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Consistent funding necessary for health research body, says NDP's Dix

The Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research should be given stable, predictable funding to do its work, said British Columbia New Democratic Party Leader Adrian Dix.

"The funding has been entirely inconsistent in recent years," said Dix. "By definition this kind of work needs consistency."

With 10 days left in the 2011-2012 fiscal year, health ministry officials have yet to decide how much money will be available for the foundation named after the Vancouver-based 1993 Nobel prize winner in Chemistry.

Representatives of both the government and the foundation said they should know more within a couple weeks, The Tyee reported yesterday. For now the foundation doesn't know how much money it will have for the fiscal year that starts April 1, 2012.

"It's a continuing problem that's a real problem for researchers," said Dix. "It makes its work impossible to manage the organization properly without some form of long term funding . . . It's just a very poor way to manage an organization and damaging to health research to continue to do this."

In the past the province has provided blocks of funding to cover as many as five years at a time of the foundation's work. Dix said going back to multi-year funding or including the foundation in the government's three-year budget plans with enough money to do its work would solve the problem.

Since 2001 the foundation has averaged $27.5 million a year in core funding, an amount reduced to $20 million in last year's grant.

"There's really been no justification from them for that reduction in funding," said Dix.

Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s Legislative Bureau Chief in Victoria. Find him on Twitter or reach him here.


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