Premiers to push PM on health transfers over dinner after climate talks wrap up
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is sitting down with premiers to finalize a long-awaited national plan on climate change, but once those discussions wrap up, they will move right into a heated debate over health care funding.
“We want to talk about health care,” Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall said Wednesday, pointing out that the first ministers meeting beginning Thursday in Ottawa is the second such gathering devoted to curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
“We hope even if it’s only shoe-horned into the agenda, that we can have some discussion about what’s going to be taking place in health care funding.”
That discussion is expected to take place at a working dinner Friday evening — after the official meeting on climate change is through — when federal sources say Trudeau will tell the provincial and territorial premiers he is ready to listen to any of their concerns unrelated to the environment.