Health funding extension falls short: ministers

Manitoba Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara: calling for long-term, sustainable funding from the federal government.

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 five per cent or greater” (annual increases.)