OTTAWA – Cathy McLeod, Member of Parliament, recently released the following statement on Monday regarding the sustainability of Canada’s healthcare system:
Our country’s healthcare system is important to our government.
We are committed to the Canada Health Act and its principles of public administration, comprehensiveness, universality, portability, and accessibility.
We are investing record amounts in health funding to the provinces and territories.
We are certainly not cutting healthcare as the Liberals did in the 1990s and in fact are providing the highest recorded health transfer dollars in Canadian history to the provinces and territories.
• The Canada Health Transfer (CHT) has been set to increase by six per cent per year until 2017 to support provincial healthcare budgets. In comparison, the BC healthcare budget is set to be increasing by an average of 3.2 per cent over the next three years.
• In 2006-07, when our government first took office, the CHT was $20.1 billion dollars, this year it reached a record high of $30.3 billion. This funding will reach an unprecedented $40 billion by the end of the decade, providing stability and predictability to the system.
• Starting in 2017-18, health transfers will grow in line with a three-year moving average of nominal GDP growth, with funding guaranteed to increase by at least three per cent per year.
• Through our Economic Action Plan we have also seen significant investment in granting councils and agencies, such as the Canadian Institute of Health Research, Canada Health Infoway, or the Mental Health Commission of Canada, among others, to foster innovation in the healthcare sector.
• We are committed to working with the provinces on innovative ideas and better models of care.
“Our government has proven its commitment to the Canada Health Act and has worked to better meet the healthcare needs of Canadians," said the Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo federal representative.
"We continue to ensure that the healthcare system is more accessible and effective, and that all Canadians can access the care that they need,” McLeod said.