Health Mandate Letter

Dear Minister,

Canadians have given us a clear mandate: to grow our economy, strengthen our sovereignty and build a country that works for everyone. They are ready to build Canada. Now, we must deliver. 

Our path forward is ambitious – and it must be. Global instability, and the accelerating pace of technological changes are testing our resilience. But Canadians are not afraid of hard work, nor are they afraid to take risks. They believe in fairness, in unity, and in building an abundant future for all Canadians. This government must match their resolve with urgency, discipline, and ambition.

I expect all Ministers to remain focused on their core mandate. Every ministry has clear goals focused on delivering better services and driving economic growth, while doing both with the efficiency and excellence Canadians deserve. That means setting clear goals, with measurable outcomes, and being relentless in execution. 

I expect Ministers to fulfill their mandates at a pace this country has not seen in recent history. Canadians expect and deserve change. It is the responsibility of our entire government to remove any roadblocks quickly and ensure the smooth and fast implementation of our priorities.

I expect you to do this by recruiting top talent, adopting best practices from around the world, and leveraging modern tools wherever possible, including artificial intelligence. Above all we must be ruthlessly pragmatic. If our policies are not achieving the results that Canadians deserve then we must change direction to achieve our goals. Through this, we can build a more modern government that delivers better results more efficiently. 

As Minister of Health, you will modernize and strengthen Canada’s public healthcare system. Canadians expect a strong public health care system that improves over time, responds to changing needs, and is available wherever and whenever Canadians need care. But our emergency rooms are overcrowded, many Canadians cannot access a family doctor, and wait times for critical treatments are dangerously long. You are responsible for working with provinces and territories to turn our healthcare system into one that Canadians can rely on —  free of charge, fair, universal, and accessible.

You will do this by improving access to healthcare, improving mental health services especially for youth, and leading a more modernized and digitized system. You will lead a generational transformation of our health care infrastructure, in partnership with provinces and Indigenous communities, so that every Canadian can access quality care when and where they need it. Your core goal is to increase the share of physicians from 2.43 per 1,000 people to 2.8 by 2029.

• Increase Canada’s supply of health professionals
  
  • Work in partnership with provinces and territories to increase medical school and residency spaces, and build new medical schools, creating at least 1000 new seats
  • Streamline credential recognition for internationally trained doctors and nurses, ensuring that 50% of credentialed professionals are matched to jobs within 18 months.
  • Implement mutual recognition of credentials across all 13 provinces and territories to allow physicians and nurses to practice across jurisdictions
  • Launch a global recruitment strategy targeting Canadian doctors abroad, U.S.-trained physicians, and top global talent, ensuring at least 5% of positions are filled through this program
  • Launch a new-practice fund to help new family doctors cover start-up costs of opening a practice, ensuring at least 1,000 family practices are launched using this fund by 2029 at least 80% of which are in rural and underserved areas.
• Build Health Infrastructure Across the Country
  
  • Invest $4 billion to support provinces in building or renovating hospitals, clinics and long-term care centres, ensuring that 20 major health infrastructure projects and 40 community-scale projects are started by 2029, with provincial cost share ≥ 75%
• Support and Train Health Workforce
  
  • Provide PSWs with up to $1,100/year through a refundable federal Health Care Workers Hero Tax Credit, ensuring 80% annual uptake
  • Expand the Union Training and Innovation Program (UTIP) to include health training spaces for nurses, PSWs, and educators, creating 5,000 additional training spaces
• Protect Reproductive and Sexual Health
  
  • Make the Sexual and Reproductive Health Fund Program permanent, maintaining $50M/year funding
• Strengthen Mental Health and Addictions Care
  
  • Establish a permanent Youth Mental Health Fund reaching 100,000 youth annually with community-based care.
  • Add $500M to the Emergency Treatment Fund to respond to the toxic drug and overdose crisis to increase treatment centre capacity by 25%
  • Sustain the 9-8-8 suicide crisis line with stable long-term funding, ensuring capacity supports 400,000 calls/texts per year with <60s average response time
• Modernize Canada’s Public Health Care System
  
  • Reduce the current ~1.5 year wait time for public access to medications after Health Canada approval by 50%
  • Enable secure patient access to digital health records through new legislation and digital infrastructure, ensuring that 80% of Canadians are able to access their personal health data
  • Streamline physician paperwork with standardized forms and digital tools including e-prescribing and e-referrals to reduce physician admin time by 20%
  • Launch a Task Force for Public Health Care Innovation to fund, scale, and evaluate made-in-Canada solutions to fund at least 20 innovation pilots

We all know that our country could be so much more than it is. We have the land, the talent, the know-how, and the energy to be the most prosperous nation on earth. And our people have a spirit that could take them anywhere they want to go.

Now let’s build it.

Signed,

Prime Minister

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Note: Italicized figures are added by Build Canada

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