Health and other expenses | Ottawa transferred promised $2 billion to provinces, says Chrystia Freeland

(Ottawa) Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said provinces, territories and municipalities have now received more than $2.85 billion as promised months ago for health care, public transport and the ventilation of classrooms.

Much of it is an extra $2 billion in health transfers that the federal government promised provincial and territorial governments in March, mostly to help reduce backlogs in surgeries.

M^me Freeland said the funds can now be transferred because the budget bill containing them was passed on June 23.

But the transfer also comes days after the premiers sharply criticized the federal Liberals for not bearing the brunt of health care costs enough.

Thursday’s transfer fulfills a Liberal campaign promise to give provinces and territories an additional $100 million to improve air quality in classrooms.

It also includes the $750 million pledged in February to municipal governments to manage plummeting public transit revenue due to the pandemic.

Federal transit funding requires provinces and territories to match funds and also depends on building more housing to meet rising housing costs.

The non-recurring supplement to health funding was promised by the Minister of Health, Jean-Yves Duclos, on March 25, and he and M^me Freeland have co-sponsored a bill to allow such spending on the same day.

But that bill was never debated, and the Liberals instead included the funding in their budget bill, which was introduced a month later.

Mr. Duclos said in March that the money was intended to help provinces “speed up” surgeries. Waiting lists for most surgeries have swelled during the pandemic as hospitals have delayed elective surgeries due to an influx of COVID-19-related patients.

Duclos said earlier this week that letters were being signed with each province to finalize payments when the premiers meet in British Columbia.

Premiers have said these one-time supplements are not enough to repair the damage the pandemic has done to their health systems, and they want the federal government to increase its share of health funding permanently.