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Health care is one of the five stated priorities of the new Conservative government, but it gets scant mention in the budget released yesterday by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.

"We are committed to implementing the 10-year plan to strengthen health care," Mr. Flaherty told the Commons. His government, he said, will work with the provinces to develop a guarantee for patient waiting times -- a requirement provinces pay for treatment outside their jurisdictions when it is not available locally in a timely manner.

But there is no new money for waiting-time reduction beyond the $41-billion, spread over 10 years, that was committed 18 months ago by the previous Liberal government. The new budget merely promises to continue paying the $5.5-billion waiting-time reduction transfer that was part of the previous accord.

The provinces, which will foot the bill for the guarantee, say the health-care accord of 2004 does not take into account the costs of sending patients to other provinces -- or to the U.S. -- as Prime Minister Stephen Harper says they will be have to do when there are unacceptable backlogs for key medical procedures. The provinces say they will need more money if Ottawa is going to make such a demand.

The government has, however, decided to target two major health concerns -- cancer and the threat of an influenza pandemic.

The budget provides $52-million a year to the Public Health Agency of Canada to help implement a Canadian strategy for cancer control.

Mr. Flaherty said his government will be "providing $1-billion over the next five years to improve Canada's ability to respond effectively to pandemics and other health emergencies." In fact, just $600-million -- or $120-million a year -- is committed to the task. The rest will be spent on an as-needed basis should a pandemic actually occur.

Dr. Ruth Collins-Nakai, president of the Canadian Medical Association, said the budget was not a health budget. To be fair, she said, the government has committed to the 2004 accord and has moved the time line for provinces to meet the waiting-times guarantee from December, 2007, to December, 2006.

"But we believe they missed a huge opportunity to address the root causes of the wait times, which is the shortage of health human resources -- the people working in the system -- and, on the other hand, the health technology that might help us provide more efficient services," she said.