Ottawa, ON – Dan Mazier, Conservative Shadow Minister for Health, released the following statement calling on the Liberal government to end all federal funding to Canada Health Infoway and move any useful functions into Health Canada, where they can be accountable to Parliament:
“Canada Health Infoway was created almost 25 years ago to help digitize health records. Under Liberal mismanagement, it has become an unaccountable administrative boondoggle that spends millions on executives, conferences and failed programs, including millions of dollars on consultants, while Canadians wait for improvements in their healthcare.
“Infoway has turned into a bloated taxpayer-funded organization with 175 employees, six senior executives, 89 managers, 24 vice-presidents, and a CEO eligible for nearly $900,000 in total compensation, including a driver. In just three years, they spent more than $400,000 on executive travel.
“Nowhere is Canada Health Infoway’s failure more obvious than with the $300 million PrescribeIT scandal. The Liberals promised Canadians a system that would replace fax machines for prescriptions.
“Instead, Infoway burned through $300 million, including outsourcing $98 million to TELUS Health and spending $167 million on operations and overhead, and still produced a program that, at its peak, processed fewer than 5 per cent of prescriptions in Canada before it was shut down.
“Last week, the Liberals’ health minister admitted that there are ‘governance issues’ at Infoway and confirmed the government is withholding $50 million in federal funding. Days earlier, the Liberal chair of the health committee warned Infoway that its continued failure to hand over documents on PrescribeIT could see the organization found in contempt of Parliament. Nevertheless, he cancelled another Health Committee meeting set for today.
“Infoway’s management problems are not new. A previous Auditor General report found that Infoway was misleading Canadians by reporting systems as ‘available’ without disclosing that ‘available’ did not mean used, adopted, or nationally compatible.
“In its first annual report in 2002, Infoway promised it would not become ‘a large organization,’ but instead a ‘small group of health-care, information-technology and change-management specialists.’ Instead, Infoway has become exactly what it said it would not be, ballooning from approximately 50 employees in 2003 to 175 employees in 2025 and now quietly locking taxpayers into $48.4 million of outsourcing contracts running until 2030.
“The only people who seem to benefit from Canada Health Infoway are the lobbyists, consultants, and insiders who profit from endless conferences, meetings and reports, which do not produce results for Canadians.
“Despite receiving nearly all of its funding from taxpayers, Infoway is shielded from basic oversight rules that apply to government departments. It falls outside the Access to Information Act, meaning Canadians cannot access its records, and it is not subject to the parliamentary accountability mechanisms that a minister must answer to.
“Canada Health Infoway may have served a purpose when digital health technology was limited and uncertain, but those days are gone. If any of Infoway’s work is worth keeping, it should be done transparently inside the government, where Canadians can actually hold it to account, and not through an intermediary that shields itself from scrutiny.
“It is ironic that Canada Health Infoway, the organization tasked with advancing digital health in Canada, cannot even produce documents electronically when ordered by Parliament. If Infoway cannot handle a basic document request, Canadians are right to question how it can be trusted to manage sensitive digital health infrastructure.
“A Conservative government will end all federal funding to Canada Health Infoway. We will ensure proper coordination that respects provincial and territorial jurisdiction.
“The Liberals handed over hundreds of millions of dollars to Canada Health Infoway and rewarded failure, as seen in the $300 million PrescribeIT scandal. Conservatives will clean up this mess, protect taxpayer dollars and put patients ahead of insiders and consultants who get rich on the backs of Canadians.
“The money wasted on Canada Health Infoway would be much better spent on doctors and nurses to provide care to Canadians.”