Michelle Garner Rempel is the Conservative Member of Parliament for Calgary Nose Hill. The following article from her SubStack is reprinted with permission.Last month, a massive measles outbreak exploded in Canada, centered in Ontario. With the summer travel season well underway, it's now flaring up nationwide, with my home province of Alberta being particularly hard hit.This shouldn't be happening. That’s because a vaccine developed over 60 years ago — one that’s nearly 100% effective when properly administered — has largely wiped out endemic measles across the West, including in Canada (since 1998.) So today, the virus almost exclusively infects unvaccinated or under-vaccinated people.Nonetheless, an October 2024 study in the Canadian Journal of Public Health revealed uptake rates for the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR) vaccine plunged from 2019 to 2023, with one-dose coverage dropping from 89.5% to 82.5%. But even as new cases of measles surge, few Canadian officials are willing to address the most uncomfortable reasons behind Canada’s MMR plummeting vaccination rates. They should be. But since they aren’t, let’s do it here..Uncomfortable Truth #1: Federal government mishandling of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout eroded some public trust in vaccination guidance, thereby deepening vaccine hesitancy.Even before the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in 2021, the Canadian federal government faced justified criticism for issuing absolute public health pronouncements, only to reverse them entirely without transparent explanations.For instance, in the pandemic's early days, the government featured Dr. Theresa Tam — then head of the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) — warning against mask wearing, only to impose mask mandates months later. Similarly confusing guidance emerged when PHAC advised "wearing a mask while having sex," even as provincial governments prohibited mixing with anyone outside one's household.The federal government also maintained hotel quarantine policies even though there was no evidence to prove the costly policy slowed the spread of COVID, and after alleged sexual assaults occurred at the facilities. The federal government has never acknowledged these types of flip-flops, let alone provided clear explanations for them, which understandably fuelled scepticism and eroded trust in its ability to deliver reliable, evidence-based health advice — even before the vaccines were introduced.Then, the COVID-19 vaccine rollout was marred by further inconsistencies. After weeks of urging Canadians to accept the first vaccine offered, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) recommended against the AstraZeneca shot. Rather than explaining the rationale or pausing its use, the Liberal government politically contradicted this advice. Much later, the vaccine was withdrawn with blood-clotting risks being attributed to its use. To this day, the federal government has neither publicly admitted these errors nor outlined a plan for how the nation's top vaccine regulators and advisory bodies will prevent such missteps in the future.Yet, these same officials now feign bewilderment at Canada's declining MMR vaccination rates..Uncomfortable Truth #2: The federal government downplayed the possibility of rare but serious side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine and mismanaged its vaccine injury compensation program, thereby deepening vaccine hesitancy.In addition to the incredibly poor mixed messaging on AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine, during the height of the federal government’s push for the public to take COVID vaccines, public health officials went out of their way to push the message that all COVID vaccines were “safe and effective” with “mild side effects”. To date, the federal government has not publicly acknowledged that its earlier guidance now contradicts current clinical considerations, which recognize rare but serious side effects such as myocarditis.The government's failure to address how these complications were overlooked or ignored during the issuance of mandatory vaccine policies undoubtedly exacerbates vaccine hesitancy today. Put differently, for individuals already harbouring concerns about vaccines such as for MMR, the lack of initial transparency on potential side effects related to the COVID-19 vaccine — or muddled public health messaging — likely reinforced narratives that deterred their vaccine uptake.A similar inference can be drawn from the federal government's vilification or suppression of public health officials who questioned whether the actual clinical severity of COVID-19 in the general population justified mandatory vaccine policies — especially given the expedited approval of vaccines through processes that typically take years. Likewise, recent revelations of potential widespread misuse of funds in the government's vaccine injury compensation program raise serious doubts about its willingness to support individuals harmed by flawed or incomplete public health guidance.If the federal government truly aims to combat vaccine hesitancy, it must confront these issues head-on with courage and corrective action..Uncomfortable Truth #3: The federal government's actions during the pandemic lent credence to narratives portraying vaccines as mere profit-making tools for Big Pharma, abetted by the government itself, thereby deepening vaccine hesitancy.Between Canada’s federal government paying Novavax $350 million for undelivered vaccine orders, paying Medicago $300 million for a vaccine that never made it to market, to purchasing 32.5 million doses of vaccine worth roughly $1 billion and allowing them to expire, Canada’s federal government does not have a stellar record on COVID vaccine procurement, putting it mildly.But instead of being transparent about the causes of these failures and putting in place failsafes to ensure such waste wouldn’t happen again, the federal government worked to stop Parliamentary inquiries into the matter. To date, not much progress has been made to fix these problems nor have any significant consequences been levelled. To