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Fraser Institute

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Study finds ups and downs for medical wait times

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A Fraser Institute study found little improvement in overall wait times for Canadian patients from doctor referral to treatment.

Results showed they waited almost 29 weeks, which is the second longest ever recorded.

The annual study is based on a survey of physicians across Canada, and looks at the time between a referral from a general practitioner to treatment in 12 medical specialties, including several types of surgery.

There was some improvement from the overall numbers in last year’s study, which recorded wait times of 30 weeks. When looking at individual provinces, five provinces saw wait times rise.

Ontario recorded the shortest median wait time at just over 19 weeks.

New Brunswick recorded the longest at almost 61 weeks, and Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia patients waited around 49 weeks.

Among the longest national median wait times for specialty treatments are those for neurosurgery and orthopedic surgery.

There are also long wait times for diagnostic scans, including CT and MRI scans, and ultrasounds.

PROVINCE20242025PROVINCE20242025
British Columbia29.532.2Quebec28.932.5
Alberta38.436.0New Brunswick69.460.9
Saskatchewan37.234.8Nova Scotia39.149.0
Manitoba37.939.1P.E.I.77.449.7
Ontario23.619.2Newfoundland and
Labrador		43.243.5

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Fraser Institute Report Shows DHS Is Showing Improvement

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A Fraser Institute report card shows more Ontario high schools declined in performance in 2019 than those that improved.

Senior Fellow Peter Cowley says the results are derived from provincially mandated reading, writing and math tests.

73 schools around the province experienced declining performance, while 47 showed improvement.

Cowley says “It’s not a matter of saying you did a bad job or any of that stuff. What really needs to be focused on is what to do next. As a province those improvers should be analyzed.”

He notes “The Ministry of Education could do worse then to send somebody to those nearly 50 schools who had showed improvement to find out what it is the principal and the staff did to make that improvement possible.”

On the other side of things Cowley says the results should serve as a warning call that something has to be done.

“Essentially what the principal has to do, along with the staff, is to ask themselves how is it or why is it that we’ve shown a decline but much more importantly what are we going to do to turn the trend around.”

Cowley adds “We hope those 70 odd schools that are showing decline will really sit back and think again about what their improvement program is, whether or not it’s working, and see if there’s anything else that they can do to improve students results.”

Only one high school in Kenora-Rainy River finished above the Ontario average in the Fraser Institute rankings.

Atikokan scored a 7.0 out of 10.

The provincial average of 6.

However, Cowley again stresses the report is all about showcasing improvement.

“Dryden, for instance, has shown significant improvement even though they have over 34% of the students who have some sort of special needs. The average for that is down below 25% or so.”

DHS received a 5.4 out of 10 score, up from 4.4 back in 2015.

Cowley says “It’s actually the result of some kind of identifiable change. It’s not just random fluctuation of the results from year to year.”

Here are the regional 2019 rankings:

Atikokan: 7 out of 10. 225th in Ontario
St. Thomas Aquinas: 5.6 out of 10. 484th in Ontario
Dryden: 5.4 out of 10. 503rd in Ontario. *Only local school to see an improvement in rating
Rainy River: 5.1 out of 10. 542nd in Ontario
Fort Frances: 5 out of 10. 556th in Ontario
Beaver Brae: 4 out of 10. 642nd in Ontario
Red Lake: 1.4 out of 10. 720th in Ontario
Queen Elizabeth: 0.3 out of 10. 729th in Ontario

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Medical Wait Times Continue To Climb

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Wait times for health care continue get longer in Canada.

That’s the finding of a Fraser Institute study that finds the median wait time for medically necessary treatment this year was 20.9 weeks.

That’s the second-longest wait ever recorded since the think tank started tracking numbers in 1993 when patients waited just 9.3 weeks.

Ontario had the shortest median wait time this year at 16 weeks.

Prince Edward Island recorded the longest at 49.3 weeks

Nationally, wait times were longest for orthopedic surgery at 39.1 weeks and plastic surgery at 28.7.

The shortest wait was for oncology at only 4.4-weeks.

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Electricity Costs In Ontario Keep Increasing

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Electricity prices in Ontario continue to rise, despite the government’s attempts to lower them.

That’s the finding from a Fraser Institute report comparing hydro rates across the country.

It finds we are paying 22% more on average for hydro than the rest of Canada.

Large electricity consumers in Ontario are paying 65% more than large consumers in the rest of the country.

Elmira Aliakbari is the co-author of the report.

Aliakbari says one main reason is that the province’s surcharge on electricity, the so-called Global Adjustment that was introduced in the 2009 Green Energy Act, continues to rise.

She notes it increased 13% (adjusted for inflation) between June 2018 to June 2019, from 12.1 cents per kilowatt hour to 13.7 cents per kilowatt hour.

Aliakbari adds subsidies to solar and bio-energy generators account for 15% of the surcharge, yet these sources only generate 3% of Ontario’s electricity.

She says the government has cancelled some future energy contracts but they haven’t really cancelled existing contracts.

Aliakbari stresses it’s those contracts that are the major driver of the surcharge, accounting for 34% of it.

Energy Minister and Kenora-Rainy River MPP Greg Rickford has previously said that his government continues to make hydro rates a top priority and looking at ways to bring them down.

Rickford has strongly stated that the PC government took over an electricity mess from the previous governing Liberals.