Can Kinew help get pharmacare done?
Wab Kinew is convinced Canadians are weary of wedge politics.
Manitoba’s new premier says people want their rival politicians to unite on “big ideas.” Not provoke disunity.
He should know.
As Canada’s first Indigenous provincial premier, he’s still basking in the afterglow of a political honeymoon that spans the country. More than merely embodying reconciliation, he wants to be a force for progressive action.
Now he’s about to be tested again. “Canadians are hungry for a positive message,” he told the Star’s editorial board this week. “Folks are looking for a message to bring people together.”
That’s his takeaway from the Manitoba NDP’s winning election campaign, which pushed back against the “very sharp wedge political issues” of his Tory opponents — not least on Indigenous reconciliation. Steeled by his success, Kinew wants to bring people together in a big way.
“Let’s do some big things in health care,” he says — first on his list.
Pharmacare surely fits the bill — a very big one.
First, it requires an infusion of federal funding. Second, it needs a profusion of good faith from provinces, who are prone to picking fights and picking up their marbles.
Manitoba will do its part. After that, Kinew could play a key role in the coming weeks and months.
Kinew is committed to keeping a campaign promise for free contraception prescriptions and diabetes drugs, mirroring the landmark national pharmacare plan just cobbled together by the federal Liberals and New Democrats. But a national plan amounts to nothing without the provinces.
The premiers deliver health care while the federal government oversees medicare — albeit without the medicines people need.
Kinew can help make it happen nationally — not merely by taking federal dollars at the provincial level, but by spending some of his own precious political capital across Canada.
The first step comes April 2, when his NDP government delivers its first provincial budget. Kinew said he couldn’t pre-empt himself, but telegraphed good things are coming — a precursor of national support.
Covering essential prescriptions is essential, so he will pick up where the federal Liberal-NDP pact left off. But medicines for Manitobans won’t help the rest of Canada.
Ontario’s track record does not give cause for optimism.
Premier Doug Ford’s first act upon taking power in 2018 was to dismantle a key pillar of the embryonic pharmacare program put in place by the previous Liberal government. When I asked Kinew about that contrast between provincial approaches — Manitoba developing a drug program after Ontario dismantled so much of its own — a clearly well-briefed Kinew didn’t miss a beat:
“OHIP plus?” he asked me with a smile.
That’s a reference to the “OHIP+” program first put in place by former health minister Dr. Eric Hoskins. After the Ford government eliminated the universal coverage brought in by Hoskins, he was recruited by the federal Liberals to develop a national program, keeping a back channel open with New Democrats.
Will Kinew now help spread the gospel of pharmacare? After all, his federal NDP counterpart Jagmeet Singh went to the wall to wrangle an agreement with the minority Liberal government in Ottawa.
“I don’t think people elected us in our province to pick fights with other elected officials, they elected us to do things like cover drugs,” Kinew replied.
“I do think that one of the fundamental values that helps to define us as Canadians is universal access to health care. And the idea that no matter who you are, no matter where you live, that you can access a public health-care system in this country, is significant — not just as a public policy measure, but also as a measure of our identity.”
Universal access is key to that vision, but it’s not one shared by Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government. Ford stripped universality from OHIP+ in 2018, agreeing only to backstop those up to age 24 who lacked any private insurance coverage.
Kinew met Ford privately during his visit to Toronto this week, talking mostly about mining. Both leaders set a friendly tone.
“I think I can work with Premier Ford, and we had a really good discussion,” Kinew told us.
Ford was quick to find common ground with his NDP counterpart on cutting carbon levies. Interestingly, they appear to be two populists in a pod when it comes to home heating and gas taxes.
Kinew makes no apologies, as a progressive, for cutting gas and diesel taxes shortly after taking power. Perhaps paradoxically, he believes it’s a way to win credibility and support for other environmental policies.
“We brought it (gas tax) to zero, and the reason why we did that is because we think it’s important to show the blue-collar worker — the average middle-class person — that somebody who is climate focused is still on your side and during this period of economic pain. We’re going to show the necessary flexibility to help you and your family get through this inflationary moments,” he argues.
That’s the sound of a prairie populist talking. If Kinew is keen to accumulate political capital on carbon, will he spend some of it to build support for a pan-Canadian pharmacare program?
Perhaps that depends on the honeymoon.