Federal government plans to increase annual health transfer
Will also offer targeted funding with conditions
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will offer the provinces a “significant” increase to the Canada Health Transfer and additional money if they agree to one-on-one deals targeting specific problem areas in the health-care system.
A senior government official with knowledge of the plan said Trudeau will lay out a 10-year offer when he meets with the country’s 13 premiers in Ottawa on Tuesday.
The Canadian Press agreed to grant the official anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
They said the offer will include a top-up to the annual Canada Health Transfer, which Ottawa sends to the provinces each year with very few strings attached. This year, Ottawa transferred $45 billion, which amounts to 22 per cent of what the provinces budgeted for health care.
The premiers want Ottawa to fund 35 per cent, which this year would have required $26 billion more.
Trudeau will offer more money to provinces that make one-on-one deals in specific areas, and with accountability measures attached such as setting targets for improvement and data sharing.
Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos has previously said the federal government’s priority areas include improving access to family doctors, better mental health care, cutting surgical backlogs and a massive improvement to data collection and sharing.
The government’s offer will be made public but not until after it’s given to the premiers Tuesday.
Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson, who is currently the chair of the premiers’ group known as the Council of the Federation, said the fact premiers haven’t seen any details yet is frustrating.
“If we had it ahead of time we could have had a more fulsome discussion tomorrow,” she said. “There’s no question about that.”
She wouldn’t say if the premiers are flexible on the 35 per cent ask, or what concessions or strings they are open to.
“We want to see what the proposal will look like,” she said. “We’ll go in with an open mind and then we’ll go from there.”
Trudeau said his government doesn’t expect to sign the same deal with every province.
“We recognize that different provinces have different needs and different priorities, and that flexibility is an important part of our responsibility,” he said Monday.
After Tuesday’s talks, Duclos and the provincial health ministers will meet to keep working out the details. There is no specific deadline but the hope is that a new deal will be in place before the next federal budget, which is generally tabled in the early spring.
The federal official said one of Ottawa’s key asks is that the provinces agree to common indicators and the collection and sharing of data, both with other provinces and with Canadians. They said it’s needed to better understand the extent of the problems and to be able to measure progress.