Canadian healthcare funding inadeqate? Well, that depends

Depending on whom you believe, the federal offer of increased funding for healthcare is either all stagecraft and sleight of hand by a cynical Justin Trudeau, or a substantial shot in the arm for a semi-moribund system by a beleagured federal government, or an expensive unmonitored stop-gap to prop up a system that everyone knows is broken. Which version of the truth you choose seems to depend entirely on which side of the party political spectrum you happen to espouse. Or, more starkly, whether you identify as a Liberal or not.

It shouldn't be quite as partisan an issue as that suggests, but it really is. The provincial leaders, who are non-Liberals in the main, are kvetching and moaning, as you would expect (when were the provinces ever happy with the funds the federal government hands them down?), but no-one is refusing the injection of cash into their poorly-managed systems. Some are almost gleefully accepting it, and moving on. The federal opposition leaders are complaining that it is too little too late, and that everything is Justin Trudeau's personal fault, but, for better or worse, that's just what opposition leaders do, and what they are expected to do.

$46.2 billion over ten years in completely new money, over and above the previously committed funding hikes, which together total to some $196.1 billion over ten years, is actually a lot of money, even if it is less than the provinces were demanding (that's just the way negotiations work). Will it "fix" the health care crisis? Well, no. 

The reason is that healthcare is administered provincially. It will help ameliorate the problems and buy the provinces some time, but some fundamental systemic changes need to happen. The provinces are already falling short in their own healthcare efforts, and using what funds they do have increasingly inefficiently. Justin Trudeau has absolutely no control nor responsibility over how the provinces administer their healthcare systems, whatever Pierre Poilievre might claim in his dog-whistle screeds. 

This is one case where the those provinces who are crying poor need to get their own houses in order before laying blame at the door of the federal government.