Stephen Harper is an unlikely saviour of medicare. It
wasn't long ago that Canadians saw our newly-elected Prime
Minister as 'scary'. But for this election, Mr Harper
and his Conservative team made a compelling plea for voter
trust with their plan to fix public healthcare —
especially wait times and doctor shortages. This did much
to strip the man of his perennial 'Alex P Keaton' image
— a brilliant but heartless young conservative, dismissive
of social programs. In short, he's no longer seen as universal
healthcare's worst enemy.
His plan involves completely re-engineering
the federation, reducing the role of Ottawa and diverting
revenue and maybe even some tax points — a fixed
percentage of the governments tax take — to the
provinces. Can it work?
FETTERED
RIGHT WING
There were no major Tory gaffes on healthcare during
this election. This stands in stark contrast to the
disastrous 2004 vote when, shortly before the election,
prominent Tories and especially Alberta Premier Ralph
Klein very publicly flirted with the idea of violating
the Canada Health Act, making Mr Harper guilty-by-association,
and reinforcing popular suspicions that the Conservatives
were out of touch on healthcare issues.
But this time it was different.
Candid right-wing Tories were muzzled. Mr Harper hushed
foreign conservative pundits from praising him lest
he come off as too pro-American. He even wrote a scathing
response to a Washington Times editorial that
actually lauded his policies.
Still, despite the virtuosic, uncontroversial
campaign the Tories ran, Canadians awarded them the
smallest mandate of any federal government since confederation.
With a relatively tiny plurality of only 36% of the
seats in Parliament, Mr Harper's Conservatives will
need to have a light touch at the negotiating table
if they want to make good on their healthcare and decentralization
promises.
THE
HEALTH PLATFORM
The official Conservative platform contained no big
surprises. In it the Tories promised to honour the Liberal's
2004 federal-provincial Health Accord, which guarantees
$75 billion for the provinces in health transfers over
a decade. The Tories also pledge to create the "Patient
Wait Times Guarantee" which they describe as "the only
way governments can preserve both the principles of
the Canada Health Act and the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms." Their platform states they're even willing
to send patients to other provinces or even the US for
treatment if they languish too long in a queue.
The Conservative platform broadly
embraces the recommendations in Senator Michael Kirby's
report, The Health of Canadians The Federal Role, including
increasing doctor incentives. So far, though, the exact
nature of those incentives remains a mystery.
PESKY
PROVINCES
Hopes are high that Mr Harper's government will be able
to do what ex-PM Paul Martin couldn't: get along with
the provinces. He promised the premiers the two things
that they could never turn their noses up at, namely
more power and more money. The key issue he must contend
with is the so-called 'fiscal imbalance' — the
theory that the federal government takes in much more
tax revenue than it needs while the provinces, with
their skyrocketing healthcare costs, are doomed to perennial
deficits. Previous Liberal governments downplayed the
fiscal imbalance, suggesting the provinces should do
a better job managing their budgets or raise taxes if
they want out of the red.
Mr Harper shouldn't expect the
provinces to be pushovers in negotiations, nor should
he expect them to ever be satisfied. Just ask former
PM Martin, whose aforementioned $75 billion commitment
to health funding earned him nary a moment's ceasefire
from the unruly cadre of premiers.
CABINET
CRYSTAL BALL
Predicting who'll end up in Prime Minister Harper's
cabinet is a sucker's game — but we won't let that
stop us from trying. Two prominent Tories immediately
spring to mind whenever the health ministry is mentioned.
Winnipeg-area MP Steven Fletcher earned plaudits in
his role as health critic for the Tories in the last
parliament. He's Canada's first quadriplegic MP and
earned his seat the hard way — bumping off Liberal
star candidate and popular former Winnipeg mayor Glen
Murray in 2004. He was easily re-elected this year.
But traditionally members of the shadow cabinet rarely
keep the same portfolio in the real cabinet when they
find themselves in power.
That leaves rookie Ontario MP Tony
Clement as perhaps the most likely candidate for Minister
of Health. Mr Clement was a MPP in Ontario's Mike Harris
government serving as Minister of Health and Wellness
between 2001 and 2003. His performance during the SARS
crisis in Toronto earned mixed reviews. But he's bright,
experienced, an excellent public speaker and refreshingly
self-effacing (he charmed the press gallery by poking
fun of his own nerdy image during his run for the Conservative
leadership in 2003).
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