(LifeSiteNews) — Wait times for Canadians to get basic family health care from its socialized health system are at levels not seen in 30 years.
Recent data from a study released by the Fraser Institute on December 9 show that, on average, Canadians must wait 28.6 weeks to receive a referral from a family doctor for serious treatment.
The extensive report, titled “Waiting Your Turn: Wait Times for Health Care in Canada,” revealed that the new wait times are “208% longer than the 9.3 week wait Canadian patients could expect in 1993.”
The trend in increased wait times for health care services comes at the same time Liberal government polices have resulted in over 23,000 Canadians dying while on waitlists for medical care, all while euthanasia is being expanded.
Not all provinces scored as badly as before, with some, such as Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, seeing slight decreases in wait times from their previous averages. However, in all other provinces, wait times went up.
When looking at the data, the longest wait times are in New Brunswick (60.9 weeks), Prince Edward Island (49.7 weeks) and Nova Scotia (49.0 weeks).
Overall, the national average of wait times is 28.6 weeks, the highest in decades, with the study concluding that overall, patients in Canada were “waiting for 1.4 million procedures in 2025.”
Senior policy analyst and co-author of the report Mackenzie Moir said that long wait times “can result in increased suffering for patients, lost productivity at work, decreased quality of life, and in the worst cases, disability or death.”
Nadeem Esmail, who is a director of health policy studies at the Fraser Institute and co-author of the report, also said long wait times due to socialized health care in Canada have become a “defining characteristic” of what Canadians can expect.
“Remarkably long wait times for medically necessary care have become the defining characteristic of the Canadian health care experience,” he said.
The study was conducted from January 16 to May 30, 2025, and the data gleaned from it was based on responses from 1,577 people.
Long wait times in health care have resulted in some Canadians wanting to die by, and getting approved for, assisted suicide.
As reported by LifeSiteNews last week, Saskatchewan resident Jolene Van Alstine was approved to die by state-sanctioned assisted suicide because she has had to endure long wait times for what she considers to be proper care for a rare parathyroid disease. LifeSiteNews further reported that Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe is urging Van Alstine to instead work with his government on a solution.
The Liberal government under Prime Minister Mark Carney has worked to expand euthanasia 13-fold since it was legalized in 2016. Canada now has the fastest-growing assisted suicide program in the world. Meanwhile, Health Canada has released a series of studies on advanced requests for assisted suicide.
A recent Euthanasia Prevention Coalition report revealed that Canada has euthanized 90,000 people since 2016, the year it was legalized.
