Every Canadian should be able to check emergency room wait times before getting in the car. This report grades each province on whether its health authority publishes that data — not on what third parties have managed to piece together.
Live data as of March 21, 2026 · Grades updated periodically
NS Health Wait Times · Updated Hourly
Nova Scotia Health operates the most feature-rich ER transparency system in Canada. Launched in June 2023, the system publishes predicted wait times for select NS Health emergency departments, updated hourly. Predictions include confidence ranges showing best-case and worst-case estimates, plus a 12-hour forecast so patients can plan ahead. Closure and advisory alerts are published immediately. Not all provincial ERs are covered yet, but the depth of data for those that are — predictions, ranges, forecasts, closures — is unmatched nationally.
Console provinciale des urgences (CPU) · Updated Hourly
Quebec publishes the broadest ER dataset in Canada through the Console provinciale des urgences (CPU), available as open data on Données Québec. The system reports wait times, stretcher occupancy rates, patients on stretchers beyond 24 and 48 hours, and ambulatory patient counts for the majority of the province's emergency departments. The data updates hourly, and there are no closure alerts, but the sheer breadth of coverage and the richness of the metrics set a national benchmark for transparency.
BC EdWaitTimes (VCH, Fraser Health, Providence) · Updated Every 5 minutes
British Columbia publishes ER wait times through edwaittimes.ca, covering emergency departments under Vancouver Coastal Health, Fraser Health, and Providence Health Care. Wait times refresh every 5 minutes and include expected length of stay. However, this is not a single provincial system — it's operated by a subset of health authorities. Island Health launched its own separate site in 2025 with historical data rather than live wait times. Interior Health and Northern Health coverage is limited or absent. No closure alerts or forecasting are provided.
Alberta Health Services · Updated Every 2 minutes
Alberta Health Services publishes live estimated ER wait times, refreshed every two minutes. Coverage currently includes emergency departments and urgent care centres in Calgary, Edmonton, Grande Prairie, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Red Deer, Fort McMurray, Airdrie, Cochrane, and Okotoks — progressively expanded since the system launched in Calgary in 2011. The data is basic — wait times only, no patient counts, closures, or forecasting — but the update frequency is the fastest in Canada and AHS continues to add facilities.
Horizon Health / Vitalité Health · Updated Hourly
New Brunswick publishes ER data through its regional health authorities, but with an important caveat: the reported metric is total visit length (time from arrival to discharge), not wait-to-see-a-doctor. For a patient deciding which ER to visit, knowing "you'll spend 4–8 hours total" is less useful than knowing "you'll wait 2 hours to see someone." Updates are hourly. New Brunswick deserves credit for publishing data at all — and has room to improve what it publishes.
WRHA Wait Times (Winnipeg only) · Updated Real-time (estimated)
The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority publishes estimated ER wait times for Winnipeg's emergency departments and urgent care centres. However, coverage is limited to Winnipeg — the province's 60+ rural ERs have no public wait time data. In March 2026, CBC reported that the WRHA prediction model had been "quite inaccurate" at times, using outdated data that "no longer represent the reality in 2025–2026." The system has since been updated. Manitoba is not starting from zero, but the gap between Winnipeg and the rest of the province is stark.
SHA Emergency Wait Times (Saskatoon only) · Updated Unclear
The Saskatchewan Health Authority has published ER wait time estimates on hospital pages for Saskatoon facilities since 2017. However, the system appears poorly maintained — the data feed is unreliable and may not reflect current conditions. Coverage is limited to a handful of urban hospitals. Saskatchewan's 70+ rural and regional ERs have no public wait time data whatsoever. The infrastructure nominally exists, but in practice it does not serve the public in a meaningful way.
No official centralized system
Ontario is Canada's most populous province, with 167 emergency departments serving over 14 million people. Ontario Health does not operate a centralized ER wait time system. Individual hospitals publish their own data through incompatible platforms — some use Oculys, some use Power BI dashboards, some use proprietary hospital information systems. The data exists at the facility level. The province simply does not aggregate or publish it. Patients in Ontario cannot check ER conditions before leaving home unless a third party like ERstat assembles the information hospital by hospital.
ERstat independently tracks 51 Ontario ERs using hospital-level data sources. This should not be necessary.
No official centralized system
Eastern Health and the province's other regional health authorities publish no ER wait time data. With long driving distances between facilities in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, knowing which ER has capacity before making a trip could be lifesaving.
No official centralized system
Health PEI operates 6 emergency departments on the island and publishes no wait time data. With such a small number of facilities, a transparency system would be straightforward to implement.
No official centralized system
No public ER wait time data is available from the NWT health system.
No official centralized system
No public ER wait time data is available from the Nunavut health system.
No official centralized system
No public ER wait time data is available from Yukon's health system.
If you represent a provincial health authority, hospital network, or ER administration, we'd like to talk. ERstat exists because this data should be public. We'd rather work with you than around you.
If you spot an error on this page — a data source we've missed, a system we've graded unfairly, or a province that has started publishing — please let us know immediately.
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Canadians deserve to know ER wait times before they leave home.
If your province isn't publishing this data, ask them why.