An Election is coming - What has Trudeau got up his sleeve

 

A new anti-conservative add has been hitting the airwaves of television this week.  It accuses O'Toole as cutting health care, claiming that he supports health care cuts, and yet political analysts insist that O'Toole is a "red tory" meaning he's more to the left of conservatism than his previous predecessor.

Perhaps a look at the history of Canadian universal health care should be looked at.  Tommy Doubles brought in universal health care in the province of Saskatchewan before the federal government did.  In fact John Diefenbaker, who was Prime Minister at the time, was up set because Douglas's actions had embarrassed the federal government, which forced the hand of Diefenbaker to create Canada's universal health care.

At the federal level, Ottawa would contribute dollar for dollar spent by the province on health care, and left the management and where the money would be spent to the provinces.  All Ottawa was concerned with was providing funding and nothing more.   Since then, liberal and conservative governments have cut away at the federal level their responsibility to provide funding for health care.   To be honest, Lester Pierson chipped away at it.  Then Pierre Trudeau chipped a bit more.  Brian Mulroney took a hack saw to the program cutting Ottawa's contribution to 13 cents for every dollar spent by the province.  Then along came Chretien and Martin who took chainsaws to the contributions dropping Ottawa's part to 11 cents and even 10 cents for every dollar spent on health care by the provinces.

Other changes were made, in that the federal government under Pierre Trudeau wanted a say in how the health care dollars were being spent.  This control increased over the different governments to the point where on paper the responsibility for health care services is still in the hands of the provinces, but are now under control of the federal government.  The only guarantee to the universal health care in Canada at the present time appears to be the understanding that no one in Canada will be turned away from any hospital for the basic care of each patient.  As a result it is up to each province what is meant by basic health care and what specialized health care will be covered.  Health care has suffered under the rule of both federal and provincial governments 

So now, the federal government is seen as the "controlling management" of health care through out Canada, while the brunt of the expense for health care is burdened by the provinces.  So when this left leaning organization has started add campaigns against the conservative party and O'Toole, you know that more adds will come to do the damage that Trudeau won't have to pay for.  It would be interesting to see where the money is coming from to sponsor these adds.  It would not surprise me if these adds are paid for by one of the left leaning groups in California who have in the past patted themselves on their backs for destroying the conservative party.

The ultimate question now is:  What does Trudeau have up his sleeve that would cause even the NDP to support an election a year early?