{"id":914850,"date":"2026-09-30T03:30:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T03:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/914850\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T03:30:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T03:30:13","slug":"saskatchewan-at-the-table-for-federal-meeting-about-health-transfers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/914850\/","title":{"rendered":"Saskatchewan at the table for federal meeting about health transfers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cSaskatchewan remains committed to ensuring residents have access to high-quality mental health, addiction treatment, home care, and community-based services. The government looks forward to working with provincial, territorial, and federal partners to secure sustainable funding for these essential programs,\u201d senior media relations officer Jesse Knisley said in the statement.<\/p>\n<p>\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790739013_813_indicator-big.gif\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The federal government pledged a total of $200 billion in health funding over 10 years in the 2023 budget, intended to help expand access to primary care, reduce surgery backlogs, improve mental health and addiction services and modernize the health system, following widespread issues in health care across the country during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>As part of that sum, $4.8 billion was set aside for improvements to home care, community care and mental health and addiction services. It\u2019s set to end in 2027.<\/p>\n<p>Another $3 billion funding package meant to improve long-term care safety was set to sunset in 2026, and $1.7 billion for personal support workers wages will be paid out by 2028.<\/p>\n<p>Last year\u2019s federal budget also outlines a planned reduction in the growth of the federal Canada Health Transfer after March 2028.<\/p>\n<p>That transfer increases each year in line with a three-year average of the nominal gross domestic product.<\/p>\n<p>That is guaranteed to grow by at least five per cent per year until fiscal year 2027-28. After that, it is set to return to a minimum growth rate of three per cent per year.<\/p>\n<p>After Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s government released its first budget last November, health advocacy groups warned that the Liberals highlighted the end of funding agreements in the coming years as part of their plan to get spending in check.<\/p>\n<p>Jones said she and her counterparts want federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel to understand that the sunsetting of bilateral funding agreements next year will have a real impact on patients.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese are not capital projects. These are programs, these are services,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese are people who have been receiving programming from the provincial government with a half a billion dollars (of) support from the federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Premiers also warned of a \u201cfiscal cliff\u201d if those agreements expire without renewal.<\/p>\n<p>In a joint statement following a meeting of the Council of the Federation in July, the premiers said they need the health transfer to continue growing at a rate of five per cent per year and called for a long-term commitment to \u201cflexible and sustainable funding.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In an emailed response to questions, a spokesperson for Michel said she\u2019s prepared to talk with her counterparts about building a strong and sustainable public health care system at a meeting next month.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFollowing the first ministers meeting in July, the prime minister and premiers directed the deputy ministers of finance and health to work together on long-term health funding and productivity of the health care system,\u201d said Alexandre Bergeron.<\/p>\n<p>The federal government is set to release its budget later this fall.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 with files from CJME News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cSaskatchewan remains committed to ensuring residents have access to high-quality mental health, addiction treatment, home care, and community-based&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":914851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":["post-914850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=914850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/914851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}