Martin pledges billions for health without tax boost

DARREN YOURK

Globe and Mail Update

May 25, 2004 at 1:37 PM EST

Liberal leader Paul Martin unveiled his party's health care platform Tuesday, promising to pump billions of dollars into the system without raising Canadian's taxes.

After dodging reporter questions about if he would increase taxes to fund his health plan Monday, the Liberal Leader made a bold promise in a province where voters are still feeling the sting of the Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty's budget that broke his promise of not raising taxes by increasing health premiums.

"There are no increases in taxes in this report,” Mr. Martin said during a campaign stop at Northumberland Hills Hospital in Cobourg, Ont. "There are no premiums in this report and I can tell you... that in fact there will be no tax increases, there will be no premium increases, in order to achieve this.

“We will achieve this within the funding that we have available.”

Liberal Leader Paul Martin announces his health platform during a news conference in Cobourg, Ont. Tuesday. (Jonathan Hayward/CP)

Mr. Martin was also sure to take a shot at Conservative Leader Stephen Harper's tax cut plan, saying it would further damage Canada's system.

"You cannot have a publicly funded, universally accessible health care system with American taxation levels," he said. "That is the fundamental issue -- It is not are you going to cut taxes a little bit? It is a very different philosophical base from which we start."

Mr. Martin used Tuesday's speech to cement health care as the main plank of his election strategy, pledging to make lessening the strain on the system and hammering out a long-term solution with the provinces the top priorities of his government.

“Canada's health care system is an expression of our values as a nation — a belief that care must be based on need and not income,” Mr. Martin said. “...This plan will let us move from band aid solutions to a sustainable fix that can last for a generation.”

Mr. Martin reiterated a pledge he made over the weekend to provide an additional $3-billion in funding to provinces in the next two years, coupled with a commitment to develop an escalator formula to provide long-term funding increases.

Mr. Martin said the additional funding will meet the so-called Romanow gap, the amount former Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow identified in his report as the amount of additional federal funds the provinces need to better manage the health care system.

Mr. Romanow called for Ottawa to restore its share of health-care funding to 25 per cent of the cost incurred by the provinces in operating the system.

The Liberal plan would also establish a new $2-billion fund for a national home care program that include post-acute care, palliative care and mental health.

A new legislated pharmacare plan would be in place by 2006, with the federal government picking up an “appropriate share” of the cost.

An additional $4-billion will be spent on a “National Waiting Times Reduction Strategy” which would see federal and provincial/territorial governments make waiting times data public and consult medical experts to establish reasonable and medically appropriate waiting times.

Mr. Martin said all levels of government will work together on an “urgent basis” to find ways to reduce those times.

The waiting time strategy also has a “Five in Five” plan to reduce times in five key areas where pressures are greatest – cancer, heart, diagnostic imaging, joint replacements, and sight restoration – and set targets for reduced waiting times by the end of 2005 and meet those targets by the end of 2009.

The Liberal plan would tackle physician and nurse shortages by increasing the number of spaces in universities, colleges and residency programs, and put $75-million toward a program to train 1,000 new Canadians as primary care physicians.

Mr. Martin said his government would also set up an independent expert panel to rule on possible violations of the Canada Health Act.

Before the platform was even released the NDP was slamming the Liberal Party's record on health care.

In a release, the NDP accused Mr. Martin of slashing $25-billion from health care funding and failing to deliver on a 1997 Red Book promise to implement universal public coverage for medically necessary prescription drugs.

“The Liberals promised in 1997 to bring in Pharmacare,” NDP leader Jack Layton said at a campaign stop in Saskatoon.

“They looked at us and very seriously said, ‘trust us.' And then they didn't do it. In 1993, they looked at us very seriously and said ‘trust us we're going to increase health-care funding.' Paul Martin cut health-care funding more than anyone would have imagined.”

Mr. Harper offered similar sentiments after the Liberal plan was unveiled.

“I say, Paul Martin has no more credibility on health-care funding than he does over control of federal spending,” he said.

But Mr. Martin was eager to defend his record Tuesday, saying he will deliver on this strategy.

"I am not going to deny that in '95 budget that we cut transfers to the provinces," he said. "I didn't want to do it, but the fact is we had to do that. If we had not taken the action that we took in 1995, we would be Argentina today."

"We would not be here today saying that we are going to put in whatever funding is required to sustain the publicly funded health care system if we hadn't taken that action."

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