The Canadian health-care system is a shambles, and the pride that many Canadians reposed in it for a long time because it enabled them to preen themselves at the supposedly superior standards of equality and humanity in Canada than existed in the United States, has turned into alarm for all those of an age where medical problems are frequent.

The capricious decision in 1984 of then-prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau and his health minister Monique Begin to attempt to ban private medicine and force all practicing medical doctors into being, effectively, public-sector employees, caused 10,000 doctors to leave the country. That deficiency has not only not been filled, but we now have approximately 25,000 fewer doctors than we need to give adequate medical treatment to the population of Canada.

This means that individual medical practices are overrun with more patients than they can manage, and that a steadily rising number of people with authentic medical problems go to emergency rooms in hospitals for care. Naturally, this has caused acute overcrowding in emergency rooms across the country, and especially in the most populated areas. This is now a problem feeding on itself, as emergency rooms are starting to close down, aggravating the problem. It is like a snowball rolling downhill and expanding as it goes, and it is now expected that Canada will have a deficiency of 40,000 doctors within 10 years. In Nova Scotia alone, 14 percent of the entire population—142,000 people—are on waiting lists for a family doctor.