Federal campaign health care platforms: Conservative, Liberals, NDP and Greens

Posted on April 14, 2011 | 1 comment

Health care was supposed to be the number one issue for Canadians coming into the Federal election. Within days, all the parties had committed to some level of renewal of the Health Accord, set to expire in 2014. Under that accord provinces have been receiving a so-called “escalator” that automatically increases Federal transfers to the provinces for health care by six per cent per year. By the last year of the accord that transfer should amount to about $30 billion. This was part of what officials once called an agreement to fix health care for a generation. Given the concerns that Canadians have been expressing during the election, they haven’t exactly met that expectation.

The Federal party platforms vary considerably, from the 98-page Liberal Red Book, to the 66-page Conservative “Here For Canada” platform, to the 12-page Green Party Platform. While the NDP features a brief point-form platform on their web site, there is no book.

Conservatives

In his opening message to the Conservative platform, Stephen Harper doesn’t actually use the word health, although one of the top five priorities, to support families, includes a promise of more support for seniors and caregivers.

That reference is to a $2,000 Family Caregiver Tax Credit for those who care for “infirm loved ones at home.” The tax credit would apply to those caring for an infirm spouse, common-law partner, and children of minority age.

The Conservatives have said they will work collaboratively with the provinces and territories to renew the Health Accord and to continue reducing wait times. A separate agreement would be negotiated with Quebec.

With little accountability embedded in the first Accord, the Conservatives say in their “discussions” they will “emphasize the importance of accountability and results for Canada.” However, they also state in the next paragraph that they “will respect the fact that health care is an area of provincial jurisdiction and respect limits on the federal spending power.”

During the leaders’ debate, Stephen Harper said he had a different definition of privatization than Jack Layton. Harper did not include private delivery of publicly-insured health services as privatization, which he refers to as “alternate delivery.”

In a CBC radio debate earlier in same day as the leader’s debate, Colin Carrie (PC MP-Oshawa) said he rejected David Dodge’s four solutions (see story on Diablogue) for health care, suggesting it was not an either/or scenario. The Conservatives are often criticized for not holding up the Canada Health Act (particularly around private clinics). Carrie said “it was the law of the land.”

Carrie said the government is working on programs to keep Canadians well, including doubling the children’s fitness tax credit to $1,000 and establishing an adult fitness tax credit of $500. Neither would be implemented until the federal budget is balanced — according to their plan, that would be 2014-15.

Many in the media have questioned how the Harper government could reduce taxes and escalate health care spending faster than growth in the economy.

Prior to the election call, MP Maxime Bernier had suggested in 2010 the Federal government get out of health care and transfer tax points to the provinces instead. A tax point transfer effectively means the Federal government would reduce taxes to the equivalent of what the provinces need to raise them by, leaving the tax rate the same for individuals. There are several obvious risks to this.

  • The provinces could use the tax points to implement their own tax cuts.
  • We would lose any semblance of consistent health care delivery across Canada.
  • The Federal government would lose any leverage by which to enforce the Canada Health Act, allowing provinces to further privatize and delist services.
  •  Charges for hospital services and extra billing would be allowed to thrive.

Bernier claimed it would allow the provinces to experiment more with different delivery models. The Canada Health Transfer is expected to hit $30 billion by 2013. At the time the PMs office said Bernier was not speaking for the government.

However, Harper himself said as much back in 2001 in the now famous “fire wall” letter to Alberta Premier Ralph Klein. In the letter, Harper, then President of the anti-Medicare National Citizens’ Coalition, argued that “each province should raise its own revenue for health care — ie., replace Canada Health and Social Transfer cash with tax points as Quebec has argued for many years.”

