https://www.cna-aiic.ca/fr/blogs/ic-contenu/2026/09/02/loi-11-de-lalberta-met-en-peril-lacces-equitable
OTTAWA, Sept. 2, 2026 — The Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) is calling on Health Minister Marjorie Michel and the federal government to enforce the Canada Health Act after Alberta’s Bill 11 took effect yesterday, creating a two-tier system that lets patients who can pay move to the front of the line.
Alberta’s Bill 11 allows physicians to bill the public system for health-care services while also charging patients out of pocket for the same services in their private practice. This bill sets a dangerous precedent and continues the creep toward private, for-profit practice in the name of improving access and reducing wait times for a privileged few.
A two-tier system will exacerbate shortages in the health workforce. Decades of global evidence show that private, for-profit health systems drain resources from public systems without reducing wait times or improving access — and worse, producing poorer outcomes.
CNA recognizes the challenges in meeting the growing and increasingly complex health needs of the population. Yet, we strongly oppose the private, for-profit approach as the solution to these challenges. Access to medically necessary care should be based on need, not on how much a patient can pay. Nurses and nurse practitioners witness the impact of wait times on patients and see who gets left behind when care depends on the ability to pay.
There are better ways to cut wait times and improve access, and all four designations of nurses are ready to put them into practice. CNA has long called for the modernization of the Canada Health Act. Governments can improve efficiency and control costs by supporting nurses and other health professionals to work to their full scope and by expanding nurse-led, nurse practitioner-led, and team-based care in all settings.
These are practical ways to increase access, make better use of the health workforce, and strengthen Canada’s publicly funded health systems without asking patients to pay for medically necessary care.
CNA supports a publicly funded, not-for-profit health system where care is based on population health need. We will keep working with nurses, governments, and partners across the country to protect it.
No one should be able to pay to move ahead of another patient, and no province should build a system that lets them.
— Dr. Valerie Grdisa, Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Nurses Association