Canada’s Own Rewrite: Alberta

While Americans argue over Washington’s vaccine changes, one Canadian province has been rewriting its own rules: a $100 fee for most COVID-19 shots, a government report urging a halt to COVID vaccines, a new legal right to refuse vaccination — and the worst measles epidemic in the province in nearly forty years.

1. Measles: the cost

Alberta’s measles outbreak began in March 2025. By the end of the year the province had confirmed 2,008 cases; 164 people were hospitalized, and one baby died — born prematurely after the mother caught measles during pregnancy. Another 317 cases have been confirmed in 2026 so far. (Government of Alberta, data to 21 Oct 2026; Global News.)

• Who got sick: about 88–89% of cases were unvaccinated, and most were under 18.
• Why it spread: in 2024 only 71.6% of Alberta seven-year-olds had both measles doses, far below the 95% needed to stop the virus. In some communities coverage was far lower: 24% in Two Hills County, about 30% in High Level and the County of Forty Mile, 39% in the M.D. of Taber (CBC, May 2025).
• No school requirement: unlike Ontario and New Brunswick, Alberta has no law requiring children to be vaccinated, or to have an exemption on file, to attend school.
• What changed it: once the outbreak took hold, the province ran targeted clinics and outreach. It reports more than 137,000 measles doses given from March to November 2025, with uptake up 83% in the south zone and 73% in the north (Global News, Nov 2025). Weekly cases fell more than 90% from the July peak.

Canada lost its measles elimination status on 10 November 2025, after more than a year of continuous spread in which Ontario and Alberta had by far the largest outbreaks.

2. The $100 COVID-19 shot

In August 2025 Alberta began charging most people for COVID-19 vaccines. For the 2025–26 season, shots were free only for health-care workers, immunocompromised people, seniors in care homes or receiving home care, and people on income support. Everyone else had to pre-order online and pay $100 (Globe and Mail; CTV).

For 2026–27 the province has kept the fee, but everyone over 65 is now exempt, the fee can be waived for people with high-risk conditions, and pharmacies are again supplied.

A fee justified by waste and a fee driven by ideology can look the same from the outside. What can be measured is the effect: fewer doses wasted, and far fewer people protected.

3. The COVID task force report

Premier Danielle Smith appointed a task force, chaired by Dr. Gary Davidson, a former head of emergency medicine at Red Deer Hospital, with a $2 million budget, to review the province’s pandemic response. She said she wanted to hear from people who had been “shouted down in the public sphere.” Its 269-page report was released quietly on 24 January 2025. It:

• recommended an immediate halt to COVID-19 vaccines unless doctors make full disclosure to patients, stating that it “cannot be concluded that these COVID-19 vaccines are safe”;
• called for stronger protection of doctors who prescribe, and pharmacists who promote, ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine;
• recommended against future mask mandates and promoted “infection-acquired immunity.”

The University of Alberta’s Dr. Lynora Saxinger called it an attempt to “rewrite history.” Vancouver infectious-disease specialist Dr. Brian Conway called it “completely dangerous.” Key decision-makers, including the former chief medical officer of health, did not take part. The government said only that it would “review and consider” the report. For the doctors behind these claims, see our pages on ivermectin and William Makis.

4. A legal right to refuse

The Alberta Bill of Rights Amendment Act, 2024, which received royal assent on 5 December 2024, added a right for a person with capacity “not to be subjected to, or coerced into receiving” medical care, treatment or a procedure without consent, unless they are likely to cause substantial harm to themselves or others. When the bill was introduced, the government said the right to refuse a vaccine would have no such harm exception (National Newswatch / Canadian Press).

The law binds only the provincial government, not employers or private businesses. The government can still limit the right if it can justify the limit, or override it expressly. But it could make it harder for a future Alberta government to bring in a vaccine requirement during an outbreak — close to the goal Idaho’s “Medical Freedom Act” reached by a different route.

5. Alberta and the U.S. states, side by side

Full details on the American side are on Rewriting the Schedule.

6. What Albertans and clinicians can do