Manitoba Health Coalition provincial director Noah Schulz speaks to the media outside MP Doug Eyolfson’s office on Tuesday, September 1, 2026. Photo credit: Sunday Adeola.
Dozens of public health advocates and community organizers gathered outside Liberal MP Doug Eyolfson’s Winnipeg West constituency office on Tuesday, part of a National Day of Action calling on the federal government to step in against what they see as the creeping privatization of Canada’s health care system. The demonstration centered on demands that Ottawa enforce the Canada Health Act in response to controversial new legislation in Alberta.
Organized by the Manitoba Health Coalition alongside a handful of partner organizations, demonstrators gathered along Portage Avenue holding lawn signs and handing out postcards, all pointing to the same concern: Alberta’s Bill 11, which they argue opens the door to two-tier Medicare and for-profit private health insurance spreading across the country.
Before the formal rally got underway, Eyolfson himself stepped outside to meet the group and accept a joint statement issued by health coalitions from across Canada. He told the crowd their presence mattered.
“My primary responsibility is representing my constituents, and this is how you do it,” Eyolfson said. “When I take this to Ottawa, it’s not just my opinion. This is what citizens are wanting. That’s why I’m there.”
Once the briefing wrapped up, Manitoba Health Coalition provincial director Noah Schulz opened the rally with a land acknowledgment, tying the coalition’s health care advocacy directly to Indigenous health equity. He pointed to Truth and Reconciliation Commission Call to Action 19 which calls for closing health gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people as something that shapes everything the coalition does, not a side issue attached to the day’s demands.
“This legislation is about bringing private health insurance to Canada,” Schulz told the crowd. “This will bring us for-profit health insurance companies; companies we know have brought so much damage and pain to so many people in the United States. They want the whole country.”
Under Bill 11, private insurers in Alberta would be allowed to sell coverage for services that are currently supposed to be publicly funded and universally accessible for things like knee surgery. “This is not just wrong. It’s also illegal,” Schulz told the crowd. “It violates the Canada Health Act. Under the Canada Health Act, health insurance must be public, not for profit. It must be operated in the public interest, not for private, for-profit companies.”
Schulz said the Canadian Health Coalition commissioned a legal opinion that found Bill 11 violates several core principles of the Canada Health Act, including its requirements that care be publicly administered, comprehensive, universal, and accessible to all residents without financial barriers.
“The Canada Health Act, passed in the 1980s, is like a bill of rights for Canadian patients,” Schulz said. “That means the rich are not supposed to be allowed to jump the queue, take the resources for themselves, and leave the rest of us behind.”
Schulz warned that the companies positioned to benefit from Bill 11 are unlikely to limit their ambitions to Alberta alone. “These are not companies that are happy with a small amount of profit,” he said. “Alberta’s a populous province, but they want the whole country.” He pointed to Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe’s public comments watching Alberta’s rollout as evidence the trend could spread if Ottawa doesn’t intervene.
Asked what tools the federal government actually has to push back, Schulz pointed to federal health transfer payments, which he said total billions of dollars annually. “The Canada Health Act, if violated, has principles elements of the law that say we can and should deduct based on how much is going to private dollars from the federal transfers,” he said. “That would be a huge financial hit to the province. They can’t realistically operate without that federal money.”
Schulz also raised concerns about how Bill 11 could affect the physician workforce, saying he’d learned that roughly 400 doctors in Alberta had already expressed interest in participating in the private system. He said doctors would be able to move between the public and private systems a flexibility he argued incentivizes providers toward more lucrative private care rather than expanding patient choice. “It’s going to incentivize more and more health providers to move” away from the public system, he said, “doing the opposite of creating choice.”
For participants who showed up, the issue wasn’t abstract policy, it was personal. Sean Jackson, one of the demonstrators who joined the rally, said fear was what brought him out.
“Fear that our health care services could be impacted by the potential legislation elsewhere within Canada. Jackson said, “the possibility that those most in need are left out or unable to access the care that they should receive in a publicly funded module.” when asked what worried him most.
Jackson said long wait times are already something most people have dealt with in one way or another. But he drew a clear line between that and something worse losing access altogether because you can’t afford to pay. It’s a distinction, he said gets lost when people talk about private care as simply “more choice.”
The rally wrapped with chants of “keep it public” echoing down Portage Avenue before a small delegation including Schulz, Kate Kelliher, and others headed inside for a sit-down meeting with Eyolfson’s office.
Schulz made clear the coalition isn’t planning to slow down no matter what comes out of that meeting.
“We’re not going to stop when we stop Bill 11,” he said, “because we’re going to keep going to try to build an even stronger public health care system.” He listed pharmacare, home care, expanded mental health access, and restoring health coverage for international students as the coalition’s next targets.
Organizers stressed that Tuesday’s rally was only the beginning of a larger push. Over the coming months, the coalition plans to roll out community town halls across every Manitoba health region, lobby decision-makers, and lead public campaigns to make sure local healthcare stays public, accessible, and fully funded.
Sunday Adeola, U Multicultural.