Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister is renewing a call for the federal government to create an emergency credit agency that he says would allow provinces to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The move would see the feds borrow money on behalf of the country's provinces at lower rates as they look to add billions of dollars in new debt to pay for health care and economic recovery programs.

"Manitoba is about to take on, as are all the other provinces, some new debt. I call this Manitoba's pandemic second mortgage," said Pallister. "We've worked diligently over the last four years to build up a rainy day fund, we are using that now and it's going to dry up and when it does, Manitoba's borrowing will begin in earnest out of necessity."

Pallister explained that every province in Canada will be looking for money at the same time, which in turn will drive up the cost of borrowing. He says this will result in Manitoba paying double, or even triple, the federal government's interest rate on that "second mortgage".

According to the Premier, this "Manitoba idea" would allow the provinces to redirect the money saved from that lower interest rate back into the economy and health care.

Pallister added this plan has garnered the support of Canada's other premiers as well.

“I am gratified that all my colleagues support this provincial borrowing Initiative being placed immediately before the federal government,” said Pallister. “This is a sensible and available way Ottawa can make it cheaper for all of us to do so now.”

When asked if he'd heard back from the federal government on this plan, Pallister said he'd spoken to officials as recently as Friday.

"I wouldn't want my comments to be taken as accusatory to the Prime Minister for not responding more rapidly because he's only really been aware of this proposal, I expect, for a few days," added the Premier. "I'm very hopeful the federal government will respond favourably."

This year alone, Manitoba expects borrowing needs of up to $10 billion. If Manitoba could save 1.5 per cent on these borrowing costs, that translates to $150 million a year that could be redirected to health care, said Pallister. He noted that over the 30-year term of those bonds, that translates to over $4 billion of savings for Manitobans for this year’s borrowings alone.

A provincial news release indicates across all Canadian provinces and territories, this could easily translate into over $100 billion of savings.