Top healthcare stories you might have missed this year

Canadians know the truth: our healthcare system is broken, and it’s worse now than ever before. While the legacy media avoids the hard questions, True North delivers the undiluted facts.

Author: Clayton DeMain

Canadians know the truth: our healthcare system is broken, and it’s worse now than ever before. While the legacy media avoids the hard questions, True North delivers the undiluted facts.

Access to healthcare consistently ranks as one of the top issues for voters in provincial and federal elections, so we’ve compiled a list of some of the top stories you might have missed or forgotten about this year.

The state of Canada’s healthcare system, staffing shortages and long wait times

Despite being the fifth-highest spender on healthcare among 30 OECD countries with universal healthcare in 2023, Canada ranked 28th overall in the quality of its healthcare system. A 2025 Fraser Institute report found that Canada ranked last for timely access to elective surgeries and specialist appointments, second last in wait times for access to care, 26th for physicians per 1,000 people and 25th in hospital beds.

An annual study by SecondStreet found that at least 23,746 patients died while on medical wait lists in the fiscal year 2024-25, a 31.74 per cent rise in waitlist deaths from the previous year. Since April 2018, when the data was first requested from Canadian physicians, 100,876 Canadians have died waiting for care.

Healthcare staffing shortages are at the root of many of the issues in Canada’s healthcare system. A study by the Montreal Economic Institute found that job vacancies for nurses have tripled across Canada in just five years, citing burnout, depression and anxiety as significant factors. Over a third of Canada’s immigrant healthcare workers quit and leave Canada within five years of arriving.

Assisted suicide program accounts for over five per cent of deaths in Canada

If Canadians needed more proof that the universal healthcare system isn’t serving all Canadians, they can look no further than the Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program. In 2024, MAiD took the lives of 16,499 people, a 6.9 per cent increase from the previous year.

State-sanctioned euthanasia deaths accounted for 5.1 per cent of total deaths in Canada in 2024. Between 2016 and 2024, a total of 76,475 Canadians have died through the program, nearly double the number the federal government said were killed due to COVID-19.

A total of 692 individuals who were signed up for MAiD cancelled their appointments. Eight per cent of those who chose life said they changed their minds because “important” people in their lives expressed disapproval of the practice.

Earlier this month, euthanasia prevention advocates called on Parliamentarians to support Conservative Bill C-218, which would ban mental disorders from being the sole criterion to access Canada’s MAiD program. If the bill is not passed, the Liberal government is still on track to introduce mental illness as the sole reason someone can be medically put to death by the state.

Advocates warned that it’s impossible to tell if someone can recover from a mental state, and the bill would lead to the deaths of many vulnerable Canadians who might otherwise have positive lives.

U.S. conservative commentator Glenn Beck and Canadian war veteran Kelsi Sheren even began the process to fund and save the life of a Saskatchewan woman who said she signed up to die because no surgeons in her province could provide her with surgery for an otherwise treatable condition.

Sheren has been a long-time advocate against the euthanasia program after a military veteran, who just wanted help making her life more accessible, was offered suicide. Sheren highlighted several issues this year, including Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and two B.C. MLAs lobbying B.C. Health to give an illegal immigrant health coverage to access the suicide program, and an RCMP veterans association hosting a euthanasia seminar for retired police veterans.

Healthcare coverage to asylum claimants has ballooned by 12-fold in nine years

As Canada’s healthcare system remains under strain, the cost of healthcare benefits for asylum seekers through the Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP) has escalated significantly, from $66 million in 2016-17 to an estimated $821,191,548 as of September. This represents a 1,144 per cent increase in nine years.

The Conservative Party has noted that the IFHP covers services that many Canadians do not receive under standard provincial healthcare coverage or must purchase privately. These services include pharmaceuticals, vision care, counselling, assistive devices, prosthetics, home care, nursing homes, physiotherapy, and occupational speech therapy.

In a November parliamentary health committee meeting, Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab acknowledged under pressure from Conservatives that taxpayers are funding rejected asylum claimants through the program. These rejected claimants can remain in Canada for years while they navigate the bureaucracy of appeals and courts.

The Liberal government tried and failed to stop an audit of the IFHP, which was initiated by the Health committee. The Auditor General and Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) were originally scheduled to testify before the committee in early January. However, a letter to the committee from the interim PBO stated that the federal immigration department “wouldn’t” provide the data needed for the audit in time for the hearing.

World Health Organization poses risk to Canada’s health sovereignty

The World Health Organization (WHO), which directed much of the world’s COVID-19 response, has been quietly working to undermine Canada’s sovereignty in the event of a future pandemic, despite some roadblocks.

Constitutional advocates at the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) warned that Canada’s agreement to accept the WHO’s global pandemic treaty as binding will cede Canada’s sovereignty to the unelected international body. Without Canada’s agreement, the WHO cannot force member states to enforce its dictates. Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis similarly warned of the agreement’s disastrous consequences to Canada’s sovereignty.

The agreement would mean Canada would cede control of its healthcare response to the WHO if the organization declares a pandemic emergency. The JCCF noted that the organization’s “draconian measures” often overlooked negative impacts on countries’ economies, citizens’ mental health, and the educational development of youth. The group also accused the WHO of “deferring” to the People’s Republic of China’s political priorities over the world’s healthcare needs in hopes of securing future funding with the communist-run country.

All the while, the WHO pushed for 20 per cent funding increases from its member states, amounting to $120 million extra annually from Canadian taxpayers.

Health Canada won’t update vaccine advice and vaccine injury fund mismanagement

When asked by True North in August, Health Canada refused to say whether it would update Canada’s advisories on mRNA vaccines. This refusal came after the U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s department announced it revoked $500 million in federal contracts tied to 22 mRNA vaccine development investments. The reversal followed a review that concluded mRNA underperformed against upper respiratory illnesses.

Canada also subtly admitted the COVID vaccine wasn’t “safe and effective” for every Canadian by continuing to fund the over $111 million Vaccine Injury Support Program.

The Liberal government hired the consultancy firm OXARO to manage the program, but allegations of mismanagement led to an ongoing audit. OXARO told True North that 55 per cent of the program’s funding went to implementation and administration, 15 per cent to physicians, andjust 30 per cent to the fund’svaccine-injured recipients.