Federal election 2025: Where do the parties stand on healthcare?
With election day less than a week away, all of the major parties have finally released their platforms.
Healthcare has not been a major focus for this campaign, with the headlines and the two federal debates largely focusing on the threat posed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs. However, in response to the tariff threat, all parties are promising to take steps to eliminate barriers to interprovincial trade and labour mobolity, including a national licensure for doctors and other regulated professionals.
From pharmacare to physician recruitment, here’s what the major parties are proposing on healthcare:
Liberal Party: ‘It’s time to come home.’
Liberal leader Prime Minister Mark Carney released his party’s platform over the Easter long weekend, announcing a plan to add “thousands” of new doctors to Canada’s healthcare system.
The Liberals are promising to bring about a “new global recruitment strategy” targeted at U.S.-trained doctors and Canadian doctors practicing abroad.
“To the Canadian healthcare professionals practising in the U.S., let me say this. If you’ve been thinking about coming back to Canada, there’s never been a better time,” Carney said during a press conference on Monday in Charlottetown. “It’s time to come home.”
Read: MCC sees 583% increase in U.S.-educated doctors signing up for its physician application portal
In addition, Carney and the Liberals are promising to implement pan-Canadian licensure for healthcare workers and work with the provinces and territories to streamline credential recognition for internationally trained doctors and nurses.
The Liberals are also pledging to increase medical school and residency spaces and build new medical schools, but the party has not outlined how many spaces it would create or how much this would cost. There is also a pledge to establish a “new-practice fund” to help family doctors with the costs of opening a new practice and a $4-billion commitment to build hospitals and clinics.
The Liberal platform also has a section on women’s rights and healthcare that includes promises to make the federal Sexual and Reproductive Health Fund Program permanent, offer families up to $20,000 for IVF treatment, fund studies into postpartum mental health and increase data collection in women’s health gaps.
The party, which introduced pharmacare and dental care under Justin Trudeau’s leadership, has also pledged to protect both of those programs. However, Carney has been noncommittal as to whether a government led by him would expand pharmacare beyond just covering birth control and diabetes medication.
Other healthcare-related promises include cutting red tape on drug approvals, enabling Canadians to access their healthcare data, standardizing forms and “scaling up” digital tools to reduce the administrative burden for doctors.
Conservative Party: A ‘Blue Seal’ national certification
The Conservatives released their platform Tuesday morning and like the Liberals, they are also promising to make it easier for doctors to practice across Canada.
The party is promising to create a “Blue Seal National Credentialing Plan” that would establish a national licensure for doctors and other professions. The plan also involves funding 350 additional residency spots in Canada for Canadian students studying medicine abroad at the cost of $70 million per year and recognizing the credentials of U.S.-certified doctors.
“All these measures combined will bring us an extra 15,000 doctors to treat our patients,” Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said at a news conference in Vaughan, Ont. on Tuesday.
A significant portion of the Conservative healthcare platform is focused on drug reform, with the party promising to end the Liberal government’s funding for safe supply programs. Instead, the party is proposing letting judges issue sentences of mandatory drug treatment and cracking down on drug use around schools, parks and senior homes.
Read: ‘People don’t judge you’: Inside the final days of a safe consumption site in Toronto
The Conservatives platform also outlines what they won’t change, pledging to maintain the status quo on abortion, the Canada Health Act and dental care and preserve the existing agreements on pharmacare and health transfers.
Other promises include introducing stiffer penalties for bringing weapons in hospitals and assaults on healthcare workers and speeding up drug approvals for drugs approved in other peer nations.
New Democratic Party: Family doctor guarantee by 2030
The NDP says its plan will ensure every Canadian will be able to find a family doctor by 2030. Much like its rivals, the party is promising to implement a pan-Canadian licensure and increase residency spots for internationally trained physicians by an unspecified amount.
The party is also pledging to boost Canada Health Transfers by an additional 1% and working with territorial governments to provide housing for doctors and primary care teams in the territories.
The NDP platform also sets out a timeline for when they plan on expanding pharmacare. The party says within the first year of its mandate, it would get deals with every province to cover birth control and diabetes medication and expand it by the end of the first year to cover essential medicine. Full coverage would come by the end of four years.
As part of the party’s response to the U.S. tariffs, the New Democrats are also promising to ban American corporations from buying Canadian health facilities and say no to any trade deals that would impact healthcare coverage in Canada.
Other promises include introducing a public plan to cover psychotherapy and counselling, banning “cash-for-care” clinics in the Canada Health Act and reducing the administrative burden for doctors and other clinicians.
Bloc Québécois: Boosting Quebec’s health transfers
The Bloc’s platform says comparatively little when it comes to healthcare policy. The party supports increasing federal health transfers to cover 35% of Quebec’s public healthcare system.
The increase in health transfers will also be key to combatting the fentanyl crisis in order to fund more rehab centres, emergency care, social workers and supervised consumption sites, the party says.
In addition, the party says it will call on the federal government to transfer Quebec’s dental care programs to be administered by RAMQ (Quebec’s public health insurance board) rather than a private insurer.
Unlike the other parties, the Bloc has taken a less bullish position on reducing interprovincial trade barriers. The party says it would “categorically oppose any attempt to impose harmful policies on Quebec under the pretext of interprovincial free trade,” such as replacing Quebec’s own regulatory collages.
Green Party: Adding mental health to the Canada Health Act
The Green Party’s platform includes a commitment to pass a “Primary Care Health Act” that would guarantee access to primary care, in addition to hiring 7,500 new family doctors, nurses and nurse practitioners over the next five years.
The party is also proposing several amendments to the Canada Health Act, including one that would make mental health services fully covered under the act. The Greens also want the act to ban the expansion of for-profit clinics and user fees.
On the issue of medical assistance in dying (MAID), the Greens want to create an independent federal oversight body to regulate MAiD and mandate that no person be offered it before being provided access to housing, healthcare or other supports.
In addition, the Green Party platform contains several proposals related to climate and environmental health, such as mandating workplace protections for climate-related impacts and creating a national database for doctors and emergency rooms to track adverse effects of pesticides and chemicals. The party is also proposing adding disease prevention and climate risks to Health Canada’s mandate, along with training health professionals on climate-related health threats.
