In 2025, Ontario premier Doug Ford decreased the province's budget for emergency forest firefighting from $177 million to $135 million, with $4 million cut from emergency preparedness. According to the budget, the province ended up spending $271 million-double. This year, the province earmarked $150 million. If you voted for Ford, this is your fault.

A relative of mine works in provincial regulatory finance and consultation for the healthcare industry. A ton of work has been done to try and keep Ontario hospital and clinic budgets balanced over the last few years but the cracks are beginning to widen. The current state of the healthcare sector is unsustainable. Word has it that the Ford government is going to push for parts of the healthcare system to be privatized in the next 12-18 months. The heads of regulation and consulting agencies for the healthcare industry of Ontario are starting to indicate that they will be changing their messaging and PR from “the system is stressed but holding” to “if funding does not increase, some key public health services are going to disappear”.

Voter turnout in the next election needs to increase. Messaging from any party that supports the public health system needs to improve drastically. If you don’t want the province to adopt a lite version of the USA model, then you need to make your voice heard now. Not tomorrow, not next month, not next year. Now. write to your reps. Write to your MPs. Write to the Premiere’s office (lol, I know).

Write to the Lieutenant Governor and the Governor General. Express your unhappiness with the current provincial government. Get your friends, family, and coworkers to write to them. Express how you feel about the current lack of support to public health and public education. Your taxes are being used to pave the way for a private health system and it’s around the corner already. Do not say you haven’t been warned.

[lg@ontario.ca](mailto:lg@ontario.ca), Edith Dumont, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario

[info@gg.ca](mailto:info@gg.ca), Louise Arbour, Governor General of Canada

https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en/search?province=ON&view=tile, Ontario Members of Parliament contact list

Every other post I see is Americans saying 'i can't breathe with all this smoke from the CANADIAN wild fires', 'it smells awful because of the CANADIAN wildfires'. I'm living through it too and I understand. But the emphasis put on Canada, so they can finally point their little grimey fingers at something.

Like pls Kyle, there's people's homes and livelihoods being burned down. Endangered species are losing their already low population. Let's have a little respect 🤏

Regardless if it was a weekday/weekend and any time of the day (including super late a night) there was always traffic and slowdowns. Is this a regular thing or did we just pick a few bad weeks for driving? Other than that beautiful province and nice people! :)

American here.

Your city (EDIT: Toronto my bad) and entire country just told the world they’re sick of this guy. They did that. In public. During the World Series. Epically devastating.

People of Ontario just making you aware of whats happening with our health care. Hundreds of RN jobs have been cut this week! Please see website attached.
https://ona.org/news/20260708-wave-of-cuts/

So far:

The Queensway-Carleton Hospital is cutting 87 registered nursing positions.

St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton has announced the elimination of 24 positions in an effort to offset 

Sunnybrook-24 from one unit and counting

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.

My kids are in public school in Ontario, and it feels like teachers are being asked to do more and more with less. At the start of the year, parents were asked to send in things like tissue boxes and paper towels. I’ve also heard teachers are struggling to get enough money for basic classroom supplies, even things like paper because they are forced to order it from a vendor (Staples?) that makes it more expensive compared to their usual shopping locations.

I started thinking that I should find out how to get into contact with the other parents and create a transparent process where the teacher can request things she could use to improve the class experience and we can chip in for supplies for the class.

But then I started thinking… why should we have to do that? I'm paying my taxes to the province just like everyone else, why is something so important to me (my kids' education) being threatened.

Obviously I’m happy to help my kids’ teachers, but it seems pretty messed up that basic classroom supplies are becoming something that teachers will either have to go without, fund with their own money, or parents need to fund themselves.

I understand that the current provincial government likely has intentions of making privatization or private alternatives seem more attractive over time. That appears to be obvious. I'm just confused about why I seem to be the only parent around me who is inwardly, and occasionally outwardly, pissed about this.

Is this happening across Ontario, or just in my area?

Teachers especially: how much have classroom budgets and resources actually changed over the last few years?

And what should parents actually be doing about it besides just buying the supplies ourselves?

It seemed like even people who barely followed politics thought she was corrupt yet the same people think nothing or know nothing about Doug's actions even though hes several hundred times more corrupt?

TL;DR - this year is giving influenza H3N2, somewhat escaped our vaccine because of quick mutation, but still get the vaccine now, it's not too late!

