Dozens of people held posters and puppets resembling the 10 provincial premiers as they marched through downtown Halifax chanting “health care, not wealth care” on Wednesday afternoon.

They were participating in the Premiers Puppets Parade, a march orchestrated by the Nova Scotia Citizens’ Health Care Network. They’re asking the premiers to get Prime Minister Stephen Harper to renegotiate his plans to cut public health care by $31 billion between 2017 and 2024, said Adrienne Silnicki, a health care campaigner for the Council of Canadians.

“We’re asking the premiers to not be puppets; stand up to Harper, tell him that he has to get back to that table and that he has to negotiate. They need to do that as a united front,” Silnicki said at the protest.

The premiers are in town for the Council of the Federation meetings, which run Thursday and Friday. Health care is on the discussion docket.

Locals marched with a busload of supporters from Prince Edward’s Island, beginning at the Spring Garden Road Memorial Public Library and ending on the waterfront. Three people were assigned to manipulate each puppet and most wore a mask of Harper’s face as they chanted through the downtown streets.

Maryann Chiasson has been the primary caregiver for her husband for the past 18 years after he suffered a stroke. The P.E.I. woman appreciates that she can send her husband to Brecken House in Charlottetown, an adult health care facility, three days a week.

“If they cut back in funding these are the things that won’t be available to him anymore,” she said.

Those who participated in the march expressed the increasing worry that health care is becoming privatized.

“We’re really going to see every province start to be really divided on what they offer. Canadians will no longer have a health system that’s portable or universal,” Silnicki said.