Calls grow for Ottawa to set conditions against funding private health care in negotiations with provinces, territories
As momentum and negotiations build toward a long awaited deal on federal health care funding, calls are also growing for specific conditions on how any transfer money should be spent.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has scheduled a Feb. 7 meeting with Canada’s premiers to reach a new funding agreement.
Bernadette Landry, co-chair of the New Brunswick Health Coalition, said federal funding parameters should be imperative to any pending agreement.
“You don’t give millions and millions of dollars without making sure those dollars aren’t spent appropriately,” said Landry. “It’s just common sense."
Landry said the federal government should ban any transfer funds from being spent on private clinics delivering public health care.
"Those private clinics (are) stealing nurses and other health care professionals from the public system; people we need so badly in the public health care system," said Landry.
On Friday, federal Green Party leader Elizabeth May and New Brunswick Green Party leader David Coon said federal funding should come with a clause of it not being spent on private delivery model of care.
Private surgical centres are already operating with public money in the Atlantic region.
Ontario recently announced a plan to increase use of private surgical and diagnostic centres around the province.
This past summer, the three Maritime Progressive Conservative premiers met with Ontario PC Premier Doug Ford to discuss health care. The meeting happened shortly after Ford announced initial plans to increase the use of private clinics for public health care.
None of the Maritime premier would reject the possibility of additional privatization in their own jurisdiction, at joint news conference.
“Yes things are going to change, and yes that could be in a different form and I don’t know what that’s going to look like,” said New Brunswick Premier Higgs, on Aug. 22, 2022.
On the Jan. 21 edition of CTV’s Question Period, Higgs said the premiers and prime minister were close to reaching a long-term funding deal, with conditions tied to health care outcomes. Higgs said the metrics for success could vary by area.
Higgs also said he didn’t have the sense the federal government would increase funds from 22 per cent to 35 per cent of health-care costs (about an additional $28 billion a year) as requested by the premiers.
“But between where we are and where we've asked, there's a number in there somewhere,” said Higgs.
On Sunday’s edition of CTV’s Question Period, federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said the federal government would avoid “micromanaging” how provinces and territories delivered health care.
“We are also going to work flexibly with provinces and territories because they are not at the same place,” said Duclos. “There are some provinces in Canada, where access to a family health team is almost 90 per cent, other provinces is below 80 per cent, and that's something we should recognize and should work with provinces and territories to address.”
Duclos said certain conditions and metrics would be attached to any transfer funding, including reductions in surgery and diagnostic backlogs, retention and recruitment of health care professionals, along with set mental health benchmarks.
Lori Turnbull, a political scientist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, said the federal government’s tone on the private delivery of public health care had softened as of late.
“They have called what Doug Ford is going to do in Ontario as being innovative,” said Turnbull, in an interview with CTV News Channel.
“That’s a significant departure. We can think back over the past number of years, when people talked of increased privatization in health care, (there was) a lot of resistance to that from the public. But now we’re seeing a different thing, where there’s been a bit more acceptance, I think, because people know that the system is on the brink of collapse in a way it hasn’t been before. There’s a different conversation around what’s possible.”
With files from Hina Alam of the Canadian Press, Akshay Tandon of CTV News Channel, and CTV’s Question Period with Vassy Kapelos.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Liberals must now sell a budget they say will help younger Canadians catch up
It's now up to the federal Liberal government to sell a spending plan it says will help younger Canadians catch up to their elders.
Some of the winners and losers in the 2024 federal budget
With a variety of fiscal and policy measures announced in the federal budget, winners include small businesses and fintech companies while losers include the tobacco industry and Canadian pension funds.
500 Newfoundlanders wound up on the same cruise and it turned into a rocking kitchen party
A Celebrity Apex cruise to the Caribbean this month turned into a rocking Newfoundland kitchen party when hundreds of people from Canada's easternmost province happened to be booked on the same ship.
Ontario woman out $30K after investing in mortgage company accused of being unlicensed
An Ontario nurse is fighting to recover tens of thousands of dollars in savings she invested in a mortgage company that has since been accused of operating without a licence.
Actor Hugh Grant settles privacy lawsuit against Murdoch's Sun tabloid
British actor Hugh Grant has settled a lawsuit against the publisher of Rupert Murdoch's tabloid newspaper, The Sun, over claims journalists used private investigators to tap his phone and burgle his house, he said on Wednesday.
Gas prices across Ontario expected to climb to levels not seen since 2022, analyst says
Ontario is going to see a big jump at the pumps later this week as gas prices in the province hit levels not seen in nearly two years, according to one industry analyst.
LIVE Peel police to provide update today on arrests in Pearson gold heist
More details are expected this morning on arrests that have been made in connection with the gold heist at Toronto Pearson International Airport one year ago, Peel Regional Police say.
Father of boy accused of stabbing 2 Australian clerics saw no signs of extremism, Muslim leader says
The father of a boy accused of stabbing two Christian clerics in Australia saw no signs of his son’s extremism, a Muslim community leader said on Wednesday as police began arresting suspected rioters who besieged a Sydney church demanding revenge.
Stretching isn't always the answer for pain and muscle tension
For years, conventional wisdom in fitness culture has promoted the belief that stretching to become more flexible leads to better movement and injury prevention.