Where do the three major political parties stand on the privatization debate?

[shehpar786]

Could anyone give me a link to what the liberals, conservatives, and NDP have to say about the privatization debate. I think conservatives are pro-privatization while liberals and NDP aren't. Is this correct?

I tried to find something under federal elections 2006 on the CMA website but there is nothing there.

[Curious P]

The health care debate is rather complex and I don't think it's fair to say that any party is purely pro-privatization or against. First, what does it mean to be pro-privatization? Would it require the party to be unequivocally always for privatization? What if a party believes that some services should be partially/fully privatized, but others not? From my own readings, I've found that almost every party understands that our health care financing model is stretched almost to the brink and that something needs to change. Jack Layton (from the NDP, a party that's traditionally completely against any form of private care) made a comment in the press last year about the possibility of certain services being privatized.

 

Traditionally though, the conservatives are more keen towards allowing greater market involvement in our health care system, the liberals sit in the middle (towards some issues, and against others), and the democrats are against privatization.

 

Hope this helps!

[katerade]

I think a major problem is that no party wants to take a stand on this issue at all because it is such a sensitive and polarizing one. Officially, Conservatives have not endorsed private healthcare and are committed to preserving the public system.

[Dante]

yeah i don't think conservatives are officially pro-privatization, because i specifically remember harper taking jabs at paul martin, whose physician was practicing privately.

[The Law]

2 elections ago, Harper was in favour of privatization.

However, Canadians rejected the idea (among others put forth by the party). In the next election, he took a more moderate stance among many issues and it helped get him elected. I think the conservatives are much more likely to cause widespread privatization than any other party.

[illusion]

From my knowledge, the conservatives have indeed advocated for a two-tier system, while liberals have been considering the option/other alternatives, the NDP have been very critical of the idea. But it's also important, I think, to look at the political atmosphere surrounding the issue. I believe 2 summers ago, there was a supreme court ruling in favour of a man in Quebec wishing to get hip replacement surgery immediately rather than sitting tight in hands of the public healthcare system. They ruled that the Canada health act may be infringing on the individual's constitutional rights and further study was needed on the issue. You may wish to look at the different parties' reaction to this case.

 

there is also controversy brewing in the west coast at the moment:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2006/11/24/private-emergency.html

[The Law]

The problem with our health care system is that our politicians are not doing anything to help it out. We don't need private health care, we need serious investment into the sytem and more doctors graduating out of the system. The conservatives have advocated a two-tier system, and it's obvious that health care isn't really on their agenda. They haven't done anything for health care yet, and are thinking about introducing a "wait times guarantee" ... which seems to be a really ridiculous idea. From what I understood of it, they plan on pretty much having people shuffle from province to province in order to get health care. That really does not seem like a viable option to run for the long term. They need both short term and long term solutions, and while that may be a good thing to have going short torm (since in different provinces you can get treatment for different illnesses faster), I think it may just cause havoc on each of these services since the number of people that they are going to be serving is going to balloon.

 

To me, privatization or semi privatization is the cheap way out. It's just a ... "alright, let's keep the rich guys happy and the poorer ones can fend for themselves."

It just wouldn't be fair. Not everyone can afford to have our system go private, I just find it ridiculous that after looking at the problems and rising costs of health care in countries that have allowed privatization, that we are still considering this has an option!

[kwasko@dal.ca]

No federal party advocates for private health care. The Conservatives (or their predecessors) have also never had it as a policy to advocate for private health care (or two-tier for that matter).

 

Besides, health care is a provinical responsibility so there is a lot more involvement at the provincial level in the policy directions that governments take. However, the federal act, The Canada Health Act, limits the provinces' use of private service. The provinces are free to offer / allow private health care but their social transfers could be cut off. This has never actually happened, and so far the provinces haven't really pushed the envelope too far. There are certain provinces, however, (BC, Alberta, Quebec) that have more private health care options than others (Saskatchewan, Manitoba). The fact that the provinces rather than the federal government are responsible for health care raises a host of other issues, including the fact that we might/could have a patchwork of health care systems across the country.

 

Yes, the Conservatives advocated for a wait times guarantee in the last election. However, this has failed to materialize. The bigger problem driving wait times is a lack of physicians and nurses than anything else. I don't exactly know how a wait times guarantee would work but it would involve collaboration between the provinces whereby if, say, wait times for a certain procedure were really short in BC and long in Saskatchewan but for another procedure were the opposite, patients would be shuffled between the provinces. This would take place on a national scale so as to take advantage of places where waits times were short / non-existant in some places and alleviate instances where wait times were quite long.

 

I think that most parties lack ideas and the intestinal fortitude to attack the health care crisis from any sort of angle that would incorporate privately provided services into the health care system. I think that it is too much of a political hot potato that no one wants to touch. Personally, I feel it would be beneficial to examine how other countries run their systems (such as France, Sweden, etc.) where more private health care exists, alongside a fully funded public system. We shouldn't be scared to examine best practices. The only province to really commit to do this so far has been BC.