Nadeem Esmail

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Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute

Nadeem Esmail is a Senior Fellow of the Fraser Institute. He first joined the Fraser Institute in 2001, served as Director of Health System Performance Studies from 2006 to 2009, and has been a Senior Fellow since 2010. Mr. Esmail has spearheaded critical Fraser Institute research including the annual Waiting Your Turn survey of surgical wait times across Canada and How Good Is Canadian Health Care?, an international comparison of health care systems. In addition, Mr. Esmail has authored or co-authored more than 30 comprehensive studies and more than 150 articles on a wide range of topics including the cost of public health care insurance, international comparisons of health care systems, hospital performance, medical technology, and physician shortages. A frequent commentator on radio and TV, Mr. Esmail's articles have appeared in newspapers across North America. Mr. Esmail completed his B.A. (Honours) in Economics at the University of Calgary and received an M.A. in Economics from the University of British Columbia.

Recent Research by Nadeem Esmail

10 Years On—Revisiting the Saskatchewan Surgical Initiative

— May 30, 2024

10 Years On—Revisiting the Saskatchewan Surgical Initiative finds that private clinics were a key component of the Saskatchewan Surgical Initiative (SSI), established to tackle medical wait times for non-emergency but necessary surgical procedures including knee and hip replacements, which reduced waiting times in the province by 47 per cent between 2010 and 2014 (when the SSI was in place).

Time to Reform the Canada Health Act

— Apr 12, 2024

Time To Reform the Canada Health Act is a new essay, part of the Institute’s series on federal policy reforms, that highlights how the act has led to poor performance and high costs in provincial health-care systems, and suggests reforms that would allow the provinces to provide better universal health care.

Mental Health Care: How is Canada Doing?

— Oct 10, 2023

Mental Health Care: How is Canada Doing? compares Canada’s mental health services to other countries with universally accessible health care and finds that, despite the Canadian government spending a larger share of health dollars on mental health services, Canada has relatively fewer psychiatric care beds (ranking 22nd out of 28 nations), psychiatrists (ranking 16th out of 28 nations), and psychologists (ranking 15th out of 26 nations) in addition to growing wait times.