A new front in the federal-provincial health funding battle
There have been epic federal-provincial battles over health care funding before, and now the Liberals are marking the anniversary of their election victory with another round of that fight.
This week Health Minister Jane Philpott met with the provincial health ministers to discuss the future of health-care funding in Canada.
The provinces left upset that the federal government plans to proceed with reducing the annual increase in the Canada Health Transfer, from six per cent to three per cent, starting next year, while also insisting on attaching strings to dollars.
After tense meetings, Philpott isn't ruling out making one-on-one deals with the provinces.
"At this point I'm very open to all options," she told The House.
"I think there are advantages when there are some similarities in terms of the work that's done across the provinces. It helps in terms of allowing them to look at other ideas that being done across the country and compare results but if not I'm open to having further conversations with particular regions."
Some of the provinces have already pushed back at the notion that the federal government should be telling the provinces where to spend the health transfer, insisting the delivery of health care is a provincial concern.
But at least one province has publicly shown interest in another approach. Alberta says it is willing to sit down with the federal government to get access to home care money, even if it comes with strings.
Philpott told Chris Hall "many of the provinces and territories" have shown interest in talking.
"I'm sure that's going to happen in the coming weeks," she said.
Answer to health care feud must come from first ministers: Que. health minister
Regardless of what the federal health minister might say, the current feud between Ottawa and the provinces over health care dollars won't get settled at the health ministers' level, according to Quebec's Gaétan Barrette.
Barrette and his provincial colleagues had a tense meeting with their federal counterpart Jane Philpott this week in Toronto.
At the heart of the disagreement is money, specifically by how much health care transfers should increase starting next fiscal year. Ottawa says three per cent plus targeted spending with strings attached. Provinces are asking for more than three per cent, and some are reluctant to agree to conditions on how new money should be spent.
Barrette told The House that health ministers have gone as far as they can go to settle their funding differences.
"That part has to go to the next level, and the next level is the next meeting between premiers and the prime minister. Now the question arising is: will it be on the agenda? Everybody will have their answers. If it's not on the agenda, it's because in Ottawa they believe that adding money to provide more and better care to Canadians, it's not what they want," Barrette told Chris Hall.
Quebec's health minister said Philpott and the provinces actually see eye to eye on a number of fronts.
"She agrees that funding is an issue, she agrees about the areas into which we need to invest, she agrees that we need to do more and (do things) differently," Barrette said.
Barrette also told The House that given the federal Liberals' promises during last year's election campaign, he expected a more collaborative approach at the negotiating table.
Trudeau 'on the right ground' during health accord talks: Roy Romanow
One of Canada's guardians of medicare says "Trudeau junior" needs to stick to his guns as his government negotiates a new health accord with the provinces.
"I think he's got to say: 'Look, here are the reforms we think need to be made within this envelope of money,'" said former Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow.
Romanow's 2002 Royal Commission Report, which included 47 recommendations, preceded the 2004 Health Accord between the Liberal federal government and the provincial and territorial premiers. The accord implemented a number of his recommendations, including a provision for stable funding (6 per cent increase per year) from the federal government.
"The prime minister is on the right ground. He's not putting a whole lot amount of cash on the table but enough to stimulate and prompt debate on a solution," Romanow said, admitting his comments likely won't be popular with the premiers.
"No form of home care can be strictly uniformly applicable throughout the entire country because the country is so vast and the demands are regional...but on the principles the prime minister, I would argue, and Minister Philpott, and I think they're doing a very good job at this stage in the game, have a major test before them. And it's a historic test."
Romanow said Paul Martin's government spend a lot of money on health, without conditions.
"As a result the money was taken, it was spent and the system remains unreformed. And here we are again."
Are we close to a consensus on electoral reform?
The government's special committee studying electoral reform says it's nearing a consensus, it just might not be a consensus of the Liberals' making.
The bipartisan committee, tasked with studying alternative ways to vote, wrapped its cross-country consultation tour in Nunavut this week. It has until Dec. 1 to deliver a report on its findings.
