Abstract

The most striking aspect of the Health Communiqué issued by the First Ministers on September 11th, 2000 is that almost no one has read its actual text. None of our national or even local newspapers saw fit to publish it. If one compares the exhaustive coverage of the life and death of our remarkable former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau to the coverage of the Health Communiqué, it is a stark contrast. Despite its legitimate status as the most expensive, and possibly the most contentious intergovernmental agreement in recent Canadian history, few Canadians actually know what it contains, beyond dollars. It is not because the agreement lacks substance. In fact, it is a great deal more substantive than most Canadians believe.