Excerpt
If one thing is clear from Prime Minister Mark Carney’s economic update this week, it’s that he’s taking progressive voters for granted.
Headlines like “A Canada for All” sound nice. As do statements like: “the government is protecting the essential social programs that give Canadians a fair chance to get ahead — child care, dental care, and pharmacare.”
But dig into the details and you learn national pharmacare is ending. There is no new money to create more child care spaces. Federal health-care spending is drastically being cut. Oh, and the government is looking at privatizing airports and ports — moves prime minister Stephen Harper didn’t even publicly contemplate.
Two years ago, prime minister Justin Trudeau announced with much fanfare the “first phase of a national pharmacare plan,” $1.5 billion over five years to cover a range of free contraception and life-saving diabetes medications. The plan — crafted under pressure from the NDP — was to study the initial roll out, and expand coverage to more drugs in the future. Trudeau said national pharmacare would strengthen the social safety net, and help Canadians get the care they needed.
Only British Columbia, Manitoba, Prince Edward Island and the Yukon signed deals before Trudeau left office. Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador who now want access to the program are finding Carney is dragging their feet. Although he said in September he would act “as quickly and as equitably as possible” to finalize deals, and approximately $600 million is left in the pot, Health Minister Marjorie Michel’s office spoke Friday only of “honouring existing pharmacare agreements.”
Without a line item in the 2025 budget or this week’s economic update, Carney’s government isn’t just signalling it’s not putting more money into the program to expand it to more populous provinces, it’s saying to those 17 per cent of Canadians who benefit that they’ll be in the lurch past 2029. The program is ending.
The federal government is also slashing billions from health care — at a time when hospital emergency rooms are swamped, the population is aging, and mental health needs are too often left unmet.
The federal government won’t be renewing the $1.2 billion in annual transfers to the provinces that support mental health and addiction services, as well as home and community care, nor the $600 million in annual transfers for long-term care. It also looks like the $500 million annually set aside to increase Canadians access to expensive drugs for rare diseases won’t extend beyond next March.
And the Canada Health Transfer, which had been boosted by Trudeau’s government to grow by at least five per cent per year for five years, will now grow by three per cent after 2028.
“It’s really disappointing to see that these important programs that provide vital services will be allowed to expire,” Steven Staples of the Canadian Health Coalition told the Star.
Child care, another program widely touted by Liberals, will also see cuts. The $625 million Early Learning and Child Care Infrastructure Fund will sunset next year, and while the Carney government plans to renew the Canada-wide early learning and child care (CWELCC) transfers to the provinces, they won’t increase beyond what Trudeau negotiated his last week in office. Funding will, in fact, be $1.1 billion less than what the Grits promised back in 2021, when they pledged “a minimum of $9.2 billion per year ongoing” to keep the program alive.
Morna Ballantyne, of Child Care Now, said the government will be stalling the growth of the program.
“It’s not sufficient. It’s not sufficient to, actually, even cover the increased cost of operation. It is certainly not enough to cover the capital costs that come with expanding the system.”
Ballantyne worries provinces might look to increase fees rather than cut them, and that a lack of funding means tens of thousands of families that want access to the system won’t find spots.
“Provinces have all said that they need more federal funding to be able to sustain the program,” she said. “Without a signal now that there’s going to be more funding, I think the program is at risk.”
So much for the Liberals’ flagship promise of building affordable, high-quality child care for all, a program that would boost the economy, help women return to work, and set 900,000 children across Canada on a better footing.
There is effectively no new money in Carney’s fiscal plan to support what he calls “essential social programs.”
Perhaps the Liberals think the public’s focus has shifted and their voters won’t care. After all, public opinion polls suggest Carney’s support is higher than it was in the last election. The Grits are growing in popularity in new areas in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Quebec. And, according to recent polling from Pollara, they are significantly increasing support among men.
But the Liberals would be wise to remember their support stems from women. And it is progressives that helped them win the last election.