Local News
A taste of Limmud 2020
By MYRON LOVE
Limmud Winnipeg celebrated its tenth anniversary on the weekend of February 29/March 1 with quite possibly its best attendance to date. Close to 400 members of our community had more than three dozen sessions to choose from, with presenters from across Canada, New York and Israel joining local speakers and facilitators in providing a smorgasbord of topics both secular and religious, cultural and culinary.
As usual, this writer indulged in a representative sampling of what was on the menu, balancing local and Israeli issues with some religious study as well as delving into Jewish history. And, while each session could make for an entire feature on its own, space considerations leave me to focus on the highlights.
So let us begin the journey.
The first session that I attended was a presentation by former Winnipegger Jack Frohlich, who made a aliyah in 1989 and who, for the past 18 years, has been teaching conversion classes under the auspices of the National Centre for Conversion. He also works closely with the Beta Israel (Ethiopian) community.
Frohlich delivered two presentations – the first discussing the challenges facing Ethiopian Israelis and the second talking about the controversial issue of conversion in Israel. There is much misinformation concerning conversion in Israel, Frohlich pointed out.
My own understanding was that Reform and Conservative conversions are not recognized in Israel and – much to my surprise, there have been Orthodox conversions in North America that also aren’t recognized in Israel. The reality is that the only conversions officially recognized in Israel are those which are approved by the Dayanim (rabbi/judges) associated with the National Centre for Conversion.
As Frohlich noted, even a conversion by a rabbi in solidly Haredi Bnai Brak would not be recognized.
He pointed out that while Reform and Conservative conversions may not be recognized or the converts considered Jewish, they are still welcomed under the Law of Return with all the benefits that come with it.
Then there is the occasional report that converts have to vow to observe all the Mitzvot both during the conversion process and forever after on pain of having the conversion rescinded. Not true, Frohlich said. Once one is accepted into the Jewish community, the individual can life his or her life the same way those who are born Jewish do.
“Becoming a Jew is a two-sided coin,” he said. “It is a two-for-one deal. You are adopting a new religion and you become part of the Jewish People.”
While the original Law of Return applied only to Halachic Jews born of a Jewish mother, he noted, in 1970, the government expanded the Law of Return to include anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent – even though the individual would not be considered Jewish per se.
Of the Russian immigrants who came to Israel in the 1990s, Frohlich pointed out, about 50% were not halachically Jewish.
He reported that Israel registers about 2,500 conversions a year with most of the converts being women. “Weddings often follow,” he said.
Quite a number of Filipinos (Filipinas?) and Arab Moslems are among the converts, he noted.
And the government and the rabbinate continue to make the conversion process easier, he added. In recent years, all fees have been removed and a more flexible approach has been adopted for the learning process.
“Most students are pleasantly surprised by their ulpan/educational experiences,” Frohlich said.
He reported that about 80% of conversion applicants are approved the first time they appear before the Bet Din with the remainder often approved following a few more months of studying.
From Israel, we travel back to Winnipeg to hear the story of Shimon Segal. The 33-year-old criminal lawyer began life with the deck stacked against him. He has succeeded in life through his own inner strength and the love and support of David and Glenda Segal and their sons, Devin and Ryan.
Segal was born into a strictly Orthodox – but dysfunctional family. Over his first few years, he was imbued with Orthodox practice and tradition and a strong Jewish identity. The middle of three children, he recalls a lot of arguing in the home.
He began his schooling in the Hebrew Bilingual program at Centennial School in the North End. After Grade 2, he recalled, the family moved south, where his parents became less and less observant and opened a grow-op in their home. “The house was always moldy and dirty,” he remembered.
While attending Brock Corydon’s Hebrew Bilingual program, he made some friends among his classmates -, in particular, Devin Segal.
The Jewish Child and Family Service first stepped into the family situation when he was seven. He noted that his mother was abusive and his father disinterested.
