Canada’s premiers will formally accept an offer from the federal government for billions in additional health-care funding, but say they will also insist the money continue to flow for more than 10 years.
The deal amounts to an additional $46 billion from Ottawa over a decade, as long as the provinces meet some conditions on how the money is spent and report data to demonstrate whether and how the money is making a difference in the health-care system.
The premiers say the offer, tabled at a first ministers’ meeting last week, is nowhere near what they asked for — but new money cannot be turned down.
“We have agreed to accept the federal funding,” Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson said in an interview with The Canadian Press following a virtual meeting of all premiers Monday afternoon.
“We believe it’s a step in the right direction, but we also recognize that it doesn’t deal with that long-term sustainability of health-care funding challenges that we all face in our provinces and territories. So we will be writing to the prime minister to talk about and to address some of those issues.”
Stefanson is currently the chair and spokeswoman for the group of premiers known as the Council of the Federation.
Since 2020 the premiers have been asking Ottawa to increase the annual health transfers to cover 35 per cent of provincial health budgets, up from the current 22 per cent. To get there, the premiers said they wanted an immediate increase of $28 billion a year, and then an additional five per cent annually after that.
The offer Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made last week includes a top-up to the Canada Health Transfer of $2 billion immediately, annual increases to of at least five per cent for the next five years, and $25 billion over 10 years for priority areas: mental health, data collection, family medicine, surgical backlogs and health human resources.
The provinces and territories will only get the additional money if they agree to conditions, including an upgrade of health data collection to better show how the system is performing and annual reporting of specific indicators.
Ottawa intends to sign one-on-one agreements with every province and territory to tailor the deal to their unique needs. Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos and Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc have already met with Ontario, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador to start working toward those agreements.
LeBlanc said they will be in British Columbia Tuesday, followed by the territories and then the prairies before the end of the week.
The federal Liberals want the broad strokes of the agreements in place before the next budget, which is expected sometime in March or early April.
“What we’re looking for is a quick agreement on the path forward,” Duclos said following a meeting with Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston in Halifax.
The initial agreements will be a general acceptance of the offer and conditions, while it will take longer to develop specific plans for each province, he said.
The premiers are concerned that while the annual Canada Health Transfer will continue to rise, the one-on-one agreements for targeted programs are only funded for 10 years.
Stefanson called that a “fiscal cliff.”
“We want to make sure that also there’s a future path to a sustainable health-care transfer from the federal government,” she said.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford proposed to his colleagues at the Monday meeting that they ask Trudeau to extend those deals beyond the 10 years.
In a statement, his office said the recommendations would allow for sustainable funding that is “data-driven based on performance.” Ford met with Duclos and LeBlanc last week and the statement from his office Monday said he was “confident” Ottawa would accept his proposal.
Stefanson would not identify many specifics of Ford’s proposal but said the idea is to ensure that Ottawa keeps funding those programs for the long-term. That could be through extended agreements or by adding that money to the annual Canada Health Transfer after the first 10 years is over.
The transfer comes with very few conditions, though provinces do have to abide by the principles of the Canada Health Act. That means Ottawa can, and has, clawed back funding if the provinces charge patients for health services that are supposed be funded by the public purse.
British Columbia Premier David Eby said in a statement that “it’s clear every region of our country is struggling with increased strains” on health-care systems.
“This proposal from the federal government reverses course and begins moving us in the right direction,” he said.
“It offers stability over the long term and provides reassurance to British Columbians that we can work together to improve our public health-care system, including immigration pathways for health-care workers and national credential recognition.”
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said Monday the federal offer is not going to be enough to “monumentally change” how provinces deliver health-care but it’s still more than was on the table before.
“I don’t think anyone in Canada is of the mind that we can be rejecting or forgoing health investment,” Moe said in Regina.
“It isn’t anywhere near what was requested by the premiers for a significant period of time. And that request was for the federal government to become a full funding partner.”
Nova Scotia Health Minister Michelle Thompson said the deal aligns with her province’s priorities on expanding the health workforce and reducing surgery wait times. Following the meeting with Duclos and LeBlanc, she said they expect to have a full agreement soon.
“We were able to speak very quickly and clearly about our shared priorities and we’re looking forward to getting agreements in place,” she said.
New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs said the funding will only pay for about 14 days of services in his province. But he said it’s time to move forward.
“I would say, though, there’s certainly a recognition — a very strong recognition — that this doesn’t begin to reflect the needs in the health-care system,” he said at a news conference in Fredericton.
-With files from Liam Casey in Toronto, Lyndsay Armstrong in Halifax and Hina Alam in Fredericton.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 13, 2023.
The Canadian government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.
It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.
Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”
Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.
Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.
Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”
But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”
“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.
Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.
Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.
Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.
“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.
“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
