Quebec’s Health Minister, Gaétan Barrette, recently announced that the government wanted to transform the funding method for medical facilities in the health network by adopting activity-based funding, a model which the MEI has analyzed a number of times in recent years and which is the norm in most industrialized countries. This is a step in the right direction when it comes to reducing waiting times in Quebec hospitals.

Activity-based funding of hospitals could help reduce wait times if accompanied by other, complementary measures.

Quebec’s Health Department is senselessly blocking the opening of clinics run by nurse practitioners who specialize in front-line care. Yet these doctorless clinics would respond to real needs among the population, access to front-line care being one of the main failings of Quebec’s health system. Moreover, a nurse practitioner costs the health care system around 1/3 of what a general practitioner costs, shows an Economic Note published by the MEI.

It is difficult for innovative solutions like nurse-led clinics to establish themselves in a bureaucratic health care system.

A number of Bay Street economists are urging the federal government to loosen its purse strings even more and run larger deficits than announced during the election campaign in order to “stimulate” the Canadian economy. This short-term perspective, however, fails to take into account several important considerations.

The inefficiency of running large deficits versus other ways of stimulating economic growth.

Quebec’s health care system continues to underperform compared to those in the rest of Canada and in other Commonwealth countries.

Comparing the performance of the provincial premiers in terms of government spending, corporate and individual taxes, and deficits and debt.

For several decades, Quebec has been one of the Canadian provinces in which public spending, the tax burden, and the debt level are the highest. One of the Quebec government’s main challenges is therefore to reverse these three trends in order to improve the dynamism of the province’s economy and to allow the population’s standard of living to rise. How does Quebec’s current government compare with the other provincial governments in achieving these goals?

Should Ottawa run large deficits in order to "stimulate" the Canadian economy?