When he was ten, his parents split and he found himself back in the North End in a group home where he was the only Jewish kid. “I was living a double life,” he recalled. “I was taking the bus to Brock Corydon every day. At the group home, I started smoking cigarettes and marijuana and wearing gang clothes to try to fit in. I would show up at school smelling of cigarettes. I didn’t fit in anywhere. While I remained close to my friends at Brock Corydon, most of their parents didn’t approve of their sons hanging out with me.”
The exception was David Segal. “My dad (David Segal) began to be involved in my life when I was ten,” Shimon said. “He took an interest in me. He would take me fishing sometimes. There was no sense of judgment. I relaxed when I was with him.”
For a short time, Segal was housed with foster parents Barry and the late Marsha Weber, to whom he is also grateful. The Webers took in foster children for short periods of time.)
At the age of 12, he was returned to his birth mother for a time. That didn’t work out. He spent some time in the Manitoba Youth Centre and with a Christian foster family who sent him to a bible camp. “They were only in it for the money,” he said of those foster parents.
“I began spending more and more time with the Segals,” Shimon said.
After several excruciating weeks with the Christian family, he was returned to his birth father who, after a short time, locked him out of the house.
That was when his life really took a turn for the worse. He ended up living on the street in Tuxedo. “I tried Osborne Village, but it felt too dangerous,” he recalled. “In Tuxedo, I felt safer. I slept wherever I could – partially-built buildings, a friend’s mother’s station wagon, even in the Assiniboine Forest for a time.”
It wasn’t long after that David and Glenda Segal invited him to move in with them permanently and become a member of the family. “David and Glenda became my dad and mom and Devin and Ryan my new brothers.”
He added that he has kept in touch with his own birth siblings – a brother and sister- and that the Segal family has included them in family gatherings.
The love and support from his new family, Shimon said, enabled him to rekindle his inner Jewishness and feel part of the Jewish community again.
Over the last ten years, Segal has been able to earn a law degree. He has married and become a father. And he has given back to the community and, through his legal work, other vulnerable people.
“Thanks to the Segal Family, I have been able to live a normal life,” he said.
“What the Segal Family did for Shimon was amazing,” said Randee Pollock, the Jewish Child and Family Service’s Adoption, Fostercare and Rescue Co-ordinator. “Our goal is to keep families together – but that is not always possible where there are mental health or addiction issues or perhaps there has been a death in the family.”
She reports that the JCFS currently has 15 Jewish children in care with nine foster homes and three places of safety available to house them. “We are always in need of more Jewish families who are willing to open their homes to children in our community who are in need of shelter,” she noted.
From Winnipeg, we again pack our bags for our third port of call as we follow Rabbi Mark Glickman, the spiritual leader of Reform Congregation Temple B’nai Tikvah in Calgary, as he travels the world in search of the lost story of the Cairo Genizah.
Glickman is the author of “Sacred Treasure – the Cairo Genizah: The Amazing Discoveries of Forgotten History in an Egyptian Synagogue Attic”. (He also delivered a talk at Limmud in 2016 about his follow-up book, “Stolen Words: The Nazi Plunder of Jewish books”.)
Glickman’s research took him to archives at Cambridge University and the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York – the world’s two largest repositories of Genizah documents – and, accompanied by his son, Jacob, to the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo, which was the original repository of the Genizah.
So, you might be wondering what a “genizah” is? As Glickman pointed out, we are a People of the Book. Under Jewish Law, it is not allowed to throw out sacred books. The proper way to dispose of them is burial in a Jewish cemetery. But they have to be stored somewhere until they can be buried. In my own synagogue, the genizah – or storage space – is a cupboard downstairs. For many centuries in the old Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo, it was a space – a hole in the wall in the women’s section upstairs.
The current Ben Ezra Synagogue, Glickman reported, was built in the 11th century on the banks of the Nile, replacing an earlier shul which was destroyed by flooding. In the Middle Ages, he noted, Egypt was home to a large and influential Jewish community one of whose most prominent members was the great Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon (aka Maimonidies aka the Rambam).
There are a number of Western characters associated with the discovery of the treasure trove of documents that were stored in the Ben Ezra genizah. The first outsider to appear on the scene was one Simon Von Geldern, a German Jewish adventurer and Orientalist who moved in Bedouin circles. He visited the Genizah, but took nothing from it.
