With upcoming government legislation on end of life care, New Democrats were surprised to find this year’s federal budget contained zero federal funds earmarked for palliative care. Especially after New Democrats fought to incorporate palliative care into the Liberal majority Joint Committee report on Physician-Assisted Dying, Timmins-James Bay MP Charlie Angus was dismayed to see this budget fail to deliver on these concrete recommendations.
“In the previous Parliament, almost every MP including the current Prime Minister, stood up to support my motion calling for a Pan-Canadian Strategy on palliative and end of life care. I was shocked to see the Liberal budget completely omit any funding or announcement for such an obvious common-sense solution but I am hopeful and continuing to push for it to happen in the coming months.”
Palliative care is an essential component to a comprehensive response to end of life care, especially given Canada’s aging population. Angus recently expanded the New Democrat push for federal action on palliative care as laid out in their recently-tabled motion M-46*. However, given the lack of any health care spending in the federal budget, it is no surprise that Palliative Care was missing.
“In this federal budget the Liberal party almost entirely forgot about a federal role in health-care. I guess the fact that they didn’t deliver on palliative care isn’t a surprise since they also completely forgot they promised 3 billion dollars for home-care in this campaign as well.”
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