The Council of Canadians is saddened by the news of the cuts to the Health Council of Canada. While some analysts are correct to point out that the HCC had little bite, the bark that they had was valued.

The Health Council of Canada reported annually on provinces and territories' progress with the benchmarks agreed to in the 2004 Health Accord. The HCC reported on Northern Canadians' experiences with accessing care, seniors care, access and wait times, electronic health records, and they condemned the increasing dependency of provinces on informal home care providers pointing out that the policy puts pressure on women and fails to provide support for caregivers. Most of all, they showed the growing inequality in access to health care services across Canada.

The Council of Canadians and our medicare allies are organizing a national lobby the week of April 8 to ask members of Parliament to support the 2014 Health Accord.

So far the Harper government has ignored the call of premiers to talk about the state of health care in Canada. Instead, Min. Flaherty dictated to the premiers that the Canada Health Transfer will be cut by $36 billion after the next election (Budget 2016/2017).