Then there came a Rabbi Jacob Saphir, a dealer in Jewish documents in Jerusalem, who heard about the Genizah from Van Geldern, dropped in, and brought back about 1,000 documents for sale. Next was Abraham Firkovitch, a member of the breakaway Karaite sect – who came in search of documents of historical interest to the Karaite community.
In the 1880s, Elkan Nathan Adler, a prominent member of England’s Jewish community – and son and brother of Chief Rabbis of England, visited and left with more than 6,000 documents (as possibly a Torah cover).
The scholarly interest in the Genizah, Glickman noted, began in 1996 when Rabbi Solomon Schechter – then teaching at Cambridge University, had an encounter with an unusual colleague. Twin sisters Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson were Semitic scholars and travellers who had recently returned from an expedition to St. Catherine’s Monastery at Mount Sinai. Among the documents they brought back was one in a language that the two multi linguists didn’t recognize. They asked Schechter if he could help. He recognized it as a tractate for the book Ben Sira, a book of wisdom that had not been included in the Talmudic canon. The book at that time was only known from a Greek translation.
“The last person to have seen that book in the original Hebrew was Saadia Gaon over 1000 years before,” Glickman noted. “The document was from the Ben Ezra Genizah. Schechter – very excited by this find – quickly arranged to visit the genizah and subsequently transferred close to 200,000 documents to Cambridge for translation and study.”
The documents – 300,000 in total – consisted not only of religious material but also letters, business records, medical prescriptions and the other detritus of every day life. Among the documents that Glickman highlighted was the oldest piece of Jewish sheet music (composed by an Italian Catholic priest who had converted to Judaism), an early Hebrew reading primer and the last letter that Maimonides received from his beloved younger brother, David, before the businessman was lost at sea en route to India.
Over the past 20 years, Glickman reported that advances in computer technology have made translating the documents and connected fragments much easier. He noted that the Freidberg Genizah Project was established in 1999 as a non-profit international humanities venture established by philanthropist Albert Friedberg of Toronto to promote and facilitate research of the material discovered in the Cairo Genizah. Under the aegis of the project, all of the genizah materials are in the process on being inventoried and put online.
Glickman completed his presentation with a video of himself peering into the now empty genizah.
And we conclude with a little Torah study led by Rabbi Yosef Benarroch, spiritual leader of the Adas Yeshurun Herzlia Congregation. His question: Does being religious make you a better person?
In contemplating the question, Rabbi Benarroch first turned to the story of creation, noting that while the Lord commented after each of the first five days of creation that work was “good”, He does not say the same about His creation of mankind. Rather, the Torah says that the Lord “created Man in his image”.
So what does that mean? Benarroch quoted Torah and referred to several rabbanim – including Rabbi Akiva, Rambam and the late modern sages, Rabbis Joseph Soloveitchik and Abraham Joshua Heschel – as well as talmudic commentaries and their interpretations. One suggestion that Benarroch made is that of all G-d’s creations, man is the only one that can also create.
And while G-d doesn’t have an “image” in the way that man does, He does have attributes that can well be emulated – being slow to anger and quick to forgive, compassionate, gracious and merciful – attributes that are part of a prayer shul goers sing on Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot before taking out the Torah and at Selichot in the days leading up to the High Holidays.
So, while engaging in regular religious practice itself doesn’t determine good or bad behavior, Rabbi Benarroch concluded, attempting to model your life after the qualities exhibited by the Lord – in His image – will, without a doubt make one a better person.
Local News
Winnipegger liver recipient Mark Kagan now in need of new kidney
By MYRON LOVE About a year ago, Winnipegger Mark Kagan reached out to the Jewish community through the pages of the Jewish Post (and jewishpostandnews.ca) in his efforts to find a liver donor. At the time, his liver and his health were rapidly failing and he was quickly running out of time.
Back then, the former Best Western Hotels manager – who is in his mid-60s – reported that there is no cure for his condition (a non-alcohol related rare liver disease called Nodular Regenerative Hyperplasia).
“My only hope for survival is a liver transplant,” he said.
