The Guardian reports, “Members of the P.E.I. Health Coalition Thursday gathered to urge the federal government to negotiate a new health accord with provincial and territorial governments. Coalition chairwoman Mary Boyd was joined by fellow members Leo Broderick, vice-chair of the Council of Canadians, Lori MacKay, president of the P.E.I. division of CUPE, Carl Pursey, president of the P.E.I. Federation of Labour, and Mary MacNeil, regional representative of PSAC.”
“(They criticized) Stephen Harper’s government for refusing to negotiate another accord. Ottawa unilaterally announced in December 2011 a major cut to the Canada Health Transfer of $36 billion over 10 years by lowering the annual escalator from six per cent to three per cent beginning in 2017.”
“Broderick says Harper’s government has dismantled more than 100 serious social programs since he came to power, affecting every group from Indigenous women to refugees. He fears medicare will be next to fall under the Tories. ‘We believe that the Harper agenda is building an unjust society where free market principles reign, where business values are the ones that have been adopted by the federal government and all of these trump social programs and building communities’, says Broderick. ‘We believe the federal government must negotiate new health care with the provinces and territories before March 31 or Canadians will see the end of a cohesive national health-care system.'”
The article concludes, “The members of the P.E.I. Health Coalition endorsed (the Canadian Health Coalition’s) call on the federal government to negotiate a new 10-year Health Accord with provincial and territorial governments to secure the health-care needs of all Canadians. The accord would include: A continuing care plan that integrates home, facility-based long-term, respite and palliative care; a universal public drug plan that provides equitable access to safe and appropriate medication; and an adequate and stable federal funding including a six per cent escalator.”
Further reading
2014 Health care accord
