rabble.ca Canadian federal election blog

What about health care?

By Jan Malek, Council of Canadians

There was a good column in The Ottawa Citizen today wondering why health care hasn’t been talked about this election. Both the Conservative and Liberal parties appear to be avoiding the topic of health care like the plague, and while the NDP and the Greens have referred to the importance of the Canada Health Act and cracking down on privatization, the needed national dialogue is still missing.

Polls continue to show that health care ranks high on people’s lists of concerns. According to the Canadian Medical Association there are now more than 5 million Canadians who do not have a family doctor, which has a direct and personal impact on people’s ability to get health care. We see rising costs in prescription drugs, long term care and home care programs being privatized to the point of being unaffordable to most people, and a growing trend across the country to allow private, for-profit companies to offer health care services for a price.

Health care is only recently seeing federal government reinvestment after years of devastating funding cuts. There has also been a shift – particularly in the last two years under Conservative governance – of health care responsibility to the provinces, many of which are happy to see health care delivery costs passed into the hands of private entrepreneurs. Take the Copeman Healthcare Centre, for example. Copeman opened a new clinic in Calgary this week modeled after a similar one already operating in Vancouver. The clinic charges an entrance fee of $3,900 dollars up front and an annual fee of $2,900 dollars to access their doctors, nurses and therapists. Clinic owner Donald Copeman cried crocodile tears to reporters covering a protest of the opening saying he was only trying to help people get health care services. Both the B.C. and Alberta governments have said there is nothing wrong with the Copeman clinic charging people money for health care – and the federal government has been content to let this happen.

Now there is new threat. A group of 200 private investors led by an American businessman have launched a Chapter 11 NAFTA challenge arguing that municipal governments stopped them from setting up a new private surgical clinic in British Columbia. (B.C., ironically, is already home to an estimated 70 or more private clinics.) The American investors are suing the Canadian government for $155 million in compensation for lost earnings.

Our Canadian health care program is facing serious threats. Political candidates have an obligation to talk about them this election.

Jan Malek is the Publications Officer for the Council of Canadians.