What's on the table for health care talks still unknown

First ministers meet with PM next week

OTTAWA • With just a week before long-awaited health care talks between Ottawa and the provinces, it is still unclear what the Trudeau government is prepared to put on the table to help ease pressure in emergency rooms and clear surgical backlogs.

All of Canada's premiers are coming to Ottawa on Feb. 7 for what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dubbed a “working meeting” to sort out a new deal that would see the federal government send more money to the provinces for health care.

B.C. Premier David Eby, who was in Ottawa on Wednesday, said he doesn't know what the Liberals are going to put on the table, but he is optimistic.

I'M VERY HOPEFUL THAT IT'S A GOOD OFFER FOR THE PROVINCES SO THAT WE CAN ADVANCE THAT DISCUSSION.

“Prime Minister Trudeau has been a good partner on many issues in the past. And I'm hopeful that we'll see progress next week as well on the critical issue of health-care funding transfers,” he said.

Trudeau long resisted sitting down with premiers to talk about health care, but after a several premiers said they were open to accepting conditions on federal funds, Trudeau changed course and set up the meeting.

Eby said he would like to know more about what the government is proposing, but he's celebrating that after more than a year of premiers demanding a meeting, they are now at least getting to the table.

“It's always preferable to go into the meeting, understanding what the parameters are,” he said. “For myself and for British Columbia, I am glad that we've overcome that hurdle that stood in our way for too long of not even sitting around the table.”

Premiers say the federal government covers only 22 per cent of the total cost for health care and they are demanding the Liberals raise that to 35 per cent, a figure that would require a funding boost of $28 billion. Next year, the federal health transfer will rise to nearly $50 billion.

The federal government argues that when tax points, agreements for the federal government to lower taxes and the provinces to raise them, are factored in, it is already at or near 35 per cent.

Eby didn't say when asked if premiers are prepared to budge from that precise number, but he said Ottawa has to put real money on the table.

“Their share has dropped year after year after year and so we'll have that conversation around the table. I'm very hopeful that it's a good offer for the provinces so that we can advance that discussion together,” he said.

He said he wants to see the federal government increase the health transfer and offer support for mental health, health professionals' recruitment, home care and long-term care.

He said provinces can't bear the cost alone.

“We're putting the resources in to bring those nurses on, to bring those family doctors on, to open those health-care centres, to open those new hospitals. And that comes at the expense of other programs in British Columbia,” he said.

Trudeau said when he announced the meeting that there would be no deals signed next week, but rather genuine negotiations that would lead to deals with provinces.

Health Minister Jean Yves Duclos said the idea is to get a permanent agreement.

“It's obviously going to be a working session because there is going to be a lot more work to do after,” he said. “The challenges of our health-care system will demand sustained collaborative efforts over the next months, years and decades.”

Duclos didn't reveal how much money the federal government was prepared to give provinces, but said more details would come next week.

“The prime minister will come with a broad plan. So obviously, the ends that we want to achieve together and the means necessary to achieve those ends.”