Call your MD, not your MPP: Ontario politician to father who asks for help to opt out of vaccines
An Ontario politician has refused to help a constituent who asked her to sign a form that would allow the constituent’s daughter to opt out of getting the Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine.
“This is a conversation that needs to be happening with a healthcare professional, I’m a politician, ” France Gelinas, the NDP MPP for Nickel Belt told As it Happens host Carol Off.
Gelinas, who is the party’s health critic and a trained physiotherapist, told the show that she is often asked to notarize forms, but this was the first time she was asked to sign one regarding vaccines.
The man’s daughter was about to be suspended from school unless she got vaccinated or had the form signed.
“He said that he did not want all those different poisons to be injected into his daughter,” Gelinas said in the interview.
Gelinas said she consulted with the province’s Commissioner of Integrity before saying no, and was told it was her choice.
“I come from 25 years in healthcare, I’ve worked in environments like a children’s treatment centre where most of the children there are born with disability or severe diseases and most cannot be vaccinated because of their poor health...I think we owe it as a society to make sure everyone else around them protect them and they are worth protection,” she told Carol Off.
She claims at least one other MPP -- a Progressive Conservative -- was asked to sign a similar form by a constituent, and agreed. She suggested others had also done so, and now regret it.
“Unfortunately I am pretty sure there are MPPs who have signed those forms. Right now they are not too proud about what they have done. Most will now realize they do have a choice and that they will not do that,” Gelinas said.
The MPP also called on Ontario’s Liberal government to “step up” its information campaign regarding vaccines. There are currently 12 known cases of measles in Ontario. The province’s Health Minister, Eric Hoskins, has been vocal in recent weeks about the need for both vaccine education and the importance of getting vaccines to create herd immunity.