News release from the Montreal Economic Institute and Second Street

450,000 European patients had surgery outside their country of residence in 2022

Allowing Canadian patients to get reimbursed from the government for care received outside the country – just like Europeans do – would help reduce waiting times, according to an economic note published jointly by the Montreal Economic Institute and SecondStreet.org this morning.

“Long waiting times for surgery in Canada have damaging effects on patients‘ health and quality of life,” says Frederik Cyrus Roeder, health economist and author of the study. “Allowing Canadian patients to seek treatment elsewhere would help them regain their health, while breaking the cycle of constant catching up in Canadian healthcare systems.”

Since 2011, European patients have been permitted to seek treatment in any EU member country and receive reimbursement of their medical expenses equivalent to what their national health insurance plan would have covered at home.

This mechanism is known as the “cross-border directive,” or the “patients’ rights directive.”

Thanks to this arrangement, 450,000 European patients were able to access elective surgery outside their country of residence in 2022. Nearly 80% of the requests submitted that year were approved.

The economist explains that a large part of the voluntary program’s success is due to the fact that it acts as a safety valve when healthcare systems are no longer delivering.

“Such a system is no more expensive for the public insurer, because the reimbursements provided cannot exceed the costs of delivering the same treatment in the local healthcare system,” explains Mr. Roeder. “Where this directive really comes into its own is when a healthcare system can no longer manage to treat patients within an acceptable timeframe.”

“Patients are then free to turn to other alternatives without having to pay a stiff price. It’s important to note that even patients who don’t want to travel for treatment still benefit from this as it helps shorten waiting lists.”

In 2023, more than four out of ten Canadian patients had to wait longer than the recommended time to obtain a knee replacement in Canada. For hip replacements, the figure was one in three.

The joint study by the MEI and SecondStreet.org is available here.

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The MEI is an independent public policy think tank with offices in Montreal and Calgary. Through its publications, media appearances, and advisory services to policymakers, the MEI stimulates public policy debate and reforms based on sound economics and entrepreneurship.

SecondStreet.org launched in 2019 to focus on researching how government policies affect everyday Canadians. In addition to policy research, we tell short stories featuring Canadians from coast-to-coast explaining how they’re affected by government policies.

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

MP Michelle Rempel Garner said the goal is to ‘protect the most vulnerable Canadians without creating a government-managed surveillance state or restricting Charter-protected speech.’

Canada’s Conservative Party promised to introduce a new online harms bill that will counter legislation from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals that aims to further clamp down on online speech.

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner, speaking to reporters on September 12, said the new Conservative bill will “protect Canadians online” and preserve “civil liberties.”

“After nine years of Justin Trudeau, the NDP-Liberal coalition has failed to put forward any legislation that will protect Canadians online without infringing upon their civil liberties,” she said, adding that “Canadians are paying the price for this failure.”

Rempel Garner added that online criminal behaviour is “still rampant” in Canada, “yet the Liberals’ only response has been to table two censorship bills, forcing Canadians to choose between their safety and free expression.”

In a blog post about the forthcoming legislation, Rempel Garner observed that “for nearly a decade, the Liberals have presented Canadians with a false dichotomy; that they should have to water down their civil liberties to be protected online.”

She made a direct reference to the Liberal’s Bill C-63, or the “An Act to enact the Online Harms Act, to amend the Criminal Code, the Canadian Human Rights Act and An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts.”

Bill C-63 was introduced by Justice Minister Arif Virani in the House of Commons in February and was immediately blasted by constitutional experts as troublesome. Put forth under the guise of protecting children from exploitation online, the bill also seeks to expand the scope of “hate speech” prosecutions, and even desires to target such speech retroactively.

Trudeau’s law, which is in the second reading, also calls for the creation of a Digital Safety Commission, a digital safety ombudsperson, and the Digital Safety Office, all tasked with policing internet content.

Rempel Garner promised the Conservative’s online harms bill will “introduce protections in three areas of focus,” and will “protect the most vulnerable Canadians without creating a government-managed surveillance state or restricting Charter-protected speech.”

“To be clear, this update won’t criminalize something like two people disagreeing about policy online, or other types of expression of opinion that is protected under the Charter, which Liberal Bill C-63 will undermine,” Rempel Garner noted.

“Specifically, the provision in our new Conservative legislation will be based on the existing definition of criminal harassment, applying specifically to those who repeatedly send unwanted, harassing content that causes someone to reasonably fear for their safety or well-being.”

Conservative bill will not mandate Digital IDs for internet use

Rempel Garner observed that the new bill will have provisions to protect minors and will criminalize the sharing of “intimate” photos without a person’s consent, as well as “deep nudes” (AI images that look real), as well as the sharing of pictures or video of sexual assault.

“The legislation will outline in detail how operators must comply with and operate under this duty of care, including reporting requirements, marketing prohibitions, and other items. Operators who don’t comply with these provisions will face steep fines and a private right of action,” she said.

Rempel Garner said the Conservative’s new bill will look to implement privacy-preserving and “trustworthy age verification methods (for example, computer algorithms that ensure reliable age verification) to detect when a user is a minor,” to be able to restrict access to any “content that is inappropriate for minors to such users while expressly prohibiting the use of a Digital ID for these purposes.”

In June, Rempel Garner said Trudeau’s Bill C-63 is so flawed that it will never be able to be enforced or come to light before the next election.

C-63’s “hate speech” section is accompanied by broad definitions, severe penalties, and dubious tactics, including levying preemptive judgments against people if they are feared to be likely to commit an act of “hate” in the future.

Details of the new legislation also show the bill could lead to more people jailed for life for “hate crimes” or fined $50,000 and jailed for posts that the government defines as “hate speech” based on gender, race, or other categories.

Jordan Peterson, one of Canada’s most prominent psychologists, accused Trudeau’s Bill C-63 of trying to create a pathway to allow for “Orwellian Thought Crime” to become the norm in the nation