A survey of 1,037 Canadians by Santis Health and Nanos Research found two things that look contradictory until you read them properly.
Strong majorities support artificial intelligence helping doctors diagnose illness and reduce waiting times. Two in five respondents said they already use AI health tools, and Canadians were nearly twice as likely to say the benefits outweigh the downsides. More than eight in ten backed government funding for AI to develop new drugs and medical devices and to improve how the health system is run.
At the same time, 68 per cent were uncomfortable with the Canadian health system using AI tools based in the United States. Eighty per cent wanted health data to stay in Canada and not be used to train models elsewhere. Eighty-six per cent said the federal government needs to do more to regulate how AI companies use health data. Just 5 per cent said AI should diagnose patients on its own.
That is not ambivalence. It is a set of conditions, stated with some precision.
Separate polling from earlier in the year points the same way. Forty-six per cent of Canadians had asked an AI chatbot for medical advice in the previous twelve months, but 68 per cent said they would rather wait two weeks to see a human doctor than get an immediate diagnosis from a machine, and only 13 per cent were comfortable with AI diagnosing and prescribing without a doctor involved. Comfort rose sharply for narrower tasks, such as a scan being reviewed before a doctor sees it.
The Canadian Medical Association’s president-elect, Bolu Ogunyemi, attributed much of the uptake to reduced access to primary care, particularly in rural and remote areas, and described the technology as an assistant rather than a replacement.
Every business selling anything new should read this as a template rather than a story about health policy.
The public here is not asking whether the technology works. They have largely accepted that it does, and they are already using it. What they are negotiating is a narrower and more durable set of questions. Who holds the data. Where it physically sits. Who is accountable when it is wrong. What decisions remain with a person.
Those questions are not resolved by demonstrating capability, which is why so much marketing aimed at them fails. A better accuracy figure does not answer where the data lives.
For a smaller operator the equivalent is mundane and just as decisive. Customers will accept a loyalty app, a booking system, a card-only policy or a camera on the door, and the acceptance turns almost entirely on being told plainly what is collected, who can see it and what happens if something goes wrong. Businesses that answer those three questions before being asked get adoption. Businesses that answer only the first get a quiet, permanent discount in trust.
Canadians have said the health system needs to change and that AI can help deliver it.
They have also said where they want their records kept.
Source: CTV News, “Canadians embrace AI in health care, but not U.S.-based tools, survey finds”
