Health ministers leave Winnipeg without long-term funding

Federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel committed Friday to keeping $500 million a year flowing to the national strategy for drugs for rare diseases, but she left provincial and territorial health ministers without a long-term funding deal after two days of talks in Winnipeg, according to The Canadian Press.

Updated Oct. 17, 2026. This story is developing.

The rare disease money was set to expire next year. Michel told her counterparts it will now be funded on an ongoing basis, The Canadian Press reported. She also confirmed that Ottawa will extend $1.2 billion in annual funding for mental health, addictions and home care by one year. That money had been due to lapse in March 2027.

Michel said the one-year extension is meant to help provinces adjust to the federal government’s new fall budget schedule, according to The Canadian Press. No tabling date has been announced for that budget, the Globe and Mail reported.

The ministers did not get what they came for. The Globe reported that Michel made no commitments beyond short-term bridge funding, and that talks on the Canada Health Transfer, the main federal payment for provincial health care, are still pending.

“The work is starting today. It’s not like a big announcement, it’s a bridging,” Michel said in Winnipeg, as quoted by the Globe.

Provinces and territories want the transfer to grow by at least five per cent a year. The Globe reported that the expected growth rate in 2028 is three per cent. The Canadian Press has reported that the federal budget lowers the transfer’s minimum annual growth from five per cent to three per cent starting that year.

That timing matters. Based on the March 2027 expiry reported earlier, a one-year extension would carry the mental health and home care money to about March 2028, the same year the slower transfer growth is due to start. Neither Ottawa nor the provinces have said publicly how the two fit together.

Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones was blunt about the extension. “A one-year extension of an existing 10-year about to expire does not fill us with a lot of joy,” she said Thursday, according to the Globe.

Manitoba Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara, who hosted and co-chaired the meeting, said much remains to be negotiated but that it was encouraging the federal minister is listening, The Canadian Press reported. Asagwara spoke on behalf of all 13 provinces and territories, according to the Globe.

“We will absolutely keep the pressure on,” Asagwara said, according to The Canadian Press.

Michel said the ministers agreed on next steps and will “start the work on what will be the next step for the next negotiation on Canada Health Transfers,” The Canadian Press reported. The ministers plan to meet again before the end of the year. The Globe said that meeting is expected by December. Neither outlet reported a specific date.

For health workers, the gap between a bridge and a plan is practical. Valerie Grdisa, chief executive of the Canadian Nurses Association, told the Globe that “we can’t really actually plan anything without those proper commitments.”

The Globe also reported that the ministers discussed targeted care for Indigenous communities and equitable access to medicines, two areas where coverage already varies widely across the country. Our earlier reporting on which jurisdictions cover birth control under pharmacare shows how uneven that access can be. The outlets did not report any new commitments on either topic.

What the ministers did not receive is any figure for the transfer beyond 2028. The Canadian Press reported that the article’s open questions include what the next Canada Health Transfer agreement will contain and what funding levels Ottawa will propose.

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Via The Canadian Press (Oct. 16, 2026), Feds confirm funding for rare disease research as other questions unanswered, and the Globe and Mail (Oct. 16 and 17, 2026, read via Head Topics). The Globe’s figures and quotes were not independently confirmed with the ministers’ offices.