green Party calling on the federal government to fund health care in Atlantic Canada Taking into account the needs of residents, not based on the share of the population of the area.
leader of the federal Green Party Elizabeth May noted that the Atlantic provinces have a higher proportion of residents with complex health care needs than the rest of the country.
“The Maritimes, the Atlantic provinces have a higher proportion of people who have a higher need and demand for health care and those needs must be met and the formula must be fair,” May said at a news conference in Fredericton.
David Coon, leader of the New Brunswick Green Party, said funding has recently been distributed to the provinces on a per-capita basis, hurting the Atlantic region.
“Our health care costs are proportionately higher than most other provinces because of our older population,” he said. “Especially in Fredericton, the issue of retirement is a serious one among our health care professionals.”
He also discussed the “disturbing trend” towards private management and delivery of health care in the country.
“Specifically I’m speaking about the rise of corporate ownership of surgical centers,” he said, adding that Blaine Higgs’ New Brunswick government has brought in legislation that “opens the door” to corporate-owned surgery clinics.
“Additional health care funding from the federal government should not benefit private health care corporations or their shareholders, but strengthen our publicly owned and operated health care system.
It should be part of the agreement with New Brunswick that Premier Higgs signed with Prime Minister (Justin) Trudeau.
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Premiers from across the country are set to meet with Trudeau in February to negotiate changes to the Canada Health Transfer. They want to see Ottawa covering 35 per cent of health care costs nationwide, up from the current 22 per cent.
Many private surgical centers in Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic region now receive funding from provincial governments to provide knee, hip and other surgeries as a way of reducing the backlog. Koon said the opening of private surgery centers would accelerate privatization.
“It’s a slippery slope … It will open a huge door to privatization, and de facto corporatization of our health care system by large companies from outside the province.”
May said the Canada Health Act was brought in specifically to eliminate for-profit health care. But that law, she said, is being eroded by governments in New Brunswick and Ontario. She questioned the efficiency of two-tier health care networks, stating that any for-profit system “is always going to be less efficient and more expensive” than a single-payer.
“Because guess what? You have to make a profit,” she said. “Money is taken out of the health care system to make a profit.”
Canada, she said, is uniquely vulnerable compared to other universal, single-payer health care systems in the world because of its trade deals with the United States.
May said, “If we create a for-profit health care sector, we will face business challenges.” “We cannot allow an inch of privatization to undermine our single-payer, universal public health care system.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on January 27, 2023.
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