(To get a full history of Stephen Harper’s attacks on Medicare, journalist Murray Dobbin has a detailed chronicle at http://murraydobbin.ca/2011/04/16/dr-harpers-new-and-improved-medicare/  The Star’s Thomas Walkom also looks at Harper’s record, including lack of enforcement of the Canada Health Act, at http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/977249–walkom-harper-and-the-subtle-erosion-of-medicare )

Ujjal Dosinjh, the former Liberal Minister of Health, told CBC radio the Tories pushed the health accord into the Senate “to wash their hands of responsibility.” He raised Bernier’s comments and said the Harper government had a “shrinking view” of the Federal role in health care. Megan Leslie, an NDP candidate from Halifax, said the PM had started no conversations with the provinces on the next health accord.

To read the Conservative’s “Here For Canada” platform, go to http://www.conservative.ca/media/ConservativePlatform2011_ENs.pdf

Liberals

Unlike the Prime Minister, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff places considerable emphasis on health care in his opening message. Stating the Liberal platform is about equal opportunity, he says Liberal governments have built up the foundations of equality, including establishing universal Medicare. The Liberals have one of the more developed health care platforms among the four major parties. Ignatieff has also promised a Federal-Provincial summit on health care with the Premiers within 60 days of taking office. The Liberals have pointed out that the Harper government has never convened a first minister’s meeting on health care.

While much attention has been spent on their pledge to renew the Health Accord and provide $1 billion for home care, less attention has been paid to their promise to scrap the Harper government’s Public Private Partnership Fund, which the Liberals claim has only delivered 8 per cent of the funds allocated to it. The Liberals would instead use the money for public housing.

P3s have been a feature of much of the recent debate over the Provincial Liberal plans to build new hospitals in Ontario.

The Family Care Plan is similar to the Tory plan – instead of providing funding for professionally-delivered home care services, the money is aimed at supporting families to provide care themselves. One half of the Liberal plan would include an extension of the six-week EI benefit for those who have to take time off of work to care for a “gravely ill” family member. To be eligible, the family member must be “gravely ill with a significant risk of death within 26 weeks.” The Liberals would thereby extend the current six week period to six months (26 weeks).

A new Family Care Tax Benefit would assist low and middle-income family caregivers who provide “essential care” to a family member at home up to a year.  The maximum is relatively modest at $1,350 per year. The Liberals estimate 600,000 family caregivers could take advantage of the benefit at a cost of $750 million per year.

The Liberals feature numerous initiatives on health promotion, including investments in sport and the establishment of a national food policy:

  • Working with the provinces to set national targets for physical activity in primary and secondary schools;
  • A Healthy Choices program to educate Canadians on health eating;
  • Progressive labelling regulations for food, including improving the regulatory process for new health claims;
  • Standards on transfats and salt;
  • $40 million annually for a healthy start program to help children from low-income families to access healthy home-grown foods;
  • A comprehensive review of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency;
  • An increase of $50 million over four years to improve food inspection;
  • Using athletes as role models, the Liberals would commit to stable and sustained funding for “Own The Podium” and Sport Canada.

The Liberals also commit to a Canadian Brain Health Strategy to assist Canadians coping with diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Multiple Sclerosis, and Parkinson’s Disease. The strategy includes public education on prevention, $100 million over two years for research, a sharing of best practices, and a more vague promise to look into potential economic supports for families coping with brain disorders and legislation to prevent discrimination against people showing symptoms.

The Liberals say they will work with the provinces to ensure all Canadians have coverage for catastrophic drug costs for illnesses such as cancer, diabetes, or arthritis.

The Red Book also makes several vague promises to work with the provinces and territories to bolster innovation in the health and bioscience field, improve rural health care, bring down prescription drug costs, improve home care, and address priority areas such as mental health and palliative care.

During a CBC-radio three-party panel on health care, former Liberal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh identified new technology and drugs as the largest drivers of health care costs, but said it was something a Liberal government could handle.

To see the full Liberal plan, go to: http://www.liberal.ca/issues/

New Democrats

The NDP have also committed to renewing the Health Accord for another decade, including a six per cent escalator. The NDP would put strings on the money – including “a clear, monitored and enforced commitment to respect the principles of the Canada Health Act.”

