Singh promises NDP would give every Canadian access to a family doctor by 2030

On Saturday in St. John’s, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh promised that an NDP government would ensure all Canadians can access a family doctor by 2030.

The party says that, as an incentive to make this possible within five years, New Democrats would provide an additional one per cent in Canada Health Transfer funds to provinces who deliver on “guaranteed access” to primary care.

Outlining his plan to address the persisting health-system shortages, Singh said access to care is a core tenant of the Canada Health Act and the country is at risk of losing the entire premise of public health care.

More than 6.5 million Canadians do not currently have a family physician, according to background information the party provided about Saturday’s announcement.

Before Singh spoke, seniors Marie-France Bonenfant-Kusters and Pierre Kusters shared their experience having to go to a local emergency room for care as they do not have a family doctor, recently waiting around 17 hours to be seen.

“It’s just wrong,” Singh said. “It can’t happen… and we have a pathway to fix that.”

The New Democrats estimate that Canada would need to hire up to 7,500 new family doctors and adopt a “team-based approach” to fill the gap.

For provinces to quality for the health transfer top-up, they would have to publicly report on the steps they are taking and the results they are having.

The NDP are also committing to making it easier for American doctors to “immediately” come to Canada, particularly women’s and reproductive-health physicians.

They’d also fund 1,000 additional family medicine residency placements for internationally-trained doctors living in Canada and waive testing and licensing fees, with the intention of keeping doctors in underserved communities.

As part of his plan to “connect all Canadians with family doctors,” Singh said the NDP would also implement a “pan-Canadian licensure” to allow medical professionals to practice where needed nationwide. The party said this would be a discussion with First Ministers.

The NDP also want to improve housing and medical facilities for primary care teams in the North and work with provinces to reduce the administrative workload, such as filling out sick notes, that can take up time that could otherwise be spent with patients.

Asked how he intends to recruit and train enough new physicians in time, Singh said he’d tap into the estimated pool of thousands of trained international doctors who can’t get residencies here, as well as increase the number of doctors being trained in Canada.

“We also talked about looking at more primary care centers as a way for people to get access to care, better utilization of folks like nurse practitioners, who can do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to seeing patients, and better utilization of our other health-care professionals,” Singh said. “So, there is a broad approach to how we can tackle this crisis.”

Singh signalled that more health-care commitments will be coming from his campaign as the election unfolds, including additional measures to support nurses, nurse practitioners and other health professionals.

Noting the work done by New Democrats in the last minority Parliament to secure dental care and the first phase of universal pharmacare, the NDP say they’re “ready to do even more.”

Saturday’s platform plank from the party currently sitting in a distant third in the polls, did not come with costing. When asked Singh could not put a price tag on the one per cent transfer boost, saying: “it’s something that we have to do.”

A party spokesperson then told CTV News that if all provinces participate, it would cost $10 billion over four years.