QUESTION PERIOD — Health
Funding for Primary Health Care
April 9, 2024
My question is for Senator Gold. In a newly released survey from the Commonwealth Fund, Canada ranks last among 10 high-income countries when it comes to having a family doctor. This includes countries such as the United States, the U.K., France and other peer countries. The 10-country average is 93%. The proportion of Canadian adults with access to a primary care provider dropped from 93% in 2016 to 86% in 2023. The recently signed bilateral health agreements include a commitment to uphold the Canada Health Act principle of accessible health care.
Senator Gold, this — and other data — shows that Canadians have worsening access to a primary care provider. How will the federal government hold the provinces and territories accountable if Canadians continue to go without a primary care provider?
Thank you for your question, and for underlining a challenge for many households and individuals across the country.
The government has brought in measures for the Express Entry of foreign national physicians as permanent residents, which is one aspect within federal jurisdiction to address this. It has also announced $86 million in federal funding for faster foreign credential recognition in order to get more than 6,000 new internationally educated health professionals into the health care system to serve our citizens across the country.
At the health ministers’ meeting in October 2023 — working with the federal government, of course — the provinces and territories committed to increasing the number of training seats for nurses, physicians and nurse practitioners. And the Government of Canada — through its funding and through its leadership and convening role — will continue to support the provinces and territories in this regard.
In the 2021 mandate letter to the then-Minister of Health, it instructed the minister to strengthen compliance with and modernize the interpretation of the Canada Health Act, specifically on matters of extra-billing for publicly insured services.
Senator Gold, can you please provide us with details on how compliance has been strengthened, and how the Canada Health Act has been modernized?
As you understand, the goal has always been — under the Canada Health Act and the mandatory Canada Health Transfer deductions — to ensure that patients don’t pay out of pocket for medically necessary services. We now know — as you know, and as I’ve announced — about the bilateral agreements with all provinces and territories. Through these bilateral arrangements, the federal government is working with the provinces and territories to give Canadians greater access to health services to modernize our system, and it will continue to do so on the issues that you have identified.
