Government & Policy

TORONTO – Michael Green (pictured), CEO of Canada Health Infoway, has been dismissed by the board after the collapse of the $300 million e-Prescribe program. The program is also being investigated by a parliamentary committee that’s seeking to find out why it failed and what the money was spent on. Read More

EDMONTON - Alberta’s government is laying the legislative groundwork to allow more people to pay to bypass their doctor and get faster access to everything from CT scans to blood tests. Read More

HALIFAX - Nova Scotia Health needs to follow procurement rules to ensure a competitive, fair, and transparent process results in best value for taxpayers’ money, said auditor general Kim Adair (pictured). Read More

TORONTO - Ontario announced it will produce a new province-wide Primary Care Medical Record system that will integrate patient records, reduce paperwork for doctors and improve the quality of care received by patients. It’s part of Ontario’s Primary Care Action Plan, for which the province will raise overall funding to a total of $3.4 billion between 2025 and 2029. Read More

REGINA - Premier Scott Moe (pictured) has unveiled his government’s new blueprint for healthcare, which he says is focused on improving access across the province. The 25-page plan, titled Patients First Healthcare Plan, lays out more than 50 actions the government will take to ensure Saskatchewan residents are “receiving the right care in the right place at the right time,” Moe said. Read More

EDMONTON - Alberta health minister Nate Horner’s (pictured) Budget 2026, delivered last week, included $1.9 billion in new funding across the healthcare system, bringing the total health system spending to $34.4 billion. The budget included the following major items: Read More

MIRAMICHI, NB - The government of New Brunswick has released a strategy to develop a more modern, connected and patient-centred digital health system. The strategy includes expanding the “digital front door”, enabling individuals and families to access health records, book appointments and connect with care teams. Read More

HALIFAX - Nova Scotia Health is trucking boxes of Nova Scotians’ paper health records to Ontario to be digitized by a private company. A Nova Scotia Health employee said 900 boxes of records are to be trucked to Iron Mountain in Toronto to be scanned and converted to electronic form. Read More

OTTAWA – Canada Health Infoway announced that PrescribeIT, its program for e-prescribing among physicians and pharmacists, will be shut down as of May 29. It was established to support safer, more efficient prescribing, but it didn’t achieve the scale or a successful funding formula required for long-term sustainability. Read More