Walking Canada's way

Canada, home to maple trees, the Toronto Blue Jays, and lip-licking doughnuts, provides glimpses of its pioneering work in this week's BMJ. A hundred years ago, when Canada was still a British dominion, the Canadian parliament “passed a measure forbidding the importation, manufacture, and sale of cigarettes.” It was an example that anti-tobacco campaigners in other countries hoped to take up (p 542).

More than 20 years ago Canada introduced walk-in health centres, a change driven by public funding of physicians' services through fee for service payments (BMJ 2000;321:909). By 2000 the NHS followed, despite limited …