Here’s a running list of the health care guarantees that Justin Trudeau, Erin O’Toole, Annamie Paul, Jagmeet Singh, and Yves-Francois Blanchet have comprised of the time the campaign starts to election day:
Skip to health care guarantees made by:
View guarantees for other topics:
Aug. 16: The Conservatives released an uncosted platform, containing many guarantees regarding health care and pandemic response.
- The Conservatives are promising to prioritize the signing of contracts for COVID-19 vaccine booster shots, to speed up the event of homegrown vaccines by Canadian firms and to supply logistical support to the provinces to assist with vaccine rollout.
- Under the Conservative plan, all passenger arrivals to Canada will probably be required to take a COVID-19 rapid test, no matter vaccine status. In addition they promise to make rapid tests easily available to Canadians for at-home use.
- They may even close the border to travel from countries where recent COVID-19 variants are detected.
- They promise to work with pharmaceutical firms to extend the production of critical medicines and lively pharmaceutical ingredients in Canada.
- They promise to overhaul the Federal Emergency Response Stockpile system.
- They promise to enhance contact tracing on the Canadian border.
- They promise to overhaul federal lab testing procedures to enhance the consistency and scalability of lab testing across Canada.
- They promise to ban the export of deadly viruses to foreign jurisdictions that don’t pass a national security assessment.
- They promise to revive the Global Public Health Intelligence Network, to assist detect and assess threats to public health.
- They promise to overhaul Canada’s Pandemic Plan to expand it beyond influenza. In addition they promise to present ultimate responsibility for the Public Health Agency of Canada to a physician with front-line experience.
- They promise to strengthen Health Canada’s ability to rapidly review recent innovations like tests, treatments and vaccines. In addition they promise to work with the provinces to harmonize intensive care unit training in order that qualified personnel can work in numerous jurisdictions during emergencies.
- Throughout the first 100 days of taking office, the Conservatives say they are going to meet with provinces to come back to a recent agreement on the Canada Health Transfer to lift its annual growth rate to not less than six per cent. They may even propose that the provinces dedicate a big a part of that cash to improving mental health care.
- In addition they promise to create a tax credit for employers to encourage them so as to add mental health coverage to their advantages plans.
- In addition they propose to create a national three-digit suicide prevention help line.
- The Conservatives promise to take a position $150 million over three years to create 1,000 residential drug treatment beds and construct 50 recovery community centres across the country.
- On Medical Assistance in Dying, the Conservatives promise to revive a 10-day waiting period and the requirement for 2 fully independent witnesses to be present. In addition they need to reverse recently added provisions under Bill C-7 that allowed people whose only medical condition was mental illness to hunt it.
Aug. 22: During a campaign stop in Vancouver, Erin O’Toole said the Conservatives would proceed to permit supervised consumption sites.
Aug. 25: As a part of a broader $60-billion pledge for more health transfers over the subsequent decade, O’Toole says that if elected, his government will transfer enough funds to provinces for a further a million Canadians to access mental health treatment every year. He also says his Canada Mental Health Motion Plan would supply employers a 25 per cent tax credit for 3 years to encourage them to supply employees mental-health coverage.
Sept. 3: O’Toole guarantees to create a national system to prove Canadian residents as having been vaccinated against COVID-19.
Sept. 4: O’Toole pledged to cover the fee of day off for workers to get a COVID-19 vaccine shot, free transportation to vaccine clinics and a national booster shot strategy that might initially goal seniors and the immunocompromised.
He also pledged to:
- Resume national public health briefings.
- Ensure political parties and campaigns follow all national, provincial and native public health restrictions.
- Get vaccination rates over 90 per cent in two months.
- Invite provinces to take part in a national proof-of-vaccination system.
- Provide more rapid tests to provincial governments.
The party is promising $100 million to enhance air quality in schools and $70 million to not-for-profits, charities and Indigenous communities to enhance ventilation through the Canada Healthy Communities Initiative.
Aug. 18: Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau doubled down on a plan for mandatory vaccination requirements to board a plane, train or cruise ship. “Unless people have a medical exception, they are going to not have the option to board a plane or a train in Canada in the event that they are unvaccinated,” he said.
Aug. 19: Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau promised to train as much as 25,000 recent personal support employees and guarantee them a minimum wage of not less than $25 per hour.
Aug. 19: Trudeau also promised that a Liberal government would give provinces and territories $3 billion to enhance the standard and availability of long-term care beds, and develop a Secure Long Term Care Act to make sure standards are upheld across the country.
Aug. 20: Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau promised 10 days of paid sick leave for employees in federally regulated industries, if elected.
Aug. 23: Trudeau says that if re-elected, his government will immediately invest $6 billion along with the $4 billion committed within the spring budget to assist eliminate wait-lists. He also says a Liberal government will spend $3 billion over 4 years to assist hire 7,500 family doctors, nurses and nurse practitioners. The Liberals also promise to offer $400 million over 4 years to expand virtual health services.
Aug. 27: Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau pledged to create a $1-billion fund for provinces that decide to implement vaccine passport systems for non-essential businesses. The cash will probably be available on a per-capita basis only to provinces that implement this type of program.