The good news is that he was able to get a liver transplant this past April in Toronto and his recovery went well. Within a short time, he was able to eat normally and resume exercising. He spent three weeks post-op in the hospital in Toronto and another two weeks at the Health Sciences Centre before being cleared to go home again.
The bad news was that once his liver failed, in turn, it caused his kidneys to fail. “My doctors originally hoped that my kidney function would return on its own once the liver was transplanted,” he notes.
That didn’t happen. Now Kagan has to have dialysis three times a week while trying to find a kidney donor.
On Tuesday, December 9, Kagan’s quest for a kidney donor will be the focus of a program at the Rady JCC hosted by Renewal Canada, a Toronto based organization that works within the Jewish community to find kidney donors and facilitate transplants. The event – that begins at 7:30 pm – is described as a Kidney Donation Awareness and Swab Drive with the hope that a donor can be found for Kagan. Speakers will include Rabbis Carnie and Kliel Rose – both discussing the mitzvah of organ donation, Penny Kravetsky representing Renewal Canada, and past donor Esther Dick, as well as Kagan.
Kagan adds a special thank you to Rebbitzen Bracha Altein for her role in directing his mother to Renewal Canada.
Comments that Kagan made last year in the Post article still ring true:
“Your support means everything to me and my family,” Kagan said. “Even if you cannot donate, sharing my story could connect me with someone who can. Thank you for taking the time to read and consider helping in this crucial time.”
Interested readers can register by going online at https://www.renewalcanada.org/
Local News
Manitoba trained Jewish physician now living in US laments state of medical care in Canada
By BERNIE BELLAN (Nov. 27, 2025) Introduction: We received a comment this morning from a former Winnipegger who had something to say about the state of medical care in Manitoba. Once you read her message you will be able to read an exchange of emails into which we entered that give more information about her:
I’m a physician who graduated from the University of Manitoba medical school (class of 1999). After training, I moved to Arizona to practice as a gastroenterologist. During my training in Winnipeg, I was always told how bad the American health care system was. I am here to tell you that this is incorrect. The poorest American who can’t afford health insurance and qualifies for state funded insurance has better health care than ALL of you.
I work in private practice. Yes, I’m busy. Yes, it takes many weeks to see me. However , if a family physician calls me and asks me to see a patient urgently, I will. If a patient needs a procedure urgently, I will get it done. If a patient needs to speak to me after my office hours or on weekends and holidays, I call them back. I am not the exception to the rule. I am practicing standard of care.
My niece has been in an out of the children’s emergency room (in Winnipeg) for several weeks because of kidney stones. She has been told numerous times by numerous physicians that her case is not “urgent”. Apparently, you can only get care if you become “urgent”. Urgent means that you are really sick and have developed complications. So, my niece has to end up in the ICU with sepsis (infection) and in renal failure for her to have the procedure she needs? What she was given was a prescription for morphine. Great, getting a teenager hooked on opiods as a way to treat kidney stones , that’s the answer? Her urologist told her mother (my sister) that the system is broken. Finally, an honest answer but in no way a solution.
The American health care system is not perfect but it’s significantly better than what you have. I’m appreciative of my excellent training I received in Winnipeg however, I could never work in your broken system as now I know better.
Good luck to you all.
Dr. Elisa Faybush
In response to Dr. Faybush’s comment, we sent her the following email:
Hi Dr. Faybush,
I read your message about the state of health care in Manitoba with great interest.
I wear 2 hats: I’m both an editor at the Jewish Post newspaper, also the publisher of a website called jewishpostandnews.ca
I would consider printing your message, but I’m curious: Is there a particular reason that you sent it to a Jewish publication?
For instance, are you Jewish yourself? It might put things into some sort of context which would explain why the letter was sent to us – or perhaps you sent the same message to other publications.
It would be helpful if you could elaborate on why you sent your message to us.
Regards,
Bernie Bellan
Dr. Faybush responded:
Hi Bernie
Yes I’m Jewish. Raised in garden city. My grand parents were Ann and Nathan Koslovsky
I sent the letter to the Winnipeg free press and was contacted for an interview but they wanted to interview my sister as well. Unfortunately my sister didn’t want to be interviewed.
