自由党和保守党为健康服务问题而争吵
Liberals, Conservatives spar over health care
Published On Sat Apr 16 2011
Richard J. Brennan
National Affairs Writer
REGINA—The future of Canada’s health care became ground zero Saturday for a nasty word-slinging match between the Liberal and Conservative camps.
While Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff accused the Conservatives of having a secret agenda to gut health care with their $11 billion in unspecified federal cuts, the Conservatives pointed to the Liberal record on slashing health-care transfers to the provinces in the 90s when it was attempting to balance the books.
Ignatieff said Canadians are passionate about health care and committed a Liberal government to an annual six per cent health-care increase for the foreseeable future.
The Tories say that former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin’s appearance at Ignatieff’s side this week — a partnering aimed at boosting Ignatieff’s fiscal credentials in western Canada — should remind voters that it was Martin, acting as finance minister, who cut health transfers to the provinces in a bid to eliminate the federal deficit in the 1990s.
“Every province in this country remembers the Liberal record. Deep, dramatic cuts, 25 per cent, to health-care transfers and health-care budgets — something that cost our provinces and our health-care systems years to struggle with. They are still struggling,” Harper said in Vancouver.
“They said they would increase health care. They cut it. This party said we would increase it. We increased it. We say we’ll continue to do so and we will,” he said.
The federal government will transfer $30.3 billion annually in health-care funding to the provinces by 2013-14.
Ignatieff said a cash-strapped Conservative government can’t find $11 billion in cuts without attacking health-care spending.
He said it was Martin who was the author of the 2004 heath accord that “provided table financial funding for the public health system of our country from 2004 straight through to 2014,” which he says Harper now takes credit for.
“Mr. Stephen Harper has not put a dime, a nickel and red cent into health care since he came into office. Every single dime spent by that government is money booked by Paul Martin … and that has set the standard for the public financing of a public health-care system ever since,” Ignatieff said.
A recent Liberal attack ad targets the Conservatives’ action on health care.
The grainy ad featuring a flatlining heart monitor claims that Harper once said the law that protects universal health care should be scrapped and that he is open to for-profit, American-style health care.
Conservatives, whose ads have attacked Ignatieff for months now, say the Liberal strategy is underhanded.
“The Liberal ad uses some of the dirtiest tricks in the book — including twisting words out of context and deliberately altering dates to make old words appear recent,” a Conservative release said.
With files from Allan Woods
Liberals, Conservatives spar over health care
Published On Sat Apr 16 2011
Richard J. Brennan
National Affairs Writer
REGINA—The future of Canada’s health care became ground zero Saturday for a nasty word-slinging match between the Liberal and Conservative camps.
While Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff accused the Conservatives of having a secret agenda to gut health care with their $11 billion in unspecified federal cuts, the Conservatives pointed to the Liberal record on slashing health-care transfers to the provinces in the 90s when it was attempting to balance the books.
Ignatieff said Canadians are passionate about health care and committed a Liberal government to an annual six per cent health-care increase for the foreseeable future.
The Tories say that former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin’s appearance at Ignatieff’s side this week — a partnering aimed at boosting Ignatieff’s fiscal credentials in western Canada — should remind voters that it was Martin, acting as finance minister, who cut health transfers to the provinces in a bid to eliminate the federal deficit in the 1990s.
“Every province in this country remembers the Liberal record. Deep, dramatic cuts, 25 per cent, to health-care transfers and health-care budgets — something that cost our provinces and our health-care systems years to struggle with. They are still struggling,” Harper said in Vancouver.
“They said they would increase health care. They cut it. This party said we would increase it. We increased it. We say we’ll continue to do so and we will,” he said.
The federal government will transfer $30.3 billion annually in health-care funding to the provinces by 2013-14.
Ignatieff said a cash-strapped Conservative government can’t find $11 billion in cuts without attacking health-care spending.
He said it was Martin who was the author of the 2004 heath accord that “provided table financial funding for the public health system of our country from 2004 straight through to 2014,” which he says Harper now takes credit for.
“Mr. Stephen Harper has not put a dime, a nickel and red cent into health care since he came into office. Every single dime spent by that government is money booked by Paul Martin … and that has set the standard for the public financing of a public health-care system ever since,” Ignatieff said.
A recent Liberal attack ad targets the Conservatives’ action on health care.
The grainy ad featuring a flatlining heart monitor claims that Harper once said the law that protects universal health care should be scrapped and that he is open to for-profit, American-style health care.
Conservatives, whose ads have attacked Ignatieff for months now, say the Liberal strategy is underhanded.
“The Liberal ad uses some of the dirtiest tricks in the book — including twisting words out of context and deliberately altering dates to make old words appear recent,” a Conservative release said.
With files from Allan Woods
