Ottawa Reaches Agreement in Principle With Ontario, Atlantic Canada on Health Care

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau takes part in a town hall meeting with university students in Halifax on Feb. 23, 2023. The Canadian Press/Riley Smith

Ontario and the four Atlantic provinces reached an agreement in principle with the federal government on a new health care funding deal proposed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Feb. 7.

With the five provinces signing a memorandum of understanding on Feb. 23 to begin the next phase of negotiations, they will next have to come up with specific plans on how to spend their share of the $196 billion funding that will be transferred over 10 years.

“I do want to take a moment to thank the premiers of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Ontario, for being leaders and stepping up and starting to really improve healthcare systems for their citizens at a time of crisis,” the prime minister told reporters at a press conference on Feb. 23.

Canada’s premiers agreed on Feb. 13 to accept Ottawa’s offer, which includes about $46 billion in new spending. The federal government has also defined a set of conditions to access the funding, including that the provinces upgrade their health data systems and target some of the funding to areas like primary care, mental health, recruiting and retaining workers, and dealing with surgical backlogs.

The agreement with each of the provinces or territories is unique based on their current priorities, Trudeau said. One province could say they want 95 percent of their residents to have access to a family doctor, while another could be satisfied with reaching 75 percent.

“If they choose to get 75 percent they will have to explain to their citizens why they’re accepting that one-quarter of their citizens won’t have access to primary care,” he said. “But we’re looking for ambitious targets that are reasonable for them, that they can hit, that they can be accountable to, that will improve access to primary care in a significant way.”

However, there will be no room for negotiation on the requirement to overhaul health data systems, including patient digital records, Trudeau said.

“For data, we need to make sure that people are developing sophisticated data systems that allow them to empower their health community to have the proper information on all the patients they’re treating, and be comparable, and give us a national picture of how health is doing in Canada with clear outcomes and numbers,'' he said.

There are many similarities between the provinces and territories in terms of their negotiations with Ottawa, said Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who has been travelling across the country with Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos over the past 10 days to discuss health care priorities with provincial and territorial premiers and ministers.

“There’s a great deal in common. And what we heard today from the Quebec ministers, in many respects, if not in every respect, resembles what we’ve heard in some, if not most, of the other meetings we’ve had with premiers of ministers over the last 10 days,” LeBlanc said at a press conference in Quebec City on Feb. 23.

“The deliberate intention was to structure bilateral agreements that would be flexible enough within the common priorities that all government shared, to meet the needs of a particular jurisdiction.”

LeBlanc expressed optimism that the other Canadian provinces will also sign on to the health care deal soon.

“Today we announced five agreements in principle, with the province of Ontario and the four Atlantic provinces. We’re also positive that we will add to that list other provinces and territories next week,” he said.

The Canadian Press contributed to this report