The Angus Reid Institute polled nearly 1,700 Canadian adults online between May 20 and May. 23, asking them if proof of immunization should be required for kids to attend daycare or schools.

Sixty-nine per cent said yes — an increase from last year, when only 55 per cent of respondents agreed that vaccinations should be mandatory for kids.

Maxwell Smith, a bioethicist and associate professor at Western University’s School of Health Studies, says the figure suggests mandating childhood vaccinations is not as divisive as once thought. 

“Given what we just experienced with COVID and controversies around vaccine mandates, I think this is why this figure is quite striking,” he said.

Canada is in the midst of the worst measles outbreak since the virus was declared eliminated back in 1998. Ontario remains the heart of the outbreak: Public Health Ontario said 1,938 people have gotten sick with measles so far in 2025. 

Smith says those numbers may have changed peoples’ minds. 

“In these circumstances, where you have an unprecedented measles outbreak and you have the lives of children on the line, sometimes, that’s the tipping point,” he said.