefings in June 2021, reportedly under political pressure.

And it is widely believed her recommended loosening of restrictions in the summer of 2021 was in response to pressure from then-premier Jason Kenney. In May 2021, he notoriously removed nearly all COVID-19 measures and declared this would be the “best summer ever.”
We know how that move worked out. COVID cases surged.

And yet, despite that bitter lesson, our provincial leaders have not campaigned for MMR vaccination. It appears Smith either agrees with, or is reluctant to offend, the anti-vax, anti-science crowd from which she draws a significant portion of her support.

And Joffe? Well, any health leader who relies on the province for employment would naturally be circumspect in public pronouncements.

Doug Firby is an award-winning editorial writer with over four decades of experience working for newspapers, magazines and online publications in Ontario and western Canada. Previously, he served as Editorial Page Editor at the Calgary Herald.
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