OTTAWA — The Canadian federal government plans to allocate approximately $7 million this fiscal year for the storage and maintenance of four custom-made, portable hospitals known as Mobile Health Units. These facilities, intended to support overwhelmed hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic, have cost taxpayers over $200 million to purchase and have seen minimal use.
In the early stages of the pandemic, the government rapidly issued rush orders for these deployable field hospitals, designed specifically to manage acute respiratory illness cases. However, the units are now housed in controlled storage locations in Brockville and Chesterville, Ontario, leading to significant ongoing maintenance costs.
Documents acquired via the Access to Information Act have revealed that the process of transferring these complex and large structures has been slow and challenging. There have been attempts to negotiate their sale or donation since last year, with GCSurplus, the agency responsible for surplus federal government assets, aiming to clear out the storage facilities by September 2025.
Although future cost estimates for the hospitals in 2025-26 are not available due to redactions, the federal government projects spending 12 to 18 months and $8.4 million on maintenance to transition the units to new owners. Nicole Allen, a spokesperson for Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC), stated that the department is exploring multiple divestment avenues, including transferring the assets to other federal entities, selling, or donating them to eligible organizations within Canada.
The four Mobile Health Units collectively occupy the space of 588 tractor trailers and require constant electricity access to maintain medication refrigeration. The deployment of one unit involves a logistical effort that can take up to seven weeks, with one unit necessitating 75 transport trucks for relocation—an operation comparable to the logistics of pop star Taylor Swift's "Eras" tour.
Internal documents indicate that PSPC faced challenges in finding suitable recipients for the units, discovering that potential candidates already possessed smaller mobile hospital versions. Efforts to donate the units for humanitarian assistance in regions like Ukraine and the Middle East were unsuccessful, as the design and size of the units did not meet operational needs. Local governments, including those in Toronto and Ottawa, also indicated that these hospitals did not match their requirements for addressing homelessness issues.
Global Affairs Canada determined that the units would not be practical for international humanitarian deployment, as stated in an internal draft from Public Safety in 2023. Meanwhile, the Canadian Red Cross uses smaller, easily deployable mobile health units, and the Canadian Armed Forces possess a simpler 50-bed structure that lacks advanced medical equipment.
The investment in these units began in spring 2020 with an initial budget of up to $300 million. The government awarded contracts to Weatherhaven and a joint venture of SNC-Lavalin with Pacific Architects and Engineers to construct the units through a limited tendering process, citing their prior experience with similar structures for National Defence.
As of January 3, 2024, the government had paid $124.9 million to Weatherhaven Global Resources Inc. and $82.1 million to SNC-Lavalin-PAE for the units. Frustrations voiced in internal emails revealed procurement officials were compelled to manage the units amid expiring pandemic funding, as attempts to transfer them to departments like National Defence or the Public Health Agency of Canada met with reluctance.
The Department of Finance advised PSPC to commence divestment moves back in October 2022. In December 2023, the Deputy Minister Emergency Management Committee approved a plan to dispose of the units, which had originally been quickly commissioned due to the pandemic needs. A memo signed by former public services minister Jean-Yves Duclos on February 27, 2024, recognized the units as surplus and authorized GCSurplus to sell them below market value or donate parts of them.
The units were expected to fulfill demands during heightened pandemic waves. Although Ontario initially requested the deployment of two more units in 2021, the two that were sent only operated briefly—one at Sunnybrook Health Sciences in Toronto and another at Hamilton Health Sciences—without engaging in significant overflow relief. According to federal reports, only a handful of patients, labeled as "low-risk," were treated at the facility in Sunnybrook.
Other provinces expressed no interest in the units, primarily due to their complex size and deployment requirements, coupled with a shortage of healthcare workers able to manage them. Some components of the units, such as an oxygen concentration system, were repurposed for use in other facilities, while perishable supplies were donated to various schools across Canada and the equipment was integrated into the National Emergency Strategic Stockpile.