The NDP say they will work with the provinces to promote a clear commitment to the single-payer system, make progress on primary care, take steps to replace “fee-for-service” delivery, and take the first steps to reduce the cost of prescription drugs.

The centerpiece of the NDP platform is a plan to work with the provinces to increase the number of doctors, nurses and other health professionals, although the document only sets specific targets for the doctors (1,200 over the next 10 years) and nurses (6,000 new training spaces over six years). To put this modest promise in perspective, 120 new doctors per year would be added to the already existing 65,000 doctors in Canada — an increase of about 1.8 per cent over a decade. Likewise, there are about a quarter of a million nurses, of which the NDP would add an averge of 1,000 per year. 

While the NDP are pledging $165 million to create these new training spaces for doctors and nurses, they are also promising to increase the number of doctors and nurses (no mention of other health professionals) as a priority within the first 100 days.

Jack Layton said “we can’t wait three more years for the government to hire doctors and nurses for families who need them now.” Given the length of time it takes to become a doctor or a nurse, the training spots are not going to fulfill this promise. No detail is in the NDP platform on how many or where this immediate supply of doctors and nurses will come from. 

The NDP would also establish programs aimed at recruiting and supporting low-income, rural and aboriginal medical students.

Unlike the Tories and Liberals, the NDP would designate funding to guarantee a basic level of home care services. They would also include a federal transfer to increase long term care “spaces” and double funding for forgivable loans under the Home Adaption for Seniors’ Independence Program, a program intended to help seniors remain in their own homes. They would help up to 200,000 families a year to retrofit their homes to create self-contained secondary residences for senior family members. The “forgivable loan” would cover 50 per cent of the costs of a renovation up to a maximum of $35,000.

The NDP’s promises on pharmaceuticals include improved assessment to ensure the quality, safety and health effectiveness of prescription drugs, savings through bulk purchasing, a more aggressive price review, and the elimination of kickbacks from drug companies to pharmacists.

In the way of prevention, the NDP offer a Children’s Nutrition Initiative to expand provincial and local programs that provide healthy meals to school children. They would also introduce a National Strategy for Serious Injury Reduction in Amateur Sport Act – a plan to reduce concussions through a variety of strategies.

To review the NDP platform, go to:  http://www.ndp.ca/platform

Greens

Elizabeth May says the Green are not a one-issue party. Their 130-page “Vision Green” document is the most comprehensive of the four parties. However, there is very little in their posted 12-page election platform specific to health care. Her platform introduction makes a reference to living in healthy communities and enjoying a life-giving, healthy natural world, but nothing specific to improving health care delivery or prevention.

Vision Green, on the other hand, makes a strong commitment to upholding the Canada Health Act, including measuring the extent of two-tier health care in Canada and striving for its elimination.

It advocates not only the education and hiring of more medical staff, but also re-opening many of the beds that have been closed, better utilizing operating rooms, and purchasing new diagnostic equipment. Unfortunately, while they do talk about needing more health professionals in their preamble, the platform only talks about providing funds to train more doctors and nurses. They call for the fast-tracking and on-the-job mentoring of foreign trained health care professionals.

The Greens call for forgiveness of student loans for graduating doctors, nurses, paramedics, and other health professionals who agree to staff rural facilities and family practice clinics where recruitment is currently a problem.

The Greens also call for expansion of public coverage to proven alternative therapies such as chiropractic, massage and acupuncture. Their health plan also includes a national pharmacare program, accepting the principle that Canadians should spend no more than three per cent of total after tax earnings on necessary prescribed medications. Like the NDP, they would put emphasis on the effectiveness of drugs covered under the formulary.

Vision Green plans to expand home support, home care programs and assisted living services. At a time when seniors are being threatened with illegal hospital charges if they don’t take the first available long term care bed, the Green’s promise to enshrine a policy that seniors’ care must be provided in the communities where they or their families live.

