Canada’s premiers pledged to work together on health care at the Council of the Federation meetingsbeing held in Halifax, N.S.

A report released Thursday contained recommendations for what leaders call ‘innovative health care’. The report was co-authored by Prince Edward Island Premier Robert Ghiz and Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, who were commissioned to study the topic.

“The federal government has really excluded themselves from the process. They said they did not want to sit down with the provinces to negotiate on health care,” says Ghiz.

“It's totally up to them to make those types of decisions in managing the delivery of health care on a day-to-day basis,” says Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq.

Several groups of health care activists hoped to make waves as they demonstrated on a boat outside the hotel where the premiers met.

“I'm worried about the notion of innovative health care,” says Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians. “To me it says, doing the best of a bad job, doing the best with the leftovers.”

Among other things, Ghiz and Wall are recommending the provinces get together to buy bulk generic drugs.

“You can, through these best practices, improve patient care and actually do so at a cost that might be lower, in the short, the mid and the long term,” says Wall.

The two premiers are also suggesting their counterparts adopt clinical practice guidelines to treat diabetes and heart disease.

“Seventy-thousand people in this country die of cardiovascular disease every year,” says Dr. John Haggie of the Canadian Medical Association. “That's the population of Prince George every year. You can reduce that, even byten per cent and you've got a few more 45-year-old dads who will spend time with their kids.” 

The Saskatchewan government has decided to explore Nova Scotia’s collaborative emergency centres.

“We want to learn from it and we're going to steal it,” says Wall.

The activists are concerned about the federal government’s plan to impose a new model for health care funding in 2014. Their message to the premiers is simple: don’t back down.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Kayla Hounsell