Ministers Seek Federal Response to Health-care Recommendations

FINANCE--Ministers Seek Federal Response to Health-care Recommendations

Nova Scotia Finance Minister Neil LeBlanc told federal Finance Minister John Manley that the provinces and territories have an urgent need to know how much money the federal government intends to transfer to them for additional health care in their upcoming budgets.

Mr. LeBlanc met with his provincial and territorial colleagues in Ottawa today, Dec. 18. As chair of the meeting, Mr. LeBlanc endorsed the premiers' call for a restoration of federal funding to 18 per cent of provincial expenditures for essential social programs.

"We did not expect to hear specific details from John Manley today on the two health-care reports that were released less than a month ago," said Mr. LeBlanc. "But we did get assurances that the federal government would respond to the recommendations early in the new year."

Provinces and territories are in the critical weeks of budget preparation and need to know the level of health-care dollars that will be available for 2003-04.

Mr. LeBlanc said the provinces need flexibility in determining where any additional health funding should be spent.

"Flexibility is necessary to enable provinces to effectively respond to their differing health-care needs," he said, noting that the provinces have already invested in health-care advancements and wish to have those investments recognized by the federal government.

The Nova Scotia minister advised Mr. Manley that future funding arrangements for health must provide for an appropriate level of growth to ensure federal funding continues to grow as provincial health pressures grow. Such a level of growth, or escalator, was called for in the recently released Romanow report.

Mr. LeBlanc also called for a strengthened equalization program that would see the removal of the cap on the equalization funding levels available to provinces to ensure comparable levels of basic services. He also supported the need to move to a 10- province standard in determining the payments. A recent Senate committee examining the equalization program made similar recommendations.