The Heather Cutler Foundation · Report Card · 2026 Edition
How is Canada responding to pancreatic cancer?
Thirteen provinces and territories assessed across eight key healthcare pillars—from screening and drug coverage to clinical trial access. Explore national findings below or open any province for its full report card.
Key findings
- 1
No screening, anywhere. Every system responds after symptoms — usually after the window for surgery has closed.
- 2
The research money concentrates. Toronto and Montreal institutions hold about three quarters of the flagged CIHR funding; Atlantic Canada holds about one percent.
- 3
Who pays depends on where you live. The same take-home medicine lands on a household in Atlantic Canada and on a public plan in Alberta.
- 4
The evidence itself is missing. Seven of thirteen places could not be graded — a system that does not publish its performance cannot be held to it.
Compare the grades
Grades reflect the mean score across assessed categories (0 to 4 scale). At least 5 assessable categories are required to earn an overall grade. Click any province to view its full breakdown.
Ontario3.6AView card →
British Columbia2.5BView card →
Nova Scotia2.1CView card →
Newfoundland and Labrador1.6CView card →
New Brunswick1.6CView card →
Prince Edward Island1.1DView card →
Insufficient data is not a failing grade. These places published too little evidence to score five of eight categories. The mean of the categories that could be assessed is shown for transparency only.
Quebec2.3*Not gradedView card →
Alberta2.7*Not gradedView card →
Manitoba2.3*Not gradedView card →
Saskatchewan2.3*Not gradedView card →
Nunavut1.0*Not gradedView card →
Northwest Territories1.0*Not gradedView card →
Yukon0.0*Not gradedView card →
Researched by Memorial University students
This report card was researched and graded by seven Memorial University undergraduate students in the Policy Builders of Tomorrow program (Summer 2025), working from the public record — provincial strategies, drug formularies, trial registries and research ledgers — and published by The Heather Cutler Foundation.
Arafa Hossain
Charlotte Campbell
Grace Fitzgerald
Rayah Vokey
Seriman Doumbia
Chaturrvi Maruthireddy
Kimia RezaeinejadMethodology & footnotes
How the grades were calculated
Each jurisdiction is scored 0–4 on eight categories — strategy, testing, drug costs, trials, timely care, travel, workforce and research — against the published rubric in the full report. The overall grade is the mean of the categories that could be assessed, rounded to the nearest whole number (4 = A, 3 = B, 2 = C, 1 = D, 0 = F).
A jurisdiction needs at least five of the eight categories assessable to receive an overall grade. “Not assessable” is never scored as zero — it records that the public evidence was not there to judge, which is itself one of this report’s findings. The grades assess documented systems, not individual care.
Sources & basis notes
The 59% and 12% figures are the shares of 2019 spending on selected take-home oncology medicines paid by private plans and out of pocket (PMPRB, May 2021). The research figures come from CIHR’s public funding register: 88 pancreatic-cancer grants totalling $23.3 million, six of them in Atlantic Canada.
Evidence was gathered from public sources only — government plans and reports, public drug formularies, trial registries and published research — as of August 2025, from structured research inventories reviewed and verified by The Heather Cutler Foundation.
Published by The Heather Cutler Foundation. Research: Policy Builders of Tomorrow, Memorial University. To cite this report: The Heather Cutler Foundation. (2026). How Canada Responds to Pancreatic Cancer.