Preface: I am a doctor working in the emergency departments and recently saw a huge flood of patients with influenza. I was very curious about why influenza was blowing up this season, so I did some research. I'll summarize the main points and leave references below:

1) Influenza H3N2

This year's influenza wave is largely driven by the Influenza A (H3N2) strain. There are 3 main strains: influenza A (H1N1), influenza A (H3N2), and influenza B (much less common). Previous years were H1N1 dominant and so perhaps by virtue, there may have been some residual protection or not (hard to say), but this year's wave is driven by influenza A (H3N2). As of August 24, 2025, 71% of influenza A detected infections were H3N2, making it a large proportion of the current wave. As well, as of early December, percent positivity of influenza A is 26% i.e. if you have viral symptoms, very likely that it's influenza A, much bigger than the past 3 seasons. For context, COVID-19 is 4.6% right now.

H3N2 is typically more severe in illness, especially for the young and elderly, and is associated with higher rates of hospitalization and deaths. We also probably have not developed as much resistance to it too since prior years were H1N1-dominant. We are tragically seeing many deaths of children and elderly people in the hospitals this season. I am expecting a lot more people in hospital over the new years especially after everyone starts getting together for Christmas.

2) Vaccine uptake and efficacy

This year, the H3N2 virus unexpectedly had a major genetic shift in August 2025, creating a new subclade called the A(H3N2) K subclade viruses (previous ones were the J subclade). Vaccine development typically uses data collected by February of the year for the northern hemisphere, so the current vaccine protects against what the expected dominant influenza strains are for the year for H1N1, H3N2, and B. You can imagine that if H3N2 suddenly gets a jump on the world by mutating after vaccine development has started, then it can evade some of that vaccine protective effect.

Further, vaccine uptake has been dismal year after year, with 2023-2024 being 43%, similar to prior years, and likely the same this year. This is multifactorial: the wave of influenza hit us 3-9 weeks earlier compared to the past 2 years so many people haven't gotten their vaccines yet; and lots of anti-vaxx sentiment nationally as well as imported from south of the border. In addition, the vaccine development largely depends on data collected globally, and our biggest neighbour, the US with the CDC, was a major source of information for virus data collection and surveillance. However, with RFK Jr. in office being anti-vaxx and cutting ~25% of the CDC work force, we've now lost that information and as such, this impacts not only the US, but also our own health and health care system.

3) What should I do? Should I still get the vaccine even though it's less effective/if I've already gotten the flu?

Great question, average Ontario redditor!

Yes, generally, I would still highly recommend the seasonal influenza vaccine.

- Current vaccine effectiveness estimates show the current vaccine is 70 to 75% effective at preventing hospital attendance in children aged 2 to 17 years and 30 to 40% effective in adults.
- Even if you already had "the flu": a) your "flu" could have been any circulating respiratory virus like rhinovirus, enterovirus, RSV, human metapneumovirus, seasonal coronavirus, COVID-19, etc., and getting sick from those do not give you natural immunity to influenza; b) Even if you were actually infected with influenza, there are 3 strains and getting infected with one of them still puts you at risk of getting the other 2, which would still be a wild ride to go through. The vaccine is still safe and effective even after you've caught influenza, just get the shot a few weeks later once you're feeling better.
- For an immunocompetent person, it typically takes 7-14 days for your vaccine to reach peak effect, so don't expect immediate protection right away. Still get it early and early for future years.
- The vaccine is safe to take. You will not get influenza from the influenza vaccine; it is an inactivated virus, do not propagate this claim god damn it. Egg allergy is also no longer a contraindication to the vaccine.
- What about people preferring to get natural immunity? See above points about how it won't protect you as much from the other ones, plus I have seen on personal accounts several negative outcomes from actually catching influenza: higher risk of myocarditis, subsequent bacterial pneumonia (especially with MSSA/MRSA), acute respiratory distress syndrome, acute kidney injuries, etc.
- Plus, having influenza and viral infections in general puts you at risk of developing dementia and cardiovascular disease later down the line. Your body fights viral infections and probably puts a bunch of tau proteins into your brain, leading to dementia and neurodegenerative disease. Even if you have mild cases of the flu or other viruses, that stuff builds up in your brain.

References below in comments.

EDIT:

I'm seeing a lot of common themes in the comments and wanted to pin them.

1. A lot of people are getting sick and quite symptomatic. To all of you, I am hoping for you and your families' speedy recovery.