"If we all agree we are sticking to our currently stated bottom line, and we're not going to add new conditions, then it is possible for us to achieve a unanimous consensus," said Conservative MP and committee co-chair Scott Reid.
Since the committees' infancy the Conservative party has pushed for a referendum question about electoral reform and the current first-past-the-post system needs to be represented on that ballot.
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and NDP MP, and committee co-chair, Nathan Cullen told The House it's a condition they're willing to, albeit begrudgingly, accept.
May said a referendum is not a deal breaker for her because,"I need to have a consensus out of this."
Cullen added that he'd prefer a confirming referendum two elections down the road.
The Liberal government hasn't accepted holding a referendum before replacing first-past-the-post.
"On the issue of validation, we may not agree exactly on this idea of how to validate it but we agree that there has to be some way that Canadians can see demonstratively that this process is valid and bipartisan," said Mark Holland, parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Democratic Institutions.
The other party bottom lines are a proportional representation option for the Green Party and NDP, while the Liberals are committed to changing the system, said Reid.
The committee was set up in the wake of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's campaign promise that the 2015 election would be the last election under the first-past-the-post system.
"We're absolutely committed to working towards that," said Holland.
Earlier this week Trudeau poked the Canadian punditry and fuelled speculation in the House of Commons for telling the French-language newspaper Le Devoir the public's enthusiasm for electoral reform has waned in the year since his government swept into power.
"I think the prime minister is right in so far as the urgency for change expressed by the population is less but that doesn't mean the need has been diminished," said Holland. "But let me be absolutely clear, we do want it."
"I found both what Mr. Trudeau said unhelpful but also the timing was strange," said Cullen, noting his comments came on the one year anniversary of the 2015 election. "They chose to appear to want to walk away from a very black and white type of promise."
Reid pointed out Trudeau is just one year into his term, and things might look differently by 2019.
"I don't think you can take two snapshots and say I've got a movie," he said.
ATIP changes so far just 'low hanging fruits'
Canada's information commissioner is casting doubt on the Liberal government's campaign promise to pry open and modernize the oft criticized Access to Information Act, a tool for Canadians to search out government data and information.
"It causes me concern that we're talking about conducting a first full review of the act at the beginning of 2018 and I'm not sure reading that timeline that we're going to see a substantive review before the next election," Suzanne Legault told the CBC's Chris Hall in an interview for The House airing Saturday.
Earlier this week Treasury Board President Scott Brison wrote a letter to the standing committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics responding to their report recommending changes on how to update the act.
Brison promised to implement initial changes to the act early next year with an eye of reviewing the act in early 2018.
While acknowledging that the act is out of date and hasn't been significantly updated since it came into effect 33 years ago, Brison wrote there's a "complexity of changes" and the government will want to take a "prudent" approach going forward.
Legault says the government's language around timelines and consultations worries her.
"As far as I can see I did not see in the response a clear commitment to actualize the mandate letter commitments," she said. "I am not in [on] the secret here of what the government is going to do. But it causes me concern."
An anniversary with little to celebrate?
Between unfruitful health accord talks, Trudeau's eyebrow-raising remarks on electoral reform and the collapse of the Canada-European Union trade talks, it wasn't much of a one-year anniversary celebration for the Liberal government.
On Friday, International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland walked out of talks with the regional government of Wallonia in Belgium.
"It's been a bad week of negotiating," said Toronto Star and iPolitics columnist Susan Delacourt, one half of this week's in-house panel."
She pointed out the tense carbon pricing talks earlier this month, the health accord meetings and the CETA deal are all handled by rookie MPs.
"It is an interesting dynamic we have here in this fall, negotiations are foundering and the people who are put on the front line of this are people who are new to this business."
"The way this government has been leading [the electoral reform] file is like walking into a cavern with no flashlight. It's going into the dark and improvising it," said La Presse Ottawa bureau chief Joël-Denis Bellavance.
