TORONTO – In 2025, the average wait time for a patient to see a specialist and begin treatment was 28.6 weeks: long, and above all… costly. According to a study by the Fraser Institute, wait times for medical care in Canada last year cost nearly 1.4 million Canadians $4.2 billion, averaging $3,043 per patient in lost work hours and reduced productivity.
These costs are slightly lower than in 2024, when 1.5 million patients incurred a total of $5.2 billion out of pocket—an average of $3,364 per patient in lost wages and productivity—while waiting 30 weeks from the time they were referred to a specialist by their family doctor until treatment actually began.
However, this year’s report emphasizes that all estimates are “conservative,” as they include only work-related costs for patients waiting for care, and do not account for reduced quality of life, increased risk of death or complications from delayed treatment, or costs borne by family members caring for a patient awaiting medical care.
According to the report—titled “The Private Cost of Public Queues for Medically Necessary Care”: the full study is available here—the true cost of waiting could be even higher: “Valuing all hours of the week, including evenings and weekends but excluding eight hours of sleep per night, would increase the estimated cost of waiting to $12.9 billion, or about $9,336 per person…”.
But what exactly do these “costs” refer to? The study explains: “The rationing of health care in Canada through queues for medically necessary health services imposes direct costs on those waiting for care. The ability of individuals who are waiting to enjoy leisure time and earn an income to support their families is diminished by physical and psychological pain and suffering. In addition, friends and family may be asked to help those waiting for treatment, or may suffer similar reductions in their productive lives because of their own psychological pain,” resulting in additional costs for them as well.
Looking at provincial data, the Fraser Institute study estimates that the average cost per patient waiting for medical care across twelve examined specialties last year was highest in New Brunswick ($4,864), followed in descending order by Quebec ($3,912); Alberta ($3,724); Prince Edward Island ($3,466); Nova Scotia ($3,317); Newfoundland and Labrador ($3,261); Manitoba ($3,220); Saskatchewan ($3,195); British Columbia ($2,720); and Ontario ($1,918). All these costs are, of course, in addition to the federal and provincial taxes Canadians pay to fund the health care system.
International studies of Canada’s health care system—which is administered by the provinces, with the federal government responsible for ensuring universality, portability, public administration, comprehensiveness, and accessibility—consistently find that Canada has some of the longest medical wait times in the developed world among comparable countries with universal health care. Not only that: according to a 2022 Fraser Institute study (“Comparing Performance of Universal Health Care Countries”), Canadians pay more taxes for health care than 29 other comparable countries with universal systems, while enduring the longest wait times for treatment, ranking last among the 10 countries that track this data.
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