While I was away in United States undergoing other treatment Mr. Martin (Canada's Federal Finance Minister) brought down his budget allotting $11.5 billion to health care over the next five years. Sounds like a great deal of money doesn't it? If you take a few minutes to do some simple math that translates to about $1.7 billion per province, which actually means about $350 million per year for five years. I would think that probably restores the amount of money Mr. Martin took away from health care to get the deficit under control.
Therefore by 2004 (five years from now) the federal cash transfers should get us where we were in 1995/96. However, by 2004 the population will have grown substantially from 95/96 and many of us will become part of the senior sector, who in many instances require more health care than the younger generations. So I don't think this budget really gets us very far ahead.
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