“Sharing health records between provinces is a good idea, but we need answers before passing this bill. Health care belongs to the provinces, so we must respect their choices and not add more red tape. We must protect small tech businesses from being pushed out by big companies. Most of all, we must keep Canadians' personal health data safe under Canadian law, so foreign governments cannot access it.”

“Mr. Speaker, I would like to reiterate that there is tremendous opportunity behind this bill to ensure that we would have data transfer of our health information, but at the same time, we have quite a few questions we need answered to ensure that we would remain sovereign, would be protecting our innovation and that it would still be within the jurisdiction of our provinces. We need to make sure these details are right, because Canadians need actual improvements. They do not need announcements or grand gestures. They need real improvement to a system in which our data is not being transferred between jurisdictions. Provinces and territories are responsible for making their own health care systems. As a federal government, we need to respect the role of the provinces in this discussion. We should be working with them to make sure their health information can be shared across other provinces but that we would not be creating more red tape in doing so and that provinces would actually have their say on how this needs to operate. We need to understand how the bill would work with the systems that are already in place and to make sure provinces would still have a say in how these changes would be implemented. If one province is using one system and another province is using another system, we have to ensure that there would be compatibility between the two and that they have a say, instead of arbitrarily saying that there is another provider to use and everybody has to make the adjustment to a new system This would cost the taxpayer entirely too much money as we try to implement this across Canada. The other thing we need to talk about is making sure we would not make it harder for small businesses and start-ups to compete in this industry. We do not want so many rules and regulations, so much red tape, that the biggest companies would be the only ones able to develop the softwares that would be used for the data collection and transfer as we move forward. Our innovators and entrepreneurs have great ideas and amazing solutions, but they need a fair chance to compete. We should be encouraging more competition and innovation, not creating barriers that protect the biggest players and keep the little guys out. The third thing we need to talk about is privacy and security. Canadians share some of their most personal information with the health care system, and they need to know that this information is protected. Imagine someone with a communicable disease who does not want everyone to know about it. Some hacker gets in, and then all of a sudden everyone knows about something the person has held very private, kept to themselves. We need to ensure that this information would not get out to the general public. We need to make it easier for doctors and hospitals to share important records and information, but at the same time ensure that they would be the only ones that could access them. They have to be protected, sovereign and secure. Better information sharing is important, absolutely, but it would not fix every problem in our health care system. It would not put more family doctors in communities that desperately need them. It would not shorten the wait times for hip replacements or get someone into the emergency room faster. These challenges still need to be addressed, but this does matter. We need to make sure that the changes would lead to actual results for Canadians. This is one of the things on which we would hold the government to account should the legislation go through the steps and pass: that the government implement something and truly make a change for Canadians, not just another grand gesture with Liberals’ saying they did something, but then nothing ever came of it. Another important discussion we need to have is about data sovereignty. As we connect more of our health care systems, we need to think about who controls Canadians’ data and health information. Where would the information be stored, who would have access to that information and which country’s laws would apply to our Canadian health care data? This is extremely important. We cannot be dependent on foreign companies to operate the technology that our health care systems rely on, because then we could need to answer to the U.S. CLOUD Act or other provisions that would allow the U.S. to take control of our Canadian citizens’ health care data. We have to ensure that we remain sovereign, take a very sovereign approach to our Canadian data and protect the most vulnerable information of our citizens. There is absolutely nothing wrong with embracing new technology or working with companies that have offered the technology and can share that information, but we cannot put ourselves in a position where we would lose control over these systems or no longer be able to protect that information at the same time. Canada needs to build its own expertise, strengthen our digital infrastructure and make sure we have the ability to protect our information under Canadian laws. This is the key part. Our data has to be protected under Canadian laws, especially when it comes to our health care data. Being sovereign in today’s world means more than just where a company is operated or being on Canadian soil. It also matters where the data is being stored and what server is being used. Is it the cloud? Is it on the premises? How is this information being stored to protect Canadian data? We should be embracing innovation and should be looking for ways to make our health care system more efficient and better connected, absolutely, but we must do this by having control over our own data, not by compromising Canadians’ health data. Privacy, security and control matter in this conversation, and we have to make sure we discuss it. Bill S-5 is an opportunity to make progress on an issue that is holding our health care system back. That does not mean we open our data to non-protections to move forward with data transfers. It does not mean that we will not have questions to bring forth as this policy moves forward. When it comes down to it, Canadians are not worried, really, about which software their hospital uses or how systems communicate. What they want to know is that when they need medical care, their doctor has the information they need, they can get their services fast and their personal information will be protected. That is what Canadians care about. That is what this bill should be about, not just better information sharing, but better care, better access and better outcomes for Canadians.”

