Premiers close 2-day summit, call on feds to stop negotiating health funding through the media
CBC
Canada's premiers ended their two day summit in Victoria B.C. by calling on the federal government to stop negotiating through the media and sit down with them to discuss the future of health-care funding.
"Twenty-four months ago, we were collaborating in an unprecedented way," B.C. Premier John Horgan, this year's chair of the Council of the Federation, said Tuesday in Victoria.
"There was unprecedented collaboration and the federal government was right there and we applauded that engagement … and now, eight months later, we're exchanging notes through the media. Where'd the love go? Everything was so fine and then it wasn't."
Horgan said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised the premiers that, once the pandemic public health emergency was over, the two sides would meet to hash out the future of health-care funding in Canada. No such meeting has been set and his calls for a sit-down meeting have gone unanswered.
"I've written to the prime minister in December, no response," Horgan said. "We've sent a package of principles that we felt would guide a discussion. No response. And now it's, 'We want you to spend it on specific things.'
"We're fine with that … but there's differences and nuances depending on where you live."
Horgan said that because each province's health system has different needs, the federal government and the prime minister must engage with them individually.
The premiers say the federal government is only covering 22 per cent of health-care costs in Canada. They say they want that federal share raised to 35 per cent and maintained at that level over time.
The federal government, meanwhile, disagrees with the math the provinces are using to determine who should pay for what.
"It's past time for the federal government to stop quibbling, to stop saying that we don't have a problem with our publicly funded national health-care system, and sit down at a table with the 13 premiers from provinces and territories," Horgan said.
In 1977, the way the federal government funds health care was changed. Direct federal funding for hospital and physician services was reduced and the provinces were given authority to collect more in income and corporate taxes to fund health services directly.
The federal government says the tax points given to the provinces cover between nine and 10 per cent of the cost of public health-care services. The premiers say the Canada Health Transfer (CHT) — the largest federal transfer to the provinces — covers about 22 per cent of the cost.
The federal government says that when the CHT and those tax points are combined with the money Ottawa spends on bilateral deals for long-term care, home care, mental health and some other services, the portion of health care spending covered by the federal government in 2021-22 came closer to 38.5 per cent.
"Right now, the federal spending to support public health care is about a third of all spending," Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc told guest host Paul Hunter on CBC News Network's Power & Politics Monday.
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