Trudeau’s last war: All 13 premiers of Canada take on Justin

Under Trudeau’s rule, the healthcare sector is a bad egg for Canada. One must need to acknowledge that the healthcare system is now collapsing under the weight of backlogged health services, epidemic-level burnout, and insufficient health human resources that all operate in an outdated delivery of care model. 

The situation is so discerning that Canadians have to wait for hours to get even a single bed in hospitals. The provinces have sounded alarms for the authorities in Ottawa to help the sinking healthcare in staying afloat, yet, the appeals have fallen on deaf ears. 

Trudeau has always passed the buck on provincial authorities that it is their responsibility to save the healthcare sector, however, the cute face dictator has somehow made sure that provinces fail to achieve this goal.

Recently, Trudeau has again nefariously attempted to hinder the progress of provinces to recover from the drastic shortfall in the healthcare sector. In a retaliatory motion, all 13 provinces are now up in arms against Trudeau’s liberal government.

It is no hidden fact that Canadian PM Justin Trudeau has attempted everything in his reach to hinder the progress of provinces in the healthcare sector. The liberal leader has again attempted to upset the apple cart.

According to a recent report by the Toronto Star, Ottawa is looking to get an agreement with provinces in place by January 2023, but the federal government will only sign deals with some provinces, leaving others like Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Quebec. 

Reportedly, Ottawa isn’t ready to inject the $28 billion that the Premiers have demanded for the long haul. Furthermore, whatever money the federal government is going to allocate to some provinces is also going to come with a set of terms of conditions.

Justin Trudeau has warned the provinces that he wouldn’t sit down with the first ministers until a framework for a deal is agreed on. So, Ottawa may be willing to freeze certain provinces out of healthcare transfers.

However, looks like these threats are failing to rock the boat for provinces.

First ministers castigate Trudeau!

The council of federation, that is, a group of all the first ministers of Canada has lambasted Trudeau’s liberal government’s threat to the provinces. Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson who currently chairs the council has warned, “she doesn’t respond to threats.” 

While responding to Trudeau’s new threat, Stefanson during an interview stressed, “I don’t deal with those kinds of discussions. I’d rather just, you know, sit down and have a discussion about what the future is of health care in our country.”

You see, the premiers believe that the federal government must engage with them individually because each province’s health system has different needs. They have repeatedly demanded that the federal government’s share in healthcare costs should be “ramped up from 22 per cent to 35 per cent and maintained at that level over time”. 

However, Trudeau and his administration have constantly turned down these requests. Ottawa has often argued that Canada Health Transfer (CHT) and the tax points when combined with the funds Ottawa spends on bilateral agreements for long-term care, home care, mental health services, and other services, the amount of health care spending that is covered by the federal government increases exponentially, hence, the demands raised by provinces is of no good use.

So, Trudeau had made it clarion that first, the province needs to listen to his demands, and then, he would think of distributing funds for a few provinces. 

However, provinces are not in a good mood with this approach and now are literally starting a campaign to pressurize Trudeau.

Read More: Canada’s healthcare system is on ventilator support now

Stirring a public narrative

The Council of the Federation, which is made up of all 13 provincial and territorial premiers, have begun a new advertising campaign aimed at stirring public pressure against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to persuade him to meet with them and negotiate a higher federal contribution to healthcare costs. 

“As federal health care disappears, so do our doctors,” one ad says, pointing to the provinces’ stance that federal health funding levels “continue to decline.” These ads are presently running on online, in print, radio, and billboard ads.

Read More: All 13 premiers of Canada declare Justin Trudeau absconding over healthcare funding 

All 13 premiers have made it clarion that Trudeau needs to sit with provincial authorities to fix the issue. Till now, the public was out of the equation and the battle was always between Prime Ministers and First Ministers (Premiers). 

But right now, the provinces are calling on the general public to support them, which would undoubtedly set the motion in favour of the Council of Federation. Once the people begin to revolt against the diktats, which is only a matter of time before Trudeau would succumb to the pressure.