The cancellation of medical procedures during the pandemic reveals inherent problems within the health-care system, prompting advocates to call for a greater role for the private sector or for the government to consider alternative models, while others remain sternly opposed. As in earlier phases of the pandemic, thousands of surgeries were cancelled across Canada again in the summer of this year and in Alberta and Saskatchewan in recent weeks, as hospitals allocated more beds and personnel to intensive care units and emergency wards to handle COVID-19 cases. Dr. Brian Day, founder and medical director of the Cambie Surgery Centre in Vancouver, said the problems would be less acute if Canadian health care was more efficient in the first place. “To be fair, surgeries are being cancelled everywhere, but when we [rank low] in the world in the number of hospital beds per population, I think that’s a big part of the …