PREMIERS TO PUSH OTTAWA FOR HEALTH CASH
Question timing for pharmacare rollout
Canada’s provincial premiers have agreed to unanimously press Ottawa for more health care money and to prioritize economic competitiveness in decisions about natural resource development.
As the new federal Parliament meets later this week for the first time, with Western alienation as a key issue for the minority government of Justin Trudeau, this meeting near Toronto’s airport was an effort to influence its priorities, especially its plan on climate change.
What the premiers came up with was a final formal statement that makes no mention of climate change, but calls for immediate action on getting natural resources to market and approving new projects on “globally competitive timelines,” while also working to eliminate protectionist policies in America especially.
It calls for infrastructure development in the North and changes to the Fiscal Stabilization Program, retroactive for five years, to make it more favourable to provinces suffering economic downturns due to the price of oil.
The statement also calls for an increase to federal transfer payments to provinces for health care on an annual “escalator” that the premiers want set at 5.2 per cent.
“What we’re after here is a sustained relationship that can sustain health care,” said Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister, referring to his fellow premiers as a “coalition.”
Several premiers said that now may not be the right time for a national pharmacare program — a promise the Liberals made during the federal election.
If health care wasn’t fixed, then it was wrong to start with another program, said Pallister.
“Don’t start broadening health care when you can’t get it right now,” he said.
In response, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said the government is “open and keen to discuss” how governments can work together toward the goals.
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, who was chairing the meeting, acknowledged there has been justified skepticism in the past as to whether such a group could ever look beyond regional interests to see things in one single way or speak with one unified voice.
But he said the need for the meeting became clear after the “divisive results that manifested themselves in the federal election,” in which the governing Liberal Party won no seats in Alberta or Saskatchewan.
The premiers’ communiqué describes the strategy session as “unprecedented.”
John Horgan, B.C. premier, struck a dramatic note. “We talked about nation building today,” he said, after describing how health care can look different as a political issue in the North especially, where infrastructure is far less developed.
But on the scene in suburban Toronto, inside the retractable walls of an airport hotel ballroom where this “Council of the Federation,” as they are known, was meeting to declare their unity, many of the political gestures seemed to clunk.
In the gallery, there was grumbling over the moderator’s refusal of a final question posed in French at such a supposedly momentous occasion in an officially bilingual country.
There were other failures of representation. Dwight Ball of Newfoundland and Labrador, for example, gave a gentlemanly acknowledgment of the lone woman premier, Caroline Cochrane of the Northwest Territories, who did not speak a word for herself at the 45-minute press conference.
Ontario Premier and host Doug Ford started Monday’s meeting by giving everyone Toronto Maple Leaf jerseys, which is a gesture typically reserved for when a politician loses a bet over a championship game, as for example Ford himself who was wearing the jersey of the Grey Cup-winning Winnipeg Blue Bombers, as per a bet with Pallister.
“I want the record to show I didn’t put it on,” said Horgan.
“This (gathering) was a tremendous moment of solidarity,” said Jason Kenney of Alberta, who thanked his fellow premiers for making amendments to the Fiscal Stabilization Program a priority. “I’ve been trying to convey to Albertans that we are not alone, or isolated in the federation, that there are provincial and territorial governments who get what we’re going through and who understand our ask for a fair deal in the Canadian federation,” he said.
There were some artful descriptions of disagreement. Litigation over the expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline, for example, was variously described by Kenney as “harassment” paid for by foreign special interests, and by Horgan as “intervention.”