By: Maya Barillas Mohan, Staff Writer
Canada’s health-care system desperately needs healing, but we can’t take it to the doctor. In an interview with health policy expert and term assistant professor at SFU School of Public Policy Dr. Leah Shipton, The Peak inspects what’s broken with our health-care system and potentials for solutions.
Defining the crisis
Universal health-care means most health services in Canada are publicly funded and available for free to citizens and permanent residents. The Canada Health Act, that ensures universal health-care, passed in 1984. However, our government’s mismanagement of this system has led to an ongoing crisis of access and quality. In BC and across Canada, wait times languish on for “emergency room care and elective procedures,” Shipton explained. She attributed this to a “woeful underfunding” of primary care. A major doctor shortage results in delays, and nearly six million people don’t even have a family doctor. “It’s been urgent for a while,” said Shipton. Some patients may end up going to emergency rooms to seek urgent care that could have otherwise been sought by a family doctor if treated earlier or if access was available.
According to The Tyee, the ongoing effects of COVID-19 has also contributed to the overcrowding of emergency rooms as it “made the general population sicker,” and continues to circulate, with the population “more likely to be suffering from metabolic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and autoimmune diseases.” According to CBC, hospitalization rates for viral illnesses and respiratory diseases have doubled since 2019.
“This is not just limited to family doctors,” Shipton continued. The number of nurses, anesthesiologists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, and pharmacists fall drastically short in meeting demand. Shipton also noted a shortage in public long-term care, with aging populations requiring long hospital stays or privately financed care while on long waitlists. This further agitates financial insecurity in the aging populations.
According to Shipton, the shortage is an issue of both supply and retention as “significant burnout” burdens health care workers. “It’s hard to retain health workers because of how challenging the working conditions are. And then we’re not recruiting nearly enough to fill the gap for the people who are leaving,” she said. The number of doctors headed towards retirement has more than doubled since 20 years ago. This is especially dire in rural areas, where temporary emergency room closures mean residents must be redirected to hospitals sometimes hours away. Beyond that, overworked staff cannot easily provide “higher quality care.” CityNews reported increased violence towards health care workers from patients and their families who “lash out” due to the wait times and overcrowding.
Trouble across province lines
The guiding philosophy of Canada’s national medicare, since its roots in the 1960s, is that health-care is a human right; everyone should live with dignity, and without suffering or financial constraints.
The Canada Health Act states required health services must be “provided on the same terms and without patient charges.” But according to Shipton, a new Alberta law violates that.
In November 2025, Alberta introduced Bill 11, or the Health Statutes Amendment Act, which passed the following month. It allows private companies to operate alternative options to the medically necessary services that are publicly available — most controversially, acute care. Bill 11 poses a critical issue: Shipton doesn’t believe the average Albertan can afford it. While those who can will receive “systematically quicker access to health care,” the public system will continue to deteriorate.
Shipton isn’t convinced that a two-tier system will be helpful for the majority of Canadians. She points to Australia and the UK, countries which have recently gone the route of introducing private health-care as a secondary option to public systems in crisis. The result is that patients are priced out of accessing care. She explained how in both cases, the public system loses “vital staffing” as health care workers move to private practice. And as patients begin “jumping the queue” by paying for private services, those who require more urgent attention often cannot afford these private services, leaving the public system “still dealing with a very high patient load, many of which with complex conditions.”
A crucial feature of Bill 11 is its inclusion of a dual practice model. This means that physicians will not have to choose between working in either public or private health-care; they could “have a foot in both worlds,” she said. Shipton expressed this is concerning because it creates “perverse incentive structures [ . . . ] You could be charged or billed for something that’s not actually medically necessary. You might get told by your doctor, ‘I can treat you quicker through private insurance.’” In Australia, patients often lack information on public options and “half of cancer patients paid more than $5000 a year in out-of-pocket medical expenses,” according to BBC.
“This is not a beast you want to introduce to the health system,” Shipton continued, explaining that research shows “private insurance actually drives up the cost of medical services.”
Alberta’s expansion of private health-care isn’t isolated. In Ontario, a two-tier system is practically already here, with the Conservative Doug Ford government having directed $300 million towards building private hospitals in 2025, which is unprecedented.
