August 20, 2014 – NDP leader Thomas Mulcair is chastising the Conservatives on their proposed cuts to health care while accusing them of politicizing the debate on marijuana.
In a speech to the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), Mulcair contends the Tories unsuccessfully tried to recruit Canadian doctors in an ideological crusade against marijuana.
Three medical groups, including the CMA, recently turned down a request
by Ottawa to participate in a campaign to raise awareness about the
dangers of marijuana use to Canadian youth. They said the issue had
become a “political football.”
Liberal leader Justin Trudeau says
the proposed campaign is a thinly veiled attack on his pro-legalization
stance, while Health Minister Rona Ambrose scoffed at that charge
earlier this week at the annual CMA conference.
Mulcair, the
first Opposition leader to be invited to address the meeting, accuses
the Conservatives of being more interested in de-funding public health
care than protecting it.
Mulcair vowed that if elected, the NDP
would use any budget surplus to cancel $36 billion in proposed
Conservative cuts to health care over the next 10 years.
Carl Vallee, a spokesman for the Prime Minister's Office, disputes the NDP leader's numbers.
Vallee says health transfer dollars to provinces are the highest they've ever been, and will reach $40 billion annually by the end of the decade. He says health transfers have increased by nearly 50 per cent since Conservatives came to power.
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