"Where do you get this idea that the Canadian healthcare system is experiencing dire financial problems?"

Mostly, I get it from Canadian news.

"But, I don't see signs of Canada's healthcare system collapsing anytime soon. If you do, please point me to them."

Have you been following healthcare news? Did you notice the massive reorganizations of a couple years ago? Have you seen the numbers on medical talent emigration? Have you been paying attention to the "outsourcing" tendencies of Canadian hospitals to the US for procedures that cannot be performed in Canada, and for people whose needs aren't being met because the wait for life-saving procedures is too long?

Are you actually aware of anything going on in the realm of Canadian healthcare successes and failures, or are you just assuming there's no problem because you haven't heard about it (having heard about almost nothing on the subject)?

Knowing where you get the impression there aren't problems would help me figure out how to address that lack of knowledge.

"Even, a nurse I dated recently moved to Canada because of the hospital "politics" that prevent her from providing the best possible care."

I wonder how long it'll take her to realize the problem isn't solved by moving to a place where the quality of care is necessarily limited by governmental politics and funding, in addition to in-hospital bureaucratic politics.

"It would make sense to get them licensed so that they can fill the growing shortage of doctors."

It's weird how you said that after talking about how Canada doesn't suffer an exodus of trained medical professionals, and how they're actually coming to Canada from the US, and so on.

"It's not that a budget doesn't exist, it's just that the government has released the funds yet."

. . . and why do you think that is? Might it be because of competing financial priorities, political issues with allocation, and other matters that might fit within the heading of what I said about financial issues?

"It's one reason why I'd prefer to see
how other advanced countries run their
healthcare systems so that someday, I can
bring that knowledge of best practices
back to Canada."

Judging by my experience in countries other than the US, and within the socialized parts of the US healthcare industry, socialized medicine is like hospitals run by the California DMV. I, for one, would rather not deal with that again.