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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Federal health plan would pull $40M per year, Selinger says
Manitoba could see a loss of up to $40 million in annual health-care funding from Ottawa under the Harper government's plan to restructure what it gives each province, Premier Greg Selinger said Wednesday.
Selinger said he's agreed to chair a provincial working group of provincial and territorial finance ministers to assess the impact of the federal fiscal proposal.
The plan is described as a take-it-or-leave-it proposal calling for current health-care spending increases of six per cent annually until 2017, followed by increases tied to the rate of economic growth.
"The purpose of the panel is to review the fiscal arrangements that have been unilaterally put in place by the federal government and to look at what those impacts will be," Selinger said after returning from a two-day meeting in Victoria with other premiers.
Selinger said the goal is to make sure whatever the final agreement is, "reasonably comparable levels" of health-care service can be provided to Canadians no matter what province they live in.
He said the working group's research will take place over the next five months with findings to be ready when the premiers meet again in Nova Scotia midway in the summer.
"The way they've arranged it, by going to a full-cash per capita transfer for Alberta, it means $1 billion that is coming out of other provinces," Selinger said. "Some provinces will see a quarter-of a-billion-dollar reduction.
"Manitoba will also see a loss as will virtually every other province other than Alberta."
Premiers Brad Wall of Saskatchewan and Robert Ghiz of Prince Edward Island will lead a second group of provincial health ministers to look how innovation can improve health care across the country.
Last month, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty stunned the provinces with the government's plan to tie health-care funding increases to growth.
Those increases are expected to be about four per cent annually and Flaherty said they will never drop below three per cent.
Federal transfer funding arrangements end in 2014 and Prime Minister Stephen Harper has remained firm that no further health money is coming to the provinces.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 19, 2012 B3
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