Mark Levin had a number ready Saturday night. Attacking single-payer healthcare on 'Life, Liberty and Levin,' he told viewers that in Canada the 'median waiting time just to see a general practitioner is 28.6 weeks' [1]. Seven months, in other words, to get in front of a family doctor.
The figure is real. It comes from the Fraser Institute's 2025 'Waiting Your Turn,' the annual survey that is the standard citation for Canadian wait times [2]. What it measures is the problem. The 28.6 weeks is the median wait from the moment a general practitioner refers a patient onward to the moment that patient receives treatment - the entire pathway, referral to specialist to procedure [2][3].
Seeing the GP is the step that starts that clock, not a wait inside it. The report breaks the 28.6 weeks into two stages: the wait from GP referral to a specialist consultation, and then the wait from that consultation to treatment [2]. In the 2024 edition, the first stage alone was about 15 weeks, and the full pathway was 30.0 weeks, easing to 28.6 in 2025 [4]. At no point does the survey clock a seven-month wait to see a family doctor - the family doctor is who writes the referral that begins the measured wait.
Data
| GP referral to specialist | 15 weeks |
|---|---|
| Specialist to treatment | 13.6 weeks |
| Total: referral to treatment | 28.6 weeks |
The distinction matters because the number is being used as a preview of what Americans would get under single-payer, and 'seven months to see your family doctor' is a different and scarier claim than 'the full path from referral to surgery can run seven months.' The fear in Levin's version comes entirely from moving the total to the wrong end of the process.
Canada's wait times are a legitimate line of criticism; the Fraser Institute publishes the report precisely to document them, and 28.6 weeks from referral to treatment is a real burden worth debating [2]. That is the argument available on the record. Relabeling it as the wait to see a GP does not strengthen the case - it swaps a true, defensible number for a false, more alarming one, and invites the correction that follows.
