Canadian Medical Association / Association médicale canadienne
Registration:
26
of
32
(2023-11-01
to
2024-01-16)
Legislative Proposal, Bill or Resolution
- BILL S-251: support the passage of Bill S-251, An Act to repeal section 43 of the Criminal Code (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's call to action number 6).
- HARMFUL ONLINE CONTENT: Advocate for new legislative measures to address the escalation of online harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence targeting physicians, other health workers, and anyone seeking health care treatment, including measures to strengthen the Criminal Code of Canada and the Canadian Human Rights Act.
Legislative Proposal, Bill or Resolution, Policies or Program
- INDIGENOUS HEALTH: Improvement to the health and health care services provided to Indigenous peoples in Canada.
Policies or Program
- AGEING WITH DIGNITY: Advocate for a pan-Canadian plan to improve elder care, including investments in long-term care standards, enhanced home and community-based care, and supports for older persons, an older adults care benefit program to deliver funding to older adults and caregivers to cover out of pocket health care costs, improved national standards and investment in the area of palliative and end of life care, and the development of a United Nations document supporting the rights of older persons.
- CANADA HEALTH TRANSFER: Increased federal funding for health care to the provinces and territories to ensure the sustainability of the health care system.
- CANADIAN PHARMACEUTICAL STRATEGY: A national strategy to ensure all Canadian have access to safe, effective and affordable prescription drugs regardless of employment status or geography.
- COVID-19 PANDEMIC: Ensuring a coordinated and consistent national response by the federal government across all jurisdictions, including targeted resources to ensure health systems have the capacity to respond, advocating on equitable vaccine supply and distribution, applying restrictive public health measures when needed, prioritizing national collaboration to save the most lives, and ensure adequate supply, proper distribution, and appropriate usage of personal protective equipment throughout health systems.
- DIGITAL HEALTH: Increased investment in providing digital, virtual and telehealth services.
- FEDERAL HEALTH FUNDING FOR A NEW PRIMARY CARE ACCESS FUND: Recommendation for a funding commitment to ensure that every Canadian has access to a family doctor or primary care team.
- FEDERAL HEALTH FUNDING TO EXPAND PUBLIC HEALTH CAPACITY: Recommendation for a $1 billion investment to expand Canada’s public health capacity.
- HEALTH PROMOTION AND DISEASE PREVENTION: Increased investments in health and social-determinants-of-health related programs.
- INDIGENOUS HEALTH AND RECONCILIATION WITH INDIGENOUS PEOPLES: Implementation of the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, including addressing the ongoing structural inequities that marginalize Indigenous Peoples, advancing the inclusion of Indigenous Peoples in societal systems and sectors, including health systems, and committing to collaborative and respectful relationships with Indigenous patients and communities. The CMA is also advocating to increase trust between Indigenous patients and health care providers, and to eliminate racism, inequitable access to care, and the ongoing harm caused to those within Canada’s health care system.
- INTEGRATED HEALTH HUMAN RESOURCES: Advocate for an Integrated Health Human Resources Strategy, including creating retention incentives and addressing administrative burden for health care professionals, increasing the number of doctors and nurses and ensuring that every Canadian has access to a family doctor or primary health team, increasing access to virtual care, creating an action plan to get internationally trained health care professionals to work, improving workforce data collection across health systems and investing in a supply needs-based planning tool, and facilitating team-based health care.
- MEDICAL ASSISTANCE IN DYING: Advancing the medical profession’s perspectives on medical assistance in dying.
- NET ZERO: Advocate for sustainable health systems in Canada, including reaching net-zero emissions by 2050; advocate for the establishment of a national climate and health secretariat within the federal government to develop a pan-Canadian approach to addressing the impacts of climate change and health; and advocate for a targeted health infrastructure fund as part of the federal government’s long-term plan for public infrastructure.
- PAN CANADIAN LICENSURE: Advocate for the ability for physicians with full licences to practise independently without restrictions or for medical resident trainees registered in any Canadian jurisdiction to practise or train in any other Canadian jurisdiction without having to acquire more than one licence or pay additional licensing fees. This includes exploring enabling legislation in the provinces and territories.
- PERSONAL INFORMATION PROTECTION AND ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT ACT (PIPEDA) PRIVACY PROTECTION OF HEALTH INFORMATION AND THE REGULATORY REVIEW: Improvement to privacy legislation to protect the privacy of health information.
- PHYSICAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL AND CULTURAL SAFETY: Advocate to address the challenges and opportunities for physical, psychological and cultural safety within Canada’s health system, including the implementation of a nation-wide anti-racism plan, the creation of a Canada Mental Health transfer, improving access to mental health services to physicians and their families, creating an emergency National Mental Health Support Services hotline for all health care providers, the creation of a National Physicians Day in Canada, ensuring safe and unimpeded access to health care facilities for health care workers and patients.
- PHYSICIAN PARLIAMENTARIAN CAUCUS: advocate for the formation of a Physician Parliamentarian Caucus as a means of examining deficiencies in the health care system and proposing solutions.
- PUBLIC-PRIVATE HEALTHCARE: The CMA is conducting a series of in-person sessions across the country to engage key stakeholders, including the public, physicians, patients/PWLE, policymakers, system leaders and others, in a dialogue on public-private healthcare. What we hear will inform CMA policy moving forward, and our recommendations for action at a national level.
- TECHNOLOGY AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: consider the impact of technology and artificial intelligence on the health care sector.
Policies or Program, Regulation
- ADMINISTRATIVE BURDEN: Advocate for measures to alleviate the administrative burden on physicians and support their professional wellbeing, including investment to facilitate the development of EHRs and EMRs in Canada, improved remuneration for the completion of federal health forms, ensuring that physicians are not captured in the definition of "promoters" in the Disability Tax Credit Promoters Restrictions Regulations, and advocacy on discontinuing the requirement that employees present sick notes to their employers.