On August 15th, 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, leader of the Liberal Party called for a federal election. While there are many items and issues to look out for from each parties’ platform, we have dedicated this post to the key takeaways from each party regarding health, healthcare, employment insurance etc. Although this is not an exhaustive list on all the points raised by the parties regarding health and healthcare, we wanted to provide you with a starting point of navigating the 2021 elections as it relates to breast cancer patients.
Liberals
- All Canadians will have access to a family physician or primary health care provider
- All Canadians will be able to afford their prescription medicine
- Ensure that rural communities can better access Telehealth services and will expand virtual care in general
- Provide better transportation for patients in rural communities who need to access care in urban centres
- Invest $10B to eliminate waitlists in the healthcare sector
- Invest $3B in order to hire 7,500 family doctors, nurses and nurse practitioners over the next four years
- Recruit and hire more healthcare professionals in rural and remote areas
- Mandate that all federally regulated workers get 10 days of paid sick leave
- Improve palliative and end-of-life care, investing $29.8B over 6 years
- Ensure that Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) is implemented properly, investing $13.2M over 5 years
You can find out more about the Liberal Party’s full platform here.
Conservatives
- Help individuals who need medications that are not currently covered by their insurance plans
- Work with the pharmaceutical industry to reduce drug prices
- Double the direct federal investments in palliative care
- Revamp MAID by
- Reinstating the ten-day waiting period
- Reinstating the need for two fully independent witnesses
- Ensure that discussions surrounding MAID are only had after it is brought up by patients
- Repealing the Bill C-7 provision that allows MAID for those with mental health challenges
- Ensure that patients receiving MAID are informed immediately before receiving it and given the chance to change their mind
- Require that healthcare practitioners who approve MAID requests are able to examine and discuss directly with the patients before approving the request
- Require that healthcare practitioners who approve MAID requests complete MAID assessor training
You can find out more about the Conservative Party’s full platform here.
Bloc Quebecois
- Special employment insurance (EI) benefits that would cover workers suffering from serious illnesses for 50 weeks, rather than 15 weeks
You can find out more about the Bloc Quebecois Party’s full platform here.
New Democratic Party
- Implement a national pharmacare program that would
- Cover prescription drugs for all Canadians and permanent residents with an annual federal investment of $10B
- Make access to medicine and medical devices free at the point of care
- Eliminate copayments, deductibles, and premiums
- Create a national strategy that covers drugs for rare diseases regardless of where an individual lives or what type of private insurance they have
- 10 paid sick days for workers in federally-regulated jobs
- Tackle wait times in the healthcare sector
- Create better access to primary care
- Develop public infrastructure for secure and accessible virtual healthcare
- Revamp employment insurance by
- Making it available to individuals who leave a job for health reasons
- Extending sickness benefits from 15 weeks to 50 weeks
- Creating a pilot project that allows patients with episodic illnesses the ability to access EI sickness benefits one day at a time or as needed
- Creating a low-income supplement that ensures that no-one on EI receives less than $2,000 a month
You can find out more about the New Democratic Party’s full platform here.
Green Party
At the time of writing, the Green Party has not revealed their 2021 platform, however, they have spoken on their intent to
- Develop a national pharmacare plan
- Increase paid sick leave
You can find out more about the Green Party here.
People’s Party
- Allow provinces and territories to be in charge their own healthcare funding and management
You can find out more about the People’s Party’s full platform here.
The official day for voting is September 20th and polling places will be open for 12 hours. Use the below links to find other relevant information:
Voting times, depending on what province you are in.
Find out what riding you are in, by entering your postal code, here.
Click here to find your polling place.
Photo by Jason Hafso on Unsplash
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