The Council of the Federation – the thirteen premiers of Canada – will be meeting on July 24-26 in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.
This will be a key opportunity – prior to the implementation of the Harper government’s 2014 Canada Health ‘Diktat’ – to pressure provincial premiers to oppose the up to $36 billion in cuts to federal transfer payments to provincial health care budgets.
The Council of Canadians has intervened with this message at recent Council of the Federation meetings, including in July in Halifax, http://canadians.org/blog/?p=16187; January in Victoria,http://canadians.org/blog/?p=13104; as well as at meetings of provincial health ministers,http://canadians.org/blog/?p=16774 and http://canadians.org/blog/?p=12246.
We have also highlighted that provincial health care budgets will be hurt by the patent provisions of the Canada-European Union free trade agreement, and that since the Harper government needs provincial consensus for that trade deal to go forward, premiers have some room to exercise leverage against his imposed health care cuts, http://canadians.org/blog/?p=16599.
And while some progress has been made on the provinces agreeing to the joint purchasing of selected pharmaceutical drugs, http://canadians.org/blog/?p=18884, much more work remains to be done.
For campaign blogs related to the Canada Health Accord, please see http://canadians.org/blog/?s=%22canada+health+accord%22.
More to come!
