WDYM that's not normal? Every time I've been to the ER, it's been packed and had to wait hours if you had something less urgent. I had broken my pelvis and one fixator pin had come loose from the halo, but the local hospital couldn't fix it, so I had to get a friend to drive me two hours to the closest hospital that could, and then had to wait another four hours until they could re-align my bones and tighten the fixator again. If the triage nurse decides you're not there for an emergency, they absolutely make you sit there until you give up and go away.
I keep hearing that Canada has horrible wait times, but it sounds the same to me? Does your ER not regularly run out of beds?