Health-Care Funding Proposal Is Final, Minister Says

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (2nd L) answers a question as Canada's premiers hold a press conference following a meeting on health care in Ottawa on Feb. 7, 2023. (The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick)

The country’s premiers will meet to discuss the federal government’s health-care funding proposals on Feb. 13, but the final amount is not up for negotiation, says Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc.

“We’re not negotiating to buy a residential property here, where you make a counteroffer, and then make a counter counteroffer,” LeBlanc said during an interview with CTV’s Question Period.

“What we’ve said is that is the financial commitment that we believe the Government of Canada is able to make,” he said. “It’s a significant commitment, it’s a long-term commitment, and we’ve invited the provinces to discuss with us to negotiate the best agreement within those financial parameters for their jurisdiction.”

The Liberal government offered a total of $196 billion in health-care transfers to the provinces on Feb. 7, of which $46 billion would be new money. The government has also defined a set of conditions to access the funding.

“To access their share of the federal funding, including the five percent CHT [Canadian Health Transfer] guarantee, provincial and territorial governments are asked to commit to improving how health information is collected, shared, used, and reported... to promote greater transparency on results, and to help manage public health emergencies,” said a statement issued by the prime minister on Feb. 7.

The provinces budgeted $204 billion for health care in the current fiscal year and wanted the federal share to increase to 35 percent—about $28 billion annually. Instead, the Canada Health Transfer (CHT) was set at $45 billion, or about 22 percent, which works out to, on average, less than $5 billion in new funding a year. The federal government says that its bilateral deals with provinces already bring its share of the costs closer to 38 percent.

Each province or territory will negotiate details under a bilateral agreement to identify specific priorities in each jurisdiction.

COVID Spending

According to LeBlanc, COVID is to blame for the shortfall in the health-care funding offer, stating the government “stepped up massively” and spent an additional $72 billion, “much of which went to the provinces and territories for the health-care system, the cost of all of the vaccines.”

He said the federal government paid the provinces “to administer the vaccines, we paid them to improve ventilation in schools and public buildings.”

As a result, he said, the government’s fiscal position is “different than it might have been four years ago.”

“The kind of deficit we had five years ago was nothing compared to the deficit that we incurred because of COVID two years ago, and last year, and again this year,” LeBlanc said.

At a news conference of premiers following the meeting with Trudeau, Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson, chair of the Council of the Federation of Premiers, said the offer was “disappointing.”

“It’s significantly less than we were looking for in terms of the baseline funding injection into the Canada Health Transfer,” she said.

The premiers still have to agree to any new accord with Ottawa and develop “action plans” describing how they will use the funding to improve their health care around four “shared health priorities.” These include “family health care; health workforce and backlogs; mental health and substance use; and modernizing the health care system with standardized information and digital tools.”