OTTAWA – If you had asked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last year if the federal government could have been more aggressive in the province’s health issues, he said his answer might have been different.
Health care delivery is entirely within the reach of provincial and territorial governments, and federal efforts to influence spending and policy have met with resistance.
But the success of Trudeau’s childcare program has given the federal government a vehicle to shape provincial policy from Ottawa, and he said it’s policy he can use again.
“We just had a striking example of the federal government stepping up in an area that has traditionally been a provincial area of jurisdiction and making a big difference for Canadians,” Trudeau said. in a year-end roundtable interview with The Canadian Press.
To date, Trudeau’s Liberals have signed 11 agreements with provinces and territories to provide $10 a day childcare to Canadian families.
The arrangements vary widely between provinces – a strategy that allows the federal government to advance its agenda while preserving the autonomy and regional differences of its provincial partners.
Basically, the government puts money on the table and invites the provinces to negotiate their piece of the pie.
This approach won him the cooperation of even Jason Kenney’s United Conservatives in Alberta, who didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to bring tax dollars back to the province.
When asked if the same model could apply to the federal government’s healthcare goals, Trudeau’s answer was clear.
“I think it’s a model that we can replicate for a number of things when the base is: this is important to Canadians,” he said.
Undoubtedly, the fractured nature of Canada’s 13 individual health systems has hampered the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
While Trudeau has made it clear the federal government has no expertise in healthcare and doesn’t want to provide lessons for the provinces, he said there are places where his government can take a leadership role. .
On Monday, the director of public health, Dr Theresa Tam, made an urgent appeal to provinces and territories to harmonize their health data.
Data collection is so limited in Canada that, to this day, it is sometimes difficult to know how many vaccines were given to Canadians of specific age groups.
Canada is being completely blindsided when it comes to whether certain racial or socioeconomic groups have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 or have fallen through the cracks in Canada’s vaccine rollout.
That’s because provinces collect and share that information differently, in ways that are often incompatible or incomplete.
“This fragmentation, coupled with outdated technology, has particularly pronounced consequences during health emergencies when access to data for real-time decision-making is paramount. important,” Tam wrote in the annual report released on Monday.
Long-standing problems make it nearly impossible to get an accurate picture of the performance of Canada’s health care systems as a whole.
There have been several attempts to fix the problem, but each time it falls to the side of the road.
Renewal efforts are currently underway in the face of gaps highlighted by the pandemic, but the prime minister said the federal government could have a stronger role this time.
The Canadian Medical Association has called on the federal government to do the same when it comes to its Canada-wide health workforce strategy.
Without one, it’s hard to know if Canada has enough doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals to meet the country’s needs.
“We don’t have robust or up-to-date data on healthcare providers in Canada, and that’s something we’re asking the federal government to help with,” said Dr. of the CMA said in an October interview. “It’s hard to know how to solve a problem when we haven’t completely defined the problem with so many details.”
The childcare model could also fit the government’s needs when delivering on campaign promises related to long-term care, another provincial service that the federal government could not previously touch. next.
The CSA group, formerly the Canadian Standards Association and the Health Standards Organization, has been working to develop national standards for the care and prevention of infections in long-term care.
The government has promised to include those standards in federal law, but that would require the province to buy it back.
The prime minister may again invite the provinces back to the table to use federal funds, but under the government’s new strategy, they may have to give back a little.
This Canadian Press report was first published on December 18, 2021.
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