I read your publication on line regularly to keep up with the Jewish community in Winnipeg.
My family still lives in Winnipeg and I was home this past summer for my niece’s graduation
I will always consider Winnipeg my home.
I’m so frustrated with the Canadian health care system and wanted the people from Winnipeg to know they deserve better.
Elisa Faybush
We wrote back:
Thanks for the speedy reply Elisa. I’ll add something to the end of your message about your roots.
And, for what it’s worth, I agree totally with you about the state of health care in Canada. It’s a sacred cow but this cow should be put out to pasture.
She responded:
100% agree
Feel free to call if you would like
(number redacted)
We wrote:
Well, if you’d like me to do a profile of you – which we do quite often of doctors who left Manitoba, usually written by Gerry Posner, I’d be glad to do that.
But it would be a full-on profile, not just a lament for the Canadian health care system. By the way, I searched your name in the History of Jewish Physicians in Manitoba, which was authored by Eva Wiseman a few years ago. I didn’t see your name in there, but one of the criteria for inclusion in that book was someone must have practised in Manitoba for at least 5 years after graduating. I assume you left before 5 years had elapsed. Is that right?
Elisa responded:
You are correct. I left after residency to complete my fellowship in gastroenterology in Arizona and never left.
I went to garden city collegiate graduated in 1991 and then went on to complete my bachelor of science at the u of w.
I’m not looking for a profile but thank you for the offer. I just need to express my opinion and I appreciate you giving me an outlet to do so.
We wrote:
When did you graduate from medical school?
Elisa responded:
1999
We wrote:
And did you go to Arizona immediately upon graduating?
Elisa responded:
After graduating u of m medical school in 1999 I completed my internal medicine residency at the u of m from 1999-2002. I then left to go to the university of Arizona in Tucson for my gi fellowship from 2002-2005. I then moved to Phoenix and started private practice. I just completed 20 yrs in practice this year.
We wrote:
ok great – I think it’s important to provide a fuller description of your career to lend some further significance to your original comment. By the way, you must have studied under Chuch Bernstein – right?
She responded:
Yes. He is the reason I did my fellowship in the USA. He encouraged me to do so. He probably thought I would come back to work in Winnipeg like he did!
We wrote:
He’s a great guy. I bet I know a lot of your schoolmates from med school. It’s too bad the Canadian medical system has alienated so many talented people. I still have lots of friends who were doctors and who still live here, but they’re all so embittered about our system.
Elisa responded:
I never practiced in Winnipeg but I hear about the problems with it as family members have to navigate through this broken system.
If I lived and practiced in Winnipeg I would know the doctors and specialists that I could call to help my family members but I’ve been gone for so long I don’t have any relationships with anyone anymore:
Local News
Simkin Centre shows accumulated deficit of $779,426 for year end March 31, 2025 – but most personal care homes in Winnipeg are struggling to fund daily operations
By BERNIE BELLAN The last (November 20) issue of the Jewish Post had as an insert a regular publication of the Simkin Centre called the “Simkin Star.”
Looking through the 16 pages of the Simkin Star I noticed that three full pages were devoted to financial information about the Simkin Centre, including the financial statement for the most recent fiscal year (which ended March 31, 2025). I was rather shocked to see that Simkin had posted a deficit of $406,974 in 2025, and this was on top of a deficit of $316,964 in 2024.
In the past month, I had also been looking at financial statements for the Simkin Centre going back to 2019. I had seen that Simkin had been running surpluses for four straight years – even through Covid.
But seeing the most recent deficit led me to wonder: Is the Simkin Centre’s situation unusual in its having run quite large deficits the past two years? I know that, in speaking with Laurie Cerqueti, CEO of the Simkin Centre, over the years, that she had often complained that not only Simkin, but many other personal care homes do not receive sufficient funding from the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.
At the same time, an article I had read by Free Press Faith writer John Longhurst, and which was published in the August 5, 2025 issue of the Free Press had been sticking in my brain because what Longhurst wrote about the lack of funding increases by the WRHA for food costs in personal care homes deeply troubled me.
