In yet another attempt to pressure the federal government to cover a greater share of health-care costs, Canada's premiers called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to agree to an urgent meeting with them.
The premiers' callout came after a meeting of their own on Friday. In a virtual press conference, premier by premier insisted Trudeau meet with them in early January. Eleven of the 13 provincial and territorial leaders spoke to reporters, with the majority taking the opportunity to call out the prime minister.
"(Trudeau) can't keep running for two years away from sitting down with all the premiers — it's just not cutting it," said Ontario Premier Doug Ford.
"The number 1 issue in this entire country, from coast to coast to coast, is health care, and we can't go it alone."
Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson, the chair of the Council of the Federation — which the premiers collectively make up — also directly called on Trudeau to meet the premiers for negotiations. The same goes for premiers Tim Houston, P.J. Akeeagok, Blaine Higgs, Scott Moe, Danielle Smith and François Legault.
"We need the federal government to set a date early this year coming up, sometime in January. Nothing should be more important to the prime minister than meeting with the 13 premiers. That's the bottom line," Ford said.
Later on Friday in Ottawa, federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said the federal government wants to reach a long-term funding solution with the provinces, which Trudeau has also expressed.
Duclos didn't say whether the prime minister would meet with the premiers next month.
“The prime minister will obviously do what he wants to do,” Duclos said.
Asked if Trudeau would meet with the premiers soon, Trudeau's office forwarded the questions to Duclos' office, which didn't respond by the time this story was published.
Canada's premiers have been badgering the federal government about reshaping the share of health-care funding as one of their main priorities since late 2020.
Each province/territory dedicates the biggest portion of its budget to its health-care system. The federal government chips in on these costs through its Canada Health Transfer (CHT), which provides per-capita payments to the provinces and territories to help pay for their health-care systems.
In the early years of Canada's publicly funded health-care system, in the late 1960s, the federal government passed legislation to cover one-half of most common health-care costs. Over the decades, various policy changes and federal-provincial/territorial agreements led to the provinces and territories taking on a larger share of costs, which the premiers' say is now almost 80 per cent of the total. They want the federal government to pay for 35 per cent of health-care costs.
Many of the provinces' and territories' health-care systems have neared breaking points over the last few years. Over the last few months in Ontario, the Ford government has repeatedly tried conveying that it has a handle on its system. Meanwhile, a nursing shortage has persisted, children's intensive care units have operated over capacity, and average wait times at some emergency rooms have stretched longer than days.
About a month ago, Duclos and his provincial/territorial counterparts met in Vancouver. The premiers' CHT-increase request topped the agenda, but the meetings ended with finger-pointing by both the premiers and Duclos over who was responsible for the failure to agree to any changes to cost-sharing.
READ MORE: Canada-wide health meeting devolves into finger-pointing
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