(Ottawa) The Bloc Québécois accuses the federal government of “blackmailing the sick” by refusing to hold a meeting between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his provincial counterparts to discuss an increase in health transfers.
Posted at 4:08 p.m.
“He wants to break them. He wants to negotiate one by one with the provinces likely to give in to force them to give up the 28 billion in health care and accept its conditions. It’s divide and conquer,” Bloc Québécois parliamentary leader Alain Therrien said Monday during question period.
Mr. Therrien had just stated that an article published in the Toronto Star last week confirmed the “worst fears” of his political party regarding these funds paid by Ottawa to the provinces to finance their health systems.
According to him, the government is practicing “predatory federalism” and aims to present Quebec with a fait accompli by telling it: “That’s the deal. You sign or you dry up”.
However, in the opinion of the Minister of Health, Jean-Yves Duclos, the Ministers of Health of the provinces and himself “are all united”.
“We are all Ministers of Health, retorted Mr. Duclos. We all work for the same citizens. We all work with the same dollars. We will all invest to support our healthcare workers who are in great need, given, among other things, the difficult conditions in which they work. And we’ll take care of everyone, no matter where they are in the country. »
And Ottawa is doing its part, he added, having spent 72 billion in the fight against the pandemic, in addition to health transfers.
Provincial and territorial premiers have been united for several years to demand an increase in federal health transfers that would increase Ottawa’s contribution from 22% to 35% of costs. For Quebec, this would represent an increase of $6 billion.
The federal government rejects this calculation and moreover believes that it has already done its part when it takes into account the value of tax points ceded to the provinces which is estimated by officials at 19.0 billion in 2019-2020, 19, 9 billion in 2020-2021 and 20.9 billion in 2021-2022.
Ottawa nevertheless promises to invest more in health, but rather suggests that any new funds would be subject to conditions, which Quebec systematically refuses, seeing in it a federal intrusion into a field of exclusive provincial jurisdiction.
According to Toronto StarOttawa calls for “light” conditions, including that new federal funds not be used to replace provincial investments in health, and wants an agreement to be reached by the end of January so that it can be found in the spring budget , even if recalcitrant provinces are left outside “in the cold”.
During the summer meeting of the Council of the Federation this summer, the Premier of Quebec, François Legault, had described it as “very insulting” that Mr. Trudeau “refuses to meet with his vis-à-vis” from the provinces and moreover transmits messages through the media. Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Trudeau took a “rather dishonest” attitude and British Columbia Premier John Horgan wondered “where did the love go” after a unprecedented collaboration during the pandemic.