Ottawa –
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said he is reluctant to press ahead with health care reform as governments appear to be at an impasse in health care financing talks.
For more than a year, provincial premiers have called for a meeting with Trudeau to discuss their demands that the federal government pay a greater share of health care costs.
In a year-end interview with The Canadian Press, Trudeau said his government is ready and willing to provide more funding, but only if the provinces agree to make changes to improve their health systems.
Throwing more money into the system without improving it was “not the right thing to do,” he said.
Mou Haizhen, a professor of public policy at the University of Saskatchewan, said it would be unprecedented for the federal government to attach performance measures to health transfers, and suggested that bilateral agreements on specific targets could be reached.
Provinces have so far resisted such efforts, urging Ottawa to let them make their own health care decisions.
The Canadian Press report was first published on December 13, 2022.