LETTER

End of life issues, palliative care

 

With coming government legislation on end of life care, New Democrats were surprised to find this year’s federal budget contained zero federal funds earmarked for palliative care. Especially after New Democrats fought to incorporate palliative care into the Liberal majority Joint Committee report on Physician-Assisted Dying, I was dismayed to see this budget fail to deliver on these concrete recommendations.

In the previous Parliament, almost every MP, including the current Prime Minister, stood up to support my motion calling for a Pan-Canadian Strategy on palliative and end of life care.  I was shocked to see the Liberal budget completely omit any funding or announcement for such a common-sense solution but I am hopeful and continuing to push for it to happen .

Palliative care is an essential component to a comprehensive response to end of life care, especially given Canada’s aging population.  The New Democrats are pushing for federal action on palliative care, as laid out in our recently-tabled motion M-46. However, given the lack of any health-care spending in the federal budget, it is no surprise that Palliative Care was missing.
 

In this federal budget, the Liberal party almost entirely forgot about a federal role in health-care. I guess the fact that they didn’t deliver on palliative care isn’t a surprise since they also completely forgot they promised 3 billion dollars for home-care in this campaign as well.

Charlie Angus, MP
Ottawa