New CancerCare facility could cost $1B to treat, study disease

Manitoba’s premier is prepared to spend $1 billion to open a new CancerCare site that his government says will attract “world-class” physicians and researchers to Winnipeg.

Premier Wab Kinew was joined by Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara and physicians to announce the next steps to expand cancer research and patient care in the province on Monday.

Kinew confirmed that a site that is kitty-corner to CancerCare headquarters at 675 McDermot Ave. — where he made the announcement — will host the second facility.

Few specifics were provided, although the premier said $815 million is the preliminary estimate to complete the construction project.

Combined with equipment and scoping expenses, that figure could be closer to $1 billion, he said.

“In many respects, our province is doing its absolute best to deliver yesterday’s care because we don’t have the space to welcome the future,” Asagwara said at an afternoon news conference. “This facility will change that.”

It will help the province “flex our research muscles” and host clinical trials, the health minister said.

Construction is scheduled to begin in August 2026. It is anticipated to take about four years.

Doctors Manitoba called the extension to the Health Sciences Centre campus, first announced in 2011 under then-NDP premier Greg Selinger, “a long-delayed, much-needed addition.”

Selinger pledged an initial $70 million for the CancerCare expansion. In 2017, the Progressive Conservatives pegged the 300,000-square-feet project at $300 million and scrapped it.

“While it’s frustrating to think of the cancer facilities we could have today if the project hadn’t been stalled for a decade, it’s encouraging to see it moving forward,” a spokesperson for the advocacy organization said in a statement.

“The development process can’t move swiftly enough to deliver the improved access to life-saving, state of the art technology and care for patients across the province.”

Dr. Dhali Dhaliwal, past president and the former chief executive officer of CancerCare Manitoba, echoed those comments.

Dhaliwal oversaw CancerCare between 2003 and 2013 — a period during which he said he was often troubled by a shortage of space. He recalled being asked to approve the conversion of two toilets into offices shortly after he first accepted the job.

“We’re going to invest every single dollar in curing cancer, in fighting cancer and supporting cancer patients every step of the way.”–Premier Wab Kinew

A “relentless increase” in patient demand and the associated workload was met by “every creative means possible,” he said, noting that services were fragmented because they had to rent external space.

The NDP pledged to revive the CancerCare expansion during the 2023 election campaign; Dhaliwal endorsed that pledge on the campaign trail.

Kinew said the province will use tobacco company settlement funds to support the project. Earlier this year, he said Manitoba was anticipating $1 billion from a class-action lawsuit.

“We’re going to invest every single dollar in curing cancer, in fighting cancer and supporting cancer patients every step of the way,” Kinew said.

He did not provide an update on that lump sum payment on Monday.

Budget 2025 included a $11.5 million commitment to complete the design work for the second CancerCare site. A request for proposal recently closed.

Jason Linklater, president of the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals, said the province needs to prioritize hiring health workers to fill the new building.

“Manitoba needs a comprehensive allied health human resource strategy to ensure we can retain and recruit specialized professionals to fill that new building and deliver the improved care Manitobans are counting on,” Linklater said in a statement. “A new facility is important and needed, but it’s not going to fix these longstanding issues.”

Linklater specifically mentioned Manitoba’s radiation therapists, saying one third of them will be eligible to retire within the next year.

He said wait times for radiation therapy have more than doubled since 2019, with few staff being added in that time.

The MLA for Roblin accused the premier and health minister of a pattern of overpromising and underdelivering.

“This project is too important to become another empty promise,” PC health critic Kathleen Cook said in a statement Monday.

Cook cited the NDP’s plan to perform 800 hip and knee replacement surgeries annually at the Selkirk Hospital as an example.

A total of 79 procedures were completed between March 12 and May 4.

The 2025 launch of the Selkirk program, which involved adding staff and expanding operating space, was delayed; it was supposed to start in January.

— with files from Massimo De Luca-Taronno

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca