In his Thursday address, former Premier of Saskatchewan Roy Romanow proved that he is more than a retired politician with an axe to grind about the health care system. He is a dynamic orator. He sparks debate. How else can you explain the way he captured the collective imaginations of a group of litigiously minded health policy experts?
Commenting on the recent First Ministers’ meeting held in Ottawa, Romanow was asked whether it was a success or not. He answered, “unequivocally, maybe.”
Paul Martin doled out $41 billion of new money over the next ten years to the ministers, a large sum which some would say was inevitable: transfers of cash from Ottawa are at an all-time low when benchmarked to our GDP. The result of his long-term commitment ensures stability. The trouble is that the Prime Minister handed over the cash without any strings attached. For example, Paul Martin chose not criticize provinces that are currently in violation of the Canada Health Act-so-called creeping privatization.
In contrast, Martin permitted “asymmetric federalism” for Quebec, entitling the province to administer its funds as it sees fit. This deal accomplishes two things: it acknowledges Quebec as a distinct society right away, and it opens the door in the future for other provinces to follow suit and demand more autonomy. For example, a province could argue persuasively that Ottawa’s money be used to introduce its own parallel private health care system within that province (think west of here).
The meeting was lame as soon as the ministers brought forward a unanimous endorsement of a national pharmacare program, which seems auspicious. This notion, which raised eyebrows and hopes for many, was a clear strategy of “up-loading” prescription drugs, the fastest growing chunk of the health care budget, to Ottawa. Ottawa flatly refused the idea.
A national pharmacare program, like the one in Australia, would expand the scope of our current medicare system, which does not include universal drug coverage. Pharmacare would save money overall, create national standards, improve equity, and allow the government to play hardball with the most lucrative industry in North America: the pharmaceutical industry.
It’s a bit unoriginal. Pharmacare has been around since 1997 and was endorsed at the time by Liberals. What we witnessed at the First Ministers meeting was an infallible way of making Ottawa look like the bad guys from the outset, raining on the pharmacare parade.
Up close, Romanow looks like a man that is tired of going it alone. It’s not fair that we have left protection of medicare up to a retired politician, despite the prevailing sentiment that it is worth fighting for. He talked about public medicare’s evil nemesis: private for-profit health care. He described the first time someone introduced the idea that a market-based health care model is more sustainable than a public system-it was Premier Ernest C. Manning from Alberta in 1965. He made the point that, in the 40 years since the argument has existed, there still is no hard data to support it.
It occurred to me that the squabbling and jostling by our current Ministers, while it may be the modus operandi of the premiers when lining up with empty pockets in front of the PM, does a disservice to politicians past and present who transcend the games of politics and manage to act with conviction.
There was a time when Tommy Douglas was ridiculed for introducing the concept of National Medicare. He is now a national treasure. To see the Provincial leaders united on a National Pharmacare program, not because they believe in seeing medicare grow and evolve, but instead to use it as a leveraging tool, is shameful. I was hard pressed to find an individual at the First Ministers meeting that was able to convey conviction and passion over and above the requisite jockeying.
In contrast, Romanow’s words and actions lead me to conclude that he is, in fact, a living and breathing example of how national values can be infused in one’s blood. My guess is he would borrow strength and wisdom from his predecessor Douglas’s epitaph: “Courage my friends, ’tis not too late to make a better world.”
