By Elishya Perera
MONTRÉAL, Québec (CWBN)_ Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, and Canada’s premiers are set to meet in December to discuss the possibility of increasing long-term funding for provincial healthcare systems.
The meeting was reported following a call held between the First Ministers last evening (Nov 12), during which, Trudeau had said that the federal government is prepared to assist provinces affected by new lockdown measures amidst the record-breaking surge in new Covid-19 infections.
Later that evening, the Prime Minister tweeted that he and Intergovernmental Affairs Minister, Dominic LeBlanc, spoke with the premiers about the rise in cases, and had offered the required support.
“Across the country, COVID-19 cases are rising at an alarming rate. [LeBlanc] and I spoke about that with the premiers this evening. We asked what more support they need to protect people in each province and territory. We’ll keep working together to protect your health,” the tweet said.
However, the meeting has been long overdue, since Trudeau agreed to hold a virtual first ministers’ meeting on annual federal transfer payments to provinces for healthcare, back in early September.
And two weeks ago, premiers issued a statement claiming that “many weeks had passed” since the Prime Minister agreed to a meeting and requested him to confirm a date “without further delay”.
The premiers further demanded for at least CAD 28 billion more each year for healthcare, as they claim that the CAD 42 billion transferred to provinces by the federal government this year amounts to only 22 per cent of the actual cost of delivering healthcare.
“Premiers have been calling on the federal government to become a full funding partner for years and COVID-19 has only increased the urgent need for a federal response,” Quebec Premier and chair of the premiers’ Council of the Federation, Francois Legault, said last month.
While the Prime Minister is willing to discuss the issue, LeBlanc has said that the “critical question” is whether the federal government has the fiscal capacity to meet the premiers’ demand now.
In the past few days, Canada has consecutively reported over 4,000 daily Covid-19 cases. The country has reported a total of more than 282,000 infections and 10,768 deaths thus far.
Edited By Chathushka Perera