Titled “Driven by faith, frustrated by funding,” Longhurst looked at how three different faith-based personal care homes in Winnipeg have dealt with the ever increasing cost of food.
One sentence in that article really caught my attention, however, when Longhurst wrote that the “provincial government, through the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, has not increased the amount of funding it provides for care-home residents in Manitoba since 2009.”
Really? I wondered. Is that true?
As a result, I began a quest to try and ascertain whether what Longhurst claimed was the case was actually the case.
For the purpose of this article, personal care homes will be referred to as PCHs.
During the course of my gathering material for this article I contacted a number of different individuals, including: Laurie Cerqueti, CEO of the Simkin Centre; the CEO of another personal care home who wished to remain anonymous; Gladys Hrabi, who wears many hats, among them CEO of Manitoba Association for Residential and Community Care Homes for Everyone ( MARCHE), the umbrella organization for 24 not-for-profit personal care homes in Manitoba; and a representative of the WRHA.
I also looked at financial statements for six different not-for-profit PCHs in Winnipeg. (Financial statements for some, but not all PCHs, are available to look at on the Province of Manitoba website. Some of those financial statements are for 2025 while others are for 2024. Still, looking at them together provides a good idea how comparable revenue and expenses are for different PCHs.)
How personal care homes are funded
In order to gain a better understanding of how personal care homes are funded it should be understood that the WRHA maintains supervision of 39 different personal care homes in Winnipeg, some of which are privately run but most of which are not-for-profit. The WRHA provides funding for all personal care homes at a rate of approximately 75% of all operational funding needs and there have been regular increases in funding over the years for certain aspects of operations (including wages, benefits, and maintenance of the homes) but, as shall be explained later, increases in funding for food have not been included in those increases.
The balance of funding for PCHs comes from residential fees (which are set by the provincial government and which are tied to income); occasional funding from the provincial government to “improve services, technology, and staffing within personal care homes,”; and funds that some PCHs are able to raise on their own through various means (such as the Simkin Centre Foundation).
But, in Longhurst’s article about personal care homes he noted that there are huge disparities in the levels of service provided among different homes.
He wrote: “Some of Winnipeg’s 37 personal-care homes provide food that is mass-produced in an off-site commercial kitchen, frozen and then reheated and served to residents.” (I should note that different sources use different figures for the number of PCHs in Winnipeg. Longhurst’s article uses the figure “37,” while the WRHA’s website says the number is “39.” My guess is that the difference is a result of three different homes operated together by the same organization under the name “Actionmarguerite.”)
How does the WRHA determine how much to fund each home?
So, if different homes provide quite different levels of service, how does the WRHA determine how much to fund each home?
For an answer, I turned to Gladys Hrabi of MARCHE, who gave me a fairly complicated explanation. According to Gladys, the “WRHA uses what’s called a global/median rate funding model. This means all PCHs—regardless of size, ownership, or actual costs—are funded at roughly the same daily rate per resident. For 2023/24, that rate (including the resident charge) was about $200+ (sorry I need to check with WRHA the actual rate) per resident day.”
But, if different residents pay different resident charges, wouldn’t that mean that if a home had a much larger number of residents who were paying the maximum residential rate (which is currently set at $37,000 per year) then that home would have much greater revenue? I wondered.
Laurie Cerqueti of the Simkin Centre provided me with an answer to that question. She wrote: “Residents at any pch pay a per diem based on income and then the government tops up to the set amount.” Thus, for the year ending March 31, 2025 residential fees brought in $5,150,657 for the Simkin Centre. That works out to approximately $27,000 per resident. I checked the financial statements for the five other PCHs in Winnipeg to which I referred earlier, and the revenue from residential fees was approximately the same per resident as what the Simkin Centre receives.
Despite large increases in funding by the WRHA for personal care homes in recent years, those increases have not gone toward food
I was still troubled by John Longhurst’s having written in his article that the “provincial government, through the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, has not increased the amount of funding it provides for care-home residents in Manitoba since 2009.”