• Echo ×5

  A repeated line

  “While provinces and territories are responsible for delivering health care.”

  Said 5 times by 4 members since September 23.

  Every time it was said →

“I want to ask my colleague what problems the people in her riding face when trying to get their health records. I also want to know what changes to this bill could make their daily lives better.”

“Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my colleague from Kitchener on her great speech. I wonder if there is anything specific she hears from her constituents, with some examples perhaps, about frustrations with accessing their health care data. Is there something that she really feels could be added to this bill to improve their daily lives?”

“People often have to repeat their medical history every time they see a new doctor or go to the hospital. This bill will help solve that problem.”

“Mr. Speaker, we get emails all the time about how people go to one practitioner and then have to go to the hospital and re-explain their entire medical history. Then they go back to their practitioner to get a referral and go to the specialist with the referral, and they end up on the operating table if need be. They have to share their information across all those different avenues. That is happening all the time. I get emails all the time from constituents who ask why they cannot do it once to make sure they mark the right leg and move forward. Yes, I think this is going to help in specific situations like that.”

“We need to study these questions in committee. We have to stop data blocking and make sure rules do not just help big companies. Small businesses must still be able to compete, and we must make sure people actually share this health data.”

“Mr. Speaker, these are the questions we will have to bring up at committee, absolutely. How are we going to prevent data blocking? What regulations are going to be put in place? How would we ensure that it would not just be the conglomerates that are able to play in this game anymore? We have to make sure the start-ups, the innovation and the free market can still compete in this area at the same time as we hold regulators accountable to make sure they are sharing that information.”

“How will this bill protect victims of violence from abusers seeing their medical information? What controls will keep this information secret?”

“Mr. Speaker, as we can see, my hon. colleague is an expert in the field, being an engineer. My concern is this: How do we protect victims of violence to ensure that their perpetrators do not have access to this information? What controls do we have to ensure that this information is kept secret?”

“Bad people, like human traffickers, might try to get personal health information. People must be in control of their own data. I want to know how the government will protect this private information as this bill moves forward.”

“Mr. Speaker, this is one of the sensitive topics that we absolutely need to address when this bill moves forward, because there are going to be perpetrators out there who want to access personal health information, as in the trafficking world. We have to make sure that we are able to protect that data, that the data remains sovereign and that it is up to an individual to share that data. How is the government going to make sure that all those things are in place as it moves this bill forward?”

“Health care is a provincial job, and we must respect that. But we should focus this bill on what patients need. That will make it easier for the provinces to agree.”

“Mr. Speaker, it was the member opposite who mentioned that if we look at this through the lens of the client, the patient, we will be able to come to a consensus on how it needs to work. Absolutely, this falls under provincial jurisdiction, and we have to make sure that we are maintaining that jurisdiction as we move forward. However, the conversation would become easier between the provinces if we looked at it through the mindset of the patient. That is where we really need to focus in this legislation.”

“What is the most important thing to change or look at in this health data bill if it goes to committee?”

“Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague’s explanation. She is an expert in this field. What would the member say is the most important thing here? If and when this bill goes to committee, what would be the most important thing that would need to be addressed or changed in this bill?”

“We need answers to three questions about this bill. Will it hurt innovation and business? Will people's health data be safe? And will people have the choice to share their own data or not? I will keep asking these questions as we study the bill.”

“Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for the gravitas for my expertise. There are some key elements here that we need to discuss. Number one, would we stifle innovation and free market through it? Number two, would the data be protected? Number three, would it be up to the individual to even share their data in the first place? These are three questions that I have, and as we move forward, I will be continually asking them.”

“The government needs to explain how it will protect our data under this bill. We must make sure our personal information is safe from hackers and stays protected by Canadian laws instead of foreign laws.”

