Parliament Hill Lobby Report Back 2026

 4,359 kilometres travelled.
13 provinces and territories represented.
200 advocates.
100 meetings with Senators and MPs.
One question: will the end of universal public health care be met with government silence?

Alberta’s two-tier health agenda is not reform. It is an existential threat to universal public health care in Canada.

That's why the BC Health Coalition joined hundreds of health care advocates at the Canadian Health Coalition Lobby. We filled the halls of Parliament. We rallied at its doors. We made it impossible for decision-makers to ignore what is at stake.

At Davos, Prime Minister Mark Carney told the world that “collective investments in resilience are cheaper than everyone building their own fortresses.” Nothing embodies that principle more clearly than universal single-payer public health care.

It rests on a simple idea: illness and death are burden enough without being billed at your most vulnerable. When we band together so care is based on need, not wealth, everyone is better off.

Yet here at home, Carney and his government have remained silent as Alberta introduces U.S.-style two-tier health care, paving the way for American for-profit hospital and insurance corporations to use our trade agreements to move in and permanently reshape our system. 

Alberta’s decisions will not stay within its borders. By funnelling health care resources into the simplest and most lucrative services for those who can afford to pay, two-tier care will drain staff and funding from the public system. Wait-lists will grow. Costs will rise. And our public system will be left to carry the most essential and complex cases with fewer resources.

That is why we went to Parliament Hill.

[Below is a report from the BC Health Coalition. A full report from the Canadian Health Coalition is in development]

New Democratic Party