Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said while provincial health ministers agree with him on the steps needed to solve Canada's healthcare crisis, the premiers are engaged in a "futile fight" with Ottawa over more healthcare funding.."[The federal and provincial health ministers] were in total agreement in Vancouver in private. The problem is the premiers don't want to speak about those outcomes and those results," Duclos said during a Wednesday press conference.."They want to maintain the futile fight on dollars. And that's a futile fight because they ask for 35%, and if you do the calculations correctly, we are already at 35%.".Amid an escalating Canada-wide healthcare crisis, the premiers asked the federal government to increase its healthcare funding for the provinces. They say while the Canadian government and provinces began with a 50/50 funding partnership for healthcare, it's declined over the years to the point where the federal government pays just 22% of costs..An increase of federal healthcare funding to 35% would mean an additional $28 billion added to the $45.2 billion Canada Health Transfer in 2022..The federal government and provinces differ in how they tally up the healthcare spending. Back in 1977, Ottawa cut some of the taxes it collected and gave those tax points to the provinces. This allowed provincial-level taxes to fund health services directly..The federal government claims when the Canada Health Transfer and tax points are combined with federal spending on bilateral deals for long-term care, mental health care and other services, the portion of healthcare spending covered by them is already close to 38.5%. But the premiers do not include those figures in their calculations, resulting in the discrepancy between the two percentage totals.."This is not the correct discussion to be having. The right discussion is 'what are the results that we want to reach together?'" Duclos said..Duclos said in 2022, there were 12 meetings between the provincial and federal health ministers on health care funding and reforming the system..While the provinces and the federal government reached an understanding on two key issues — recruiting health care workers and data sharing initiatives to streamline care — the health ministers were then ordered not to speak about those results publicly. ."That's an unfortunate thing, because before we come to the means that we need to achieve some ends, we need to agree on the ends and to speak publicly about them," Duclos said..Duclos said privately the provincial health ministers and the federal government all agree Canada's healthcare system needs serious reforms. These include increased access to family doctors, the recruiting and retaining of more staff, recognizing the qualifications of foreign-trained health care workers, reducing the surgery backlog, and creating a modern data-sharing system.."This is my role as well. It is to make sure our agreements with the provinces and territories take into account the different circumstances," Duclos said. "And I am sure that that's what we'll do in the following months."