2. The vaccine has decreased efficacy, is it worth it still to get??

- The 30-40% number I quoted is the reduction in HOSPITALIZATION RISK. That means that it will protect you from getting totally rocked by the virus to the point of having to get hospitalized. However, symptomatically, it will likely protect you to a higher percentage degree.
- Compared to the previous 3 years, this year is 30-40% reduction in hospitalization for adults, but the previous 3 years' efficacies were 40-50%, which is still kind of close to what it is typically. You're never going to get 100%, but that's not biologically possible as people will not be able to mount perfect responses, nor is it the point of the vaccine. What it can do is prevent you from getting sick to the point of becoming hospitalized, and you will still likely get symptomatic benefit (i.e. feel less bad, recover a bit quicker, fewer complications).

3. What if I'm pregnant? Breastfeeding?

- The influenza vaccine is safe in pregnant women and is highly recommended. Fevers in the case of underlying infection/autoimmune disease would likely impact the fetus (both from the fever and from the underlying illness itself), but typically the vaccine fever is self-limited, unlikely to cause harm to the baby, and also protects you from actually getting influenza, which in itself increases the risk of adverse fetal outcomes. Influenza during pregnancy increases the risk of adverse fetal outcomes, including congenital anomalies (such as cleft lip, neural tube defects, hydrocephaly, and congenital heart defects), preterm birth, low birth weight, small-for-gestational-age infants, pregnancy loss, and fetal death. It also increases the risk of MATERNAL death too.
- Basically, talk to your doctor, but if you don't have any other major issues or contraindications, I would generally urge people to get it (inactivated influenza vaccine, NOT the live attenuated vaccine, which is contraindicated in pregnancy).
- The vaccine is also safe for breastfeeding at any point in time.

4. When can I give it to my children? What if they're <1 year old?

- All kids 6 months old and older should get the flu vaccine every year, unless there is a medical reason not to. Babies under 6 months old are too young to get the flu shot, but they'll get some protection if their parent got the flu shot while they were pregnant. Young children have a high burden of influenza illness with very high risk of serious infection and hospitalization among the youngest. Because young children are less likely to have had prior exposure to an influenza virus, a 2-dose schedule is required to achieve protection for those less than 9 years of age that are previously unvaccinated.

5. If the current flu shot isn't protecting against influenza A, why get the flu shot? By how much does it reduce symptoms of influenza A?

Great question and I love that I can answer these questions in this forum.

- Vaccine protection is not a 0% or 100%, black or white, heads or tails. It is a spectrum of protection. In fact, we actually see some early data suggesting that the vaccine is still working quite well (see above, preventing getting yourself so sick to the point of being hospitalized by 30-40% even with the mismatch, compared to the usual 40-50% we typically expect), and it is even more effective in children (seeing ~70% vaccine efficacy in preventing hospitalization). There is also a large body of evidence showing that it will reduce the major complications of severe infection as well, such as heart attacks, strokes, severe pneumonia, getting sick to the point of needing ICU admission, and death.
- The percent of symptom reduction is different for everyone. If you have more chronic illnesses, you will likely still get quite sick, and if you're a young healthy person, it may very well still reduce your symptom burden and duration of illness. I wouldn't be able to give you a percent on this.

6. Vaccines and aluminum? Influenza vaccine doesn't have aluminum, but this is more so for other vaccines like DTaP, Hib, hepatitis A/B, HPV, and pneumococcal and meningococcal vaccines.

Great source to look through with the AAP.

- People are exposed to aluminum through food, air, water, infant formula, medicine, cosmetics, deodorants and ingest 7-9 mg daily. Vaccines, on the other hand, and ONLY IN SPECIFIC ONES (i.e. NOT influenza) contain LESS THAN 0.5 mg per dose, and your body processes aluminum the same way whether it was ingested or injected -- through the kidney filtration system which is very efficient at removing aluminum. Many studies have shown that these minimal doses of aluminum are safe.
- Why is aluminum added? Aluminum is typically added to certain vaccines to stimulate the immune system and prime it to mount a better immune response to the vaccine, improving its vaccine efficacy. Your body knows aluminum isn't supposed to be there, so it gets your immune system to take a better snapshot and memory of the vaccine.
- A huge study in 2025 in Denmark showed 1.2 million children born in Denmark between 1997 and 2018 did not find an association between aluminum in vaccines and certain health conditions including asthma, allergies (including food allergies), autoimmune disorders and neurodevelopmental conditions like autism and ADHD.

References:

https://youtu.be/8O6FMrR0i0g?si=AG4tF-ajqwLg5LNu

https://www.publichealthontario.ca/en/Data-and-Analysis/Infectious-Disease/Respiratory-Virus-Tool

https://health-infobase.canada.ca/respiratory-virus-surveillance/influenza.html

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/kids-teens-flu-deaths-ontario-9.7018018

https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease-outbreak-news/item/2025-DON586