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Ontario’s Finance Minister is pleased that the federal budget shares the same priorities the Ford government identified in the recent provincial budget and that’s protecting people’s health and our economy.
However, as the COVID crisis intensifies, Peter Bethlenfalvy says they are disappointed to see there was no action in several key areas, including stricter border measures to limit the spread of variants, vaccine supply and improvements to the Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit.
Bethlenfalvy says Ontario is doing what’s necessary to slow the spread of the virus but they can’t beat the third wave alone.
He adds the province is disappointed to yet again see no movement on enhancing the Canada Health Transfer.
Bethlenfalvy says Canada’s Premiers have urgently been calling for an increase in federal health care funding to cover at least 35% of provincial-territorial health spending.
He notes currently the CHT covers less than 22% of Ontario’s health care spending and this share is expected to decline over the next decade, while demand for services increases.
Bethlenfalvy says, “Ontario needs a stronger federal partner to ensure we can improve wait times, reduce surgery backlogs and provide access to more beds and better treatments and come out of the pandemic with a stronger, more resilient health care system.”
