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The advent of social media has provided ample opportunities for humans to bond. At first, it was remarkable and refreshing to see groups of people from all over the world sharing pictures of sunsets, spoon collections and Pez dispensers. We were all having fun.
Unfortunately, we have not found the same rapport and good will in realms like politics, education, science and medicine. Conversations easily evolve into shouting matches. Content that has evidently been doctored makes it through seemingly trained and experienced eyes, and gets shared by thousands of users who say to themselves: “If a person I respect linked to this, it must be true.” We later realize that what seemed real was actually not.
Many angry “tweets” about service originate from airports. Your flight got delayed. You are essentially confined to a tiny space and your smartphone becomes a megaphone to express dismay at the airline that left you stranded or made you wait. The COVID-19 pandemic, which for better or worse confined us to our homes, provided people with a chance to take the airport lounge inside their home. Anger led to people “doing their own research” to become supposed experts on anything, usually with slanted sources that fit their prevailing biases.
Few issues have been as polarizing as vaccines. Earlier this month, about three in five Canadians (59 per cent, up eight points since March 2022) told us that each person should be allowed to decide whether they want to get the seasonal flu vaccine, while just under two in five (38 per cent, down three points) think the flu vaccine should be mandatory in their province.
Support for a “flu vaccine mandate” is higher among Canadians aged 18-34 (44 per cent) than among their counterparts aged 35 to 54 (33 per cent) and aged 55 and over (36 per cent). The regional disparities are staggering. Half of British Columbians (50 per cent) think the flu vaccine should be given to everyone. The proportions are lower in Atlantic Canada (43 per cent), Quebec (40 per cent), Alberta (37 per cent), Ontario (34 per cent) and Saskatchewan and Manitoba (21 per cent).
Canadians who voted for the Liberal Party in 2021 are more likely to support making flu vaccines mandatory (46 per cent) than those who voted for the NDP (41 per cent) or the Conservative Party (32 per cent) in the last federal election.
The numbers shift dramatically when we ask Canadians about childhood diseases. Across the country, 67 per cent of Canadians think vaccinations for children should “definitely” or “probably” be mandatory in their province (down eight points). Just under three in ten (29 per cent, up nine points) think the decision on vaccination should “definitely” or “probably” be made by parents.
Optimists will take solace in the fact that vaccinations for children are endorsed by more than two-thirds of Canadians. Pessimists will understandably acknowledge the steady increase in the proportion of residents who think parents have the ultimate say about an issue that can affect entire populations.
We have already had clear signals of how bad the problem can be. In May, Ontario marked its first measles death since 1989. The provincial Public Health Office (PHO) reports that the proportion of four-year-olds in the province with zero vaccine doses increased from four per cent in 2019-2020 to 17 per cent in 2022-2023. This is clearly not a trend that the medical community wants to see.
On a regional basis, the differences on this question are not extreme. Alberta leads the way, with 34 per cent of residents saying childhood vaccinations are better left to parents. Quebec is second with 31 per cent, followed by British Columbia (30 per cent), Saskatchewan and Manitoba (also 30 per cent), Ontario (28 per cent) and Atlantic Canada (also 28 per cent).
More troubling is the fact that the long-debunked idea of a connection between the childhood vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), and autism remains prevalent in the Canadian population. This year, 31 per cent of Canadians say this notion is “definitely” or “probably” correct, up 12 points over the past couple of years.
Canadians aged 18-34 are more likely to believe that the link between vaccines and autism is real (26 per cent) than their older counterparts. This is a disheartening statistic. A significant proportion of Canadians who are in the perfect age for childrearing may have “done their own research” and looked at files from ill-prepared sources.
These results should serve as a wake-up call to provincial health authorities. It is one thing for your average social media post to justify a loss of stamina after getting the COVID-19 vaccine. It is very different to see that the effectiveness of childhood inoculation is being questioned at a higher rate than two years ago, and to see more than one in four of the country’s youngest adults ready to make decisions for their children based on something they heard or read a long time ago.
Results are based on an online survey conducted from Oct. 7-9, 2024, among 1,001 adults in Canada. The data has been statistically weighted according to Canadian census figures for age, gender and region. The margin of error, which measures sample variability, is +/- 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
