Canadians are increasingly in favour of breaking the government monopoly over health care by opening the door to independent providers and cross-border treatments, an MEI-Ipsos poll reveals.
“Canadians from coast to coast are signalling they want to see more involvement from independent health providers in our health system,” explains Emmanuelle B. Faubert, economist at the MEI.
“They understand that universal access doesn’t mean government-run, and that consistent failures to deliver timely care in government hospitals are a feature of the current system.”
Support for independent health care is on the rise, with 56% of respondents in favour of allowing patients to access services provided by independent health entrepreneurs. Only 25% oppose this. In Quebec, support is especially strong, with 68% endorsing this change.
Favourable views of accessing care through a mixed system are widespread, with three quarters of respondents stating that private entrepreneurs can deliver healthcare services faster than hospitals managed by the government.
This is up four percentage points from last year.
Countries like Sweden and France combine universal coverage with independent providers and deliver faster, more accessible care. When informed about how these health systems run, nearly two in three Canadians (64%) favour adopting such models.
The poll also finds that 73% of Canadians support allowing patients to receive treatment abroad with provincial coverage, which could help reduce long wait times at home.
Common in the European Union, this “cross-border directive” enabled 450,000 patients to access elective surgeries in 2022, with costs reimbursed as if they had been treated in their home country.
There’s a growing consensus that provincial healthcare systems are overly bureaucratic, with the strongest agreement in Alberta, B.C., and Quebec. The proportion of Canadians holding this view has risen by 16 percentage points since 2020.
Nor do Canadians see more spending as being a solution: over half (56%) say the current pace of healthcare spending in their province is unsustainable. And 77% believe the system is too bureaucratic.
“Governments shouldn’t keep doubling down on what isn’t working. Instead, they should look at what works abroad,” says Faubert. “Canadians have made it clear they want to shift gears; now it’s up to policymakers to show they’re listening.”
A sample of 1,164 Canadians aged 18 and older was polled between March 24th and March 28th, 2025. The margin of error is ±3.3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.