This February, public health care advocates from across the country came to Ottawa to lobby the federal government to uphold the Canada Health Act and combat the privatization of health care in Canada.
It was the Canadian Health Coalition’s biggest lobby of its kind to date, with 200 delegates from all provinces travelling to meet with their Members of Parliament and to rally together for public health care on Parliament Hill.
Over three days, we gathered to share advocacy strategies, learn more about what’s happening on the ground in each other’s provinces, and meet with more with a hundred Members of Parliament and Senators.
At the rally, hundreds of us braved the cold to demand the government take action to protect public health care across Canada.
While health care is a provincial responsibility, the federal government has a powerful role to play through the enforcement of the Canada Health Act, and provides billions in necessary health funding through the Canada Health Transfer.
As part of our work lobbying Members of Parliament, we also called on them directly to invest in and listen to front line workers, to develop a national allied health workforce plan, and to finish the job on building a truly national and universal Pharmacare system.
My team of Manitoban lobbyists included Wayne Chacun (MAHCP), Derek Myhre (MAHCP) and Margaret Schroeder (CUPE Local 204).
Together, we met with MPs Grant Jackson (Brandon-Souris; Conservative Party of Canada), Colin Reynolds (Elmwood-Transcona; Conservative Party of Canada), and Ginette Lavack (St. Boniface-St. Vital; Liberal).
These meetings were an important opportunity to take our message in defense of public health care right to our legislators, and to build relationships that will help us improve health care here at home in Manitoba, and all across Canada.