70 Percent of Canadians Say Health Care System Has Deteriorated Over Last 10 Years: Survey

A majority of Canadians say the health system has deteriorated in the past decade, leaving them struggling to find a doctor and overcome hurdles to seeing specialists, according to a new report.

The report, released by Angus Reid on Feb. 5, compared a recent survey of more than 4,000 Canadians to a similar one conducted in 2015.

According to the results, 70 percent say that health care has deteriorated in the past 10 years, despite government spending increasing in that time. The survey says that spending on health care has nearly doubled since 2015, from $219 billion to $399 billion.

About half of Canadians say they do not have a family doctor or have challenges getting an appointment with their physician, at 18 percent and 32 percent respectively.

One in eight of those surveyed said they have been looking for a doctor for more than a year or have given up on finding one.

More residents in Saskatchewan reported having difficulty accessing family doctors (41 percent) than in other provinces, with 22 percent saying they have no family doctor. Thirty-nine percent of those in Atlantic Canada say they also have trouble accessing family doctors, with 21 percent saying they have no family doctor. In Quebec, 29 percent report having trouble accessing family physicians with 31 percent saying they have no family physician.

In 2015, 16 percent of Canadians said they had no family doctor and 24 percent said it took more than a week to get an appointment with their doctor.

“From 2015 to 2025, the percentage of Canadians who have difficult or no access to a family doctor has increased by 25 per cent,” the report said.

Yet the report notes that the number of family doctors per capita has increased over the past decade in every province except Ontario and Alberta, but due to an aging population that has “complicated medical needs” and the increase in specialized family practices, most people have less access to their family doctor.

The survey results also found that more than twice as many people today (41 percent) say the health care system crisis was the top issue facing the country compared to in 2015 (20 percent).

Canadians also report struggling with hurdles to see a specialist for medical care, with 55 percent saying “it was ‘difficult’, ‘very difficult’ or ‘impossible’ to access an appointment with a specialist.”

Two in five, or 40 percent say they faced difficulties booking a diagnostic test, 46 percent said it was a struggle to get surgery when they needed it, and 56 percent said there were barriers to making an appointment with a specialist.

The online survey was conducted from Nov. 26 to Dec. 1, 2025, with 4,025 participants.