This article was last updated on February 24, 2025
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The Surging Support for Healthcare Reform in Canada
When most of us see long lines of people curling around street corners during an Ontario snowstorm, we rightly assume there’s an inefficiency somewhere at the end of that line – something that probably could have been organized better to avoid this sort of headache.
Last week in Brockton, Ontario, such a line formed when a local physician setting up his practice announced that he would accept the first 500 patients who signed up as their family doctor. @CTVLondon reported that many people in that line had been waiting for years to be accepted as patients in a general practice.
The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) says more than 6.5 million Canadians do not have access to a family doctor, a number that is only growing. Many family doctors left the profession due to burnout during COVID, and with population growth steadily increasing, the balance is tilting in the wrong direction.
Recent polls show that 73% of Canadians believe the system requires major changes, and many are increasingly open to incorporating private-sector involvement. Member of Parliament Kevin Vuong, representing Toronto’s Spadina–Fort York riding, is a vocal advocate for a public-private partnership model to revitalize Canada’s healthcare system.
“The politicization and consequent polarization of healthcare discourse is killing our system and killing Canadians,” Vuong stated on his X account. “We need to abandon the false dichotomy of public vs. private and look at other models around the world that are working better.”
Sean Speer, editor of The Hub, also responded to the CTV story on X: “Canada’s health-care system’s misguided egalitarianism is leading to suffering and deaths. There’s no bigger indictment of our political system than our collective inability to fix it because the single-payer model makes some left-wing intellectuals and activists feel good.”
Canada’s focus on a publicly funded, single-payer system has led to unintended consequences. Emergency rooms often serve as holding zones for non-emergency patients. Many Canadians dismiss private sector involvement as a step toward American-style healthcare. But Vuong claims this is a misleading comparison.
“We too often feel superior, that our healthcare system is perfect in comparison to the U.S. model. But that makes us complacent. The reality is, we’re falling way behind most developed countries who have embraced a partnership model.”
A recent study showed that among 30 universal healthcare countries, Canada ranked in the bottom quartile for the availability of critical resources like physicians, CT/MRI machines, and hospital beds. The study showed that Australia, a country with a very similar history to Canada, ranked higher in 33 of the 36 performance measures. Australians are actively encouraged to secure private health insurance to relieve pressure on the public system, with high earners being taxed for failing to do so.
Australia successfully integrates private sector involvement without sacrificing universal coverage. Nearly half of their hospitals are privately operated, and governments contract out publicly funded care to private facilities. This hybrid model has produced impressive outcomes. In 2023, 39.5% of Australians secured same-day or next-day medical appointments when sick, compared to only 22.3% of Canadians. Australians also experience significantly shorter wait times for specialist consultations and non-emergency surgeries.
Support for this approach in Canada is growing. A recent Navigator poll found that 69% of Canadians believe healthcare services should involve the private sector. The frigid line in Brockton this week is a perfect illustration of the widespread dissatisfaction and increasing openness to reforms.
“By clinging to outdated models, Canada risks falling further behind nations that have legislated flexibility in healthcare delivery,” says Vuong.
Integrating private sector efficiencies within a universal healthcare framework has been shown to alleviate systemic pressures, reduce wait times, and improve patient outcomes. As more Canadians push for reform, a model for a balanced public-private partnership could overcome ideological stalemates and create a healthcare system that serves Canadians better.