New health accord must protect public health care — CUPE

 

The federal government must sit down with the provinces and territories and negotiate a new ten-year agreement with at least six percent annual increases to the Canada health transfer, says the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

 

The federal government covers only one-fifth of provincial health spending, where it used to cover half, says CUPE, and it plans to scale back further. While the 2004-2014 health accord brought the federal cash share of provincial health spending to 20 percent from a low of ten percent in 1998, the current federal government has announced its intention to reverse this direction.

 

Cuts of $36 billion in funding are in the works without consultation with the provinces, according to CUPE. The health transfer will be tied to economic growth, with a three percent floor.

 

The federal government is also changing how it divides the health transfer between provinces, leaving most of them worse off. Starting in 2014, the transfer will be cash only and based on population, instead of a mix of cash and tax points adjusted for the wealth of each province.

 

Backtracking on an earlier promise, says CUPE, the federal government will not fully protect provinces that lose funding.

 

CUPE said the funding cuts will mean the federal government will not be in a position to uphold the Canada Health Act and national standards. Provinces will cut services and privatize, as they did in the mid-1990s when federal health transfers shrank.

 

The federal government is in the process of meeting with provincial governments separately, instead of hosting a first ministers meeting on health.

 

The union urged the prime minister to sit down with premiers to work out a long-range vision for Medicare to apply the same terms and conditions across Canada in a new health accord providing an annual six percent increase and a leadership role on national standards.