Federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq wrote to provincial health ministers announcing that federal funding of the Health Council of Canada will cease next year. Aglukkaq argues that the council was set up to measure progress of the 2004 federal-provincial health accord. Since the accord will expire in 2014 there will no longer be a need for the council, according to Aglukkaq. The Minister leaves open the possibility the provinces may continue to fund the council on their own.

“This cut is absolutely consistent with the PM’s clear visions: health care is a provincial matter. (Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s) failure to understand the historic importance of federal all party leadership in the establishment of Canadian health care is, I believe, tragic,” Sr. Nuala Kenny wrote in an e-mail to The Catholic Register.

“There is a crying need to hold governments accountable for health care delivery and spending, but this federal government refuses to play any role in this,” said Joe Gunn, executive director of the Ottawa-based Citizens for Public Justice.

Gunn was a member of the Ecumenical Health Care Network, which included both the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Catholic Health Alliance for Canada, 12 years ago. The ecumenical network proposed a “Health Covenant for Canada” which would hold governments responsible for the continued funding and effectiveness of public health care.

Pediatric doctor and health care ethics professor Kenny was a founding member of the Health Council of Canada and helped write the Church’s proposal to the Romanow Commission on the Future of Health Care. The Health Council of Canada has been important to maintaining a clear picture of how accessible and effective public health care is, she said.

“It has valiantly tried to work for years with political opposition. It is not perfect, but is committed to universal public health care,” Kenny said.

“I perceive the cut to the Health Council of Canada as a regrettable attempt to dumb down the ability of the federal government to analyse its own programs with evidence-based reporting,” said Gunn.

The Health Council of Canada is a modest agency, employing 31 people and spending between $5 million and $6.5 million per year, despite being budgeted for as much as $10 million.

In 2005 the Canadian bishops identified eroding public access to health care as a threat to social justice in the 2005 pastoral letter, Let’s Go Forward in Hope.