This 2007 edition of How Good Is Canadian Health Care? provides answers to a series of questions that are important to resolve if Canada is to make the correct choices as it amends its health care policies. In this study, we primarily compare Canada to other countries that also have universal access, publicly funded, health care systems.

This publication was written to inform Canadians about the theories and insights of Public Choice Theory, to document government failure from the reports of the Auditor General, to calculate a reasonable estimate of the costs of government failure, and to summarily describe the mechanisms available to reduce government failure.

The Fraser Institute's seventeenth annual waiting list survey found that Canada-wide waiting times for surgical and other therapeutic treatments increased slightly in 2007. Total waiting time between referral from a general practitioner and treatment, averaged across all 12 specialties and 10 provinces surveyed, increased from 17.8 weeks in 2006 to 18.3 weeks in 2007.