A long awaited first ministers meeting is set for December 10 and the topic will be something that’s been all the premier’s minds this year and that’s health care funding.

Premier John Horgan was on the NL Morning News, and said health care funding as been one of his top priorities since day one.

“That’s something that I brought to the first meeting I ever went to as Premier, found that I had a handful of allies at that time only increasing the number of Premiers that understand and recognize if the Federal Government is going to direct how the Canada Health Act works across Canada, they need to be equal partners in the funding,” he said.

Horgan added health care funding from Ottawa has been eroding for several years and he wants that to change.

“This is not a new thing, it’s been going on since Paul Martin was the Finance Minister in the mid 1990’s and we need to reverse that and we need to start seeing more federal dollars coming to deliver health services and the provinces are united on that,” he added.

“The Federal Government has agreed to have a meeting dedicated exclusively to that.”

Horgan feels confident the both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland will make the changes he’s hoping to see.

“I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to break what has been a sad cycle of reduced dollars for services and the Prime Minister is committed to doing that,” he said. “Minister Freeland was not the Minister of Finance when we had these initial discussions, she was Intergovernmental Relations but she understands this completely.”

Horgan says health care is something Canadians have come to expect.

“I think it’s part of Canadian citizenship frankly. It’s what separates us from our friends to the south that public, accessible health care is there for all British Columbians and all Canadians, no matter where you live and that means we need to distribute dollars from the central government equally to deliver those services.”

The Premier says he feels good about what the outcome will be, noting he’s optimistic that come the spring there will be a better deal in place, otherwise he says he will keep lobbying for one.