In the Saturday, April 7 edition of the Gazette, it was stated that local MP Brent Rathgeber wants federal health transfers axed.
In fact, he didn’t say the transfer should be “axed,” he said it is an issue that should be talked about because of the cost of the parallel bureaucracies at the federal and provincial levels.
In his speech to the Rotary club, Rathgeber said:
“Theoretically, if Canada were to get out of the health care transfer business, it would provide tax points to the provinces to make up the shortfall. Expressed another way, the federal government would reduce your federal taxes payable, thereby allowing the province to increase its taxes to the same level, with no effect on the taxpayer and no effect on provincial health care spending. The savings would be created by reducing hundreds of civil servants who are employed both by Canada and by the 10 provinces whose job is really to collect, then transfer, then receive, then finally to spend the earmarked tax dollars. This is an idea that needs to be addressed, needs to be costed, but one which will receive significant push back, especially from the public sector unions.”
In a later interview, he further clarified his message, saying he calls it “out-of-the-box thinking.”
“For me it’s a strange system. You have a system where the federal government taxes you, transfers the money to bureaucrat B. Bureaucrat B then sends it over to the health department – bureaucrat C – and then they go and spend it. I just think it would be a much simpler system if we abolish the parallel bureaucracies and have the federal government reduce its tax rate so the provincial government can increase its tax rate to the same level so there would be no effect on the taxpayer and there’d be huge savings in the elimination of bureaucracy that does nothing but collect, transfer and spend money.”
The Gazette apologizes for the error.