“Mr. Speaker, it is extremely important that we protect data as we move forward with this legislation. It is going to be up to the government to answer the question of how data would be protected and what regulations it would put in place. It is the number one thing we need to focus on to make sure that our data is secure so that someone cannot just hack in and get access to our most critical information, our personal critical information, and so that our data remains sovereign and falls under Canadian law, not under a foreign jurisdiction or a foreign country’s law.”

“I want to know if other countries had their health systems or data hacked when they connected them. Canada seems to be behind other countries on protecting this data.”

“Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her in-depth explanations. Has data sovereignty been an issue in other countries? I am sure we are following and are quite a bit behind some other countries on this issue. Does my colleague know of any other countries that had problems with their data being hacked or their health system being hacked when they were proceeding with interoperability?”

“We should pass this bill, but we must make sure the data is secure. Hacking is a real risk, and people could target personal health information.”

“Mr. Speaker, I am not 100% sure of other countries that have had their data hacked, but we do hear in the news all the time about different companies that have been hacked. Even AI has been, so there is a real risk there and an opportunity for this information to be hacked. As my other colleague brought up earlier, it could even be a perpetrator who wants information from someone, so they hack into the system and specifically target one individual. There are lots of scenarios we can talk about. We have to really make sure that our data is secure as we move forward with this bill. At the same time, we need to move forward with this legislation. We need to have conversations surrounding it, and we have to make sure we get it right for the interests of Canadians and health care across Canada.”

“The provinces should keep control of health data, not the federal government. The provinces must work together to share this data to save lives, but Ottawa should not take over.”

“Mr. Speaker, this needs to remain under provincial jurisdiction. Nothing needs to change there, but I think the provinces need to work together to make sure that data can be interchanged. It is extremely important to reduce harm and save lives. As I mentioned in my speech, I know of someone who was given penicillin by accident and died because their information was not transferred from province to province. They had gotten into a car accident. The provinces need to work together to ensure we have a transfer of data, but I absolutely do not think this should be removed from provincial jurisdiction.”

“I support this bill because it lets doctors share patient medical records across provincial borders and stops tech companies from blocking that data. However, Infoway should not be put in charge of running it.”