The Greens would also transfer more money to the provinces to open more long term care beds.

The Greens have an extensive prevention platform, including $500 million over five years to aggressively address inactivity and youth obesity.

For mental health, the Greens would transfer funding for non-institutionalized mental health agencies.

While Vision Green sounds great, the budget numbers put forward in the other document – the election platform – certain does not include the wide sweep of Vision Green. The budget does include $300 million a year for national pharmacare and $43 million for a national campaign to discourage marijuana use after the Greens legalize and tax it. Canadians spend about $25 billion per year on pharmaceuticals, which leaves the Green’s $300 million rather limited in its ability to provide universal coverage.

To read the full Vision Green document, go to: http://greenparty.ca/files/attachments/vision_green_april_2011.pdf

To read the Green election platform, go to: http://greenparty.ca/files/attachments/green-book-2011-en.pdf

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Mr. Lahey says get out and vote

Posted on April 14, 2011 | Leave a comment

Mr. Lahey from the Trailer Park Boys (John Dunsworth) tells students to get out and vote in his own unique way. You don’t have to be a student to take Lahey’s challenge! Warning: Coarse language!

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Groundhog Day again – new CD Howe report uses old data to raise panic about health care sustainability

Posted on April 12, 2011 | Leave a comment

Dr. Michael Rachlis told the CBC’s The Current that it was like Groundhog Day all over again.

Discussing the latest CD Howe Institute Report “Chronic Healthcare Spending Disease,” Rachlis and Diane Gibson, Research Director of the Parkland Institute, took issue with the gloomy scenarios painted by former Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge and Richard Dion, a Senior Business Advisor with the law firm Bennett Jones.

The reports authors argue that health care spending is unsustainable, forcing Canadians to have a conversation about how to pay for it. The report outlines just four options:

  • a “sharp reduction” in public services other than health care
  • increased taxes
  • co-payment or delisting of services
  • a major degradation of publicly insured health care standards

Dodge, in an interview earlier with the CBC, had said health care costs were rising faster than growth in the economy due to advances in technology, a demographic shift, and prices and wages rising.

He said it was his “hunch” that all four of the scenarios would be implemented to some degree.

Rachlis questioned why the authors of the report used data from 2009 to support their argument instead of 2010. Rachlis says that according to the data, health care spending as a percentage of our overall economy went down (from 11.9 per cent to 11.7 per cent) and that the cost curve will continue to decline over the next three years.

He called Dodge “factually wrong,” stating the CD Howe Institute authors chose to draw their figures from the deepest year of recession. When the economy shrinks, as it did in 2009, it makes health care spending look larger. In fact, he said, health care recorded one of its lowest levels of growth in 2009.

“I don’t know why a report in April does not have data from 2010,” he told the CBC.

Rachlis said costs were in decline in part of because brand name pharmaceuticals have levelled off in price with the expansion of generic drugs. Drugs have been among the fastest rising category within health care.

Diana Gibson said it made no sense to delist services and make Canadians pay out of pocket. “As citizens we pay either way,” she said. By pooling our resources through the tax system, it would be “cheaper.”

She highlighted how the costs of vision care increased 17 per cent after being de-insured, and how the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives estimated $10.7 billion could be saved through a national pharmaceutical plan.

Frustrated with the “the same stupid debate,” Rachlis said there were numerous examples of how we could improve our system, but we never hear about them.

Gibson hinted at a motive behind these panic scenarios – she said that health care is attractive to private business – it is not only recession-proof, but demand goes up during a recession. “People are willing to pay whatever it takes. That’s an amazing business opportunity.”

Rachlis and Gibson also argued that the silver tsunami doesn’t really exist – that increased costs due to aging are averaging less than one per cent per year, well within normal levels of economic growth.

Dodge had told the CBC that costs would likely rise to 18 per cent of our economy by 2020. Even with better efficiencies and improvements to the system, he said it would only slow it down to 15 per cent. The problem is the data just doesn’t support that scenario.

