Ottawa warns current health transfers unsustainable

A day before federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is set to meet with his provincial and territorial counterparts in Victoria, Conservative cabinet minister Jason Kenney says while a new deal on health transfers has yet to be reached, the current level of funding is unsustainable and his party's election promise to fund health transfers to the provinces at six per cent does not extend beyond 2016.

In an interview with CBC Radio's The House, Kenney tells Evan Solomon, "We did commit in the platform, during the election, to six per cent growth for the balance of the Health Accord, plus two years."

With the current Health Accord set to expire in 2014, the federal government "will be having discussions with the provinces on where to go beyond that," said Kenney.

"Many of the provinces are [already] controlling the growth in health care costs, and it's less than six per cent."

"I think everyone recognizes that we cannot continue annual increases of six per cent, or more in some of the provinces, year after year," said Kenney.

"For some of the provinces, if they continue in that trajectory, there will be nothing left for education, for universities, for anything else."

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Source: CBC