I grew up in the US, moved to Canada. Saw a friend wait like 6 months to get an ACL replaced. Poor guy could hardly walk for that time. I've known two people who were told to get an MRI for various reasons... the wait on that is 6-9 months too. One good reason to get an MRI: internal bleeding following a concussion can kill you in days, and a CAT scan won't rule it out. But apparently that isn't a good enough reason to skip the line.

Like the US, about half of Canadians are strongly opposed to taxes. Our health care system is about as good as it can be, with the budget we have for it.