Philpott charged with collaborating with Manitoba after health-care stand-off

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This article was published 28/08/2017 (2973 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has selected one of Premier Brian Pallister’s adversaries to fix Indigenous services like she did with the health file, despite needing support from the province on multiple issues.

Jane Philpott, who was federal health minister until Monday, locked horns with Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister for almost a year over scaling back federal funding increases to health care. Pallister decried the “dangerous” changes, and refused to use Ottawa’s term “health accord.”

Last Monday, Pallister accepted extra funding for mental health and homecare from Ottawa — five months after every other province — but said he’ll still push for more healthcare dollars.

On Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau named Philpott as the new Minister of Indigenous Services, in charge of things like on-reserve healthcare and ending Manitoba’s 16 drinking-water advisories.

The role will require close collaboration with the province.

Manitoba and Ottawa are part of an Indigenous-led consultation process aimed at fixing an estimated 30-per-cent funding gap for on-reserve child and family services. In Manitoba, many First Nations agencies provide services to children both on- and off-reserve, meaning they receive a mix of federal and provincial funding.

Meanwhile, the group representing northern Manitoba nations is pushing for a “health transformation” charter, which would see Ottawa give more autonomy to band councils, instead of the current system of sending nurses and paying medical bills for procedures in provincial hospitals.

“It strengthens and empowers the First Nations more, and creates more of a collaboration than a dependence,” said Sheila North Wilson, chief of the Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak.

The federal government says providing birth units at local health centres, and flying northern patients to places like Churchill instead of Winnipeg, could improve health incomes while saving cash for other Indigenous health initiatives. But such changes would likely need Manitoba’s approval, and provinces are always weary of Ottawa instead cutting back funding and leaving them with the costs.

Despite Philpott’s clashes with Pallister, North Wilson says she’s confident the minister will find common ground with him. “She is genuine and she actually makes good effort in trying to understand situations.”

The head of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs says the province’s first nations are glad the Trudeau government has restored some programs its predecessors had cut back, but said Ottawa is coming up shorthanded in its ambitions around issues like boil-water advisories.

“There’s been a bit of frustration at the pace things have been moving since Trudeau took office,” said AMC Grand Chief Arlen Dumas. “A lot of the funding that reaches our communities is inadequate.

Both Dumas and North Wilson said they were “surprised” by the change, but cautiously optimistic it could improve life for Indigenous Manitobans.

Pallister was not available for an interview Monday, as he was attending a funeral. Provincial Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen wished Philpott luck in her new role, saying he appreciated her “personal and professional manner on the tough health file.”

Carolyn Bennett, who was the federal minister for Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, is now Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs, charged with navigating treaty issues, which will likely come up during resource-extraction projects.

Bennett noted that splitting the department was among the changes suggested in a comprehensive 1996 royal commission.

“What we’re doing is moving people along to the ultimate goal of self-determination,” said Bennett, adding that her government is trying to lay the ground to eventually end the Indian Act, which many activists see as racist.

Trudeau said he’d table a bill “possibly by next spring” to split the department into two. “There’s a sense that we have pushed the creaky old structures around INAC about as far as they can go,” he said.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca