Mr. Speaker, first of all, I wish to take this opportunity to thank and salute all the health care workers in my riding of Châteauguay—Lacolle. They do amazing work on the ground, in CLSCs and at Hôpital Anna-Laberge.
Since March, Quebeckers and the Government of Quebec have taken individual and collective measures to slow and contain the spread of COVID-19. These measures were strengthened by the close and ongoing collaboration between federal, provincial and territorial governments.
The Government of Canada has always proudly supported the delivery of health care services to Quebeckers. In 2020-21, our government transferred over $9.42 billion to Quebec through the Canada health transfer, a 3.4% increase over the previous year and a $1.1-billion increase compared to what Quebec received in 2016-17. This represents 23% of the Government of Quebec's total health care spending.
On July 16, the Prime Minister of Canada and the Premier of Quebec, along with the other provincial premiers, announced the safe restart agreement. The agreement includes more than $19 billion in federal money to help the provinces and territories, including Quebec, restart their economies safely in the coming months while making Canada more resilient when future waves of the virus hit.
In addition to the $500 million transferred to the provinces and territories at the start of the year to help their health systems weather the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the safe restart agreement included $700 million in additional funds to ensure that Canada's health systems were ready to deal with surges and future waves of COVID-19. That amounted to $270 million in new money to help the Government of Quebec continue to meet Quebeckers' needs and maintain capacity within its health system.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, we also committed to support the efforts of the provincial governments, including Quebec, when it comes to testing, contact tracing and data collection. To that end, our government allocated over $775 million to support the Government of Quebec's testing, contact tracing and data collection efforts.
What is more, in May 2020, the Government of Quebec and the Government of Canada announced that they had come to an agreement to support the provincial government in contact tracing. Statistics Canada has currently increased its capacity to 1,980 calls per day for Quebec.
We also support virtual care services and online screening assessments in order to take the pressure off emergency departments and support physical distancing. We also invested $240 million to implement virtual care services to help the provinces and territories carry out this important work. That includes $150 million this year for the provinces and territories to help them expedite their work to improve accessibility to virtual care while protecting the privacy of Canadians. Over $28 million of the total amount allocated to virtual care was given to the Government of Quebec.
We also committed to protecting our most vulnerable populations, including people in long-term care facilities and those receiving home care. That will continue under the the safe restart agreement.
The federal government took a number of measures to respond to the major challenges that long-term care facilities in Quebec and across the country are facing, in order to avoid more tragedies like the ones we saw in the spring.
We called on the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces when we found out about the difficult situations in long-term care facilities in Ontario and Quebec. That was the help that was needed to stabilize these situations during the summer months.
After the Canadian Armed Forces mission ended, we worked with the Canadian Red Cross to continue to support the provinces and territories dealing with outbreaks in their long-term care facilities. To date, a total of 1,553 Canadian Red Cross members have been involved in long-term care facilities in Quebec. In addition, 582 Red Cross members are still active in the province to help reduce the incidence of current and future outbreaks in long-term care facilities.
What is more, up to $3 billion in federal funding is being provided to the provinces and territories to support increasing the wages of low-income essential workers, who may include front-line workers in hospitals and long-term care facilities.
The safe restart agreement will provide $740 million in additional funding to help the most vulnerable Canadians, including those receiving long-term care, home care and palliative care, who are at an increased risk of more severe cases of COVID-19. These funds will support progressive measures to control and prevent infections, which will protect those receiving long-term care, home care and palliative care. These new funds, including more than $166 million for Quebec, will be in addition to the financial support measures agreed to between the Government of Canada and the Government of Quebec.
Those earlier measures were set out in a bilateral agreement in 2017. They provide support for home and community care, as well as mental health and addiction services. The dollar value of these measures is updated annually and is based on population estimates. At present, the theoretical total for Quebec is more than $10.48 billion over 10 years, including $1.35 billion for home care and $1.13 billion for mental health.
The safe restart agreement will enhance these supports and include $500 million for Canadians experiencing challenges related to mental health and substance use.
My time is running out, but I want to mention that we invested over $46 million to launch the Wellness Together Canada program, a new online portal that provides access to a virtual network of psychosocial supports. Wellness Together Canada is the first national service of its kind to offer access to free, evidence-based resources, tools and supports on a 24-7 basis. These very important resources are there to supplement provincial health care services, like those offered by Quebec's Department of Health and Social Services, and include self-assessment, peer support, and confidential sessions with social workers, psychologists and other professionals.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have proudly supported Quebec's efforts. As my colleague just mentioned, we have a very good relationship with the Premier of Quebec regarding all the work we do together.
We are proud of the co-operation we have seen throughout this pandemic between our government, the Government of Quebec, municipalities in the province and other key stakeholders. We will maintain the same approach going forward to build back better.