Canada's Premiers Continue Gathering In Victoria

Canada's premiers continue their gathering in Victoria.

Canada's premiers continue their gathering in Victoria.

B.C. Premier John Horgan, this year's chair of the Council of the Federation, spoke on the issue of public health care on Monday.

"This is not something that we take likely, it's not something that we are looking at as a temporary measure. We need to re-imagine public health care in Canada".

Horgan said that provincial governments don’t have sufficient funding to hire enough workers to ensure that their health systems continue to function well into the future.

The premier said that provinces need to ensure they have the funding to train "the next generation of health care workers to take the burden off those we celebrated during the pandemic ..."

"It's just not good enough to show our gratitude," he added. "We need to now show that we're committed to those workers, we're committed to those patients and that's what these discussions are about this afternoon and into tomorrow."

 The group wants Ottawa to increase funding to 35 percent, up from the current 22 percent.

Yesterday, the premiers met with Indigenous leaders to talk reconciliation, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, and land claims.

Following this week's meetings, which are taking place in person for the first time since 2019, the premiers will address the media and take questions at the Fairmont Empress hotel in Victoria.