44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 6, 2024 11:00AM
- May/6/24 3:36:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives should have stood up and should have the guts to actually defend the unbelievably negative things that they have tried to do around pharmacare.
My question to my colleague is very simple. When 17,000 of their constituents need access to diabetes medication and 25,000 need access to their reproductive health prescriptions, which are part of this bill, why are Conservatives blocking the ability of Canadians to access these medications?
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- May/6/24 6:18:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is something I did not have time in my speech to get to, but the reality is that when people are able to take the medication that their doctors prescribe, they are often able to get better. When they get better, that means they are not showing up at the doors of the emergency room. They are not ending up in hospital beds for long hospital stays. We know that it costs $1,000 a day to have someone in our hospitals, and these are all costs that are borne by our system.
The bill before us is about making people's lives better, first and foremost, but also, when we look down the road at public pharmacare, universal pharmacare, we see that it is going to save our society, as a whole, billions of dollars through bulk purchasing and through allowing people to lead healthier lives. I think that is a huge, positive move in the right direction.
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- May/6/24 6:30:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think about those who have episodic health conditions where they might go to work on a regular basis but have episodes. One I think about is debilitating menstrual migraines. A lot of teenagers go through this, and they do not necessarily have access to medication for that. Lots of teenagers who go to university are no longer on their parents' plans, or they do not have a plan and cannot get access to this. I know a number of young women who have come through my home, as I have three daughters. They have suffered because they could not afford access to any kind of medication for their menstrual headaches. It is unbelievable. They cannot work, and they cannot go to school. It takes them out of the workforce, and it takes them out of their school time. It is really not fair, and that is just because of the price of medication.
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- May/6/24 7:26:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, not too long ago, at the beginning of this year, there was a shortage of Ozempic, which is a medication diabetics take. For some diabetics, this was the only type of medication that would help them with their particular condition. There was a shortage and there was not enough to go around. With the government in charge of deciding who will get this life-saving medication in the event of another shortage, because there will be one, how will the government decide who lives and who dies?
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- May/6/24 7:35:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when I studied pharmacare at the health committee, we heard from the Parliamentary Budget Officer and multiple stakeholders that 95% of Canadians already have prescription medication coverage, and most of them are covered for 15,000 drugs, not two, like this lame bill that we have before us. Not only that, but the Liberals want to have the critical medications for Canadians delivered to them by the same fantastic bunch that cannot get a passport out the door in seven months and that have a 30% error rate in CRA. Is that who we want to manage the critical medications of Canadians? What could possibly go wrong?
Would the member just admit that this bill is a pacifier for the NDP, to keep them from pulling their support and calling an election?
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- May/6/24 8:04:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is what I am worried about. This bill talks about contraceptive medication. In particular, when we talk about a woman's right to choose, what I am worried about is that the Conservative Party of Canada—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak about Bill C-64 and about how this represents a historic milestone in the evolution of the Canadian health care system.
This bill and other investments made by our government will help millions of Canadians who are struggling to pay for their medication.
I was very thrilled when the Minister of Health, and many other incredible Canadians who have been advocating for a pharmacare program in Canada, joined in my community of Ottawa Centre, at the Centretown Community Health Centre, where, toward the end of February, we made the announcement on Bill C-64, on covering diabetes and contraception medication. One could see the excitement among people when that announcement was made in my community.
In fact, I have been working on this issue for over a decade now, during my time as a member of provincial Parliament in Ontario. I was part of a Liberal government that brought something that we called OHIP+. That “plus” covered medications for young people, and then, we were moving on to cover medications for seniors. It was really unfortunate that the Conservative government under Doug Ford cancelled that incredible program because it allowed for care for so many Ontarians.
However, I am thrilled that we are taking this important step here at the federal level.
In 2021, Statistics Canada found that one in five adults in Canada did not have the insurance they needed to cover their medication costs. This means that over 20% of adults in Canada face out-of-pocket drug costs that create a financial burden. This can lead to people sacrificing their basic needs, such as buying groceries or heating one's home, in order to afford their medications. It can also lead people to ration their medications, causing them worse health outcomes. This is not acceptable and I do not think that this is the kind of country any of us want to have.
Choices like whether to fill a prescription have serious consequences. Whether skipping meals or skipping doses, the decision to go without can create a cascade of negative impacts on a person's health and can increase the burden on our health and our social safety nets.
We can and we must do better. That is why we introduced Bill C‑64 and proposed this first step toward universal pharmacare.