He claimed that we don’t really have universal health care now, since 30 per cent of health care spending is private. He said the discussion should really be about where the borders between public and private health care should be.

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Hospital professionals rally: there’s more to a modern health team

Posted on April 11, 2011 | 1 comment
In his first rally following re-election at OPSEU’s Convention, April 8th President Warren (Smokey)Thomas challenged Ontario Hospital Association President Tom Closson to sit down and talk about the hundreds of hospital professionals that get treated as an afterthought by hospitals and the Ontario government.

OPSEU’s Hospital Professionals are upset that the OHA offered little at the central bargaining table, resulting in a quick referral to binding arbitration.

Sandi Blancher, Chair of the HPD bargaining team, said the hospital professionals are being treated differently that the nurses, who have recalled their mediator in an attempt to reach an agreement.

“Somehow I don’t think the Ontario Nurses’ Association is looking at the same kind of offers the OHA thought was good enough for our hospital professionals,” she told the crowd of about 500.

OPSEU members carried signs representing different professions to the rally, such as “Physiotherapists are essential to a modern health team” or “Laboratory Technologists are an essential to a modern health team.”

Retiring 1st Vice-President Patty Rout contrasted the mandatory full-time targets for nurses to the situation of laboratory technologists, of which more than 50 per cent are part-time.

She also spoke of the lack of consistent support by the OHA for pharmacy technicians, who are facing substantial costs in time and money to re-qualify for their jobs. The pharmacy techs must be accredited under the College of Pharmacists by 2015.

“They have little support from this government or many of the hospitals they work for through this process,” she said.

After rallying outside of Simcoe Park, the group marched around the downtown office tower in which the OHA is headquartered.

Demonstrators hold cards representing different hospital professions at Friday's rally outside the Ontario Hospital Association offices in downtown Toronto.

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Sunshine list reveals golden handshake for outgoing deputy minister

Posted on April 5, 2011 | 3 comments

In the legislature this week the NDP raised questions about the golden handshake for former Deputy Minister Ron Sapsford.

The Sunshine List revealed Sapsford earned $762,000 last year despite leaving his job in January of 2010.

Sapsford’s payout was recorded under Hamilton Health Sciences despite the government’s promise not to hide government salaries in hospital budgets.

Sapsford had worked at HHS prior to coming to the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care in 2005.

Sapsford’s remuneration is listed as $672,916 in salary and $89,152 in taxable benefits.

Sapsford has been working as Chief of Strategy for the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) since last October.

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Hospital cuts jobs of speech language pathologists in absence of orderly transfer

Posted on April 5, 2011 | Leave a comment

OWEN SOUND – Grey Bruce Health Services has cut the jobs of seven speech language pathologists and assistants and is hoping they will apply for new jobs at the Grey Bruce Health Unit.

The hospital has issued a memo stating that they “were not successful in reaching a seamless transfer of the program” that helps children with speech problems.

Workers received notice of layoff March 31, 2011. Their final day will be August 31.

The Ministry of Children and Youth approved transfer of the service to the Grey Bruce Health Unit, but made no provision for the pathologists and their assistants.

“The lack of a transfer agreement likely stems from an attempt by the Health Unit to take on the work without paying the existing salaries and benefits of the displaced workers,” says Warren (Smokey) Thomas, President of the 130,000-member Ontario Public Service Employees Union. “This is a bald-faced attempt to save money on the backs of these workers.”

Whether the workers will migrate to the Health Unit is an open question given extreme shortages of speech language pathologists across the province.

Many may choose to take the severance from the hospital and work elsewhere.

The union is arguing the workers should be able to transfer with their rights intact, as have other displaced health care workers across the province.

“This is the health unit that can never get it right, so this is not entirely a surprise,” says Thomas. “And the gamble may backfire: If the health unit is unable to hire, parents may lose access to speech language pathology for their children.”

