Harper Backs Medicare Law

Speaking at a luncheon hosted by the right-of-centre Fraser Institute, Harper said a plan to gut medicare, floated recently by former Reform party leader Preston Manning and former Ontario premier Mike Harris, was both naïve and misguided. Manning and Harris say the federal government should kill the Canada Health Act, the federal law governing medicare, and withdraw almost completely from the health field. "I could not imagine a proposal that's more of a non-starter than that one," Harper said yesterday. He acknowledged that free marketeers in the mainly business audience might not like his new position on health care, but said that political realism demanded it. "There is a consensus across Canadian society that those (free-market) norms should not dominate in the provision of health-care services." And, he said, Canadians support medicare because it works for them. "I will never compromise public health insurance in the country because it is the only system that most Canadian families, including my own family, have ever used." Reacting to those who say that medicare is a straitjacket, he said the Canada Health Act does not prevent the provinces from experimenting with innovative ways to provide health care. And he said that those, like Manning and Harris, who argue that the Canadian health-care system is uniquely hobbled by medicare are simply wrong. All nations suffer similar problems with their health-care systems, he said. Costs are up because populations are aging and because new medical technology is expensive. "Our health-care system is not unique in being under a great deal of stress." For Harper, yesterday's speech marks a new way-station in his journey away from hard-line, free-market neo-conservatism. In 1988, as chief policy architect for Manning's Reform party, he authored a document calling on Ottawa to withdraw from all universal social programs and leave them to the provinces. In 1993, as a Reform MP, he supported a caucus statement committing the party to "restore to the provinces the administrative jurisdiction (in health) that the federal government has usurped." In 2001, he co-authored an open letter to Alberta Premier Ralph Klein urging him to drop out of medicare. In a 2003 newspaper article, he wrote that the Canada Health Act should be scrapped and replaced with 10 separate agreements between Ottawa and each province. As late as last year, he wrote in the Star that one of his guiding principles in health care was that it must remain in provincial jurisdiction. And while he insisted during last year's election campaign that he was in favour of universal public health insurance, he carefully never mentioned the Canada Health Act. During that campaign it appeared for a while that Harper's Conservatives might win. Then, late in the campaign, Klein was quoted as saying he might introduce reforms that contravened the Canada Health Act. Prime Minister Paul Martin used Klein's words to portray Klein's fellow Conservative Harper as an enemy of medicare and won the election. For a year, Harper has tried to shake that image. Then, earlier this month, Manning and Harris published their scheme through the Fraser Institute. The Liberals jumped on it as further evidence that the Conservatives have a secret agenda to destroy medicare. Harper is said to have been furious. Yesterday, Harper was asked whether he was worried Klein might torpedo him again. The Alberta premier has promised to introduce unspecified health-care reforms soon, during what he calls his last term in office. "Mr. Klein isn't going to be premier much longer," Harper said. http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1114813812969&call_pageid=970599109774&col=Columnist969907626796