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Let’s hope that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and every one of the provincial and territorial premiers heading into a health care meeting in Ottawa grasp that the system in most provinces requires serious reform and transformation at a time when it is also in crisis.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

Get it over with already. Get that federal-provincial health care deal done. Then get on to fixing the system so Canadians get better care.

The federal-provincial talks on health care funding are now negotiations where the important thing is not the finer points of the outcome but that there is an outcome. Quickly.

Let’s hope that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and every one of the provincial and territorial premiers heading into a health care meeting in Ottawa on Tuesday grasp that this particular confab can’t be the usual squabble. The strains on the system are acute in nearly every province, making ordinary folks fear health care won’t be there when they need it.

So enough talk.

The feds must pump a significant sum of cash into health care transfers because the system in most provinces requires serious reform and transformation at a time when it is also in crisis. A cash injection from the feds gives provinces help in boosting health budgets in the near term. Federal sources have been insisting it will be a big number, but premiers say they have yet to see the figure.

Explainer: Trudeau is meeting with Canada’s premiers to reach a new health care funding deal. Here’s what to know

It is also important to get a deal done and dusted for a long time. The provinces, as Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson said on Monday, want “sustainable long-term funding,” and that’s reasonable: If the premiers really are planning reform, they will want to know what money they have to work with. Getting a 10-year deal done – and that is what the feds say they will offer – is important.

And in the end, ordinary Canadians don’t care as much about which level of government picks up the bill as they do about what actually happens with care. Once a funding deal is done, one hopes, jurisdictional squabbles can’t be an easy excuse or a distraction.

So finally. A prime minister who promised an increase in health care funding will now meet the premiers who have been complaining he would not come to the table.

“After two years – finally,” Quebec Premier François Legault said when he arrived at an Ottawa hotel Monday to meet his fellow premiers ahead of the sit-down with Mr. Trudeau.

Certainly, Mr. Trudeau had put it off. In the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, he insisted that it was more appropriate to talk about emergency funding than a longer-term arrangement. In the 2021 election campaign, he promised roughly $22-billion over five years in additional health care funding (plus or minus a couple of billion, depending on what you count).

What Mr. Trudeau wanted was what federal leaders usually want when it comes to health care: credit for doing more than just writing cheques. He wanted to say his government was cutting surgery backlogs or hiring family doctors, even though it is provincial governments that do that.

Mr. Trudeau wants some of the money to do deals to fund specific areas such as mental health or long-term care, negotiated with individual provinces, and for the provinces to ascribe to certain general goals and agree to publish more data on outcomes.

And the provinces made it easier to delay by insisting they want an unrealistic sum – an additional $28-billion a year – with no strings attached.

That has shifted. Premiers are suggesting they would accept light conditions, as long as they are phrased their way. Even Mr. Legault said he would accept bilateral funding deals for specific health care priorities, as long as they are Quebec’s priorities. Perhaps not coincidentally, Mr. Legault said Mr. Trudeau seems ready to offer significant money.

What changed?

Canadians feeling that health care crisis, and feeling vulnerable, know they are picking up the tab no matter which government pays what. You can bet they are losing patience with political leaders arguing about it. Let’s hope those leaders all feel that public pressure every hour till an agreement is done.

It is not that all the details are meaningless. The dollar figure Mr. Trudeau will reveal to premiers on Tuesday will have an impact. Most Canadians would probably favour one condition the feds are reportedly seeking: a commitment that provinces will use all additional federal money for health care, without cutting their own health spending.

But above all, it is time for all the first ministers to get it done. The health care crisis is already here. Canadians want their leaders to get over the squabbling over who pays and on to actually improving care.

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