Health care crisis: Canadian NDP Leader says party is looking into solutions

Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh wrapped up his tour of Vancouver Island Friday by speaking to reporters about what he recently called a “national crisis” in health care.

Singh says the party is looking into several solutions, including offering better pay to Canadian health-care grads, and overhauling the health-care licensing process. He says they are also looking into streamlining immigration.

“Licensing bodies right now, there’s a lot of complexity. We’ve got a national licensing, and then it’s also provincial licensing. There has to be a way for us to streamline that,” he said.

He says he has also not ruled out withholding his party’s support of the Liberal government if action is not taken to address the challenges Canadians are facing.

“Many are choosing not to work in Canada, so we can’t allow that to happen. We have to find ways to give better compensation, absolutely. That’s something that the prime minister actually promised for personal support workers, for frontline health care workers to increase their pay,” he said.

He has also renewed a call for the Trudeau government to act on its election promise of creating a new $4.5 billion mental health transfer.

“Trudeau made a promise to increase mental health and addiction supports and has not fulfilled that promise. we’re going to continue to put pressure on him to follow through on that promise because that would be very fundamental in helping B.C. with the treatment side,” Singh said.

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Singh says he is set to meet with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about health care next month.

This comes ahead of a first ministers’ meeting in Ottawa scheduled for Feb. 7.