Justin Trudeau promises to invest more in health, but his remarks always imply that any new funds will be subject to conditions.
Posted at 5:00 p.m.
Visiting Bowen Island, British Columbia, on Tuesday, the Prime Minister was asked about the fact that across Canada, emergency rooms are overflowing, citizens are struggling to find a family doctor and health professionals are calling for ugly.
“We have to solve these problems and we have to solve them together so yes, the federal government is there, as a partner and will invest more”, he first launched before adding in the same breath, “but we must learn from the past and make sure that by providing new funds, it really helps Canadians to have a family doctor, to have access to mental health care, to support them in overcoming the challenges they face coming out of covid”.
Mr. Trudeau did not fail to recall, as did his Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland a few days ago, that his government had just announced “two billion for the provinces to help them with the delays because we understand the pressures they are under now.”
“This is not normal”
The Prime Minister, however, did not seek to minimize the situation, acknowledging that “too many Canadians” are on waiting lists for surgery, do not have a family doctor and face unreasonable expectations, when is not outright closure when they show up at the emergency room.
“This is not normal,” said Prime Minister Trudeau, recalling, as he does regularly, that his government had to extend 70 billion additional funds on the sidelines of the pandemic. “We will continue to be there to invest in a stronger health care system for all Canadians,” he promised.
“These are the things that Canadians expect from the federal government and the federal government will be there to make sure, alongside the provinces, that this happens,” he added.
However, the Prime Minister reiterated that he does not intend to give the provinces carte blanche.
“But I think all Canadians know that we need real improvements and real results for our health care system. The pandemic has exposed some of the challenges and issues facing our frontline healthcare workers who are heroes, but who are increasingly under stress and not seeing the support they need or the new entries in their field. »
For months, the provinces have been asking Ottawa to increase health transfers in order to assume 35% of the costs rather than the 22% currently granted, a request that represents an additional $28 billion outlay from the federal government.
Justin Trudeau has so far refused to comply with this request and has often offered sums with conditions attached to spending them for certain specific purposes.
Quebec systematically refuses to comply with federal conditions, seeing it as a federal intrusion into a field of exclusive provincial jurisdiction.