By Maude Barlow And Linda Silas
June 30, 2012
Fifty years ago on Canada Day, Saskatchewan passed the Medical Care Insurance Act, under the leadership of Tommy Douglas. This bold move birthed medicare and helped shape the Canadian identity. The passage of medicare federally four years later did for Canada what the national railway did almost a century before. It helped define us from coast to coast.
When Canadians are asked what institutions make them proud of their country, health care is consistently No. 1. No wonder Douglas beat out Don Cherry and Wayne Gretzky, among others, to be named CBC's Greatest Canadian because of his role in the creation of medicare. To this day, it is hockey, weather and medicare that dominate national conversations.
The debate on medicare is as old as medicare itself. Douglas warned Canadians to be vigilant because there will always be people who claim we can't afford it. As the argument goes, if we can't afford it, we need to let the private sector fund and deliver health care.
The 2002 Royal Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada called for evidence that for-profit health care would be cheaper and provide better quality care and more access. It received none and called on governments to step up for medicare, noting that medicare is as sustainable as we want it to be. Governments did, signing a health accord and reinvesting in public health care.
The Ten-Year Agreement to Strengthen Health Care expires in 2014. The current federal government, which has largely ignored the agreement since its election in 2006, has made no signs of pulling together for public health care in Canada. Instead, it unilaterally declared changes in the federal transfers to the provinces, reducing the federal share of health-care spending over time. Federal health-care spending on refugees and on the RCMP has been cut. Adding to provincial budget stress, the federal government is negotiating the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with the European Union, which could increase the cost of prescription drugs by $2.8 billion a year. And ignoring all evidence, the prime minister himself is on record calling for more "experimentation," in other words, for-profit involvement in health care.
The lack of federal leadership strikes at the heart of medicare and the Canadian identity. At the heart of both is the desire to collectively pool risk across the country and the belief that no matter where we live in Canada, or how rich we are, that we have comparable access to high-quality public services.
Canadians expect premiers and the federal government to sit down together and agree to a vision and plan of action to go forward with medicare. Without the federal government at the table ensuring a comparable quality of and access to services, the result will be both the end of medicare and the smashing of the Canadian identity into a dozen or so pieces.
On this Canada Day holiday, vow to stand on guard for thee.
Maude Barlow is the national chairperson of the Council of Canadians. Linda Silas is the president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions.
Fifty years ago on Canada Day, Saskatchewan passed the Medical Care Insurance Act, under the leadership of Tommy Douglas. This bold move birthed medicare and helped shape the Canadian identity. The passage of medicare federally four years later did for Canada what the national railway did almost a century before. It helped define us from coast to coast.
When Canadians are asked what institutions make them proud of their country, health care is consistently No. 1. No wonder Douglas beat out Don Cherry and Wayne Gretzky, among others, to be named CBC's Greatest Canadian because of his role in the creation of medicare. To this day, it is hockey, weather and medicare that dominate national conversations.
The debate on medicare is as old as medicare itself. Douglas warned Canadians to be vigilant because there will always be people who claim we can't afford it. As the argument goes, if we can't afford it, we need to let the private sector fund and deliver health care.
The 2002 Royal Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada called for evidence that for-profit health care would be cheaper and provide better quality care and more access. It received none and called on governments to step up for medicare, noting that medicare is as sustainable as we want it to be. Governments did, signing a health accord and reinvesting in public health care.
The Ten-Year Agreement to Strengthen Health Care expires in 2014. The current federal government, which has largely ignored the agreement since its election in 2006, has made no signs of pulling together for public health care in Canada. Instead, it unilaterally declared changes in the federal transfers to the provinces, reducing the federal share of health-care spending over time. Federal health-care spending on refugees and on the RCMP has been cut. Adding to provincial budget stress, the federal government is negotiating the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with the European Union, which could increase the cost of prescription drugs by $2.8 billion a year. And ignoring all evidence, the prime minister himself is on record calling for more "experimentation," in other words, for-profit involvement in health care.
The lack of federal leadership strikes at the heart of medicare and the Canadian identity. At the heart of both is the desire to collectively pool risk across the country and the belief that no matter where we live in Canada, or how rich we are, that we have comparable access to high-quality public services.
Canadians expect premiers and the federal government to sit down together and agree to a vision and plan of action to go forward with medicare. Without the federal government at the table ensuring a comparable quality of and access to services, the result will be both the end of medicare and the smashing of the Canadian identity into a dozen or so pieces.
On this Canada Day holiday, vow to stand on guard for thee.
Maude Barlow is the national chairperson of the Council of Canadians. Linda Silas is the president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions.
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