More than 23,000 Canadians died while waiting for health care this past year. Say that out loud. Twenty-three thousand people parents, grandparents, neighbours who needed help but never received it in time. And yet, this staggering number barely shakes a system that has grown far too comfortable with mediocrity.
The recent findings from SecondStreet.org’s Died on a Waiting List report are not just a statistical update they are an indictment of a health-care model that is failing the very people it claims to protect.
According to the report, 23,746 Canadians died while awaiting surgeries or diagnostic procedures in the 2024–2025 fiscal year, a slight but telling increase from the previous year. Notably, this number excludes Alberta and parts of Manitoba due to incomplete data. If anything, the real number is likely higher.
Behind each figure is a story of unnecessary suffering grandparents living their final years in excruciating hip pain, parents dying on wait lists before a heart surgery slot opens up, people enduring years of uncertainty for diagnostic tests that could’ve saved or extended their lives.
One person reportedly waited nine years for a procedure they never received. In what world is this acceptable?
What adds insult to injury is that health-care spending in Canada has never been higher. Ottawa poured $244 billion into health services this year almost $6,000 per person yet wait times continue to balloon, and outcomes worsen.
More money isn’t fixing the problem because the structure itself is flawed. Canada’s health-care system is designed as a rigid monopoly, where annual lump-sum funding rewards institutions for existing not for performing.
The report shows the largest numbers of wait-list deaths in:
- Ontario: 10,634
- Quebec: 6,290
- British Columbia: 4,620
These aren’t small provinces struggling with limited resources they’re major population centres with well-funded systems. Yet the results remain appalling.
Shockingly, some provinces still do not properly track patients who die while waiting for treatment. Alberta used to provide partial data; now it provides none at all. Saskatchewan and New Brunswick only track surgical wait-list deaths not diagnostic delays.
If governments refuse to measure the problem honestly, how can they ever fix it?
Craig, the report’s author, puts it bluntly: “Governments inspect restaurants for missing paper towel holders, but don’t publicly report when patients die waiting for care. It’s hypocritical.”
He’s right.
The report proposes five concrete steps, and they deserve serious national attention.
- Track wait-list deaths transparently
This should be the bare minimum. You cannot solve a crisis you refuse to measure.
- Shift to activity-based funding
Pay hospitals for the work they do. When funding follows patients, not institutions, hospitals start treating people like clients do not burden.
- Partner with private clinics
Saskatchewan already proved it can drastically cut surgical backlogs by collaborating with private providers. Ontario’s auditor found that MRIs, dialysis, and colonoscopies often cost 20–40% less in private clinics than in hospitals. That’s efficiency Canada desperately needs.
- Give patients real choice
Let Canadians choose between public and non-government clinics, just like they choose schools. The public system should remain but not as the only option.
- Let Canadians travel abroad for care and be reimbursed
The European Union already does this. Why can’t Canada? Every patient who gets treated abroad shortens the wait list at home.
More than 100,000 Canadians have died on waiting lists since 2018. That number alone should be enough to spark outrage, protests, and immediate reform.
Instead, we get silence, excuses, and political finger-pointing.
Canada’s health-care system was once a source of national pride. Today, it’s becoming a slow-moving tragedy one where suffering is predictable, deaths are preventable, and governments seem content to shuffle paperwork while Canadians pay the ultimate price.
This shouldn’t be normal.
It’s time to admit the truth:
A system that cannot treat people before they die is not a system worth defending.