These days, when you perform a search on the internet, AI provides much more detailed answers to questions than what the old Google searches would.
Thus, when I asked the question: “How much funding does the WRHA provide for personal care homes in Winnipeg?” the answer was quite detailed – and specific:
“The WRHA’S total long-term care expenses for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024 were approximately $632.05 million.” There are approximately 5,700 residents in personal care homes in Winnipeg. That figure of $632.05 million translates roughly into $111,000 per resident.
“The budget for the 2024-2025 fiscal year included a $224.3 million overall increase to the WRHA for salaries, benefits, and other expenditures, reflecting a general increase in health-care investments.” (But, note that there is no mention of an increase for food expenditures.)
But, it was as a result of an email exchange that I had with Simkin CEO Laurie Cerqueti that I understood where Longhurst’s claim that there has been no increase in funding for care-home residents since 2009 came from.
Laurie wrote: “…most, if not all of the pchs are running a deficit in the area of food due to the increases in food prices and the government/wrha not giving operational funding increases for over 15 years.” Thus, whatever increases the WRHA has been giving have been eaten up almost entirely by salary increases and some additional hiring that PCHs have been allowed to make.
Longhurst’s article focused entirely on food operations at PCHs – and how much inflation has made it so much more difficult for PCHs to continue to provide nutritious meals. He should have noted, however, that when he wrote there has been “no increase in funding for care home residents since 2009,” he was referring specifically to the area of food.
As Laurie Cerqueti noted in the same email where she observed that there has been no increase in operational funding, “approximately $300,000 of our deficit was due to food services. I do not have a specific number as far as how much of the deficit is a result of kosher food…So really this is not a kosher food issue as much is it is an inflation and funding issue.
“Our funding from the WRHA is not specific for food so I do not know how much extra they give us for kosher food. I believe years ago there was some extra funding added but it is mixed in our funding envelope and not separated out.”
So, while the WRHA has certainly increased funding for PCHs in Winnipeg, the rate of funding increases has not kept pace with the huge increases in the cost of food, especially between 2023-2024.
As Laurie Cerqueti noted, in response to an email in which I asked her how the Simkin Centre is coping with an accumulated deficit of $779,426, she wrote, in part: “The problem is that the government does not fund any of us in a way that has kept up with inflation or other cost of living increases. If this was a private industry, no one would do business with the government to lose money. I know some pchs are considering out (sic.) of the business.”
A comparison of six different personal care homes
But, when I took a careful look at the financial statements for each of the personal care homes whose financial statements I was able to download from the Province of Manitoba website, I was somewhat surprised to see the huge disparities in funding that the WRHA has allocated to different PCHs. (How I decided which PCHs to look at was simply based on whether or not I was able to download a particular PCH’s financial statement. In most cases no financial statements were available even to look at. I wonder why that is? They’re all publicly funded and all of them should be following the same requirements – wouldn’t you think?)
In addition to the Simkin Centre’s financial statement (which, as I explained, was in the Simkin Star), I was able to look at financial statements for the following personal care homes: West Park Manor, Golden West Centennial Lodge, Southeast Personal Care Home, Golden Links Lodge, and Bethania Mennonite Personal Care Home.
What I found were quite large disparities in funding levels by the WRHA among the six homes, either in 2025 (for homes that had recent financial statements available to look at) or 2024 (for homes which did not have recent financial statements to look at.)
Here is a table showing the levels of funding for six different personal care homes in Winnipeg. Although information was not available for all homes for the 2025 fiscal year, the figures here certainly show that, while the WRHA has been increasing funding for all homes – and in some cases by quite a bit, the rate of increases from one home to another has varied considerably. Further, the Simkin Centre received the lowest percentage increase from 2024 to 2025.
Comparison of funding by the WRHA for 6 different personal care homes
We did not enter into this project with any preconceived notions in mind. We simply wanted to investigate how much funding there has been from the WRHA for personal care homes in Winnipeg in recent years.
