National Day of Action calls for urgent federal action against two-tier, American-style health care

Across the country today, health coalitions, allied organizations, and concerned individuals are coming together in a National Day of Action to demand urgent federal action to enforce the Canada Health Act to protect patients and our health care systems against the imposition of two-tier, American-style health care.

With Alberta’s Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2025 (no. 2), also known as Bill 11, to come into effect today, Albertans will now be faced with a two-tiered health care system in which their access to care is determined by their ability to pay.

Since this legislation was passed in December 2025, health coalitions, along with many other organizations across the country, have continually raised the alarm over the existential threat it poses to the very foundation of our public health care system. Legal opinion prepared by Goldblatt Partners LLP for the Canadian Health Coalition found that Bill 11 violates the principles of comprehensiveness, accessibility, and universality protected and required by the Canada Health Act, and violates the prohibitions against extra-billing and user fees.

But in the nearly nine months since Bill 11 was passed, the federal government has yet to intervene, or to even publicly condemn this gross violation of the Canada Health Act. As of today, time is up.

Federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel has repeatedly referred to herself as the “Guardian of the Canada Health Act,” and federal Liberal governments have historically defended Canada’s public health care against previous attempts to turn it over to profit. It is unconscionable that Canada’s federal leaders would sit idly by while the most significant ever attack on our public health care is waged by a provincial government. 

As health coalitions, we recognize that our health care systems across Canada are in crisis. But rather than collaborative efforts to make much-needed, evidence-based investments to bolster health care workforces, extend public capacity, and expand our Medicare, our provincial governments have increasingly responded by offloading their responsibility to private health care operators so that they may profit off the health needs of the public.

Everyone in Canada deserves the same equitable access to quality public health care, regardless of their ability to pay for it. We urge our federal government to fulfil their responsibility to enforce the Canada Health Act, to quash the encroachment of legislated queue jumping before it can be entrenched, and to act urgently to defend Canadians’ right to equitable, universal, single-payer public health care — before it is too late. 

Signed:

British Columbia Health Coalition
Friends of Medicare (Alberta)
Alternatives North
Saskatchewan Health Coalition
Manitoba Health Coalition
Ontario Health Coalition
La Coalition solidarité santé
New Brunswick Health Coalition
Prince Edward Island Health Coalition
Nova Scotia Health Coalition
Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour
Canadian Health Coalition