New journal aims to improve health outcomes for Black Canadians
This week’s edition of who is saying what about public health care is compiled by Pat Van Horne.
New medical journal to address health care gaps for Black Canadians
“This is a dream that we’ve always had for the last 24 years. . . Most of the people who are behind this have trained in two or three continents. So they are bringing knowledge, the skill set to be able to come up with this journal . . . We’re hoping to tap into everything that happens to all Canadians, even with more focus on people who look like us,” said Dr. Modupe Tunde-Byass, a sectional head of the Canadian Nigerian Medical Journal, to CBC, August 4, 2025
Health Canada taking longer to approve generic drugs
“The idea that Health Canada is to ‘blame’ here rests on the assumption that all of these submissions are of the same level of quality. . .If the average submission has been getting worse over time, however, then it might be the case that it does take a longer time to parse the data and determine the decision,” said Michael Law, pharmaceutical policy researcher and academic director of the Centre for Health Policy at the University of Calgary, to The Globe and Mail, August 5, 2025
More Quebec doctors practicing only in the private system
“It’s alarming . . .We’ve just busted the five per cent mark of family physicians practising completely in the private sector. As we’ve said before, the options that the government chose to limit the number of physicians opting out are not strong enough,” said Dr. Xavier Gauvreau, vice-president of Médecins québécois pour le régime public, to the Montreal Gazette, August 4 2025. The number of general practitioners in Quebec who have become “non-participants” has surged to 561 as of July 11. That compares with 509 in July 2024, an increase of 10.2 per cent in one year.
Health care is an economic driver: Stanford
“Spending on Canada’s medicare system is typically understood simply as a major ‘cost’ item for government budgets. Seldom do Canadians consider the other side of the coin: public health care is also a pillar of Canada’s economy, and a powerful driver of growth, job-creation, and innovation. . . Moreover, these economic benefits of medicare are becoming all the more important, in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war and other geopolitical disruptions. It is widely accepted that Canada needs to become less dependent on exports of goods and services to the U.S. market, given the unreliability of our major trading partner. Part of that historic shift will involve greater emphasis on the ‘non-traded’ economy: that is, industries which produce output in Canada, by Canadians, for Canadians, and which never crosses a national border,” wrote Jim Stanford in a commentary for Centre for Future Work, June 19, 2025
Polio making an unfortunate comeback
“Continuing blindly with the same strategies that we have relied on since eradication began is unlikely to lead to a different result,” said Dr. Zulfiqar Bhutta, who has served on advisory groups for WHO, the Gates Foundation and others, adding that officials of the World Health Organization (WHO) and its partners should listen to the criticism of its tactics; the WHO’s polio eradication campaign started in 1988 but since 2021, cases rebounded and officials have missed at least six self-imposed deadlines, Global News, August 5, 2025
Alberta erects new barriers to COVID vaccines
“Perversely, (Premier Danielle) Smith’s new rules, crafted with zero public consultation and taking effect this month, will make less vaccine available for fewer people in fewer locations with more bureaucracy to wrangle with. . .And unlike every other province and territory, Alberta will charge those most vulnerable for the vaccine. . .These radical changes, say critics, cater to a militant minority in the United Conservative Party. This slice of Smith’s base, unsettled by the pandemic, has spent the last five years in a haze of anger and frustration, calling COVID a hoax, denying its existence, rejecting masks, mocking the disabled and refusing vaccinations,” wrote Andrew Nikiforuk in The Tyee, August 5, 2025
Health data at risk of being handed over to US authorities
“Canadian privacy law is badly outdated . . . We’re now talking about decades since the last major change,” said Michael Geist, law professor ad Canada Research Chair in internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, to CBC, July 31, 2025.
He added that the companies have “Canadian laws that may say they’ve got to provide appropriate protections for that data… But they may have U.S. law that could compel them to disclose that information.”
University Health Network closes mental health clinic for Chinese Canadians
“I could not use my mother tongue to tell the psychiatrist the deepest part of my mind, (but the ” said Joy Luk whose first language in Cantonese, to the Toronto Star, July 31, 2025. Luk accessed the University Health Network’s Asian Initiative in Mental Health (AIM) before it was abruptly shut down last month.
