The Quebec government announced on March 19 that it had succeeded in obtaining an unconditional agreement from Ottawa on the transfer of $900 million in health care.
Indeed, it was important for Quebec – and this was unanimously unanimous in the National Assembly – that the federal government pay it “its share of the available funds” without imposing on it in particular the way in which this money must be spent and the obligation to share detailed data on the performance of the Quebec health system.
Although we can emphasize the advantages of such an agreement for respecting Quebec’s jurisdictions, the very legitimacy of this type of transfer should be further questioned in the public space.
Federal spending power
In other words, we seem to have forgotten to take a critical look at the broader context of this situation by omitting the following questions: how is it that the federal government has such large sums of money for a jurisdiction that is not its own? How is it that Quebec must negotiate an agreement to enforce its exclusive jurisdiction and obtain the funds necessary to finance its health system?
For more than fifty years, the federal government has tried to convince that it has the legitimate power to spend in sectors over which the provinces have exclusive jurisdiction. Quebec has never accepted this provision and all Canadian provinces have generally attempted to limit its scope.
Since the relaunch of the debate a year ago, some have raised the absence of rights on which the Trudeau government can rely, and sometimes even the absence of health expertise. Let us add that the federal government lacks legitimacy to determine how the provinces allocate these resources in the health system.
Fiscal imbalance
It’s simple: the federal government is not elected on the basis of any health platform, because it is a provincial jurisdiction. However, it does not hesitate to tax citizens and then direct its surplus to an area of provincial jurisdiction, year after year, all without a mandate from the population. This is an affront to the fundamental democratic principle.No taxation without representation“, slogan chanted several centuries ago by American colonists to denounce the lack of influence on British policies even though they were financed with their taxes.
The fiscal imbalance is another element in the context of health transfers and calls into question their legitimacy. This imbalance has been recognized and denounced by all the provinces, as they are responsible for the most expensive public programs, including health, but do not have the capacity to finance them thanks to the current tax system.
Rather than putting an end to this imbalance, for example by reducing the tax rate, the federal government resorts to an illegitimate practice of conditional health transfers, and this, on a chronic basis. It is time for Canadian citizens and especially for Quebecers, who have always called for more national autonomy, to question the legitimacy of this practice and to demand that the federal government readjust its tax model and put an end to costly duplication. and unnecessary and stops intervening in powers reserved for the provinces.
Photo credit: Marie-José Hains, photographer
Gabrielle Lemieux, master’s degree in public administration, Montreal