Just last month, two televised debates gave Canadians a chance to see four federal party leaders discuss a series of topics. Affordability. Climate. Public safety. Tariffs. Immigration. One item not as much as in campaigns past was health care.
In our final campaign poll, only 11 per cent of Canadians identified health care as the most important issue facing the country, ranking it fourth on a list of concerns behind Canada-U.S. relations (26 per cent), housing, homelessness and poverty (21 per cent) and the economy and jobs (20 per cent).
Our collective views on medical services appear to be slowly improving. This month, more Canadians described the health-care system as “working well and needing only minor changes” (23 per cent, up four points since May 2024) than those who claimed it has “so much wrong with it that we need to completely rebuild it” (17 per cent, down six points). A majority of Canadians (56 per cent, up three points) think there are “some good things in Canada’s health-care system, but many changes are required.”
The notion of rebuilding the health-care system is higher than the national average in Atlantic Canada (27 per cent) and B.C. (20 per cent). When Canadians are asked what the biggest problem facing the system is right now, 35 per cent (down two points) mention a shortage of doctors and nurses. In Atlantic Canada and B.C., this setback rises to 49 per cent and 47 per cent, respectively.
Long wait times is the second leading problem identified by Canadians (23 per cent, down one point), followed by bureaucracy and poor management (16 per cent, up two points), inadequate resources and facilities (nine per cent, up one point), lack of a wider range of services for patients (six per cent, up two points), little focus on preventive care (five per cent, unchanged) and insufficient standards of hygiene (two per cent, down one point).
Despite these seemingly dreary findings, more than seven in 10 Canadians are “very confident” or “moderately confident” that Canada’s health-care system would be there to provide the help and assistance that they would need if they had to face an unexpected medical condition or disease.
At a time of increased economic anxiety, 24 per cent of Canadians (up five points) believe that the federal government should make cuts to health-care funding in order to reduce government debt. On this matter, the feelings are similar among Conservatives (26 per cent), Liberals (24 per cent), and New Democrats (also 24 per cent).
The notion that health care in Canada would be better than it is now if it were run by the private sector resonates with 36 per cent of Canadians (up one point), while almost half (48 per cent, up three points) disagree and 15 per cent (down five points) are undecided.
While only 20 per cent of Canadians aged 55 and over (down four points) think private Canadian health care would be formidable, the proportion rises to 39 per cent among those aged 35 to 54 (up four points) and to 50 per cent among those aged 18 to 34 (up two points). Put differently, half of the country’s youngest adults believe a private option would be better run than the public one.
The survey offers compelling evidence of the task ahead for various provincial governments. In Atlantic Canada and British Columbia, the desperation of residents who cannot find a family doctor — or know someone who has been unable to — is evident.
Mario Canseco is president of Research Co.
Results are based on an online survey conducted from May 18-20, 2025, among 1,002 adults in Canada. The data has been statistically weighted according to census figures for age, gender and region in Canada. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
