Alberta receives funding from the federal government in the form of federal transfers such as the Canada Health Transfer (CHT) and the Canada Social Transfer (CST).
However, with recent talks about separating from Canada and the upcoming referendum, experts and unions alike have raised major concerns about how this could impact Alberta going forward.
“The Canada Health Transfer is the largest major federal transfer to provinces and territories. It provides long-term predictable funding for health care and supports the principles of the Canada Health Act,” according to the federal government's website.
The Canada Health Act is Canada’s federal legislation that ensures publicly funded health care services.
Under the act, residents must be provided with reasonable access to required health care services without patient charges, setting out the conditions for coverage of insured health services.
These services include medically necessary hospital, physician and certain surgical-dental services. It also includes long-term care services such as nursing home care.
Provinces must meet these conditions to receive the full Canada Health Transfer. Failing to meet these conditions could result in deductions from transfer payments.
The Canada Health Transfer provides comparable treatment for all Canadians, currently guaranteed to grow by at least five per cent per year from 2023-24 to 2027-28.
The Canada Social Transfer is intended to support three broad services of social programs: post-secondary education, social services and childcare.
It also provides comparable treatment for all Canadians but the CST is allocated through an equal per capita cash basis. The amount that is transferred from a federal to provincial level is based on each province or territory’s population to ensure that all residents have access to these services.The provinces are not required to report on how these funds are disbursed.
However, the federal government can withhold these cash payments if a province imposes waiting periods for social assistance. To date, the federal government has not had to apply a penalty or withhold Canada Social Transfer payments to a province.
The Gauntlet interviewed Dr. Siu Ming Kwok, Associate Director at the School of Public Policy and professor in the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Calgary.
“There would be a huge impact in terms of the funding,” Kwok explained, “When Alberta becomes an independent country, you cannot receive that kind of broad funding,”
“You would have to negotiate with the federal government to set up your own system in the province in order to get access to all the data transferred there, and then set up your own department in order to deliver all the programs,” said Kwok.
Kwok explained how this would directly impact the field of social work.
“There is always a competing priority for Alberta about post-secondary education and the social service program.” said Kwok, “So that means the Alberta government would have to make a choice between how to educate people or protect the vulnerable population.”
“As a social worker, I will worry about that because especially for the first few years about a separation, Alberta will focus more on education instead of the social service program,” Kwok explained.
Dr. Kwok explained that the Government of Alberta’s recent changes to health care, including the new dual-practice health care model, raises concerns for the field of social work.
“Maybe the Alberta government would like to also outsource us or privatize all the NGOs. We don't know that at this point, but there's a concern about that as a social worker.” said Kwok.
While most of the impacts are yet to be seen, the prospect of separating is concerning health care and social workers alike.