- Trudeau also said his government would invest $100 million into studying the long-term effects of COVID-19.
Aug. 31: Trudeau says that if re-elected, he’ll give provinces and territories $4.5 billion over five years in funding for mental health that will probably be delivered through a recent, everlasting mental health transfer.
Sept. 1: The Liberals release a platform document with several health-related guarantees, a lot of which were announced already earlier within the campaign.
Latest items include:
- Establishing regulations under the Canada Health Act governing accessibility for sexual and reproductive health services, and removing charitable status from anti-abortion organizations who provide “dishonest counselling” to women.
- Providing $400 million over 4 years to assist expand virtual care.
- Expanding student loan forgiveness programs for health-care employees who decide to work in rural areas, and expanding the kinds of pros eligible for this system.
- Including mental health as a component of occupational health and safety under the Canada Labour Code and requiring federally regulated employers to stop workplace stress and injury.
- Investing $500 million to assist provinces establish higher substance use treatment programs.
Sept 13: Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau pledges to criminalize blocking access to buildings that provide healthcare. That may extend to hospitals, clinics, abortion clinics, pharmacies and testing centres.
Aug. 19: The NDP released an uncosted platform that comprised guarantees about access to raised health care and food.
- The party is promising to take a position in health care and expand it to incorporate pharmacare, which might give coverage to everyone. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said the party will partner and work along with any province and territory that wishes to take a position in health care.
- Singh said, if elected, an NDP government would create a $250 million Critical Shortages Fund to deal with the shortage of nurses and health care employees across the country.
- The party would make sure that provinces also commit funding “specifically for health care employees.” The federal fund would help train and hire 2,000 nurses, Singh said.
- The NDP promise to “tackle homelessness, fight poverty,” and to ensure that that everybody within the country has access to healthy, reasonably priced food.
Aug. 24: NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh promised an end to for-profit long-term care homes and committed to a “care guarantee,” which might put in place standards for long-term care, a living wage for employees in these facilities and “protected, dignified care” for residents.
Aug. 27: Singh guarantees that an NDP government will implement a universal pharmacare program inside one 12 months.
Sept. 3: Singh says he’ll respond to the Quebec government’s call for a rise to health transfers and provides Quebec the best to opt out of federal programs with compensation.
Sept. 4: Singh guarantees to implement a national dental care system, which would supply coverage to families earning lower than $90,000.
Sept. 5: The NDP promised to commit $1 billion in targeted supports to ramp up vaccination programs, to quickly implement a national vaccine passport and to increase pandemic supports.
Aug. 18: Green Leader Annamie Paul released her vision for Canada, which included major reforms and changes to health care within the country, equivalent to universal Pharmacare and child care.
- The Greens also promised a significant overhaul of the country’s long-term care home system, whose residents were devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sept. 7: The Green Party released its full platform, with many specific guarantees on health care and pandemic recovery. These include:
- Fully funding a universal pharmacare program, to be launched in 2022 with an inventory of essential medicines to be expanded later
- Making a bulk drug purchasing agency and reducing drug patent protection periods
- Expand Medicare by making a free dental care program for low-income Canadians, with the goal of eventually expanding it to a free basic dental care program for all Canadians, no matter income
- Bring long-term care under the Canada Health Act and create enforceable national standards for LTC
- Improve training, pay and advantages for long-term care employees
- Increase investment in community and home-based care
- End for-profit long-term care homes
- Declare the overdose crisis a national emergency
- Decriminalize possession of illicit drugs for private use
- Create a national protected supply of medicine of alternative
- Establish a national mental health strategy and suicide prevention strategy
- Increase investments in Indigenous-led mental health
- Spend money on youth mental health
- Spend money on community supportive housing for those with severe or chronic mental health issues
- Order a public inquiry into Canada’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic
- Ensure Canada has a sturdy domestic pharmaceutical production capability
- Ensure Canada has a stockpile of private protective equipment (PPE)
- Spend money on Canada’s research and production of vaccines
- Speed up Canada’s move to a net-zero emissions green economy with the intention to limit further global warming and the intensification of maximum weather events
- Spend money on measures to limit the impact of maximum weather events attributable to climate change
- Halt and reverse biodiversity loss, as a method to reduce further pandemics
Aug. 21: Bloc Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet said that a recent Moderna vaccine manufacturing plant would most probably be inbuilt Quebec should voters select his party over the Liberals.
Aug. 22: Under the Bloc Quebecois platform, Blanchet’s government would increase health transfers to provinces and territories so the federal government covers not less than 35 per cent of all health care spending.
- The party would also increase paid sick leave through employment insurance for individuals with serious illnesses to from 15 weeks per 12 months to 50.
- The Bloc wants to extend the Canadian government’s contribution to the World Health Organization.
- Blanchet is vowing to make sure a percentage of significant personal protective equipment is made in Quebec and in Canada.
- The party also wants a everlasting protocol of COVID-19 testing in place on the border.
- If elected, the Bloc will institute a program to extend health and safety protocols in workplaces across the country.
- A Bloc government may even launch an inquest about how the pandemic has been handled, with a selected deal with the federal government’s preparedness.
-with files from the Canadian Press
