Canada's premiers are making their demands of Ottawa known before their meeting next week.

The Council of the Federation (CoF) — made up of every premier in the country — will meet July 11 and 12 in Victoria, B.C. to discuss shared priorities and how to get the feds to acquiesce to them. It'll be the group's first in-person meeting since 2019.

The top priority, per a CoF release Thursday, is health care — more specifically, getting Ottawa to up its share of the funding from 22 per cent to 35 per cent.

“The problems Canadians experienced in accessing health-care services during the pandemic have intensified strains in our health systems that will continue unless the federal government significantly increases its share of the costs of health care," CoF Chair and B.C. Premier John Horgan said in the release. "Canadians must have the confidence that their health-care systems will provide the services they need. There can be no further delay in having this vital conversation with the federal government."

It's been a long-standing ask of Justin Trudeau's government from the premiers. He has promised to increase the transfer by an unspecified amount once the pandemic is over.

Ford called on Trudeau to pay his "fair share" of funding now.

"The premiers have been asking the federal government to come to table and be a true funding partner. We’ll continue to make our case that the federal government needs to work with us in making sure that every Canadian has access to high-quality health care," he said in a statement.

The premiers said they will also discuss affordability issues and economic recovery. Premier Doug Ford's office again stressed what will likely be his top priority: immigration. Ontario has far more jobs than workers. The Ford government has asked for more skilled labourers, and much more control over its immigration system, so it can pick and choose who it receives.

"In the face of a historic labour shortage, we need more skilled workers to help fill the gap here in Ontario and across the country," Ford said. "I know the other premiers agree that provinces can’t do this alone. We need the federal government to work with us to tackle the labour shortfall to help ensure our economy remains strong during these challenging times."

The construction lobby says Ontario Immigration Nominee Program reform isn't all on the feds, however. RESCON recently called on the Ford government to allocate more seats to general labourers, cut red tape, update anti-racism training and more.

This year, Ottawa increased the number of skilled workers Ontario could receive through the OINP from 9,000 to 9,700. The Ford government had asked the feds to double that number.

Ontario’s immigration agreement with the federal government expires in the fall. A government source speaking on background said the PCs will try again to "dramatically" increase the number of skilled workers Ontario gets, along with allowing the province more control over the process.

The Ford government also said the feds need to allocate more resources to process immigrant applications faster. Over the last six months, the average time to process an OINP application was 26 months, or 18 months through the Express Entry system.

CoF 2022: Health care, immigration, affordability to take centre stage

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