The national organizations have asked us to put pressure on the federal government, who have the ability to attach strings to the funds that they transfer, to do so. The key message remains the same: the federal government must show leadership in ensuring the principles of the Canada Health Act apply to the new homecare and pharmacare programs, that the Act is enforced, and that they stop for-profit health care. As per our last email, all are encouraged to call into the Prime Minister' and Health Minister's offices so that they get a strong message from the massive constituency in Canada who support accountability, standards, and public delivery.

For Ontarians, we should push Dalton McGuinty to show leadership in opposing privatization as he did during his election campaign. (It should be noted that yesterday afternoon only Gary Doer from

Manitoba talked about public healthcare delivery and regulating the behavour of the pharmaceutical industry). So far, McGuinty has not spoken in support of public delivery of healthcare, nor in support for national standards and accountability.

A quick summary of progress on our key identified issues:

Funding - federal offer of 25% of provincial health expenditure falls short of our demand for 25% of all health spending and long term funding with an escalator to increase funds with population growth and inflation.