MP David Sweet, Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale

Thank you to everyone who joined Almut and I at our New Year’s Levée on January 2. It was a great way to ring in the New Year – we enjoyed our conversations with you.

With Parliament set to resume next week, all eyes are on the upcoming federal budget. Again this year, the Finance Minister and members of Caucus have been consulting with Canadians on the budget. The best ideas on how we can protect our economic recovery while addressing the fiscal reality come from Canadians of all walks of life. With that in mind, my second annual Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale (ADFW) survey was sent out a couple weeks ago. Last year, more than 1,000 households responded and I forwarded a summary of your input to the Minister of Finance as part of last year’s consultations.

This year, the survey again seeks your input on the next phase of Canada’s Economic Action Plan, how we protect our economic recovery in the face of economic shocks from beyond our borders and areas of government spending that could be reduced or eliminated as part of the deficit reduction effort. Other areas of feedback are also included. Completed surveys can be mailed back to me postage-free, or you can visit my web site www.davidsweet.ca to complete it online.

With the announcement in late December by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty of a long-term, stable funding arrangement with the provinces, health care spending has been in the news a lot recently. It’s always a hot topic so let me clear up a few misconceptions.

First, the federal government is committed to a universal, publicly-funded health care system. Under the investment announced by Minister Flaherty, federal health care funding will increase from $30 billion per year in 2013-2014 to more than $38 billion per year in 2018-2019.

This represents a major new investment in health care funding that helps provide certainty and stability to provincial governments in planning for the next five years.

Second, I should note that this is in contrast to the Liberal governments of the mid-1990s who made major cuts to health transfers to the provinces in order to balance the budget. We have been clear that we will not balance the budget in this way.

Third, as indicated by recent Canadian Institute for Health Information data, federal transfers are projected to grow faster than average provincial spending on health care.