Our commitment to address the accessibility and affordability of medication can be seen with the various initiatives we have implemented with respect to national pharmacare. In addition to the introduction of the pharmacare act, which includes a commitment to work with provinces and territories to ensure universal access to contraception and diabetes medications, we also established a partnership with P.E.I. to improve the affordability of prescription medications, implemented the first-ever national strategy for drugs for rare diseases and established a Canadian drug agency.
Let me start with the pharmacare act, which outlines a way forward toward national universal pharmacare in Canada. Bill C-64 recognizes the critical importance of working with the provinces and territories, which are responsible for the administration of health care. It also outlines our intent to work with these partners to provide universal, single-payer coverage for a number of contraception and diabetes medications.
This bill is an important step toward improving health equity, affordability and outcomes, and could help reduce health care system costs over the long term.
Coverage for contraceptives would mean that nine million Canadians of reproductive age would have better access to contraception, reducing the risk of unintended pregnancies and improving their ability to plan for the future. We are a government that has always and will always recognize that autonomy over one's body and the ability to control one's own sexual health is a matter of fundamental justice.
Contraception is a key component of individual autonomy. It is an essential component of reproductive health and contributes to advancing gender equality.
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Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I would just like to give a shout-out to the Abbotsford Rugby Football Club, which won the provincial championships over the weekend. The division 1 side has faced a lot of adversity. Our fields were flooded during the big flood in Abbotsford a few years ago. This team has really built back. Big congratulations go to Coach Chambers and all members of the squad on the game-winning kick by Mr. Rowell. Congratulations to all the boys for their accomplishments.
Now, I turn to Bill C-64, an act respecting pharmacare. As my colleague, the hon. member for Cumberland—Colchester, said in the House in April, the half-baked pharmacare plan being debated is truly about preserving the costly NDP-Liberal coalition.
In order to ensure that the coalition survives the next fixed election date, so many members can lock in their pensions, the NDP has agreed to a pharmacare plan that covers only two categories of drugs, while costing a billion and a half dollars and adding even more bureaucracy and gatekeepers to the already extremely bloated federal government.
There are 97.2% of Canadians who already qualify for some form of prescription drug coverage. It is important that we work to ensure that the 1.1 million Canadians without coverage can access pharmacare, but the proposed system would leave them woefully under-insured and no better off. In the context of British Columbia, we already have coverage for contraceptives through our provincial government.
What we have in front of us today is not a universal pharmacare system, as the NDP-Liberal government has been campaigning. It is a diabetes medication and contraceptive coverage system.
The member for Ottawa Centre just said in his speech that in 2028, diabetes alone will cost the medical system in Canada over $40 billion. Even the money put forward in this bill is only a drop in the bucket, and I wish the members of the NDP-Liberal government would come clean about misleading Canadians about what they are doing, because all of us have had constituents come to our offices and ask when the universal drug coverage will kick in. I am sorry to say that it will not; this is a PR exercise by this government, and it is shameful.
Canadians know how much a promise from the Prime Minister means, and it is not very much. This is the same Prime Minister who promised to balance the budget, or rather, that it would balance itself. This is the same Prime Minister who promised a $4.5-billion Canada mental health transfer that is yet to be delivered. This is the Prime Minister who promised British Columbians a universal day care system at $10 a day. Good luck trying to find that in our lifetime.
This is the same Prime Minister who promised that interest rates would stay low for a very long time, right before spending more money than any government in Canadian history and driving interest rates higher than they have been in decades. This is the same Prime Minister who has led to all of our GST payments, on every purchase we make in Canada, solely servicing the federal debt. Let that sink in. Every time we buy something, the taxes that we pay are only paying for the mistakes of the member for Papineau.
The only goal of this bill, as we all know, is to appease the NDP and avoid an election the government knows it would lose.
Speaking of the New Democrats, they really ought to be ashamed of themselves for even agreeing to this plan. For decades, they have campaigned on a single-payer pharmacare system, and now that they finally have a sliver of power in this Parliament, they fold and accept a half-baked plan that would cost taxpayers billions while failing to provide coverage for the vast majority of medications Canadians rely on, which the NDP promised to deliver. Shame on them.
The leader of the NDP loves to say that he will win the next election and often starts phrases with “when I am Prime Minister”. If he truly believed what he was saying, why does he continue to prop up that failed government, and why did he agree to this plan, which fails to cover the vast majority of drugs and treatments? If they are going to do it, they should go all in and take a risk. They are not willing to take a risk, because it is just about covering their own butts and getting their pensions.
The bill could have negative—
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- May/6/24 9:19:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think I heard the member opposite say that the people in his riding do not want this pharmacare plan. They do not want their diabetes medication or pharmacare for reproductive health to be covered.
It sounds to me as though he is more concerned about the insurance companies and how well they are going to make out after the legislation goes through. Is that the case?
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