Billboards and open letter urge health ministers gathered in Winnipeg to stop U.S.-style health care in Canada
As federal, provincial and territorial health ministers meet in Winnipeg this week, the Canadian Health Coalition is greeting them with digital billboards that quote Prime Minister Mark Carney’s own words back to his government: “In Canada, health care is a human right.” The ads, in English and French, call on governments to “keep U.S.-style health care OUT of Canada.” They are running from Oct. 13 to 19 on 11 digital billboards across the city, from Portage Avenue to the Disraeli Freeway, and are expected to be seen an estimated 2.5 million times.
The coalition has also sent an open letter to the provincial and territorial health ministers, asking them to use their Oct. 15-16 meeting to press federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel to act.
The letter warns that Alberta’s Bill 11, enacted on Dec. 18, 2025, lets physicians bill the public plan while also charging patients privately for medically necessary services. No other province allows this. A legal opinion from Goldblatt Partners LLP finds “very strong and compelling arguments” that the law violates the Canada Health Act.
“When one province sets those rules aside and keeps its full Canada Health Transfer, it is, in plain terms, cheating on an agreement that binds all of you,” writes coalition chair Jason MacLean in the letter.
Canadians share the concern. In an Abacus Data survey commissioned by the coalition in July, 91 per cent said they are worried about the future of public health care, and 74 per cent said they fear policies like Bill 11 will spread to other provinces.
The letter asks ministers to urge the federal government to:
- Enforce the Canada Health Act. Find that Alberta’s dual-practice model violates the Act, and enforce the Act consistently so every province and territory plays by the same rules.
- End the funding cliff. Confirm the renewal of the federal agreements for home and community care, mental health and addictions, and rare disease drugs that expire on March 31, 2027, and commit to stable, long-term growth in the Canada Health Transfer.
- Restore national pharmacare. Renew the four existing pharmacare agreements and negotiate with every province and territory that wants one, starting with Newfoundland and Labrador.
- End paid plasma collection. Keep every Grifols paid-plasma centre in Canada closed, and launch an independent public inquiry into donor deaths and Health Canada’s oversight.
The plasma issue hits close to home for the ministers. On Sept. 23, Health Canada suspended the licence of the Grifols paid-plasma centre on Winnipeg’s Taylor Avenue, where 22-year-old donor Rodiyat Alabede died in October 2025. It was the first time Health Canada had ever suspended a blood establishment licence. The coalition is also asking provincial and territorial ministers, whose governments fund and oversee Canadian Blood Services, to direct it to end its agreement with Grifols.
“Public health care is one of the strongest ties that hold this country together,” MacLean writes.
The Canadian Health Coalition will continue pressing governments to uphold the principles of public health care and protect Canadians from a shift toward U.S.-style care.
