Despite his big threats and his equally grandiloquent warnings, New Democratic leader Jagmeet Singh has once again given up on tearing up the agreement linking him to Justin Trudeau’s liberal government. His wish for universal drug insurance was not granted, but the first parts of such a pan-Canadian program were laid. And with them, yet another encroachment into Quebec’s exclusive field of health, which is health. It seems that Mr. Singh, in wanting to cling to the illusion of forcing Justin Trudeau’s hand, is content with empty shells as long as they allow him to continue to interfere in areas of jurisdiction. of Quebec and the provinces.
The Liberal government and the New Democratic Party (NDP) want to start with contraceptive medications and medications for diabetes. Two categories of pharmaceutical products already covered by Quebec’s drug insurance — which covers more than 8,000 drugs, according to the Conference Board of Canada. Almost all contraceptive products included in the federal program — contraceptive pills, injections and patches, IUDs, morning-after pills — are therefore already reimbursed in Quebec. Ditto for almost all of the diabetes medications listed by Ottawa.
The federal government, however, is against the hybrid model offered in Quebec since 1997. And counters that contraceptives and medications for diabetics are not 100% reimbursed there. Although the Quebec system is imperfect, it is up to its own government to see to its improvement. However, rather than promising the asymmetry of a right of withdrawal with full compensation and without any conditions, the Liberal-New Democrat bill stipulates on the contrary that any federal funding would only be paid in return for a bilateral agreement allowing “to offer universal coverage” and, specifies the information document accompanying the bill, “ to improve, rather than replace, provincial spending ».
This time, the confrontation desired by Ottawa is written in black and white. The federal Minister of Health, Mark Holland, even had the audacity to claim, at a press conference, that health “is not a question of jurisdiction”, but “the responsibility of each person”. That says it all. This same Minister Holland who also refuses to pay Quebec, unconditionally, its share of the Canadian dental insurance program and who threatens to withhold, in the absence of a bilateral agreement here too, the $900 million which goes to Quebec by virtue of the disappointing renewal of health transfers last year. In the space of a week, Mr. Holland has climbed the list of insolence among federal ministers.
His NDP partner, Jagmeet Singh, competed in absurdity, launching a frontal attack against Quebec Prime Minister François Legault, calling him “conservative” and accusing him of having made “cuts “massive” in health (whose share of the budget has, in fact, increased by more than 40% since the election of the CAQ government). A complete disavowal from the deputy leader of the New Democratic Party, Alexandre Boulerice, who tried as best he could to reassure Quebec. On the contrary, Mr. Singh seems to have abandoned it.
Just like the real “universal, complete and entirely public” drug insurance program that its activists demanded in Congress, as recently as last fall. The Liberal bill, on the contrary, only offers a statement of intent: a “starting point” and “discussions” with the provinces (several of which already reject the federal proposal) “with the aim of pursuing the work towards the implementation of such a pan-Canadian regime. Without a timeline or even budget forecasts. Jagmeet Singh may pride himself on having forced the Trudeau government’s hand, but at most he extracted a pilot project from it, without guarantee.
But this seed of drug insurance allows the Liberals and the NDP to corner their opponent Pierre Poilievre. Targeting contraceptives initially was not accidental. The conservative leader, whose rivals like to denounce the social conservative fringe of the party, refused to comment on the survival of such a program if he were elected, contenting himself with asserting that the provinces should be able to escape it.
Serving more than one objective at the same time for Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh, who are both surviving in the polls far behind the Conservative Party, their alliance of support and confidence will therefore visibly last for months to come. If Mr. Singh does not finally give it up in the name of respect for Quebec, to which he has now repeatedly proven his indifference, the NDP leader should at the very least seriously consider it for the good of the electoral interests of his own party. Sooner or later, his elected officials and activists will end up stopping forgiving him for his aplaventrism.