The Province has announced up to $1 billion to meet the challenges of COVID-19.

Along with increasing spending power to deliver personal protective equipment and other resources to front-line workers, Premier Brian Pallister says they're preparing for economic recovery.

"We are facing significant fiscal pressures as a result of the necessary shutdown of large parts of our economy as well as from the large expenses we hadn’t budgeted for that are now required to keep Manitobans safe," Pallister says. "To keep that curve flat is critical, but we also need to get ready for the recovery that we know Manitobans are capable of and that we all want to see happen."

According to the Estimates of Expenditure documents tabled today, additional spending authority of up to $1 billion of COIVD-19 pandemic-related spending is requested to be allocated as follows:

-$500 million for the Health Services Insurance Fund,
-$400 million for the internal service adjustments appropriations of government, and
-$100 million for emergency expenditures

Half of the investment would be directly available for health-care costs, while $400 million would be available for allocation to new COVID-19 pandemic-related costs across the whole of government, allowing the flexibility to create new government programs or support services for Manitobans, or addressing increased costs under existing programs whose volumes have increased as a result of the pandemic.

The province would also double the emergency expenditures budget with a second commitment of $100 million to address the costs of potential natural disasters later in the fiscal year, such as floods and forest fires, or even cover new emergency costs relating to the pandemic should they arise. The existing funding for emergency expenditures has been fully expended to cover COVID-19 costs.

The province is tracking all costs and expenses centrally for government departments and other reporting entities, and the premier noted full documentation of these additional funds spent will be provided in the second quarter financial update, nine months sooner than would normally occur.