Manitoba spending $6M this year on new plastic health cards that lack features other provinces have

Manitoba is spending almost $6 million and hiring the equivalent of 20 full-time workers this year to roll out new plastic health cards that replace often frayed pieces of paper, but they lack features found in health cards from other provinces.

The new plastic cards have no expiry date and no photo, like the paper cards they're replacing.

The new QR code on them isn't currently being used in most health-care facilities — but even if it is, it doesn't provide more information than is printed on the card.

Progressive Conservative health critic Kathleen Cook appreciates the plastic cards, but she questions the province's execution.

"Government should be looking at all of the different factors that need to be worked in, the different improvements they could make," Cook said.

"What concerns me is this just seems like another announcement from the NDP that is long on show and not a lot on substance."

After inviting Manitobans to choose the design of the new health cards, the NDP government began accepting online applications in January to replace the paper IDs, which were prone to ripped corners and faded ink.

Since late April, the province has mailed out 208,000 of the more than 394,000 cards it has received applications for.

It costs $1.18 to produce each physical card — a figure the government only disclosed after CBC News told provincial officials it would report on the government's refusal to disclose the amount of public money being spent.

In February, the province responded to a freedom of information request by saying records couldn't be released because it would "reveal the substance of deliberations of cabinet." Then in May, the province said it couldn't reveal the cost for "proprietary reasons," explaining it would violate Manitoba's contract with the company.

The new cards maintain some features from the previous paper format, such as the absence of an expiry date.

Manitoba and Alberta are the only provinces in Canada in which people don't need to renew their health cards.

In a 2015 report, Alberta's auditor general said the lack of an expiry date on health cards leaves them open to abuse, meaning the province could be paying for health care for ineligible recipients. 

Not requiring people to renew the cards also means Alberta — now the only province still using paper health cards — may not be properly tracking people who leave the province, the report said.