Premiers Urge Trudeau to Agree to Regular Health Funding Reviews

Ontario Premier Doug Ford tours a laboratory in Brampton, Ont., on Feb. 15, 2023. The Canadian Press/Christopher Katsarov

Canada’s premiers wrote Thursday to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asking for regular reviews to be established as part of health-care funding talks, saying the system needs predictability.

Ottawa has offered more than $46 billion to provinces and territories to augment the Canada Health Transfer but the country’s premiers say they’re “disappointed” with the amount.

“While this first step marks a positive development, the federal approach will clearly not address structural health-care funding needs, nor long-term sustainability challenges we face in our health-care systems across the country,” the premiers wrote to Trudeau.

The letter said premiers are prepared to accept the offer for now, but further discussions are needed to establish longer-term predictability and stability in health care, they wrote.

They want a formal federal-provincial-territorial review process to look at bilateral funding deals the provinces made with Ottawa in 2017 to upgrade mental health and home care programs.

They want a similar process to review the new deal, which will include both a bump to the annual Canada Health Transfer and specific funding for priority areas like family doctors, surgical backlogs and health data systems.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford sent a separate letter Thursday urging the same reviews, but specifying that the review of the 2017 bilateral agreements should happen by March 31, 2026, and that the broader review should happen around the five-year mark of the Canada Health Transfer deal.

That larger review should consider what results have been seen up to that point in family health services, health workers and backlogs, mental health and substance use, and health system modernization, Ford wrote.

“Ontario is looking to ensure sustainability and certainty in federal health-care funding to support our ongoing work in improving health outcomes,” he wrote.

“I believe that we will swiftly come to an agreement to ensure that our health-care system can meet the needs of Ontarians both now and into the future.”