Purposeful deflection and financial constraints
According to Shipton, there has been a narrative since “at least the 1980s” that the private sector will solve health-care problems. Some Conservative and Liberal governments will “underfund the public system to make it dysfunctional,” and then implement privatization to solve the “dysfunction underfunding created in the first place.” For example, in 1995, minister of finance Paul Martin cut federal health-care spending by 40%. In a press release, Bea Bruske, president of the Canadian Labour Congress attributed privatization to “politicians who prioritize tax breaks for the wealthy over investments in public health care.” Bruske also noted “the growing presence of American health care corporations operating in Canada.”
From May 8–11, BC Nurses Union (BCNU) vote to strike for the first time in more than 25 years, protesting benefit cuts and asking for more safety and health precautions. Kendra Strauss, labour studies expert from SFU told CityNews, “budgetary constraints are forcing [the New Democratic Party government (NDP)] to play hardball at the bargaining table.” The NDP is projecting a record-level deficit for the province. BCNU president Adriane Gear stated they would pursue “other job action” than work stoppage and that “the goal is to not impact patient care.”
Shipton explained “a lot of the funding goes into reactive elements of our health system, like hospitals, which is very important. You would not want a society that doesn’t have hospitals.” Meanwhile, she stressed the dangers of for-profit hospitals: “We have our neighbors in the US that reckon with this.” As hospitals are for people who are “already sick,” a strong public primary care system is just as important for preventing people from “getting ill at a population level [ . . . ] You save the most money when you prevent people from getting sick in the first place,” she continued. If the government were to invest more in preventative care, like doctors and physicians, it would have “ripple effects for cost savings.”
Shipton also commented on how immigrants can bear the brunt of criticism for the health-care system: “To scapegoat immigrants, or the influx of immigrants for a health problem, when a third of your workforce in several categories of health personnel are likely to be immigrants themselves, is pretty absurd,” Shipton said. In Canada, 35% of pharmacists and 23% of specialists are trained internationally.
BC’s silver linings
Shipton remains optimistic that BC is not so likely to adopt dual health-care anytime soon. “Policymakers learn from each other, we’ve seen that globally,” but Alberta is more likely to create a “permissive space” for provinces with similar ideologies like Saskatchewan. Private health-care has been “fought against” by BC’s judicial system. “There’s less space or tolerance,” Shipton tells The Peak after recounting the Cambie Case. Essentially, Cambie Surgeries was attempting to provide preference for those who could pay privately. The BC Supreme Court decided that duplicative health-care would “undermine equitable access to health-care.”
Furthering our conversation about Canadian health care workers, the SFU School of Medicine, which hosts its first classes in August 2026, surfaces. Shipton pondered “the specific aims they have for addressing family physician shortages.” She tells The Peak, “What we see from data is that less and less medical students choose to become general practitioners,” and most end up specializing. Either way, there’s no way to “immediately resolve many of these problems,” as the first cohort won’t graduate for a few years yet. The SFU Med School website lists advancing primary care as their #1 focus, and will prioritize applicants with “a strong desire to pursue a career in primary care.”
When asked whether BC residents should worry about health care workers moving to Alberta or Ontario for better opportunities in dual practice, Shipton noted, “Nurses may stand to benefit if private clinics hire them at a higher wage or they go through private staffing agencies.” However, “the private sector can often create more precarious employment and lower wages.” Shipton also cited a 2023 study that shows BC has the highest provincial attraction and retainment of recent health care graduates.
SFU’s med school is like most Canadian schools: not only will applicants require Canadian citizenship, but they must be a resident of BC, Nunavut, Yukon, or Northwest Territories. Shipton explained this policy ensures graduates stay in the province, especially because there are so few spots already for medical students in BC. Additionally, the School “welcomes applications from qualified Indigenous applicants (First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) from across Canada.” Research shows Indigenous applicants face systemic barriers in pursuing and entering medical school.
In the face of a critical moment for the future of health-care in Canada, Shipton tells The Peak, “We all need to become a lot more politically astute and engaged and see it as part of our civic responsibility to be aware of these policy developments and find ways to contribute.” Shipton said that part of this could be “writing to parliament,” or following organizations and participating in their events. She mentioned the BC Health Coalition and BC Rural Health Network as actively involved in advocacy and literacy. You can also donate to these organizations on their websites.
