QUESTION PERIOD — Ministry of Health
Pediatric Health Care
March 25, 2026
Minister, welcome to the Senate. It’s good to see you again.
I want to talk about pediatric ICUs and pediatric care. In fall and winter 2022, pediatric units across this country were operating well above capacity. SickKids was at 120% capacity, and the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario was at 124%. Children’s Healthcare Canada, the Canadian Paediatric Society and the Canadian Association of Paediatric Nurses called on governments then to move beyond jurisdictional constraints and to work collaboratively to develop a new vision for child and youth health care. That was a call to action in 2022.
Minister, what concrete national plan for pediatric health care has the Government of Canada put in place to ensure that Canada’s children, youth and our pediatric health care systems are never in that position again?
Thank you, senator, for your question. As you know, I think SickKids and other hospitals taking care of kids here in the country are doing a fantastic job. I was at SickKids two weeks ago, I think.
Honestly, I don’t have the answer right now because I don’t know what has been done specifically since 2022. I will get back to you after this meeting on where we are at, but what I have to say — and this is a conversation I will need to have with my counterparts, not tomorrow, because we already have the agenda set out, but very soon — is that I think we need to work more on prevention together. Working with newborns and young people is absolutely fundamental. I think this is where we have to address some of the challenges that you just raised.
Thank you, minister. The United Kingdom has a national children’s and young people’s health strategy, and Australia has one, but Canada, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, does not. Without a dedicated national strategy, children and youth will continue to fall through the cracks of a system designed primarily around adults. Without a national child and health strategy, how is the government ensuring that children and youth in our country remain healthy?
As I said, I do not have it in my plan right now. I’m not currently working on a strategy, but I agree it’s something that we need to address. When I decided to bring forward my men’s and boys’ health strategy, I went to my counterparts, and I said, “This is what I see on the ground. What can we do about it?” Everyone was supportive, so I think this is a conversation I will need to bring to the provinces and territories, as they are the ones dealing with the services. For me to say the federal government is moving on this, it wouldn’t serve us —
