“Healthcare Crisis”

With the rise in popularity of the Democratic Socialist movement in the United States, one of the promises made to voters is “free healthcare.” Advocates frame healthcare as a human right, pointing north to Canada as the example of universal coverage.

The slogan is simple, powerful, and politically effective: Canadians enjoy free healthcare. The belief that Canadian healthcare is free stems from the fact that Canadians do not pay at the point of service. Yet the question remains: Is it truly free, and what does “free” actually mean?

OTTAWA — While Canadians like boasting of their “free health care,” a new report shows hidden tax bills related to Canada’s struggling medical system are climbing faster than household earnings.

Released this week by the Fraser Institute, the study entitled The Price of Public Health Care Insurance, 2026 shows the average Canadian family of four earning an average household income of $202,885 will spend an estimated $21,115 in health-care costs.

The Canadian Institute for Health Information has released its annual report on emergency department wait times, a litany of data that is as mind-numbing as it is depressing.

One in 10 people who head to their local ED wait more than 14 hours for care. For the sickest of the sick, those who need to be admitted to hospital, the waits are three times longer. One in 10 wait more than 48 hours, languishing on stretchers in hospital hallways. Individually, it can be much worse, like the 79-year-old man in Edmonton with severe influenza, who waited 90 hours for a bed.

CALGARY – A new report suggests the causes of Canada’s long emergency department wait times often lie far beyond the emergency room itself, with shortages in hospital beds, long-term care and community supports creating a bottleneck that is leaving some patients waiting days for care.

“This is a national problem. Every province is struggling with this,” said Dr. Paul Parks, president-elect of the Alberta Medical Association’s Section of Emergency Medicine and an emergency physician.

The report, released Thursday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, found that one in 10 emergency department patients — about 1.5 million people — spent more than 14 hours in the emergency room in 2024-25.

“Increased population” was cited by an Alberta Doctor, not the report.

Imagine finding out that your loved one has leukemia. Then imagine finding out that the cost of treating that cancer is so enormous that you could end up drowning in debt just to pay the medical bills.

Many readers might think this is a scenario only to be found in the United States. But this is a scenario currently facing Chris Sluman and his family in North Bay, and it is all because of an obscure government agency that no one really knows about.

Canada’s family doctor shortage: The public, and politicians, worry about it a lot.

Most everyone believes it’s a crisis that almost six million Canadians are without a family doctor, and waiting times are lengthening.

The solutions trotted out most frequently involve governments paying to expand medical schools to train more physicians, or luring more doctors to Canada from other countries.

Wait times for people seeking care at emergency departments across Ontario have dramatically increased over the past five years amid a “deepening Ontario hospital funding crisis,” according to a new report.

The study, published Monday by the left-leaning think tank Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, found that 90 per cent of patients waited 4.5 hours for an initial assessment by a physician at a hospital emergency room in Ontario in 2024/2025, up from 2.7 hours in 2020-21. This, the report states, represents an alarming 67 per cent increase over a five-year period.

“Emergency department wait times are a canary in the coal mine for health system performance,” Andrew Longhurst, the author of the study, said at a news conference on Monday morning.

Medical assistance in dying now accounts for roughly one in 20 deaths in Canada, according to the latest government data. That makes it the country’s fifth-leading cause of death.

For patients facing severe illness and suffering, the option is framed as an act of compassion. But its rapid expansion raises uncomfortable questions about how government-run health systems respond to the reality of scarce public resources.

Caring for patients with complex, chronic or terminal conditions is among the most expensive obligations in any health system. That creates an inherent tension in systems where the government both finances care—and decides what care is worth covering.