PM Trudeau presents premiers $196B health-care funding deal, including $46B in new funding
CTV
The federal government is pledging to increase health funding to Canada's provinces and territories by $196.1 billion over the next 10 years, in a long-awaited deal aimed at addressing Canada's crumbling health-care systems with $46.2 billion in new funding.
The federal government is pledging to increase health funding to Canada's provinces and territories by $196.1 billion over the next 10 years, in a long-awaited deal aimed at addressing Canada's crumbling health-care systems with $46.2 billion in new funding.
This new cross-Canada offer includes both increases to the Canada Health Transfer (CHT) as well as working on bilateral deals with each province and territory, with an expectation that in order to access new federal dollars, provincial and territorial governments have to commit to new transparency and accountability requirements.
Here's what the federal government has put on the table:
"These additional federal investments will be contingent on continued health care investments by provinces and territories. This funding builds on the $7.8 billion over five years that has yet to flow to provinces and territories for mental health and substance use, home and community care, and long-term care," said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's office in a statement unveiling the details.
Trudeau— accompanied by a handful of ministers—has spent the last two hours presenting this proposal to his provincial and territorial counterparts at the first in-person meeting of all First Ministers since the COVID-19 pandemic.
While the prime minister met the premiers behind closed doors, federal officials provided reporters a technical briefing on the plan.
Ahead of the meeting, Trudeau said that while Canadians are proud of the universal public health-care system, it hasn't been delivering up to the level expected.