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All Egli said he knew was that the new health unit would include more than 1.6 million people and cover almost 29,000 square kilometres.

“That’s a huge jump for Ottawa,” Egli said, adding that the province has vowed to consult on the proposed mergers.

“I certainly hope that’s true because the changes would be significant.”

The new health-unit structure comes as the PCs also change the funding structure for public health agencies. While the province has paid 75 per cent of local public health programs, the rate is slated to dip to 60 per cent in the next three years. The rest of the money in local health unit budgets comes mostly from property taxpayers.

“More people, more geography, less money,” Egli said.

OPH was working on a message to its staff about the proposed merger. There are so few details about how the merger would work that it’s hard for managers to explain with any certainty how the move will impact staffing, especially when there could be multiple unions affected across the health units.

“I want them to know that we’re going to do everything we can do keep public health in Ottawa has whole as we can,” Egli said of OPH’s staff.

In an email Monday evening, a spokeswoman for Health Minister Christine Elliott said no final decision has been made on the new regional health units’ boundaries.

“While the government will bring forward proposals, the specific boundaries of the new regional health units will be finalized in consultation with municipalities through technical working groups, which we expect to launch shortly,” said Elliott’s press secretary Hayley Chazan. “Through these technical working groups, we will also work with our municipal partners to design governance and delivery models that protect and preserve the voice of all municipalities. In doing so, we will ensure that public health investments better meet the needs of local communities.”