Health transfers, immigration top Quebec premier’s list of demands to federal leaders

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This article was published 26/08/2021 (1473 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Quebec Premier François Legault warned campaigning federal leaders not to meddle in the province’s affairs on Thursday as he unveiled his government’s shopping list of demands ahead of the Sept. 20 election.

“What we want for Quebec is more autonomy, not less autonomy,” he said, summing up his message for party leaders, who are trying to win the province’s coveted 78 electoral seats. Increased health transfers and more control over immigration topped his list.

Whichever party takes power after the election should commit to financing 35 per cent of the province’s health-care costs, he told reporters in Quebec City, adding that he wants health transfers to be indexed to rise by six per cent annually. Current government health transfers, he added, amount to about 22 per cent of the province’s health costs.

Money for health care must be unconditional because Quebec is better placed than Ottawa bureaucrats to determine the needs of its health-care system, he said. “At some point, we have to understand it’s the government of Quebec that is best placed to choose the priorities,” Legault said.

“It’s (Health Minister) Christian Dubé, it’s his team, it’s not civil servants in Ottawa who should decide the priorities in Quebec’s health network.”

Increased federal health transfers have been a recurring demand of the country’s premiers. This year’s federal budget, released in April, forecasted $43.1 billion in health-care transfers to provinces, scheduled to rise by three per cent annually — an amount the premiers unanimously say is not enough to keep pace with rising costs.

The premiers want Ottawa to increase its share to 35 per cent and maintain it at that level, which would mean an added $28 billion, rising by roughly another $4 billion each subsequent year.

While Legault did not call out party leaders by name, he said two parties — which he later identified as the Liberals and the NDP — espouse the kind of centralist approach he opposes.

“What’s being proposed, especially by two parties, is more arguments, more complicated things that won’t help anything, more centralization, more bureaucracy, when it’s exactly the opposite that is needed to help our health system work better,” Legault said.

The premier said he objects to any plans to impose national standards for long-term care homes — something both the Liberal and NDP have promised to do.

Without using names, he also took aim at Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau for promising to spend $3 billion to hire 7,500 family doctors, noting that these professionals can take years to train and the money could be better spent in the meantime.

As for the Conservatives, Legault said he was satisfied with leader Erin O’Toole’s promise to increase health transfers by six per cent per year, but the premier pressed him to commit to immediately paying for 35 per cent of Quebec’s health-care costs. He also said he expected the Conservative leader to respect the $6 billion child-care funding deal the province reached with the former Liberal government.

When asked about the demands, O’Toole made no such promises. O’Toole has previously said he would scrap all Liberal government child-care funding deals with the provinces in favour of a refundable tax credit of between $4,500 and $6,000.

“With our plan, we’ll help all Quebec families, all Canadian families immediately,” O’Toole told reporters in Ottawa. “And we’ll help low-income families, but at the same time we’ll respect the jurisdiction of the provinces.”

The Tory leader also declined to commit to the provinces’ demand for the $28-billion health-care transfer increase.

Speaking for the Liberals, outgoing Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne chose to stress the times the Legault and Trudeau governments had worked together to reach agreements on matters such as child care, high-speed internet, aerospace funding and housing.

Champagne denied that Legault’s remarks had amounted to an endorsement of the Conservatives, saying he believed the demands were made in the spirit of wanting to work together.

In terms of immigration, Legault wants federal party leaders to grant Quebec control over the selection of immigrants who fall under the family reunification category, which he says would allow the province to ensure they are able to speak French.

Quebec already has jurisdiction when it comes to selecting economic immigrants, but Legault says the approximately 24 per cent of newcomers who come through the family reunification stream are selected by Ottawa, with no condition that they be able to speak the province’s official language.

He said the measure would allow the province to ensure immigrants are better integrated into Quebec society and to protect the French language, which he said is under threat from North American influences.

“This is key for the future of our nation,” he said.

Legault also warned the next federal government against challenging the province’s secularism law, which prohibits some public sector workers such as teachers from wearing religious symbols at work.

He asked Quebec voters to listen carefully to the leaders’ responses to his demands on health and immigration when deciding for whom to cast their ballot.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 26, 2021.

— By Morgan Lowrie in Montreal.