a vaccine hesitant person skeptical of Big Pharma, these are Big (unresolved) Issues..Uncomfortable Truth #4: MMR vaccination rates have likely declined in part due to the Canadian federal government's politicization of COVID-19 vaccine mandates and its failure to publicly atone for this error, thereby entrenching vaccine hesitancy.In early 2021, the Royal Society of Canada released a detailed report that outlined numerous nuanced reasons for vaccine hesitancy among Canadians. It also offered several equally nuanced recommendations on how governments could collaborate with these populations to address concerns, build trust and thereby boost vaccine uptake.In no way did it blame people for having concerns. Rather, the report approached the concerns of vaccine hesitant persons as valid perceptions that the government had a duty of care to address. But instead of following the report’s guidance, the federal government threw it out the window and ran a highly divisive federal election campaign which focused on denigrating vaccine-hesitant persons in Canada.Then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dined out on using dehumanizing and politically loaded terms to describe the vaccine hesitant, including “anti-vaxxer”. Trudeau famously went as far as to describe vaccine hesitant persons as “non believers in science and progress” and “racist misogynists".Trudeau did this in spite of the Royal Society issuing a subsequent report strongly warning against using such rhetoric against members of the public. But the politics of the moment trumped the science for Mr. Trudeau and his fellow Liberals, and as such, their actions prompted many vaccine hesitant persons to dig in.Things got worse in early 2022, when instead of constructively addressing the concerns of vaccine-hesitant truckers and nipping the convoy in the bud, Mr. Trudeau responded by allowing members of his cabinet (who are now the current prime minister’s most senior advisors) to muse about turning tanks loose on them.The Liberal government has never issued a public apology for its vehemently hostile rhetoric toward vaccine-hesitant individuals, let alone devised strategies to re-engage this demographic. As a result, it has entrenched a partisan divide in society, where vaccination status is viewed as a political virtue signal rather than a public health objective to be pursued collaboratively..Uncomfortable Truth #5: The federal government retained the individuals responsible for botched public health guidance as its primary spokespeople, and rather than enacting personnel changes, rewarded them for their missteps — thereby deepening vaccine hesitancy.Nearly two years ago, I penned an essay arguing that if the federal Liberal government truly wished to rebuild trust in public health guidance, it should replace Dr. Theresa Tam as head of the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC.)Instead, they retained her as a key spokesperson on measles vaccination and awarded her — and other public health officials whose performance has been widely questioned — the Order of Canada. The Minister of Health who served during the pandemic remains in cabinet, as do those ministers responsible for procurement failures and squandered government funds related to vaccine production..Uncomfortable Truth #6: Post-pandemic federally set high immigration levels have likely had an impact on Canadian vaccination rates.Canadian federal ministers have very recently used the COVID pandemic to justify the approval of hundreds of thousands of temporary work and study visas.But those rapidly increased immigration levels have also led to a surge in demand for primary health care services for which Canada’s health care system was ill prepared to absorb.For Canadians who now face massive wait times for these services, taking time off of work to wait in line to see a doctor for routine vaccines for themselves or for their children can be a difficult task to accomplish.There is also the problem of spreading public perception that unvaccinated newcomers to Canada comprise the main cohort of people impacted by measles infections. While a 2007 study suggested that 36% of a tested cohort of newcomers had susceptibility to measles, and it’s true that there is no formal requirement for newcomers to be vaccinated against measles prior to arrival in Canada, some data suggests that the current outbreak is primarily running rampant amongst non-immigrant Canadians.Either way, it’s hard to confirm because neither the number of immigrants entering Canada without measles vaccination, nor the immigration status of infected persons in Canada is publicly reported — something that the government should consider, as health authorities seek fact-driven ways to bring the outbreak under control and address vaccine hesitancy..Long story short, measles is no joke.It’s an extremely contagious viral infection that poses significant risks to young children, pregnant women, and immunocompromised individuals, potentially causing severe complications such as pneumonia, brain inflammation, blindness, or even death. The virus can infect a large majority of susceptible people because it is able to linger hours after an infected person passes through a room.But it is preventable with two doses of a vaccine. So, the federal government, the media, pundits, and academia should be doing everything in their power to address concerns about getting vaccinated — particularly concerns that were caused or exacerbated during the COVID pandemic.Alternatively, these folks could persist in skirting core issues, tacitly endorsing the dehumanization of vaccine-hesitant individuals by depicting them as uneducated bumpkins unworthy of true governmental accountability — all while measles surges across Canada once more.Let’s hope that — unlike during the COVID pandemic — sanity and compassion on all of these fronts prevails.Michelle Rempel Garner served as the Conservative Shadow Minister for Health and the Vice-Chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health from 2020-2021. She also has pre-political experience management consulting in primary health care service delivery.Michelle Rempel Garner@MichelleRempel
