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 April 18, 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 with confidence ranges, 12-hour forecasts, and immediate closure and advisory alerts. No other province matches this depth. However, coverage is limited to roughly half of the province's ERs. If you're in a rural community like Digby, Inverness, or Guysborough, there's no wait time data for your ER. NS Health has indicated plans to expand, but for now, rural Nova Scotians are left out.
View Nova Scotia ER wait times
halifaxsydneydartmouthConsole 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.
montrealquebec citygatineauBC 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. That's roughly a quarter of provincial ERs. Wait times refresh every 5 minutes and include expected length of stay. However, this is not a single provincial system. Island Health launched its own separate site in 2025 with historical averages rather than live wait times. Interior Health and Northern Health have limited or no public coverage. If you're outside the Lower Mainland or Fraser Valley, you're largely on your own. No closure alerts or forecasting are provided.
View British Columbia ER wait times
vancouvervictoriasurreyHealth PEI Wait Times · Updated Real-time
Prince Edward Island publishes real-time ER wait times for all four of the province's emergency departments through Health PEI. The data includes wait times broken down by triage level (most urgent, urgent, and less urgent), patient counts in the waiting room and being treated, and total patients in the ED. When an ER is closed, the system displays the closure reason and expected reopen time. PEI covers 100% of its ERs, which is better coverage than most larger provinces. The main gaps are the lack of forecasting and the wait times being reported as ranges rather than specific estimates.
Alberta Health Services · Updated Every 2 minutes
Alberta Health Services publishes live estimated ER wait times with the fastest refresh rate in Canada, every two minutes. Coverage includes emergency departments and urgent care centres in Calgary, Edmonton, Grande Prairie, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Red Deer, Fort McMurray, Airdrie, Cochrane, and Okotoks. However, that's only about a quarter of Alberta's 113 ERs. Smaller communities and rural facilities have no data. The system also only provides wait times with no patient counts, closure alerts, or forecasting. AHS has been steadily adding facilities since launching in Calgary in 2011, but coverage still has a long way to go.
calgaryedmontonred deerHorizon 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 to 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.
View New Brunswick ER wait times
monctonsaint johnfrederictonWRHA 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 to 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.
winnipegSHA 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.
View Saskatchewan ER wait times · Read full transparency report →
saskatoonreginaNo official centralized system
Ontario is Canada's most populous province, with over 160 emergency departments. Ontario Health does not operate a centralized real-time ER wait time system. Some individual hospitals publish their own data through platforms like Oculys or Power BI dashboards, but there is no single place for patients to check conditions across the province. The data is scattered across dozens of incompatible hospital-level systems. ERstat assembles what it can from these sources independently.
ERstat independently tracks 50 Ontario ERs by assembling data from individual hospital systems. This should not be necessary.
torontoottawahamiltonlondonNo 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.
View Newfoundland and Labrador ER wait times · Read full transparency report →
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.
Interested in publishing ER data or improving your grade? hello@erstat.ca
Want to publish your ER status directly? ERstat Hospital Portal
Spot something wrong? contact@erstat.ca
Journalists welcome. hello@erstat.ca or (902) 500-5622
Read ERstat's proposed national transparency standard and the case for virtual ER waiting rooms.
Canadians deserve to know ER wait times before they leave home.
If your province isn't publishing this data, ask them why.