(File photo: Terry Lake, 2019)

By Dylana Milobar

2019 FEDERAL ELECTION

Kamloops Liberal candidate not buying Conservative health and social transfer plan

Aug 3, 2019 | 10:04 AM

KAMLOOPS — A local Liberal party candidate says the pledge to boost health and social transfer funds from the Tories yesterday doesn’t add up.

Conservative Party leader, Andrew Scheer, sent letters to all of the country’s premiers on Friday (Aug. 2), outlining his party’s plans to boost health and social transfers.

Liberal candidate for the Kamloops Thompson Cariboo, Terry Lake, says that plan sounds nice initially, but the details of longer term impact need to be considered.

In the letters, Scheer says should he become Canada’s next Prime Minister, both the Canada Health Transfer (CHT) and Canada Social Transfer (CST) would increase by at least 3 per cent each year.

The CHT provides long-term predictable funding for health care, and the CST is a federal block transfer to provinces and territories in support of post-secondary education, social assistance and social services, and early childhood development and early learning and childcare.

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“Conservative Leader, Andrew Scheer has told Premiers that he will maintain health funding transfers to a minimum of 3 per cent,” says Lake, “Which makes it sound like that’s an increase in health funding, when actually, compared to the agreement that I fought hard for for British Columbia a few years ago, that represents a decrease.”

According to Lake, a former BC Health Minister and BC Liberal MLA, the numbers don’t add up.

“When you put together the health transfers, and the special funding that goes to home care for seniors, and mental health and substance treatment services, it actually represents a decrease,” He says, “So I think that should be a concern for many Canadians looking at healthcare as a priority.”

The Liberal candidate says Scheer maintaining current agreements would be a better solution, adding that the numbers eventually represent a cut to health care.

“That doesn’t even account for the pharmacare program that we are committed to bringing in in the next few years. So that would be increased funding for prescription services for Canadians as well,” He says, “At a time when we’re dealing with an opioid crisis, and we’re dealing with an increased population of seniors, these are not comforting words to hear.”

Speaking of the opioid crisis, and whether enough planning is being undertaken to combat it, Lake says the problem has not been forgotten.

“I can assure you I have been very vocal with the Prime Minister, and ministry officials within the health ministry. We need to continue to do more, and as we roll out elections platforms, you’ll see that it is still front and centre for the Government of Canada,” He says, “And this is a Liberal government I can tell you, that stepped up to the plate when we needed help from Ottawa to deal with the opioid crisis. They were there always. When we asked for things to be done, they made them happen, we had this increased funding for mental health services.”

Acknowledging more needs to be done on the mental health care front as a whole, Lake says that’s part of why he chose to run in the 2019 federal election.