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the residents of Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay to speak to Bill S-5. I am always honoured to speak in the House for my communities. Bill S-5 is an act respecting the interoperability of health information technology and to prohibit data blocking by health information technology vendors. I am pleased to speak to this legislation as a member of the Standing Committee on Health. It has been a great honour, in my time in the House, to provide oversight of our health care system. Canadians are proud of our health care system, and for good reason. However, most Canadians and most members in this House agree that it needs improvement. There are many issues, too many for me to even list here, that we are addressing in our committee. To name one, the Canada health transfer has risen substantially, yet access remains poor. In fact, the Canada health transfer increased from $37.2 billion in 2017-18 to $57.4 billion in 2026-27, a 55% increase in nominal terms. Despite this increase, Canadians are still waiting longer for several priority surgeries and diagnostic tests than before the pandemic. Canada continues to rank poorly, internationally, for timely access. Younger Canadians face particularly poor access to primary care. In 2023, more than one in four Canadians aged 18 to 34 did not have a regular health care provider. One in five Canadians aged 35 to 49 lacked a regular health care provider. We have a gateway system in our health care, and it did work for quite a long while. However, it does not work unless Canadians have a health care provider or a family doctor. Canada ranks last among 10 peer countries examined for timely access to care and, of course, the lack of that initial provider is one of the reasons. In 2025, the C.D. Howe Institute analysis ranked Canada 10th out of 10 countries for timeliness. Again, I know everyone in this House who has had to wait in line or bring a loved one to a hospital for any kind of testing would not question that data. Only 86% of Canadians reported having a regular doctor or place of care, and just 25% can see a doctor or nurse the same day. In the communities that I represent in Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay, it is not 86% that have a doctor. I know a lot of these stats are different for rural communities like mine that have a severe lack of family doctors and specialists. Thousands in Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay right now have no family doctor. Forty-seven per cent of Canadians waited two months or longer for a specialist, and 59% waited two months or longer for an elective surgery. In 2024-25 at least 23,000 patients died in Canada while on wait-lists for surgeries or diagnostic scans. We have to wonder if that number is even accurate because there are a lot of people who might not be included who died of other issues they were having while waiting. It is hard to know if it is even much more than that; I am sure it is. Emergency rooms are under significant pressure. In 2024, 1.2 million emergency department visits, or 7.7% of all reported visits, ended with the patient leaving before being seen and assessed by a physician. Canadians are spending longer in emergency departments. In 2024, half of emergency patients waited just under two hours for an initial physician assessment, while one in 10 waited more than five hours. Of course, some of this can be attributed to what we are talking about today and the issues that Bill S-5 is trying to solve. One in 10 patients waited more than 14 hours in an emergency department overall. That is a 28% increase from 2018. Hospital capacity is contributing to extreme delays for patients who need to be admitted. In fact, in 2024-25, one in 10 admitted patients waited more than 36 hours for an in-patient bed after the decision to admit them had been made. That is a 45% increase from 2018. Surgical and diagnostic waits remain worse than before the pandemic. In 2024, only 68% of hip replacement patients received surgery within the 26-week benchmark. That is down from 75% in 2019. Only 61% of knee replacement patients met the benchmark, down from 70%. The most important thing is there are people behind the statistics. There are people who are extremely active, who want to stay active, who do not want to go into a home and do not want to be a burden to their families. They cannot get that hip surgery in a timely manner. They cannot get that knee surgery. They want to continue to play tennis, to play pickleball, to go running, to go walking on trails, and they cannot because they are in extreme pain for months. It is really not fair. Let us go to MRI waits, which are 15 days longer right now than they were in 2019, while waits for CT scans are taking three days longer. The Standing Committee on Health is studying these wait times currently. Knowledge is power and the more we know exactly what is going wrong compared to other countries, the more we will be able to resolve this problem. Waits for specialist care and treatment remain lengthy. The Fraser Institute 2025 physician survey reported a median 28-week wait for referral by a family doctor to receipt of treatment. Again, I believe those numbers are even higher in rural areas that have an even greater shortage of specialists. Canada spends heavily on health care and continues to struggle with access and capacity. Among the 31 high-income countries with universal health coverage, Canada ranked third-highest for health spending as a share of GDP, but 27th of 30 for the availability of doctors, 27th of 31 for MRI machines and 28th of 31 for CAT scan machines. These are things that Bill S-5 would address. Being able to communicate is one of the issues, obviously, with Canadian health care, and that is why I do support much of what is in this bill. It attempts to improve our system by making our health care data accessible beyond our own home province. We are travelling more within the country now. We are buying Canadian, we are travelling Canadian, and we are vacationing Canadian. We need to be able to cross provincial boundaries, into any province, and if there is any kind of situation where we need to see a health care provider, which of course happens all the time, we need them to have our information available, to know, as my colleague mentioned, whether we are allergic to any kind of medication or need some operation, and to know what is happening at home with our home doctor. If we cross provincial boundaries at this point, there is no information available most of the time. We are exploring our great country. We are hiking the Rockies north of the border or we are heading for Montreal instead of Palm Beach now. As more Canadians are exploring the country, they will need to interact with other provincial health care systems. Re-injuring an existing injury or refilling a prescription has become more common. People across our country move between family doctors, community clinics, hospitals and diagnostic labs, yet in far too many cases, their medical history fails to follow them. Systems remain trapped behind digital walls and information remains fragmented. We cannot allow provincial silos to limit our medical services in Canada. Obviously, this runs counter to the spirit of the Canada Health Act and to our health accords. Again, there are people behind all these statistics. The number one thing is that we need to keep the Canadian people healthy. I represent one of the country’s eldest regions. Our communities are also full of young families, alongside many recent retirees and long-time residents. Generations of wisdom are always on display, and we are fortunate that so many Canadians from every province choose to make Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay their new home in their golden years, but as they bring their cherished mementos, they can also bring complex medical histories, long-term prescriptions, diagnostic scans and test results. Seniors should not be made solely responsible for ensuring that their medical history is properly updated with local health care professionals, not in a country where our health care is supposed to be universal. I can give two examples in my region that illustrate this need. Penticton Regional Hospital recently lost its entire staff of neurologists, even though our region is home to more seniors than anywhere else in the country and it is one of the eldest regions in our country. Neurology is a vital service to ensure seniors’ aging brain and nervous system changes are properly screened, cared for and managed. The loss of these neurologists will mean more seniors will have to travel further for screenings and speak with neurologists many hundreds of kilometres away about the care they received in Penticton. If they need to go to another health authority for specialized screening, it is not always guaranteed that they would be able to see the testing history from their former hospital. We all know that this is true, because sometimes we can drive from one pharmacy on one side of town to another pharmacy on the other side of town, and they have no idea what prescription we are on. If these seniors go to another province, and I have spoken with residents who have seen specialists in Alberta, their data is not available. Similarly, the emergency room in the town of Oliver, has seen sudden, random closures repeatedly over the past few years, more than 40 times, or almost once a week in a calendar year. I would like to take this time to thank the former mayor of Oliver for his service over the past eight years and for sitting as a witness before the Standing Committee on Health to talk to members of Parliament about what it is like for a small community to have their emergency room close randomly, sporadically, multiple times a year. It is more than 40 times a year. I thank Martin Johansson for the service he has given to our communities and for putting those first. Let us remember that, when a small community like Oliver’s emergency room closes randomly, it has a domino effect throughout the whole region, because not only is it an emergency that needs to be attended to, but the other hospitals these people have to go to will get extremely backed up. I have received so much mail about the health care system, so much mail and so many calls about how broken the system is. I am going to read a short letter from one of my constituents, Marie-Louise, who says the following: “I am writing to express my concern about the lack of timely medical care in the Emergency Hospital in Penticton. “In the Similkameen—South Okanagan this sad situation is not new.... “Unfortunately, long delays in seeing a doctor can leave all patients, and especially parents of babies and young children, frightened, helpless and anxious.” When a person goes to the hospital’s ER, prompt attention from a doctor is expected and needed. Marie-Louise continues: “This happened to our family on Monday of a long weekend. We had our three-month-old baby granddaughter go to the emergency room. The doctor came in to see the baby 3 hours later, and she came after the shift switch. Meanwhile the baby had arrived 3 hours earlier and apparently the emergency room was fairly quiet on that early morning. “These delays in seeing the doctor in due time are not new. “These delays are not acceptable....” This is especially true with a three-month-old baby. I want members to think about the stories of Canadians who check in at one ER in one province and are dismissed, only to end up in the care of another hospital in another province with a checkered history at best of what prior tests were done or of any prior observations by doctors. In its current form, Bill S-5 is intended to address the concern that many electronic health records and health IT systems cannot easily communicate with each other because of data blocking. Data blocking is when health IT vendors restrict access or the exchange of health data to protect market shares or extract licensing fees. This is not acceptable. We cannot allow big tech to act as an armed bandit when it comes to accessing health care records. Other jurisdictions have moved to prohibit this practice, and I am glad we have the opportunity to do that right here. Getting health data right is not something for computers. It is for patients. It is for the people. It is for Canadians. This means fewer duplicative tests and fewer bad diagnoses made with incomplete information. It must mean making Canada’s 13 different health care data systems able to connect to one another and not be at the mercy of health tech companies setting costly and artificial restrictions on Canadians’ most sensitive information. In other words, legislation must be a win-win for those working in health care and those who need health care. I do want to say, as a member of the health care committee who helped lead the investigation into the PrescribeIT scandal, I can say with some expertise that allowing Infoway to handle the regulations for shared health care records would be a costly and futile disaster for taxpayers, patients and doctors. Even our health minister has agreed that this agency needs an audit as soon as possible. We are waiting for that audit. Infoway should not be put in charge of this new program. Basically, I would like to say I believe the minister knows it is not fit for that—”

“I want to send this bill to committee for study. Health care will get worse if patient information cannot be shared across the country. Money alone will not fix health care if medical systems cannot talk to each other.”

“Mr. Speaker, it is very important that health care in this country, in every province, has the appropriate funding, yet we have to make sure that money is well spent. If we do not have our health information going between provinces, or even within provinces, our health care will only get worse. I believe that we can throw as much money as we want at all the provinces to improve their health care, but if the money is not spent appropriately, it is of no use. Right now, the communication is blocked. That is why we need a bill like Bill S-5. I am looking forward to it going to committee so we can scrutinize it even further.”