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Like the NHS in Britain, Canada provides an imperfect system of healthcare. The level of coverage varies across the country and many Canadians have supplemental private insurance coverage through group plans, which covers the cost of these supplementary services.

The Canadian Medical Association believes an estimated four million of Canada's 33 million population don't have a family doctor and more than one million are waiting for treatment.

Canada has 2.1 physicians per 1,000 people, while Belgium has 3.9, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Much of the resentment towards the healthcare system is caused by the fact that so much of Canada's already high tax goes towards it. The average Canadian family pays about 48 per cent of its income in taxes each year and, while rates vary from province to province, Ontario, the most populous, spends around 40 per cent of its tax revenue on health, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

The federation, which campaigns for tax reform and private enterprise in healthcare, believes the system is suffering serious financial challenges. It calculates that by 2035, Ontario will be spending 85 per cent of its budget on healthcare.

The federal government and most provinces acknowledge there's a crisis: a lack of physicians and nurses, state-of-the-art equipment and funding. In Ontario, more than 10,000 nurses and hospital workers are facing layoffs over the next two years unless the provincial government boosts funding, says the Ontario Hospital Association, which represents healthcare providers in the province.