Clearing the Air: The Taxation and Regulation of Reduced-Harm Nicotine Products • Taxes on combustible cigarettes in Canada account for almost 70 percent of their final price. Under the most recent excise tax impositions, some low-risk products carry a combined excise and sales tax imposition that also forms a high percentage of the price paid […]
June 12, 2025 – Canada’s one-size-fits-all approach to taxing nicotine discourages smokers from switching to much safer alternatives and is fuelling a thriving illicit market, according to a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. In “The Taxation and Regulation of Reduced-Harm Nicotine Products,” Ian Irvine and Sam Hampsher-Monk find that while taxes account for about […]
From: Ian IrvineTo: Canadians Concerned About VapingDate: June 9, 2025Re: Governments Continue Their War Against Our Best Anti-Smoking Tool In Ode to a Nightingale, John Keats described how “but to think is to be full of sorrow/And leaden-eyed despairs.” Such pervasive, perpetual gloominess sounds exactly like Canadian health lobby groups contemplating the latest statistics on smoking, which are, […]
To: Healthcare observersFrom: Tingting ZhangDate: June 5, 2025Re: Canada’s Electronic Health Record Gap: Patients Deserve Better In today’s digital age, information access is easy and fast. With a few clicks, you can check bank balances, track investments, or even monitor fitness data in real time. But when it comes to health information, we remain stuck in the […]
To: Canada’s ministers of health and ministers of financeFrom: Rosalie WyonchDate: May 29, 2025Re: Trump’s Pharma Pricing Order Could Have Big Canadian Consequences Donald Trump’s May 12 executive order that US drug prices must not exceed the lowest price in other nations doesn’t mention Canada explicitly, but could cause significant damage to our public healthcare system […]
May 27, 2025 – A recent federal directive aiming to expand the scope of the Canada Health Act (CHA) could spark legal tensions and shift costs to Canada’s provinces – all while leaving major drivers of two-tier healthcare untouched, according to a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. In “Reinterpreting the Canada Health Act: The 2025 […]
Reinterpreting the Canada Health Act: The 2025 “Holland Letter” and What it Means for Healthcare in Canada In January 2025, former health minister Mark Holland issued a new interpretation letter introducing the “CHA Services Policy,” which requires provinces to publicly insure medically necessary services delivered by non-physician professionals – particularly nurse practitioners – when those services […]
To: Healthcare ObserversFrom: Rosalia WyonchDate: May 16, 2025Re: How We Can Spur Innovation in Hospitals? Canada’s healthcare systems face a critical inflection point marked by deteriorating access, growing wait times, and mounting capacity constraints. Hospitals are at the forefront, where long wait times in emergency departments or for urgent and elective procedures as well as bed […]
To: Canadian Healthcare ObserversFrom: Rosalie Wyonch and Will FalkDate: May 12, 2025Re: Landscape of Virtual Care and the Primary Care Access Gap Many Canadians have difficulty accessing primary healthcare services: Seventeen percent of Canadians – 5.4 million adults – report that they do not have regular access to primary care. Three quarters report not being able […]
To: Canadians concerned about prosperityFrom: Will FalkDate:Â May 7, 2025Re: AI in Healthcare: The Year in Review and The Road Ahead The mood at an AI in healthcare conference last month was resolutely hands on because artificial general intelligence at human levels is being reached by AI systems this year in many realms. Recent research shows […]
From:Â Will Falk and Rosalie WyonchTo:Â Canadian Healthcare ObserversDate:Â April 21, 2025Re:Â Ontario Needs a Primary Care Allocation Model to Ensure Universal Coverage Ontario has committed $1.8 billion to expanding family health teams and attaching 2 million more Ontarians to primary care. While this is a meaningful investment, it does not change how patients are assigned to providers. Ontario […]
Alternate level care (ALC) patients – those whose needs could be more appropriately met outside of a hospital setting – account for more hospital bed days than the top 10 high-volume inpatient surgeries in Canada combined. In a similar vein, ALC volumes are equivalent to acute care bed occupancy for the combination of neurocognitive disorders, […]
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Clearing the Air: The Taxation and Regulation of Reduced-Harm Nicotine Products • Taxes on combustible cigarettes in Canada account for almost 70 percent of their final price. Under the most recent excise tax impositions, some low-risk products carry a combined excise and sales tax imposition that also forms a high percentage of the price paid […]
From: Ian IrvineTo: Canadians Concerned About VapingDate: June 9, 2025Re: Governments Continue Their War Against Our Best Anti-Smoking Tool In Ode to a Nightingale, John Keats described how “but to think is to be full of sorrow/And leaden-eyed despairs.” Such pervasive, perpetual gloominess sounds exactly like Canadian health lobby groups contemplating the latest statistics on smoking, which are, […]
To: Healthcare observersFrom: Tingting ZhangDate: June 5, 2025Re: Canada’s Electronic Health Record Gap: Patients Deserve Better In today’s digital age, information access is easy and fast. With a few clicks, you can check bank balances, track investments, or even monitor fitness data in real time. But when it comes to health information, we remain stuck in the […]
To: Canada’s ministers of health and ministers of financeFrom: Rosalie WyonchDate: May 29, 2025Re: Trump’s Pharma Pricing Order Could Have Big Canadian Consequences Donald Trump’s May 12 executive order that US drug prices must not exceed the lowest price in other nations doesn’t mention Canada explicitly, but could cause significant damage to our public healthcare system […]
Reinterpreting the Canada Health Act: The 2025 “Holland Letter” and What it Means for Healthcare in Canada In January 2025, former health minister Mark Holland issued a new interpretation letter introducing the “CHA Services Policy,” which requires provinces to publicly insure medically necessary services delivered by non-physician professionals – particularly nurse practitioners – when those services […]
To: Healthcare ObserversFrom: Rosalia WyonchDate: May 16, 2025Re: How We Can Spur Innovation in Hospitals? Canada’s healthcare systems face a critical inflection point marked by deteriorating access, growing wait times, and mounting capacity constraints. Hospitals are at the forefront, where long wait times in emergency departments or for urgent and elective procedures as well as bed […]
To: Canadian Healthcare ObserversFrom: Rosalie Wyonch and Will FalkDate: May 12, 2025Re: Landscape of Virtual Care and the Primary Care Access Gap Many Canadians have difficulty accessing primary healthcare services: Seventeen percent of Canadians – 5.4 million adults – report that they do not have regular access to primary care. Three quarters report not being able […]
To: Canadians concerned about prosperityFrom: Will FalkDate:Â May 7, 2025Re: AI in Healthcare: The Year in Review and The Road Ahead The mood at an AI in healthcare conference last month was resolutely hands on because artificial general intelligence at human levels is being reached by AI systems this year in many realms. Recent research shows […]
From:Â Will Falk and Rosalie WyonchTo:Â Canadian Healthcare ObserversDate:Â April 21, 2025Re:Â Ontario Needs a Primary Care Allocation Model to Ensure Universal Coverage Ontario has committed $1.8 billion to expanding family health teams and attaching 2 million more Ontarians to primary care. While this is a meaningful investment, it does not change how patients are assigned to providers. Ontario […]
Alternate level care (ALC) patients – those whose needs could be more appropriately met outside of a hospital setting – account for more hospital bed days than the top 10 high-volume inpatient surgeries in Canada combined. In a similar vein, ALC volumes are equivalent to acute care bed occupancy for the combination of neurocognitive disorders, […]