The Conservative government's election pledge to protect the public health care is about to be tested by the B.C. government's "distressing" initiative, New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton said yesterday.

"We have stated that we want to see the Canada Health Act enforced and it is distressing to hear this kind of initiative by the government of British Columbia," he said at a news conference. "It is precisely this kind of development that we warned against."

Mr. Layton was commenting on the B.C. Liberal government's plan for a three-year province-wide discussion on "how to sustain and update" health care in the province. Among the questions the government is posing is why Canadians are so afraid to look at mixed private and public health-care delivery systems, as exist in Europe, and why Canadians are so quick to condemn other systems as a slippery slope to a United States-style system.

"We heard quite a bit of discussion about the Canada Health Act in this election and the test is about to come, as to whether that was serious or whether it was simply rhetoric," Mr. Layton said.

The Conservative election platform included a commitment to a publicly funded health-care system that respects the five principles of the Canada Health Act --universality, accessibility, comprehensiveness, portability and public administration.

"Those who support the privatization and the for-profit operation of an increasing portion of our medical system are very active, clearly, in several provinces," Mr. Layton said. "And it's going to be up to Mr. Harper to live up to the commitment that he made to the Canadian people that the Canadian Health Act should be respected."

The B.C. government proposes to define and guarantee the Canada Health Act principles in provincial legislation and to add a sixth one -- sustainability.

Federal Health Minister Tony Clement declined comment on B.C.'s plan until today, after a scheduled Quebec government announcement on how it is going to adapt to a Supreme Court of Canada ruling last spring which struck down a Quebec government ban on private health insurance for medicare services.

Meanwhile, Michael Decter, the chairman of the Health Council of Canada, said yesterday that Alberta's "third way" debate is obscuring the dramatic improvements the province is making in its health-care system.

Speaking to a two-day conference on Accelerating Primary Care in Edmonton, Mr. Decter said "sabre-rattling" by Alberta Premier Ralph Klein was obscuring a "remarkable modernization" that happened in Alberta's health system in the past decade "People here are getting far faster and better access to care than they are in other parts of Canada," he said.

Mr. Klein has been talking for over a year about bringing in a health-care "third way," some mix of a public and private system. The first "third way" legislation is expected to be tabled this spring.

Mr. Decter, a former Ontario deputy health minister, said much of the national debate about private versus public health care ignores the fact that Canada has always had a mixed system. Dental care, part of medicare in other countries, is private in Canada, for instance.

He said he thinks most Canadians want public health insurance for medically necessary procedures. The real debate is whether health care must also be provided by a public system. The Romanow report on health care in 2002 said health should be publicly delivered; the Kirby report the same year argued it didn't have to be.

"It seems to me that's where some of the premiers, particularly [B.C. Premier Gordon] Campbell and premier Klein, are heading a little bit, to say under a public insurance umbrella could we have mixed delivery."

Mr. Decter said the whole debate is hampered by public confusion about what's currently private and public in the health system, and by the fact that health care is a political hot button.

CanWest News Service