Since New York politicians from Senator Clinton to Mayor Bloomberg have been touting Canada as the solution to America’s medical cost problems, it’s worth marking an important decision yesterday by the Supreme Court of Canada that may come to be seen as the beginning of the end of Canada’s socialized health-care system.

The hero of this case is George Zeliotis, 73, a retired salesman from Montreal in the province of Quebec. Under Canada’s socialized health-care system, Mr. Zeliotis faced a year’s wait for the hip-replacement operation he needed. He wanted to pay for the operation himself and have it sooner. But the Canadian government wouldn’t allow that. He sued, and yesterday, the Supreme Court of Canada found in his favor.

The president of the Pacific Research Institute, Sally Pipes, author of “Miracle Cure: How to Solve America’s Health Care Crisis and Why Canada Isn’t the Answer,” notes that Canadians endure an average wait of 17.9 weeks between when their general physician refers them to a specialist and when that specialist finally provides the service. Some patients, like Mr. Zeliotis, have it even worse, and some have it even worse than he does – the wait for a knee replacement can stretch to two years. An estimated 3.2 million Canadians are waiting to get a general-care physician.

This mess results from efforts to reduce costs by absorbing the entire system into the government and then imposing price controls. Which explains why doctors are increasingly setting up quasi-legal private clinics that accept only patients with private insurance and why patients are flocking to these clinics. Recognizing the threat this poses to the state-run system, Quebec had cracked down on people who were trying to provide or receive care outside the government program. The province argued that preserving government health care was more important than Mr. Zeliotis’s hip. Not one of the court’s nine judges bought that argument.

Observers such as Ms. Pipes anticipate that the court’s decision will help open the way in Canada to a functional healthcare marketplace that can actually provide care. Here’s hoping that the influence is felt in America, too. The next time some quack New York politician starts talking about importing drugs from Canada – and Canadian price controls with them – the thing to do would be to remind the politician that not even the Canadian Supreme Court still believes in the Canadian health-care system. Ask George Zeliotis.