Playing health-care hero will be tricky for the premiers and the PM

by David Korzinski | February 10, 2023 5:16 pm

By Shachi Kurl, President

Lots of people disagree with Ontario Premier Doug Ford about lots of things. The one thing on which Ontarians — and Canadians in general — are likely to agree, however, is his assessment of the upcoming federal-provincial meeting to negotiate a health-care funding agreement.

“We’re all feeling pressure on health care,” Ford told reporters[1] earlier this week. His British Columbia counterpart, Premier David Eby, added something[2] also likely to find broad consensus, about people in his province not wanting to see the federal and provincial governments get into a “bun fight” about health-care dollars.

Not in a long time, however, have so many politicians been poised to throw quite so many buns: at the prime minister, at each other, at opposition leaders back home who, regardless of ideological stripe, will pronounce their efforts lacking.

The premiers will be jockeying to solidify their place in this process as heroes, actors who come out of this with the best deal for patients, looking shrewd and caring all at the same time. Competing for these bragging rights will be Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the senior federal cabinet ministers participating in the talks.

The thing is, Canadians will not actually care who the hero is in all this. They just want a deal done.

Read more from the article in the Ottawa Citizen here.[3]

Image – FordNation/Facebook

Endnotes:
  1. Ford told reporters: https://www.thestar.com/amp/politics/provincial/2023/02/01/doug-ford-says-theres-pressure-from-canadians-to-get-a-health-care-funding-deal.html
  2. added something: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/david-eby-justin-trudeau-ottawa-1.6733555
  3. Read more from the article in the Ottawa Citizen here.: https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/kurl-playing-health-care-hero-will-be-tricky-for-the-premiers-and-the-pm

Source URL: https://angusreid.org/playing-health-care-hero-will-be-tricky-for-the-premiers-and-the-pm/