No health tax for Manitobans before 2020, Pallister vows

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This article was published 24/10/2017 (2929 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitobans will not be hit with any health-care premiums in the next three years, Premier Brian Pallister promised Tuesday.

“We are not going to be proceeding with health-care premiums in our first term,” Pallister told a news conference.

The province released Manitobans’ opinions on health care, legalized marijuana and balancing the budget in consultations that included online and telephone surveys and town halls.

Pallister floated the health-care premium trial balloon last month as a way of bridging the gap between reduced growth in health-care transfers from the federal government and the cost of delivering health care to Manitobans.

“There is little appetite to increase taxes,” Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen said Tuesday. “Manitobans spoke clearly.”

Goertzen said there is wide support to improve wait times for health services and finding savings within the existing health-care system. “Manitobans share our priorities of reducing wait times.”

Pallister emphasized repeatedly there is a $2.2-billion gap between what Ottawa is funding for health care and what the provincial government had expected to receive, based on previous funding levels.

The premier said he is ruling out health-care premiums for the first term, but would not speculate if they would become an issue in the 2020 election.

“I’m not making any commitments beyond, ‘We’ll always listen to Manitobans,’” he said.

Justice Minister Heather Stefanson said respondents emphasized public safety for both pot consumers and non-consumers, and keeping criminal gangs out of the marijuana business. Manitobans are split on selling legal pot in proximity to liquor, be it at Manitoba Liquor Marts or beer vendors.

Finance Minister Cameron Friesen said Tuesday Manitobans favour a “moderate” approach to balancing the budget through controlling spending and reducing the public services through retirements.

Pallister said more than 37,000 people took part in online, phone and town hall surveys, including 18,019 to an online survey on the three key issues. The premier said the government got a better response using an online survey, rather than commissioning a polling firm to contact random people by phone.

He likened the tactic to legendary philosophers Aristotle and Socrates having invited interested Greeks to the public market to discuss issues.

Pallister defended the health-care section’s having posed premiums of various levels as the way to avoiding cuts in services. The service reductions, he said, were “the devil’s alternative.”

“To the tune of 89 per cent, they prefer we not raise taxes,” said the premier. Instead, the province wants to find savings within the system: “We’re looking for those other ways.”

In question period, NDP Leader Wab Kinew accused Pallister of a “flip-flop,” even though the Opposition had urged Pallister to renounce health-care premiums.

NDP health critic Andrew Swan said Pallister had surprised even his own caucus by talking about such premiums. He also urged Pallister and Goertzen to disclose what further health cuts are planned.

“Only they know what cuts are coming down the line,” said Swan. “We know it’s the premier calling the shots. Now he’s telling Manitobans, ‘Wait, there’ll be more.’”

Kinew told reporters Pallister is trying to distract Manitobans.

“This is all a diversionary tactic to set the stage for more health-care cuts,” Kinew said. If Pallister won’t commit to no premiums after 2020, “It tells me we have to work very hard to ensure he gets only one term.”

Kinew said the “rigged” survey was designed to get the responses the government wants to justify its actions.

Calling it a “garbage survey,’” newly-elected Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont scoffed: “These polls are absolutely worthless. They shouldn’t be used as a basis of policy.”

Lamont, a specialist in digital media communications, said anyone can respond to such surveys and respond more than once. He compared them to comments sections on websites.

Pallister should go to town halls and talk to people, said Lamont. “He needs to have genuine conversations with people he knows to be Manitobans — maybe that’s a radical idea.”

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca