Ontario Will Soon Require Anti-Vaxxers to Go Back to School

Canadian anti-vaccination proponents are soon going to be headed back to school, thanks to a bill that's being proposed. Yesterday, Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins tabled a bill, the Immunization of School Pupils Act, that would require any parents and guardians who reject immunizations for nonmedical reasons to take a science class led by their local public health unit. The class, which would explain the importance of vaccines for children and society on the whole, would need to be completed before vaccine exemption paperwork could be submitted to public schools.

Canada's most populated province isn't the first region to punish parents for not vaccinating their children. Last year, Australia passed a measure that requires all children there to be vaccinated in order to receive child-care benefits, rebates, and the Family Tax Benefit — subsidies that can add up to approximately $10,700 in US dollars.

The bill was proposed the same week that almost 600 Waterloo region students were suspended for failing to provide current vaccination records to their school and a week after a whooping cough outbreak at a Calgary school.