Protect | Liberal Party of Canada

In the United States health care is a business, in Canada it’s a right.

Canadians expect a strong public health care system that improves and modernizes over time, responds to changing needs, and is available wherever and whenever Canadians need care. We respect the jurisdiction of provinces and territories and their key role in health care delivery. We will work in full partnership with provinces, territories, and Indigenous Peoples to advance the outcomes we all want to see: better access to care, where and when it’s needed.

Together, we will stand up to defend the Canada Health Act and build a health care system we can be proud of. It’s time to return to the foundational values upon which our national health care was developed: free of charge, fair, universal, and accessible. We will also protect dental care and pharmacare – two critical services and key parts of a strong public health care system that Pierre Poilievre would cut.

Our plan will make sure that Canadians have access to the care they need, and support provinces and territories in their lead role in delivering that care.

Improving Access to Health Care

Access to universal, public health care underpins our economic strength. Families rest easy knowing that a trip to the emergency room or a bad diagnosis won’t bury them in debt. Today, our emergency rooms are overflowing, primary care is getting harder to access, health care workers are burnt out. It’s time to protect public health care and make it work for Canadians.

A Mark Carney-led government will:

• Add thousands of new doctors to Canada’s health care system working with the provinces, territories, and Indigenous Peoples to:
• Increase medical school and residency spaces, and build new medical schools and expand residency positions, especially for family medicine. This will be done in close collaboration with each province and territory to reflect their priorities and population needs. We will consider the unique health care access needs of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis and establish a dedicated stream to increase access to medical care in areas of federal jurisdiction.
• Make it easier for internationally trained doctors and health professionals to practice in Canada. We will work with provincial and territorial partners to streamline credential recognition for internationally trained doctors and nurses so that qualified health care professionals already living here can contribute to our health care system.
• Address labour mobility issues and implement pan-Canadian licensure so that health workers can be employed anywhere in Canada. By advancing mutual recognition of credentials across provinces and territories we can improve workforce flexibility, lower health care costs, and reduce regional shortages [more].
• Recruit qualified doctors through a new global recruitment strategy that will fast-track the arrival of doctors into Canada, including Canadians practicing abroad and other U.S.-trained physicians and health researchers. To make sure Canada fully capitalizes on this opportunity, we will increase funding for research grants and infrastructure at our hospitals and other health care institutions.

• Make it easier to set up clinics in new communities through a new-practice fund to help family doctors with the costs of opening a practice, such as new clinic space and medical equipment and technologies. New doctors graduate with a lot of debt. We want them to be able to start practices in communities where patients are looking for doctors.
• Build hospitals, clinics, and more by investing $4 billion to construct and renovate community health care infrastructure. This will also support investments in public long-term care; improve access to team-based care, including mental health care services; and provide funding for expensive machinery like MRIs. We have seen hospitals and clinics closing at the same time as health care needs are growing. The urgency to end wait times and hallway health care cannot be ignored. It’s time to build hospitals so that Canadians have access to the care they need. We will work with provinces and territories to accelerate this work and cost-share these investments. We will also work with First Nation, Inuit, and Métis communities to ensure improved access to these critical services.
• Provide Personal Support Workers (PSWs) with up to $1,100 a year by immediately legislating a refundable Health Care Workers Hero Tax Credit.
• Support training for nurses, PSWs, and teachers by expanding the Union Training and Innovation Program (UTIP) to include training spaces. When we take care of caregivers, they are better able to take care of patients.
• Protect and permanently fund Sexual and Reproductive Health Fund [more].

Better Mental Health Care

There is a mental health and addictions crisis hurting our communities. It’s a crisis that demands real solutions, not slogans. That means significant investments in emergency treatment, mental health care services, new health care infrastructure, and supportive housing with on-site health care. We need to build on the recent successes from the provinces and territories, focusing on destigmatization, prevention, treatment, and recovery. For the people suffering, for their loved ones, and for a stronger Canada that benefits from all they have to offer.

• Provide 100,000 young people a year with mental health care by establishing a permanent Youth Mental Health Fund. This fund will enhance community-based mental health services and give access to mental health care to people who otherwise would not, improving the lives of young people, and the friends and families that love them.
• Provide urgent and immediate support to address the overdose crisis by adding $500 million to the Emergency Treatment Fund to support municipalities, Indigenous Peoples, and community health care organizations to confront the toxic drug and overdose crisis and connect more people to treatment and vital services, faster.
• Invest in deeply affordable housing, supportive housing, and shelters in recognition of the link between housing and mental health outcomes. We will do this through $6 billion invested in the new Build Canada Homes (BCH) which will build and acquire housing. This investment builds on the Rapid Housing Initiative which supported 15,000 homes for our most vulnerable, including projects like Dunn House in Toronto, Canada’s first-ever social medicine supportive housing initiative. We will continue to work with partners to deliver projects that recognize the link between housing and health outcomes.
• Continue to fund the 9-8-8 suicide crisis helpline which responded to over 300,000 calls and texts in its first year. People need help but it can be hard to ask, especially when you are struggling. Every call this line takes, every message they respond to, is there to support people in crisis and offer help without judgement.

Modernize Canada’s Public Health Care System

A stronger health care system must be modern, digitized, and efficient.

Patients get better care when they can safely share their data with their health care providers. Doctors have more time to spend with patients when they have digital tools that reduce paperwork. Our researchers achieve breakthroughs when they have access to better data. Canada’s health care system is long overdue for modern tools.

A Mark Carney-led government will:

• Significantly reduce wait times for life-saving medications. Canadian patients wait too long for public access to medicines following Health Canada approval, compared to patients in peer countries, putting us behind other G7 countries. By cutting red tape without compromising on safety we will cut this timeline while maintaining all relevant safety standards, supporting our research community, and delivering lifesaving medicines more quickly.
• Ensure Canadians can securely access their health care data because your medical history should be available instantly to you and your doctor anytime and anywhere in Canada. We will table legislation to enable secure access to health data. Better data that moves with patients to each new appointment means better care, better outcomes, and more choice for patients.
• Reduce the administrative burden on doctors with streamlined and standardized forms and scaling up digital tools that significantly reduce paperwork and leave more time for patient visits. And we will also launch a new program to support doctors in safely and securely adopting new digital tools such as e-prescribing and e-referrals. We will also support tools that are bilingual for doctors and nurses.
• Launch a Task Force for Public Health Care Innovation to invest and scale up made-in-Canada public health care solutions, leverage, and improve the quality of data, and evaluate and ensure accountability in public investments in health care, including the $25 billion Working Together Agreements signed with provinces and territories.
• Implement a national licence for physicians and nurses, giving health workers more mobility across the country and making it easier to respond to workforce needs across jurisdictions.