The Public Sector Labour Relations Transition Act (PSLRTA) was introduced to facilitate a broad range of transfers within the health system. The Health Unit is arguing that they are outside the definition of a health provider and should not be subject to the legislation.

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Canadian Health Coalition puts together federal election primer

Posted on April 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

The Canadian Health Coalition has put together a primer for the Federal election. The CHC raises several issues you can ask Federal candidates about, including where they stand on:

  • Enforcement of the Canada Health Act so Canadians don’t face user fees, illegal bills and queue-jumping.Establishment of  national standards for an integrated, seamless system of care that includes long-term care, home care and palliative care.
  • Creation of a universal public drug plan – Pharmacare –so all Canadians have access to safe, appropriate and affordable medicines.
  • Commitment to the renewal of the Health Accord in 2014 with adequate federal funding, national standards and accountability for how the money is spent.
  • Ensuring national standards and accountability through federal leadership.

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Still waiting – Ontario Health Coalition releases home care report

Posted on April 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

Home care has to be the most tiered health care service in Ontario. Consider that many front line care providers are not on salary, but operating as independent contractors to agencies. The agencies in turn are contracted by the Community Care Access Centres. The Community Care Access Centres sign accountability agreements with the Local Health Integration Networks, which in turn report to the Ministry of Health.

That’s a lot of layers of bureaucracy to facilitate a home care visit.

The Ontario Health Coalition released a new home care report April 4th that suggests about 30 per cent of home care costs are administrative. That may be very conservative.

For the past 15 years the government has been trying to fit a square peg through a round hole as it tries to implement a system of competitive bidding for home care contracts.

The results of these competitions have been what the Toronto Star recently called “politically explosive” as often long-serving not-for-profit agencies lose out to less experienced for-profit companies. When that happens, all the workers who provide both professional and supportive care lose their job and patients lose continuity of care.

In 2008 when the VON and St. Joseph’s Home Care were eliminated from an active competition to provide nursing care in the Hamilton community, the outcry was huge. More than 1500 people came out mid-winter to a rally and effectively forced the government to once again extend a moratorium that had been in place since 2004.

Health Minister Deb Matthews has been coy about the issue – suggesting the government is in no hurry to resurrect competitive bidding. However, Matthews has neither ruled it out, making workers in the sector wonder if the mid-2012 expiry of their home care contracts will mean new competitions after the fall election is out of the way. The process takes about six months from tender to award to contract changeover.

And of course, while the Liberals are in no rush, competitive bidding was the brain child of the Tories, and would likely return competitive bidding even faster under a Hudak government.

While home care has been at the cornerstone of the McGuinty government’s efforts to empty hospitals of alternate level of care patients, the money has not followed. In 1999 home care represented 5.5 per cent of provincial health care spending. In 2010 it had dropped to 4.5 per cent.

According to the Ontario Health Coalition’s “Still Waiting” report from 2004 to 2010 overall funding for CCACs increased from $1.22 billion to $1.76 billion while clients increased from 350,000 to 586,000. In other words, funding went up by 40 per cent while the number of clients increased by 66 per cent.

In 2008 the government raised caps on individual service from 80 to 120 hours of service per month for the first 30 days and from 60 to 90 hours of service per month afterwards.

The raising of the caps, the increase in the number of patients, the lack of funding and the pressure hospitals have been under to empty beds has left many CCACs scrambling.

Reforms to competitive bidding were supposed to address problems regarding continuity of care, assessing quality, monitoring performance and addressing client and input and complaints. However, as the recent auditor’s report indicates, these are all still continuing problems in the sector.

To read the complete Ontario Health Coalition report, go to: http://www.web.net/~ohc/homecare2011finalreport.pdf

Watch OPSEU’s music video on home care at:
www.whatwillyoudo.ca

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How about the rest of the mental health system?

Posted on April 1, 2011 | Leave a comment

Health Minister Deb Matthews recently promised in the legislature that the 10-year plan for mental health will be “released very soon.”

