Federal health minister won't help

Page 10

Ontario chiefs have hit a wall in their efforts to assert a couple of treaty rights for First Nations people in the province.

The Ontario Health Premium (OHP) is collected by the federal government's Canada Revenue Agency as part of an agreement with the provincial Ministry of Finance.

Chris McCormick, deputy grand chief of the Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians (AIAI), a London, Ont.-based political/territorial organization (called tribal councils in other parts of the country), took on the task of seeking to change the system so that First Nations people are not charged the premium, which he says is a tax.

He maintains First Nations people have a treaty right to health care and a treaty right to be tax exempt and this arrangement violates both those rights.

"There are three provinces that have health premiums, British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario," McCormick said. "In British Columbia and Alberta, the residents of the province are invoiced the amount that they would be required to pay towards the health premium. Status Indians in those provinces living on or off reserve call in their status card information and the invoices are sent to Health Canada and are paid."

According to information compiled by AIAI researchers, the federal government paid $11.7 million to Alberta for health care for the approximately 87,000 status Indians in the province in 2002-03, the most recent year for which statistical information was available at the time of the study. B.C.'s more than 112,000 status people received health care for which the provincial government received more than $12 million from Ottawa. In both cases, Native people did not pay for the service and were not charged premiums, McCormick said.

But in Ontario, the almost 160,000 status people pay, through payroll deductions, as much as $900 a year for health care and the province receives that money back from Health Canada. The rates vary according to income: those earning less than $20,000 do not pay any premium; those earning between $20,000 and $36,000 pay $300 a year; those earning between $36,000 and $40,000 pay $450 a year and those earning more than $200,000 annually pay $900.

Ontario began having the federal government collect the health premium through payroll deduction in 2005. McCormick took note shortly afterwards that it was then considered a tax and levied against First Nation people in Ontario even though First Nation people in other provinces do not pay it. He began a lobby effort that has taken him to Ottawa and Toronto, the Ontario capital, on several occasions. It was only after he was rebuffed by federal Health Minister Tony Clement that he contacted this publication.

"The argument that Health Canada is making is that in Ontario the premiums are processed through the Ministry of Finance and are labeled as a tax rather than a health premium. The process for paying the premiums is by direct deduction from pay cheques for all residents including status Indians working off-reserve," he said. "AIAI's argument is that our health coverage is a treaty right and that this is universal for all status Indians across Canada. It is also our argument that if the premiums had been processed through the Ministry of Health instead of the Ministry of Finance we would not find ourselves in this situation and our treaty right to health would have been upheld."

The Ontario finance minister, Dwight Duncan, acknowledged in a letter to McCormick on Dec. 15, 2005 that he was willing to look into the situation.

"If you decide to engage the federal government in discussions about developing an arrangement whereby the federal government pays the OHP of status Indians in Ontario, the Ontario Ministry of Finance would be happy to participate in those discussions," Duncan wrote.

But efforts over the summer to get the federal government to the table have resulted in mixed messages.

An unsigned and undated letter prepared for signature by the federal health inister said Tony Clement was "in favor of entering into the required discussions with the federal and provincial governments to resolve this issue."

But a letter signed by Clement, dated in a handwritten scrawl July 26, contradicts that message.

"Health Canada does not have the authority or mandate to pay income-based taxes on behalf of First Nation and Inuit clients," he wrote.

After that rejection, Chris McCormick headed back to Ottawa to lobby opposition members. New Democratic Party (NDP) Leader Jack Layton and NDP Aboriginal Affairs Critic Jean Crowder wrote a letter to Clement on the matter.

"We are writing to raise an issue of inequity among status Indians and their treaty right to health care," they wrote.

"We would like to hear from you directly, when will you enter into discussions with the province of Ontario to deal with this situation and remedy this injustice?"

In a phone interview on Sept. 26, Layton said his party will be raising this issue in Parliament.

"A clear injustice is being perpetrated here," he said. "Treaty rights are not being respected and this government appears unwilling to take on its fiduciary obligation."