Still stinging from Ontario Premier Mike Harris's crack about greedy welfare bums, Grimes said boosting the federal health and social transfer would be most beneficial to Ontario and make it even harder for the poorer provinces to maintain their health professionals.

Provincial premiers and territorial leaders arrived here yesterday for their annual conference. Meetings begin today.

They've already staked out positions on the key monetary issues surrounding health funding and equalization, the federal program that funnels tax money to so-called "have-not" provinces to try to provide comparable levels of public services across Canada.

Harris has spent the weeks leading up to the meeting lobbying his fellow premiers to demand Ottawa fork over an additional $7 billion a year for health care, which would restore funding to pre-deficit-cutting levels.

But Grimes and his Maritime colleagues prefer any additional money comes through a revised equalization program.

The Canadian Health and Social Transfer (CHST) is paid out on a per-capita basis, said Grimes, which means Ontario would get the lion's share of any funding increase. Source.