COLUMN: Think Again – Mandating the measles vaccine would be a mistake

Measles cases are rising in Manitoba. Public health officials are promoting vaccines as the best way to protect vulnerable people from this illness.

Right on cue, the CBC published an article asking whether the provincial government should make measles vaccines mandatory for students to attend school. However, going down this road would be a huge mistake.

We saw during the COVID-19 pandemic what happens when governments go too far with vaccine mandates. Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s inflammatory remarks about unvaccinated people and his government’s unnecessary requirement for truckers to get the COVID-19 vaccine were prime examples.

One of the fastest ways to destroy confidence in public health policy is to run roughshod over the rights of those who have a different opinion. We should not be the least bit surprised that vaccine skepticism is higher now than ever before. Instead of increasing confidence in vaccines, overbearing government mandates destroyed it.

Making vaccines mandatory to attend school would be counterproductive in multiple ways. First, it would likely lead to fewer children attending school. If we believe that it’s important for children to attend school, we need fewer barriers to attendance, not more.

The last thing we need is to destroy the relationship of trust between neighbourhood schools and parents. But that is exactly what will happen if politicians send the message that they know better than parents what is in the best interests of their children. Our public education system relies on trust between schools and parents. Without that trust, our system would quickly crumble.

It’s true that some provinces, notably New Brunswick and Ontario, currently have vaccine mandates in place for students. However, both provinces allow for significant loopholes. Notably, parents are allowed to exempt their children from the vaccine mandate if they fill out a form requesting an exemption.

In other words, the vaccine mandates to attend school in New Brunswick and Ontario are really not mandates at all. If parents are allowed to opt their children out of the mandate by simply filling out a form, then the vaccines are not mandatory.

Thus, if the Manitoba government moved ahead with a vaccine mandate that did not allow for religious or conscientious objections, it would be the only province with such a draconian requirement. That alone should be cause for concern.

There is a better approach. Instead of using the heavy hand of government to compel compliance, public health officials should stick to education and advocacy. The last thing we need is to turn concern about rising measles cases into a full-blown crisis where there is widespread loss of trust between parents and schools.

Keep in mind that most parents already choose to vaccinate their children against measles. That’s because decades of research show that the widely used MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine is remarkably effective at protecting children from serious illness.

Unfortunately, as we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic, government mandates that try to force the remainder of the population to get vaccinated typically fuel vaccine hesitancy. Many parents naturally push back when politicians try to undermine their right to make decisions for their own children.

This is likely why measles vaccination rates have steadily declined since 2020. By overreaching on COVID-19 vaccine mandates, governments created the unintentional side effect of causing many people to lose confidence in longstanding vaccines such as the one for measles.

Making the measles vaccine, or any other vaccines, mandatory to attend school would be a serious mistake. Instead of turning vaccine hesitant parents into enemies in need of coercion, we need to treat them with respect.

Michael Zwaagstra is a teacher and deputy mayor of Steinbach. He can be reached at mzwaagstra@shaw.ca.