Hamilton –
Canada’s premiers are waiting to see if the federal cabinet can make progress on a new health care funding deal as ministers meet for a retreat in Hamilton, Ont., this week.
On Monday afternoon, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and most of his cabinet descended on the city west of Toronto, where they will spend three days hammering out plans before parliament returns next week.
While affordability and the threat of a recession are top of mind for Trudeau and his team, they will also discuss ongoing efforts to forge a new federal-provincial health care funding agreement.
Premiers have asked Ottawa to massively increase its share of health care spending as systems teeter on the brink of collapse after three years of COVID-19, with thousands of surgeries in a backlog and labor shortages exacerbated by pandemic burnout.
Trudeau has repeatedly said more money will come, but he wants accountability from the provinces that the money will be spent on things that can show meaningful improvements in patient care. These include investments in family medicine, mental health and digital medical records.
The standoff between the federal and provincial levels began to end as Ontario and Quebec agreed to the data and technology upgrades Ottawa wanted. But there is still no firm date for the first meeting of ministers to lay out the final details of the deal.
Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominique LeBlanc said Monday in Hamilton that more progress had been made in just the past few days, although he did not offer specific details.
“Over the weekend I had several talks with prime ministers again,” LeBlanc said when he arrived for the cabinet meeting.
“I am optimistic that we are making progress.
Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson, who currently chairs the association of premiers known as the Federation Council, said she had a “very good discussion” with LeBlanc before the cabinet was pulled.
“So he will be in touch with me later this week so they will have discussions at the cabinet meeting,” she said.
“I know there have been other discussions. I think we’ve made some progress so far, but again I want to see where we go after this meeting and I know Minister LeBlanc would be back with me then and we’ll see.”
Pressure on politicians to fix Canada’s valuable public health system is always high, but it grew significantly in the fall when unexpectedly early and large waves of flu and the RSV virus flooded children’s hospitals and prompted doctors across the country to warn that the system was buckling .
Health care funding is also something the NDP is pushing for, and the Liberals need to keep the New Democrats happy if their nearly year-long confidence-and-supply deal is to survive.
Under the March 2022 deal, the NDP agreed to vote with the Liberals on confidence issues in the House of Commons in exchange for the government moving on some of the party’s priorities.
Trudeau and his cabinet were greeted by dueling protests when they arrived at their hotel in downtown Hamilton, a city considered one of the most competitive federal seats in the country.
The larger of the two protests was organized by the Migrant Rights Network, which hopes to draw attention to the problem of undocumented people in Canada, including farm workers, domestic workers, international students and refugees.
The other protest included about 10 people, three carrying profanity-laced banners against Trudeau and a man on a megaphone demanding Trudeau be fired because “traitors” should not be prime ministers.
They tightened things up after Trudeau was at the hotel.
The smaller protest is a reminder that a year ago this week, the Freedom Convoy arrived in Ottawa, setting off a chain of events that led to Trudeau invoking the federal Emergency Act for the first time since it replaced the Military Act measures in 1988.
A report from the public inquiry that investigated the decision in public hearings last fall, a process that was required after the act was invoked, is expected next month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on January 23, 2023.
— With files from Steve Lambert in Manitoba.
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