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Health Minister Adrian Dix said he is proud that B.C. is one of two provinces significantly increasing per-capita health spending this year.

Quebec is the only other province spending more this year than last year, according to a report released Thursday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

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“We’ve been focused on priorities like increasing spending in primary care, increasing access to MRI imaging, and reducing surgical wait lists,” Dix said in an interview.

The report shows that the NDP government’s forecasted health spending will represent the biggest annual rise in B.C. since 2010. However, B.C. per-capita spending still lags behind other provinces.

Health spending across Canada ranges from $6,548 per capita in B.C. to $19,061 in Nunavut.

While that territory is projected to spend 6.2 per cent more per capita in 2019, it is an outlier as a big spender. The average per-capita increase across the country is 2.9 per cent. So among the provinces, Quebec’s 5.5-per-cent increase and B.C’s 3.4-per-cent increase are the two leaders. Alberta has reined in spending so much that it is projected to lift health expenditures the least — only 0.3 per cent.