Federal Investments in Support of the 10-Year Plan to Strengthen Health Care

In addition to the 10-year Plan to Strengthen Health Care, Budget 2007 took action to help reduce wait times and to modernize Canada's health system through targeted investments.

Federal Investments in Health Care

Building on the commitments in the 2000 and 2003 Health Accords, all First Ministers signed the 10-Year Plan to Strengthen Health Care on September 16, 2004.

In support of the 10-Year Plan, the Government of Canada committed $41.3 billion in new federal funding for provinces and territories over 10 years (2004-05 to 2013-14).

The new funding will be used to increase ongoing federal health support provided through the Canada Health Transfer (CHT); meet the outstanding financial recommendations in the report of the Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada (the Romanow Report); address wait times to help ensure Canadians have timely access to essential health care services; and provide funds for medical and diagnostic equipment.

The 10-Year Plan also addresses the unique challenges facing the delivery of health care services in Canada's North, including the costs of medical transportation.

The 10-Year Plan includes an agreement to develop evidence-based benchmarks, comparable indicators, clear targets and transparent reporting to the public on access to health care. All governments agreed to report to their residents on health system performance including the elements outlined in the 10-Year Plan.

In addition, the legislation that implemented the funding commitments of the 10-Year Plan provides for a Parliamentary review by March 31, 2008 and March 31, 2011 on progress in implementing the 10-Year plan.

$41.3 billion in New Federal Funding

This $41.3 billion in new funding is allocated to provinces and territories on an equal per capita cash basis in order to ensure equal support for all Canadians regardless of their place of residence (see Table 1).

An automatic escalator of six per cent annually has been applied to the new CHT base of $19 billion since 2006-07.

Further, an additional $5.5 billion was invested over a 10-year period to help reduce wait times.

• Funding for the first five years, a total of $4.25 billion, was provided through a third-party trust. Provinces and territories have the flexibility to draw on this funding according to their respective jurisdictional priorities to meet their wait times commitments.
• Beginning in 2009-10, funding was provided through a Wait Times Reduction Transfer of $250 million annually, to be used primarily for both ongoing support for health human resources and tools to manage wait times.

The Government of Canada also provided provinces and territories with a further $500 million for medical equipment in 2004-05.

Budget 2007 Targeted Investments

Supporting the objectives in patient wait times reduction are the following investments made in Budget 2007:

Budget 2007 also provides additional investments in health through a new Immunization Trust:

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