In December 2002, the Romanow Report recommended that "provincial and territorial governments should take immediate action to manage wait lists more effectively by implementing centralized approaches, setting standardized criteria, and providing clear information to patients on how long they can expect to wait." In response to the report, in September 2004, the federal government came to an agreement with the provinces and territories add an additional C$41 billion over a ten-year period, to the Canada Health Transfer (CHT) to improve wait times for access to essential services, a challenge that most other OECD countries shared at that time. By 2006, the federal government had invested C$5.5 billion to decrease wait times.
