Yes, I am a Canadian. I lived there for 25 years. I have Canadian citizenship. Most of my family still lives there. I also ended up stuck in Ontario for most of COVID. I have family in Ontario, in Quebec, and elsewhere in the country. I don't think Ontario had a very good handle on COVID. It's also no secret that Canada is suffering a major staffing, and funding shortage in the healthcare sector right now.
While most of your reply is about dentists (I'll get to that later), I see you're comparing Canada's healthcare system to the USA. I'm not. Compared to other systems in NA, yes, it's much better since it's free and somewhat fair. But that's the problem. Canadians should be looking to other developed nations with public healthcare. Not to the United States which operates on a completely different paradigm. My comment that you're replying to is entirely contrasting Canadian healthcare with EU systems, not Americans.
> dental office reopened
The majority of dentists are private entities, and are not subject to the same funding rules as hospitals. They're not licensed through the same entities, funded, or managed in the same way at all. Likely why they were able to adapt so quickly. See: https://www.cda-adc.ca/stateoforalhealth/servicescanada/
> [..] they checked vaccination status and accepted the mask she walked in with.
I'm not really sure what you're getting at here, this does not really relate to funding, or anything I'm talking about really. This is more about safety policy, not funding, which is what I'm trying to discuss.
Don't get me wrong, I've had some good experiences with the system as well, but that does not mean it shouldn't significantly improved.
Could you be conflating talks about "privatization" (allowing private clinics to exist and take OHIP) with private healthcare payments (you don't get OHIP) by mistake? Those two are not really the same at all, but get conflated in the media often.
That last part there about Ottawa or Ontario, not sure which one, doesn't really make much sense, sorry. It's unclear what you're getting at. Nothing there really sounds related to what I'm talking about.
Given that the federal government is responsible for funding much/most of the provincial health care system, they have some input into how things operate. Most provinces have a good handle on covid unless their government went too deep into the "covid is over" bit (Alberta, Saskatchewan). The covid response here was delayed due to the need to secure vaccines from others, but the end result has been quite good.
I have lived all over N America, and the freedom/flexibility of the Canadian health system has been better than anywhere except St. Louis, MO when I was there - and that required full-time employment.