Federal Policies Are Fuelling Canada’s Doctor Shortage

Commentary

Canada already has a severe shortage of doctors, but recent federal government policy failures—even those seemingly having nothing to do with health care—are making things worse.

To begin, despite spending relatively more on health care than other developed countries with universal health-care systems, Canada ranks near the bottom in terms of physicians per capita. Wait times for medical care are steadily rising and an estimated 6.5 million Canadian adults did not have a family doctor as of 2022, up sharply from 4.5 million in 2019, and with some analysts estimating it may reach 10 million in a few years.

So, what recent federal government failures, even outside health-care policy, are making the doctor shortage even worse?

For starters, the national $10-per-day child-care program. By inflating demand through subsidies but stifling supply with regulatory control, the federal government has created widespread child-care shortages, preventing many Canadians—including doctors—from working.

Recently two medical doctors, a married couple, wrote that they moved to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and they find it a “great city to live in and start a family,” but because they are busy physicians, child care remains their “most worrisome” challenge. By getting onto a wait list six months before their child was born, they were able to find a spot in the local YMCA. But now, the YMCA daycare is closing.

In fact, earlier this year, the YMCA—which accounts for one-fifth of all licensed child-care spots in Ontario—warned of closures because the government’s $10-per-day program was unsustainable. Why? Because the government controlled and restrained the revenue of daycares even as their costs rose.

If the Sault Ste. Marie YMCA closes, the doctors write, it will be “very difficult” for them to continue practising. The also “worry about the impact it would have on attracting more physicians. It is already difficult for physicians with a young family to move here given the current daycare waitlist.”

This is not a unique case. Similarly to the YMCA, a director of a non-profit child care with seven Toronto locations recently said the $10-per-day program “is a mess” and “every one of our seven centres are in the red even though they’re full.” And like the two Sault Ste. Marie doctors, Ted Hsu, a Liberal MPP from Kingston, recently wrote that he knows of a couple, both doctors, who “had to work less because no childcare spaces were opening up in Kingston before Sept 2025.”

At the same, the Trudeau government raised taxes on capital gains. Ironically, the Liberals tried to sell their capital gains tax hike as a way to raise government revenue and “investing in more doctors.”

Yet doctors said the tax hike—which hits many of them hard because they incorporate their medical practices and will now be subject to the higher tax rate—will discourage doctors from wanting to practice in Canada and reduce the doctor supply. The tax hike, the Canadian Medical Association said in a statement, “will create another disincentive to becoming a community-based doctor at a time when there is a grave shortage.”

Similarly, the Ontario Medical Association warned of a “significant impact” on patient care: “The impact of the capital gains increase is particularly alarming for physicians and their medical professional corporations. … This increase will undoubtedly add additional undue pressure and financial strain to physicians, threatening the well-being of our health-care system.”

Clearly, with bad federal policies such as national child care and a capital gains tax hike making it even more difficult for doctors to practice in Canada, the already dire shortage of doctors will become even worse—even more quickly than originally thought.

Matthew Lau is an adjunct scholar with the Fraser Institute.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

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