Federal funding extension falls short: Ministers

Provincial and territorial health ministers say a one-year extension of a 10-year $1.2 billion annual funding agreement announced by the federal health minister late Wednesday isn’t good enough.

“We are still facing an enormous fiscal cliff,” Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara, who is hosting the ministers in Winnipeg, said at a press conference Thursday at The Leaf in Assiniboine Park.

The one-year extension of funding for mental health, substance use and home and community care that was set to expire March 31, 2027 was announced by federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel, who meets with her provincial and territorial counterparts Friday.

“We welcome that first step, however, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done, a lot of engagement that needs to happen (Friday),”Asagwara said.

“We are not in a place in terms of the funding… where we have the reassurance that we are going to be able to continue to invest in public health care in the ways we’ve been doing for the past decade, and the ways we know we must continue to over the next decade.”

The provincial and territorial health ministers are taking a “Team Canada” approach in calling for long-term, sustainable funding.

“We continue to be unified in our consensus that federal health funding that we have received over the past decade must continue,” Asagwara said. Wednesday’s promise from the federal health minister of a one-year funding extension falls short of their expectations.

“We cannot accept the reality that we are facing what would be the greatest cut to health care in a generation if the federal government does not ensure that the bilateral agreements are continued in full, long term, and that the Canada Health Transfer proceeds at either a minimum of 5 per cent or greater” (annual increases.)

“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done, a lot of engagement that needs to happen.”

Asagwara said that at a time of rising costs, a funding freeze amounts to a cut.

“We know that any reductions in any way would have massive impacts on real Canadians, real patients, real families, real communities, real jobs, real consequences,” said Asagwara who was joined at the news conference by Manitoba Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith.

“We need to ensure that when we are doing our budgeting that we can budget out five years from now, 10 years from now. We know that the need is growing here, not only in Manitoba, but right across the country.”

The 10-year, $1.2 billion funding deal that was set to expire at the end of March is needed more now than ever, Smith said.

“When this agreement was signed, things were very different. What we’re seeing today is complex needs, (requiring) more supports.”

Housing, addictions and mental health issues require more support, said the minister who estimated 30 Manitoba programs rely on that funding agreement and said any reduction would have a profound impact.

“We continue to be unified in our consensus that federal health funding that we have received over the past decade must continue.”

“This would affect people’s jobs and most certainly it would affect people,” Smith said.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca