Feds, provinces need to ‘sit down like adults’ on health spending: B.C. premier

Health spending remains a top priority during the meeting of premiers in Canada.

However, the latest spotlight is being shone on the federal government, as B.C.’s premier pushes back against suggestions that provincial and territorial jurisdictions are fudging their numbers when it comes to what they’d like to see from the federal government.

The suggestion came from Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who called provincial numbers “fake” and said they didn’t take a bunch of federal spending into account.

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In a Q&A session after the first day of the Council of the Federation in Victoria, Premier John Horgan said Canadians expect them to “sit down like adults” and figure things out.

“The whole continuum of care needs to be revisited, and now’s the time to do that. We as a council — I’ve been at the table for five years — and the number one issue when I arrived was health care, and I’m leaving five years later and the number one issue is health care,” Horgan, the chair of the council, said Monday.

He said it was “disingenuous at best” to say the federal government is pulling its weight when it comes to funding public health in Canada.

“It’s just not the case,” Horgan affirmed. “I’d be delighted to meet Mr. LeBlanc anywhere, anytime, halfway. If that’s where he wants to meet, I’m happy to go there. But we’re nowhere right now, absolutely nowhere.”

Gaps in health care have been made more apparent throughout the pandemic, with systems brought to their limits amid increased hospitalizations and demand for care.

Those working in health care have also been raising the alarm for months, saying a shortage of doctors and nurses is putting Canadians at risk.

Premiers have been calling for the federal government to increase its share of health-care spending from 22 to 35 per cent to help improve the system nation-wide.

“Now, we can quibble about the numbers but Canadians will not thank us for that. We can quibble about who’s right and who’s wrong on the nuance, but Canadians won’t thank us for that. What Canadians want us to do is to sit down, like adults, and figure out how we resurrect publicly funded health care,” Horgan added Monday.

Quebec Premier Francois Legault, who was also asked to comment on the suggestion from LeBlanc, notes the amounts the federal government contributed were “non-recurrent.”

“What we’re talking about is recurrent amounts and provinces, we spend about $200 billion a year for health services and the federal government is giving us about $40 billion, which represents 22 per cent. In Quebec, Quebecers they pay 40 per cent of their taxes to the federal government,” he explained. “So it’s important that [the federal government] shares more than 22 per cent because health is the only expense growing at a rate of five to six per cent a year because of aging and because of the impact of new technology. We cannot afford to continue like we’re doing right now.”

Tuesday marks the second and final day of the Council of the Federation meeting between the premiers in B.C.

-With files from Liza Yuzda and The Canadian Press