2026 Pre-Budget Consultations: Long-form submission

2026-09-09

Recommendations

1. Deliver on the federal government’s promise to provide $400 million over four years to reduce administrative burden on family physicians by allocating it to:
   • Fund long-term adoption of AI scribe technology for family physicians.
   • Streamline inefficient federal form processes by reforming the Disability Tax Credit and Canada Pension Plan Disability benefit programs.
2. Invest in community-based family medicine training infrastructure through the federal government’s Health Infrastructure Fund.
3. Deliver on the federal government’s promise of $300 million over three years, toward a new-practice fund for family doctors.
4. Advance digital health interoperability by swiftly passing the Connected Care for Canadians Act (Bill S-5), followed by robust regulations and funding.

Introduction

At a time of economic uncertainty, the question for Budget 2026 is not whether Canada invests more in health care, but whether existing, promised, and planned investments are directed to the parts of the system that generate the greatest return for people in Canada, the economy, and the long-term sustainability of Canada’s health care system.

Evidence consistently demonstrates that family physicians improve health outcomes, reduce pressure on hospitals and emergency departments, and enable a more cost-efficient health care system. Yet Canada’s allocation of health spending for primary care lags behind, falling below the average of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Despite delivering over half of all medical services family medicine receives less than six per cent of total health spending in Canada.

It is time to close the gap. We’ve seen promising signals. At the 2026 Liberal Party of Canada National Convention, delegates adopted a resolution calling for a greater share of health funding being directed toward primary care. The federal government announced initiatives that can be leveraged to benefit family medicine such as the Health Infrastructure Fund and the Connected Care for Canadians Act (Bill S-5). Election campaign promises have been made to establish a new-practice fund for family physicians and reduce administrative burden.

It is time for these signals to be converted into action, and the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) recommends the following federal investments to strengthen family medicine across Canada.
 

Federal Budget 2026 Recommendations in Detail

Recommendation One: Fulfill the commitment to provide $400 million over four years to reduce administrative burden on family physicians.

Administrative burden has been linked with family physicians leaving practice, cutting back their hours, and discouraging medical students from going into the specialty.

The federal government’s 2025 campaign platform earmarked $100 million per year to reduce administrative burden, in its Fiscal and Costing Plan. It also committed to reduce red tape and “streamline inefficient or complicated processes, including excessive paperwork or forms.” The federal government should pursue the following solutions to translate these promising commitments into action.
 

A. Fund long-term adoption of AI scribe technology

AI scribes reduce family doctors’ administrative burden by updating electronic records with summaries of patient interactions. A recent evaluation demonstrates that AI scribes significantly reduce administrative burden while improving the delivery of care. Nearly 70 per cent of participating clinicians reported reduced administrative burden, while saving approximately two hours per week that was redirected into patient care and other high-value activities. There were also improvements in physician engagement during patient encounters and increased availability of same and next-day appointments.

Yet only 28 per cent of physicians use AI scribes, due to financial and structural barriers. Annual licence fees, which range from $800 to $2,000, can be difficult to absorb within already strained budgets of family practices. While some financial supports exist, these initiatives do not provide the long‑term certainty needed to adopt AI tools. Uncertainty around issues such as liability, along with limited interoperability with existing systems, also hinder uptake.

To address this the CFPC calls on the federal government to dedicate $50 million annually to fully cover AI scribe annual subscriptions for all family doctors in Canada. This directly aligns with the federal government’s National Artificial Intelligence Strategy and its vision to build a trusted, sovereign Canadian AI ecosystem. By drawing on the strategy’s $200 million AI Missions Program (which explicitly prioritizes improving health outcomes) and leveraging its pledge of $400 million over four years targeting administrative burden, the government can capture an immediate benefit, achieving measurable improvements to patient care while significantly reducing administrative burnout for family doctors.
 

B. Streamline inefficient federal form processes by reforming the Disability Tax Credit and Canada Pension Plan Disability benefit programs

 

Reforms to the Disability Tax Credit (DTC) program

The DTC is the most burdensome federal form family physicians must complete. In 2024, 330,000 DTC applications consumed time equivalent to nearly one million patient visits. The Canada Disability Benefit, which uses the DTC for eligibility, is expected to increase applications by over 50 per cent in coming years, further worsening paperwork burden.

The CFPC welcomes the Spring Economic Update 2026, which expands conditions for a simplified DTC form and broadens the range of professionals authorized to certify it. However, these efforts will not fully resolve the excessive reliance on family physicians to act as gatekeepers for the DTC.

The CFPC urges the federal government to amend the Income Tax Act Section 118.3 to eliminate the requirement for family doctors to complete the DTC form, replacing it with an auditing system. In addition to the measures announced in the Spring Economic Update 2026, in the short term the DTC should: 1) be simplified by reducing the length of the form; 2) enable pre-eligibility through other disability supports like provincial/territorial benefits or parallel federal programs; and 3) compensate family physicians for their time to avoid shifting costs to patients. These recommendations are strongly supported by patient and disability advocates (e.g., Disability Without Poverty).

Budget 2025’s plan for automatic tax filing for low-income people in Canada signalled a shift toward a simpler, citizen-focused process to access tax benefits. The DTC should follow this direction to improve equity and efficiency in both health care and tax systems.
 

Reforms to the Canada Pension Plan Disability (CPPD) benefit program

In addition to the DTC, family doctors have also shared that the CPPD federal form is a major contributor to their administrative burden.

Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) is collaborating with the CFPC to reduce the administrative burden associated with the CPPD medical report. This work has resulted in meaningful progress, including increased physician remuneration for completing the form and the draft development of a simplified medical report that incorporates family physician feedback. The redesigned form should now be implemented without delay, alongside continued efforts to digitally modernize the application process that reduces unnecessary paperwork for physicians and patients.

The progress made on the CPPD demonstrates that meaningful reduction is possible through collaboration with family physicians. The federal government should build on this momentum by applying the same approach to the DTC and other programs that pose concerns, allowing family physicians to spend more time providing care rather than completing paperwork.
 

Recommendation Two: Invest in community-based family medicine training infrastructure through the federal government’s Health Infrastructure Fund (HIF).

While governments have expanded medical school enrolment and family medicine residency positions, infrastructure needs have not kept pace. The HIF, announced in Budget 2025, presents an important opportunity to strengthen community-based family medicine training infrastructure. Without this, Canada risks failing to translate expanded medical education into improved access to family physicians for people in Canada.

To strengthen family medicine training infrastructure, the federal government should prioritize investments that:

• Develop community-based family medicine teaching clinics designed to include examination rooms and dedicated teaching and learner workspaces.
• Support distributed training by providing learner accommodations, transportation, and wellness supports, and meaningful integration within the communities where they train.
• Build digitally enabled learning environments that include electronic medical records, secure virtual care platforms, simulation technologies, digital learning environments, broadband connectivity, and emerging AI-enabled tools.
• Provide family physician preceptors with dedicated teaching space, administrative supports, and faculty development that enable family physician preceptors to supervise learners while maintaining their family practices.
• Strengthen long-term partnerships with Indigenous communities, municipalities, and local health authorities to foster culturally safe, place-based training models that boost local retention.

While collaboration with provinces and territories is fundamental to HIF implementation, the federal government can stimulate this work by dedicating $1 billion of the announced $5 billion HIF toward community-based, team-based family medicine training.

Strengthening the environments where family physicians learn and train will help ensure that more people in Canada have timely access to the high-quality care of a family doctor.
 

Recommendation Three: Deliver on the federal government’s campaign promise of $300 million, over three years, toward a new-practice fund for family doctors.

The federal government made an encouraging pledge to create a “new-practice fund to help family doctors with the costs of opening a practice.” However, there has been no progress on this to date.

Starting a family practice requires significant upfront investment. Ongoing overhead can range from 28 per cent to 75 per cent of gross income depending on the type of practice, location, and community needs, creating a substantial barrier to entering or maintaining a full-scope family practice. This can shape career decisions, with early-career physicians delaying practice establishment, avoiding underserviced areas, opting for short-term or locum work, or leaving comprehensive family medicine altogether.

A well-designed new-practice fund would address these barriers by providing targeted support for start-up and early operating costs, including clinic set-up, team-based care infrastructure, and modern digital tools needed for efficient, high-quality care.

This fund can be a high-impact investment to improve patient access by enabling more family physicians to enter and remain in community-based practice, particularly in underserved areas such as rural and remote communities. It will also help keep family medicine a viable and attractive career path for new graduates.
 

Recommendation Four: Advance digital health interoperability by swiftly passing the Connected Care for Canadians Act (Bill S-5), followed by robust regulations and funding.

Across Canada, digital health systems still do not connect, leading to inefficiencies and waste. Only 29 per cent of physicians can electronically share patient information with another health care facility. For family physicians this makes critical patient information harder to access when care crosses settings or jurisdictions.

Digital health interoperability reduces administrative burden, improves care coordination, and enables effective use of digital tools, including AI. The federal government’s introduction of the Connected Care for Canadians Act (Bill S-5) is a positive step in establishing interoperability standards and prohibiting data blocking.

Following the passage of legislation, the Digital Health Interoperability Task Force (DHITF) has outlined recommendations to create a truly digital health environment, including:

• Establishing a national standards setting body to ensure the enforcement of current standards.
• Creating a public registry to verify that vendors meet required standards, and build a complaints process to report data blocking and publish vendor histories.
• Funding community-based family practices, which face unique financial needs and manage their own digital systems. Without targeted support, the costs of interoperability may fall on family physicians, threatening the sustainability of their practices.

Advancing digital interoperability will make sure health information flows securely and effortlessly, empowering patients and supporting family physicians.
 

Conclusion

Funding family medicine is not a luxury. It is one of the most cost-effective health care investments governments can make. When people in Canada have access to a family doctor, they are healthier, rely less on emergency departments and hospitals, and the system functions efficiently.

The recommendations in this submission are purposely grounded in investments that can be implemented in the near term and built on existing commitments. Strengthening family medicine is essential to improving health care access, enhancing system performance, and ensuring a healthier and stronger Canada.
 

About the CFPC

The voice of family medicine in Canada

The College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) is the professional home of family medicine and champion of family physician excellence in Canada. The national certifying body for family physicians, the CFPC sets the standards for training, certification, and lifelong learning that define excellence in family medicine in Canada. Through professional self-regulation, continuing professional development, and collective voice, the CFPC champions the interests of its 46,000 members, including family physicians, family medicine residents, and medical students. The CFPC works to ensure that everyone in Canada has access to the exceptional primary care that a CCFP family physician provides.
 

Contact

Artem Safarov
Director, Health Policy and Government Relations
College of Family Physicians of Canada
905-629-0900, ext. 249; 1-800-387-6197, ext. 249
[email protected]