Connected Care for Canadians Act

Bill S-5, the Connected Care for Canadians Act, aims to make Canadians' electronic health records easier to access and share safely across the health system. It requires companies that sell, license, or supply health information technology (things like electronic medical record software and related systems) to ensure their products are "interoperable" — meaning patients and health care providers can easily, completely, and securely access, use, and exchange health information across different systems, unless privacy laws say otherwise. The bill also bans these technology vendors from "data blocking," which means they can't design or operate their products in ways that prevent, discourage, or interfere with the proper sharing or use of health information.

The law would only take effect in a given province or territory if the federal Cabinet issues an order stating that province's own rules aren't as strong as this federal law. In other words, provinces with equivalent or better rules already in place would be exempt. The federal government is given broad power to create detailed regulations — for example, setting technical standards for interoperability, defining what counts as data blocking, creating a complaints process, allowing the Health Minister to check compliance, and setting up fines for vendors that break the rules.

The bill also includes a preamble affirming that any data-sharing rules must respect Indigenous data sovereignty for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. Finally, it clarifies that a specific Criminal Code provision doesn't apply to violations of this Act, and leaves the date the law actually comes into force to be decided later by the government.

This bill creates a legal requirement that health information technology vendors make their products interoperable and bars those vendors from data blocking, with enforcement left to future regulations.

• Obligations on vendors — any vendor that licenses, sells or supplies health information technology as a service must ensure it lets users access, use and exchange electronic health information "easily, completely and securely" with other systems, unless another federal, provincial or territorial privacy law forbids it, and must meet standards still to be set by regulation.
• Prohibition with an exception — data blocking by vendors is prohibited, but the prohibition is explicitly "subject to the regulations," meaning future rules can carve out exceptions to what counts as prohibited blocking.
• Application depends on a Cabinet order — the Act only applies in a province or territory once the Governor in Council (Cabinet) issues an order finding that jurisdiction's existing rules are not "substantially similar to or exceed" the Act's requirements; Cabinet can later repeal or amend that order.
• Regulatory powers granted to Cabinet — the Governor in Council may make regulations covering a long list of matters left undefined in the bill itself, including: redefining key terms (like "data blocking"), setting interoperability standards, specifying what counts as data blocking, authorizing the Minister of Health to verify compliance and demand documents, setting up a complaints process, and creating a system of administrative monetary penalties for vendors that violate sections 5 or 6 — with the amounts and calculation method also left to regulation.
• Review mechanism — regulations may establish a process to review compliance decisions, penalty notices, or violation findings, but the details of that appeal process are not specified in the Act and are left entirely to future regulation.
• Incorporation by reference without dating — regulations made under paragraph 8(b) can incorporate outside documents (such as technical standards) without being tied to a fixed version or date, and section 126 of the Criminal Code (the general offence for disobeying statutes) is explicitly disapplied to breaches of this Act.