The Canadian Medical Association points to fewer general family doctors, more specialists and Canada’s aging population as the key reasons why Canadians are struggling to find family doctors.
“Indeed, the percentage of Canada’s population that is 65 and older grew from one-in-six (16.1 per cent) in 2015 to one-in-five (19.5 per cent) in 2025, according to Statistics Canada. And the expectation is that Canada’s average age will continue to rise as the changes to immigration rules implemented by the federal government take hold,” it said.
Beyond accessing family doctors, Canadians everywhere also reported difficulties accessing other aspects of health care. Forty per cent said they faced difficulties booking diagnostic tests; 46 per cent said it was difficult to get the surgery they needed and 56 per cent said they faced barriers in getting an appointment with a specialist.
Additionally, 52 per cent of people found it difficult to get access to emergency care.
In 2015, 31 per cent of Canadians looking for a general practitioner said they had been searching for more than a year – a number that’s shot up to 45 per cent in 2025.
The challenges faced by people seeking health care have caused more of them to give up, from 21 per cent in 2015 to 25 per cent last year.
“The family doctor issue remains a challenging one for Canada’s provincial health-care systems to address. According to data from The Canadian Institute for Health Information, the number of family doctors per capita has risen across the country since 2015 and in every province except Alberta and Ontario,” the study read.
“But because of an aging population with increasingly complicated medical needs, and more specialized family practices, Canadians have less access to their family doctor in general. Indeed, in every province in the country, there are more Canadians who say they don’t have a family doctor or can’t get a timely appointment with the one they had, than said so in 2015.”
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