As to why some PCHs received quite large increases in funding, while others received much smaller increases – the WRHA response to my asking that question was this: “Due to the nature and complexity of the questions you are asking regarding financial information about PCHs, please collate all of your specific questions into a FIPPA and we can assess the amount of time needed to appropriately respond.”
Gladys Hrabi of MARCHE, however, offered this explanation for the relatively large disparities in funding levels among different PCHs: “Because funding is based on the median, not actual costs, each PCH must manage within the same per diem rate even though their realities differ. Factors like building age, staffing structure, kitchen setup, and resident complexity all influence spending patterns.
“The difference you found (in spending between two particular homes that I cited in an email to Gladys) likely reflects these operational differences. Homes that prepare food on-site, accommodate specialized diets (cultural i.e. kosher), or prioritize enhanced dining experiences (more than 2 choices) naturally incur higher total costs. Others may use centralized food services or have less flexibility because of budget constraints.
“The current model doesn’t adjust for inflation, collective agreements, or true cost increases. This means many homes, especially MARCHE members face operating deficits and have to make tough choices about where to contain costs, often affecting areas like food, recreation, or maintenance. The large differences you see in food spending aren’t about efficiency —–they’re a sign that the current funding model doesn’t reflect the true costs of care.”
But some of the disparities in funding of different personal care homes really jump off the page. I noted, for instance, that of the six PCHs whose financial statements I examined, the levels of funding from WRHA for the 2024 fiscal year fell between a range of $63,341 per resident (at Golden Links Lodge) to $78,771 at the Simkin Centre – but there was one particular outlier: Southeast Personal Care Home, which received funding from the WRHA in 2024 at the rate of $98,321 per resident. Not only did Southeast Personal Care Home receive a great deal more funding per resident than the other five PCHs I looked at, it had a hefty surplus to boot.
I asked a spokesperson from the WRHA to explain how one PCH could have received so much more funding per capita than other PCHs, but have not received a response.
This brings me then to the issue of the Simkin Centre and the quite large deficit situation it’s in. Since readers might have a greater interest in the situation as it exists at the Simkin Centre as opposed to other personal care homes and, as the Simkin Centre has reported quite large deficits for both 2024 and 2025, as I noted previously, I asked Laurie Cerqueti how Simkin will be dealing with its accumulated deficit (which now stands at $779,426) going forward?
Now, as many readers may also know, I’ve been harping on the extra high costs incurred by Simkin as a result of its having to remain a kosher facility. It’s not my intention to open old wounds, but I was somewhat astonished to see how much larger the Simkin Centre’s deficit is than any other PCH for which I could find financial information.
From time to time I’ve asked Laurie how many of Simkin’s 200 residents are Jewish?
On November 10, she responded that “55% of residents” at Simkin are Jewish. That figure is consistent with past numbers that Laurie has cited over the years.
And, while Laurie claims that she does not know exactly how much more the Simkin Centre pays for kosher food, the increases in costs for kosher beef and chicken have outstripped the increases in costs for nonkosher beef and chicken. Here is what we found when we looked at the differences in prices between kosher and nonkosher beef and chicken: “Based on recent data and long-standing market factors, kosher beef and chicken prices have generally gone up more than non-kosher (conventional beef and chicken). Both types of meat have experienced significant inflation due to broader economic pressures and supply chain issues, but the kosher market has additional, unique cost drivers that amplify these increases.”
In the final analysis, while the WRHA has been providing fairly large increases in funding to personal care homes in Winnipeg, those increases have been eaten up by higher payroll costs and the costs of simply maintaining what is very often aging infrastructure. If the WRHA does not provide any increases for food costs, personal care homes will continue to be squeezed financially. They can either reduce the quality of food they offer residents or find other areas, such as programming, where they might be able to make cuts.
But, the situation at the Simkin Centre, which is running a much larger accumulated deficit than any other personal care home for which we could find financial information, places it in a very difficult position. How the Simkin Centre will deal with that deficit is a huge challenge. The only body that can provide help in a major way, not only for the Simkin Centre, but for all personal care homes within Manitoba, is the provincial government. Perhaps if you’re reading this you might want to contact your local MLA and voice your concerns about the lack of increased funding for food at PCHs.