This study measures delays in the approval of new medicines by Health Canada and provides patients with the information they need in order to determine whether the time they wait for access to new medicines in Canada is unnecessarily long.

This paper focuses on the Japanese health care system which has been identified as a system that provides some of the best outcomes on an aggregate basis when compared with other developed nations that maintain universal approaches to health care insurance. A careful examination of this high-performing health care system will provide insights and information that will be useful in the Canadian debate over the future of Medicare.

A lack of non-wage benefits data mean that there is insufficient information to make a definitive comparison of total compensation between the private and public sectors. But the data that are available indicate that the public sector enjoys a clear wage premium.