National Women's Health Plan Framework

Overall, the bill advances a coordinated national approach to women’s health that can strengthen productivity and catalyze investment and commercialization in health innovation. Risks remain that added process requirements introduce bureaucracy unless paired with clear targets, streamlined pathways, and accountability for outcomes and costs.

• Aligns with prosperity by improving women’s health, labour participation, and safety through better access and prevention.
• Encourages investment, innovation, and public–private collaboration, with commercialization pathways that can grow a domestic health-tech sector.
• Transparency via mandated reporting can drive accountability if linked to outcome metrics and cost controls.
• Risk of added red tape from new conferences and recurring reports; keep governance lean and outcome-focused.
• Set measurable targets (e.g., reductions in diagnostic delays, wait times, maternal morbidity; improved primary care attachment; access metrics for rural, Indigenous, and equity-deserving women).
• Create a single-window funding and commercialization pathway with service standards, time-limited regulatory sandboxes, and rapid evidence reviews to accelerate safe adoption.
• Cap administrative overhead, avoid creating new permanent secretariats, and leverage existing CIHR, PHAC, and provincial structures to respect jurisdiction and reduce duplication.
• Prioritize patient safety with evidence-based training, culturally safe care, and secure data-sharing that protects privacy while enabling performance measurement.
• Add innovation procurement pilots and IP retention supports to scale Canadian solutions and position them for export growth.