By Mata Press Service

Half of Canadians say they have avoided visiting a doctor or hospital because they do not expect to receive timely treatment, according to a new national poll that adds to growing concerns about the country's struggling healthcare system.

The Leger survey, found that 84 per cent of Canadians believe healthcare needs reform, including 58 per cent who say major changes are necessary.

The findings come amid mounting evidence of lengthy medical wait times, shortages of family doctors and growing financial costs for patients unable to obtain timely treatment.

The poll of 1,510 Canadian adults, conducted between October 16 and 18, was commissioned by the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI), SecondStreet.org and the Canadian Constitution Foundation.

Women were particularly likely to report avoiding medical attention because of anticipated delays, with 59 per cent saying they had done so, compared with 41 per cent of men.

Among Canadians under 55, the figure was 55 per cent, while 56 per cent of Quebec respondents reported avoiding doctors or hospitals because they did not expect timely care.

“When people avoid seeking medical attention for a health issue, it doesn’t just magically go away,” said Colin Craig, president of SecondStreet.org.

“The fact that so many patients avoid seeking help clearly shows that our government-run healthcare monopoly is no longer able to guarantee access to care.”

The survey also found growing acceptance of private healthcare options among Canadians frustrated by delays in the publicly funded system.

About 61 per cent of respondents supported allowing patients to use their own money or extended health insurance to pay for surgery at private clinics when timely treatment is unavailable through the public system.

Only 25 per cent opposed such arrangements, while 14 per cent were undecided.

Support for private surgical options was highest in Quebec at 68 per cent, while 75 per cent of respondents in Manitoba and Saskatchewan supported the proposal.

The national level of support was slightly higher than the 59 per cent recorded in 2025, but remained close to the 61 and 62 per cent recorded in 2024 and 2022 respectively.

The findings suggest that public support for allowing private surgical treatment alongside publicly funded healthcare has remained relatively stable over the past several years.

The survey also found that 27 per cent of Canadians had already paid for private healthcare to avoid long waits or unsatisfactory services in the public system.

That figure rose to 46 per cent in Quebec, compared with 22 per cent in the rest of Canada.

Canadians born outside the country were more likely to have paid for private healthcare, at 34 per cent, compared with 25 per cent of those born in Canada.

Household income also influenced the use of private services. Among those earning $60,000 or more annually, 31 per cent reported paying for private treatment, compared with 23 per cent of lower-income respondents.

“These results show that Canadians are much more open to health reform than the public discourse would lead you to imagine,” said Christine Van Geyn, interim executive director of the Canadian Constitution Foundation.

“Understandably, Canadians recognize that the private sector can meet patients’ urgent needs when the public sector offers them nothing but endless wait lists.”

The poll follows several studies by the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute documenting prolonged treatment delays and their economic consequences.

The institute's annual Waiting Your Turn report found that Canadians waited a median of 28.6 weeks between a referral from a family doctor and treatment by a specialist in 2025.

That was the second-longest waiting period recorded since the institute began tracking the issue in 1993, when the median wait was 9.3 weeks.

British Columbia patients faced a median wait of 32.2 weeks, up from 29.5 weeks in 2024. Quebec recorded 32.5 weeks, while Ontario had the shortest wait at 19.2 weeks.

The Fraser Institute estimated that approximately 1.4 million Canadians were waiting for medical procedures in 2025, with particularly lengthy delays for orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery and diagnostic imaging.

Another Fraser Institute study released in March 2026 estimated that medical wait times cost Canadian patients more than $4.2 billion in lost wages and productivity during 2025.

That translated into an estimated $3,043 per patient awaiting treatment, excluding the broader economic and personal costs of delayed care.

The South Asian Post has previously reported on Fraser Institute research highlighting Canada's longstanding shortage of physicians compared with other wealthy countries offering universal healthcare.

In its report, Canada's doctor shortage crisis is far from over, the newspaper noted that the country trained approximately 7.5 new doctors per 100,000 residents in 2023, compared with an average of 14.2 across comparable OECD countries.

The report also highlighted estimates that between 5.7 million and 6.5 million Canadian adults lacked a regular primary-care provider in 2024-25.

It warned that increasing medical school enrolment alone would provide little immediate relief because newly admitted students generally require several more years of training before entering practice.

In a recent commentary, How B.C. can fix its health-care system, researchers Mackenzie Moir and Steven Globerman of the Fraser Institute argued that expanding the use of private clinics could reduce treatment delays.

They pointed to Saskatchewan, where the median treatment wait fell from 26.5 weeks in 2010 to 14.2 weeks in 2014 following reforms that included contracting publicly funded surgical procedures to private facilities.

Separate findings from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) have also documented growing pressure on hospitals.

Its June 2026 report found that emergency department waiting times had increased between 2018-19 and 2024-25, while patients arriving at emergency rooms were presenting with more urgent medical conditions.

The agency reported that waiting times for joint replacements were approaching pre-pandemic levels, but delays for most cancer surgeries remained longer than before the pandemic.

The debate over expanding private healthcare remains contentious, with critics warning that allowing patients to pay for faster treatment could worsen staff shortages in the public system and create unequal access based on income.

The new Leger poll measured support for paying privately for surgery when public treatment is delayed. It did not establish whether expanding private services would reduce waiting times or improve overall patient outcomes.

The poll's sponsors, however, maintain that the results demonstrate growing public willingness to consider alternatives to the current healthcare model.

“These numbers show that Canadians prioritize access to care over an ideological vision of a government-run monopoly,” said Renaud Brossard, vice-president of communications at the MEI.

“When more than one person in four across the country—and almost one in two in Quebec—uses private care, this shows that it’s both accessible and normalized.”

The findings will form part of discussions at a national healthcare reform conference being organized by the three groups in Toronto on November 5 and 6.