If a car manufacturer discovers a safety problem with a vehicle, the government requires them to tell customers and issue a recall. If a restaurant serves contaminated food, the public has to be notified. But when surgical wait times in the government’s own health care system are unsafe there’s no disclosure. And that’s true pretty much right across the country according to new research by SecondStreet.org.
If you’re waiting for heart surgery, say, you obviously want to know how long your wait will be and whether your date for surgery is within the maximum recommended wait time. If not, then you at least know that the government is putting your life at risk and can look into surgery abroad, even if that means scraping together the funds.
Moved by the tragic case of Debbie Fewster, a mother of three and grandmother of 10 who died in 2024 while on Manitoba’s wait list for heart surgery, SecondStreet.org filed freedom-of-information requests with other provinces across Canada to learn more about how they treat patients waiting for life-saving care. None require health bodies to immediately tell patients their estimated wait time and maximum recommended wait time for life-saving treatment.
Eight of 10 provinces indicated they have no requirement that patients be given either estimated or maximum recommended wait times. That includes Manitoba, where, nearly a year after the province’s health minister floated a “draft directive” to health providers to be more transparent, nothing seems to have changed. Nobody has managed to hit “send” yet on that draft directive, apparently.
Saskatchewan suggests that long-waiting patients should be contacted every three months. But this recommendation is not a requirement and falls short of what most people think should be disclosed to patients. If you die after waiting two months for surgery, what good is a call a month after that?
British Columbia goes slightly further. Its provincial guidelines require long-waiting patients (as determined by government) to be called every three months — at least on paper. Moreover, patients must be informed of their wait time within two weeks of being placed on a list — which is not much time to make other arrangements if your maximum recommended wait is three weeks. Not to mention that there is no consequence for failing to inform patients.
It’s good that B.C. has guidelines on the books. But are they being followed? Conversations with medical staff and patients suggest the guidelines are not well known.
Looking overseas, we know that it’s possible to inform patients properly. In Norway, for example, patients must be given both their wait time for their first appointment and the “maximum defensible” wait. Patients in Denmark have the right to receive publicly funded care in a private hospital if treatment is not provided within maximum benchmarks.
Not surprisingly, a poll commissioned last year by SecondStreet.org found that 86 per cent of Canadians support requiring health authorities to inform patients if they can’t provide treatment within the recommended time frame. The desire for transparency is ideology-free: every political party in Canada should be able to get behind the idea of enshrining honesty with patients into law and imposing penalties for failing to communicate such vital information.
The same governments that require businesses to inform the public of unsafe products and services should have to meet similar transparency standards themselves. Patients need to know if their wait times are unsafe and whether they should pursue life-saving treatment abroad.
Colin Craig is the president of SecondStreet.org, a Canadian think tank.
This column was originally published in The Financial Post on February 24, 2026.
You can help us continue to research and tell stories about this issue by making a donation or sharing this content with your friends. Be sure to sign up for our updates too!
