NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh kicked off a caucus meeting with MPs on Wednesday by accusing both the Conservatives and Liberals of putting Canada’s public health system at risk.
Addressing a room full of MPs, political officials and party members, Singh accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of ignoring efforts by Conservative prime ministers to overhaul their health care systems.
“While (Ontario Premier) Doug Ford, (Alberta Premier) Daniel Smith and (Manitoba Premier) Heather Stefanson embark on a mission to privatize public, universal Canadian health care, Justin Trudeau does nothing and (Conservative Leader) Pierre Poillievre supports them,” Singh said on Parliament Hill.
Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government announced Monday your plan to expand the number and scope of operations offered at for-profit clinics in the province. Both the Alberta and Manitoba governments have recently considered increasing private sector involvement in health care.
WATCH: NDP threatens to wreck deal with Liberals over health care crisis
The NDP is threatening to end the deal to keep the Liberals in power over the health care crisis
The NDP has threatened to pull out of its confidence and delivery agreement to keep the Liberals in power until 2025 unless they act on the health care crisis. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is calling on the federal government to spend more money on health care and reach an agreement with the premiers.
After Ontario’s announcement, Prime Minister Trudeau said it was open to ideas to “provide better services to Canadians in health care.”
The Ontario and federal New Democrats are leaving no room for doubt about how things stand in terms of public dollars going into the private system. They argue that expanding the private option will only increase competition with the public sector for scarce human resources.
Singh urged the federal government to use the leverage at its disposal to push back provincial governments looking to private health institutions for solutions.
“Actually, the prime minister has an opportunity right now to protect medical care. As we negotiate funding with the provinces, we all agree that there should be certain conditions,” Singh said.
“I think one of these conditions should be no privatization. No for-profit corporations to take over health care. No billing patients for anything. No cannibalizing hospitals, sending their nurses and doctors to for-profit clinics.”
A staffing strategy is needed, the task force says
What Canada needs is a national health-care recruitment strategy, says the country’s largest labor organization with close ties to the NDP.
Bea Bruske, president of the Canadian Labor Congress, said such a strategy would help governments across Canada recruit, train and retain health workers.
“Our public system is in dire straits and we’re calling on all levels of government to work together to make sure Canadians across the country can count on strong public health care,” Bruske told the CBC before addressing the NDP caucus on Wednesday.
Singh did not mention the need for a strategy, but echoed Bruske’s focus on staffing “solutions.”
“Solutions like training more nurses and doctors,” the NDP leader said in his speech Wednesday morning. “Getting licenses for health workers from other countries who are already here and ready to work in our hospitals.”
Speaking to reporters at an EV charger manufacturing plant in Shawinigan, Que., Trudeau said Wednesday there is “some very positive momentum happening” in ongoing federal-provincial negotiations over the future of the Canada Health Transfer (CHT).
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks to the media after visiting FLO, a manufacturer of electric car chargers, in Shawinigan, Que. on Wednesday, January 18, 2023. (Ryan Remiortz/The Canadian Press)
Ottawa has asked the provinces to commit new federal money to five key priority areas – primary care, long-term care, mental health, virtual care and accumulated surgeries. Trudeau said the two sides are “increasingly at odds” on the issues.
Trudeau said Ottawa’s planned investments are not meant to be short-term fixes to a system struggling in the wake of COVID-19.
The expected multibillion-dollar cash injection should be used to drive “more innovation in the system to make sure we have the best health care system in the world,” he said.
“There’s a gap between the short-term investments, the ones we need now to solve the immediate problems, and what the federal government will continue to do in the coming years to build the future of the system,” he said, adding that the provinces and the territories already have sufficient fiscal capacity to deal with acute problems such as labor shortages and capacity problems.
Budget will decide fate of NDP-Liberal deal, critic says
Before Singh delivered his keynote, several New Democrat MPs spoke about the state of the deal between the Liberals and New Democrats to support Trudeau’s minority government. All MPs expressed optimism about where things stand, including NDP finance critic Daniel Blakey.
In March 2022, the New Democrats signed a confidence and supply agreement with the governing Liberals to give them the votes needed to pass key legislation in exchange for the Liberals agreeing to advance a number of NDP priorities.
The upcoming 2023 federal budget will be a key factor in determining whether the NDP’s deal with the Liberals was a success or a failure, he said.
“I think the budget will tell the story of whether we’re making that progress at a good rate,” Blakey told CBC News. “It’s going to be a very interesting few months on the Hill here … when the budget is presented.”
Blakey was expected to brief his caucus colleagues on Wednesday about the talks he is having with the federal government as a member of a bipartisan group formed to discuss progress on key commitments and priorities.
Pharmacare, expanding dental plan on NDP radar
Although many of these priorities do not have stated deadlines, some do.
For example, the Liberal-NDP pact committed the Trudeau government to passing a Canada Pharmaceuticals Act in 2023 and introducing a wholesale drug purchase plan and a national formulary by the end of the agreement.
In 2022, federal coverage for dental care was expanded to cover children under 12 in households earning less than $90,000. Expanding that dental coverage to include 18-year-olds, seniors and people living with disabilities in middle-income households was also supposed to happen this year under the Liberal-NDP agreement.
“We expect to see that in early 2024,” Blakey said.
NDP finance critic Daniel Blakey is a member of a panel discussing progress on key commitments and priorities in the Liberal-NDP supply and confidence agreement. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
Blakey noted that because much of the budget-making work is done months in advance, the 2022 budget was mostly drawn up before the Liberal-NDP confidence and supply agreement was signed. So the upcoming budget should “tell a lot of the story” about how the NDP-Liberal deal is holding up, he said.
“This will be an important moment of reflection for our group as we think about next year and whether the government is doing a good enough job,” he said.
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