Answering a softball question from fellow Liberal MPP Maria Von Bommel, Matthews told the legislature “we will address issues such as stigma, better system navigation and taking a better patient-centered approached to the delivery of care and services.”

For adults in the system, there may be a considerable wait before they see significant service improvements.

“While the first three years will focus on children and youth, our strategy will address the entire system,” Matthews told the legislature.

It took two-and-a-half years to get to the 10-year plan. Matthews’ statement suggests that improvements to the service adults receive may have to wait another three years before the strategy kicks in.

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Don Drummond: New commissioner author of failed corporate tax cuts strategy

Posted on April 1, 2011 | Leave a comment

The announcement was barely out of the mouth of Finance Minister Dwight Duncan before his new Commission Chairman contradicted his promise.

Don Drummond, former TD bank Chief Economist, was appointed earlier this week as Chair of a Commission on the Reform of Ontario’s Public Services.

During his budget speech, Duncan made it clear the Commission had two restrictions – they will not make recommendations that would increase taxes or lead to the privatization of health care or education.

The very same day everyone understood Drummond to take issue with those restrictions, stating bluntly that he would consider “almost anything” to fix the province’s finances, including health care and education.

Drummond got the attention of the media last year when he suggested that if left unchecked, health care would take up 80 cents of every dollar spent on provincial programs within 20 years. Of course, he ignored the fact that in recent budgets health care spending had remained about the same percentage of provincial spending, and within the last two years, had actually declined. This year the provincial budget suggests health care will take up 42 cents of program spending, down from last year’s 45 cents.

Drummond also ignores the his own admission that costs are connected to the funding restraint of the 1990s.

There is no question that Drummond has more privatization in mind, albeit privatization within the context of public delivery.

In a recent Toronto Star opinion piece, Drummond made his prediction of where health care would go: “It will likely still have the cherished single public payer feature, and indeed that might be extended to some areas like drugs and longer-term care that are now largely in the private domain. But the delivery of services within that public payer model will likely have a larger private sector presence.”

While Duncan speaks about taking privatization off the table for health care and education, it is clearly on the table for everything else. “Just because a government department is delivering a program or service today does not mean it should deliver that program or service in the future,” the budget documents state.

In health care Drummond has also taken on the idea of universality, advocating that wealthier seniors be kicked out of the Ontario Drug Benefit. By applying a means-test to government drug programs for seniors, he opens the door to similar plans for other health services. With no stake in such programs, it gives an incentive to wealthy Canadians to advocate for further financial restraint of a system they won’t be using.

The folly of Drummond’s idea about making certain Canadians pay more is this — by transferring the burden of health care to the individual, you don’t really save money, you just change who pays for it. As we have seen in the US model, greater privatization leads to much higher overall costs.

Drummond is no stranger to government. He also served as a senior official at the Federal Department of Finance. He is considered to be the architect of the corporate tax cuts begun by the Chretien/Martin government and continued by the Harper government.

In the first decade of the new millennium, the Federal government reduced the corporate tax rate from 29.12 per cent to 22.12 per cent. This was at a time when the economy was booming and companies were realizing double-digit growth. And yet the boom in private sector investment that was supposed to emerge never happened. From 2001 to 2010 investment averaged a mere 3.1 per cent.

“I hate to admit this, but I don’t think much of the growth of the past decade could be attributed to lower corporate tax rate,” he recently told the National Post. Yet Drummond continues to maintain it was the right move despite the huge impact it has had on public sector revenues. He just has no evidence to support it.

When the finance minister appointed Drummond to take on this role, he didn’t inherit someone who would study the situation and come to thoughtful conclusions based on the evidence, he hired someone with a clear track record of advocating privatization and lower corporate tax cuts.

Drummond’s advocacy should have immediately discounted him for this job. We all know where this is going and have every right to ask whether alternative ideas will get a fair hearing?

Can we really afford another Don Drummond mea culpa in a decade from now?

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