Trudeau offers premiers $46.1 billion in new money over next decade for health care

The money will only come if provinces agree to data sharing and to continue their health spending at current levels

Nationalpost.com
Feb. 8, 2023
Ryan Tumilty

The Trudeau government offered provincial premiers $46.1 billion in new funding over the next decade for health care, but the new funds will come with significant strings attached.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau presented his opening offer to provincial premiers on Tuesday. Over the next decade health-care transfers were already set to rise considerably, as Canada’s economy rebounded from the pandemic. The existing formula would have delivered a grand total of approximately $142 billion over those ten year in additional money through the Canada Health Transfer.

The health-care transfer currently rises by at least three per cent or the rate of GDP growth, whichever number is higher. For the next five years, under the Liberals new proposal, it will rise by a minimum of five per cent.

Speaking late in the day at an Ottawa hospital, Trudeau said the federal investment, a combined total of nearly $200 billion over the next decade would set the system up for long-term success.

“This is a massive investment in not just the present of healthcare but the future of healthcare in this country.”

That new five per cent floor will allow overall funding to climb with higher payments in the first five years adding up to a total of $17.3 billion more to the system than the current plan. Provinces will also get another $2 billion as an urgent top-up this year to deal with the lingering COVID backlogs and overwhelmed pediatric emergency rooms.

On an annual basis, five years from now, the federal government will be sending $60.3 billion per year to the provinces in the Canada Health Transfer and 10 years from now it will be over $72 billion per year, up considerably from the approximately $45 billion it spends today. Premiers had wanted to see an immediate $28 billion increase to the health transfer and to have it rise at five per cent a year after that.

There will also be $2 billion for Indigenous health care, $1.7 billion to support higher wages for personal support workers, and $150 million in additional money to the Territories to support their small health care systems.

The Liberals new money will only come if provinces agree to data sharing on key indicators. The Liberals want clear data on things like backlogs, the percentage of people in a given province with family doctors and other measures that indicate the strength of the system.

Trudeau said the emphasis on provinces providing data is important to ensuring that the system isn’t just consuming more money, but actually improving Canadian’s health.

“Each will need to provide transparent information so that your health care system is accountable and you can be sure that real improvements are being made,” he said. “What gets measured, gets done.”

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland emphasized provinces can’t just put the new dollars into the system and take their own funds out. She said it’s essential the system actually improve.

“This funding from the federal government is additional incremental money to improve the health care Canadians receive. That is what we expect it will be used to do. And that is what Canadians quite rightly expect as well.”

There is another $25 billion available for one on one deals with the provinces, but that money must be spent on specific areas, including mental health, family doctors, recruiting health workers and modernizing the health system, including looking at digital health records.

Trudeau is proposing to work with the provinces on how that additional $25 billion is spent, allowing provinces to spend more or less on those four areas depending on what their individual priorities might be.

Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson said they were happy to get to the table with the prime minister, but they found his opening offer disappointing.

“What we did see today is that there wasn’t a lot in a way of new funding that is a part of this package that has been put together by the federal government,” she said.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Trudeau’s opening offer was just the beginning and he would be pushing for improvements on what is on offer.

“I always welcome new funding, no matter small or large, but what we see this as a starting point. It’s a down payment on on further discussions,” he said.

Premiers came into the meeting seeking a significant increase to the health transfer, which they wanted with no strings attached, a figure that would have seen the federal commitment rise by $28 billion in just the next year, with consistent increases coming every year after that.

At his press conference, Trudeau was asked repeatedly if he was prepared to negotiate with premiers and add more money to his offer.

He didn’t answer directly, but said the federal government was working within its fiscal framework and was now ready to move past the dollars and focus on getting them into the system to improve care.

“There are billions of dollars that we’re putting forward in new money for the provinces. We’re just looking forward to working with them, and delivering it,” he said

When he announced the meeting with premiers, Trudeau said Tuesday’s session would be a working meeting and he didn’t expect deals to be signed for several weeks.

Premiers said Tuesday that they would review Trudeau’s offer and come back to the table for more discussions in the weeks ahead.