44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 6, 2024 11:00AM
- May/6/24 9:22:43 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I would disagree with respect to the blue seal program being a double standard. In Canada, immigration is a shared jurisdiction. Right now, many of the doctors who come to Canada, through our federal points system, do not have access to the professions that allowed them to enter Canada in the first place.
The basis behind our plan is to make sure that, when we accept someone into Canada through our immigration system, we are actually doing what we said we were going to do, which is to allow them to contribute in the profession of their choice to make Canada a stronger and more vibrant nation.
109 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/6/24 9:23:29 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, the member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon began his speech by outlining how widely covered medical care is for both diabetes and the pill. They are already widely covered in that they cover so many voters.
Would the bill not be more aptly called “farm a vote”?
53 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/6/24 9:24:05 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, farm a vote; I agree. I would like to thank the member from the Ottawa Valley for her question. The bill is solely to ensure that the NDP and Liberal government can maintain their working relationship.
Unfortunately, the NDP members did not stand up for what they believe in and what they promised their voters in the last general election, which was universal pharmacare. They are selling themselves short with the legislation, because they are not afraid to face the electorate.
83 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/6/24 9:24:43 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate this opportunity and all opportunities to speak in the House on behalf of the residents of Hamilton Mountain, particularly with respect to this very important piece of legislation, which is necessary to help millions of Canadians who are struggling to pay for their prescription medications.
We have heard lots about access to and the affordability of prescription drugs in Canada. Statistics Canada data from 2021 indicates that one in five Canadians reported not having insurance to cover the cost of prescription medication in the previous 12 months. The same Statistics Canada data also found that a higher proportion of new Canadians reported not having prescription drug insurance coverage. Having no prescription insurance coverage was associated with higher out-of-pocket spending and higher non-adherence to prescriptions because of cost. This results in some Canadians' having to choose between paying for these medications and paying for other basic necessities such as food and housing. We likely all know someone who is struggling with this issue. Members may know someone, or maybe have heard stories about a person with diabetes who does not have insurance coverage through work and has to pay for their insulin, syringes and test strips out of pocket; a student who had insurance coverage up to a certain age through their parents and then lost that coverage; or a cancer patient who does have insurance but is still not covered under their plan for the type of medication they need to treat their cancer.
That is why we have introduced legislation based on the principles of accessibility, affordability, appropriateness and universality. These principles will help guide ongoing efforts to advance the implementation of national pharmacare. We need pharmacare that helps make prescription drugs more accessible. This includes improving the consistency of access to drug coverage and needed medications across the country. We also need pharmacare that helps make prescription drugs affordable. This includes reducing financial barriers for Canadians, such as deductibles and copays. Additionally, we need pharmacare that helps ensure that the prescription drugs that people are taking are appropriate. This includes getting the right drug to the right patient at the right time to support their physical and mental well-being. Finally, we need pharmacare that is universal. This means we need to work to ensure that the principles of accessibility, affordability, and the appropriate use of prescription drugs are applicable to all Canadians, regardless of where they live.
These pharmacare principles align with the work that is already being done on national pharmacare. This work includes our partnership with Prince Edward Island with respect to the improving affordable access to prescription drugs initiative, our implementation of the first-ever national strategy for drugs for rare diseases and the recent announcement of the creation of a Canadian drug agency. Going forward, these principles would be reflected in the upcoming bilateral agreements for universal coverage of contraception and diabetes medications.
Let me spend a moment to explain how those principles are already being put into action. On August 11, 2021, the Government of Canada announced it would work with the Government of P.E.I. to improve affordable access to prescription drugs and inform the advancement of national universal pharmacare by providing $35 million over four years to add new drugs to its list of covered drugs and lower out-of-pocket expenses for drugs covered under existing public plans for island residents.
As of December 2023, P.E.I. has expanded access to over 100 new medications to treat a variety of conditions, including heart disease, pulmonary arterial hypertension, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis and cancer. In addition, effective June 1, 2023, P.E.I. reduced copays to $5 for almost 60% of medications regularly used by island residents. I am pleased to share that, through this initiative, within the first three months, P.E.I. residents have saved over $2 million in out-of-pocket costs on more than 200,000 prescriptions.
As of July 1, 2023, P.E.I. also made adjustments to the catastrophic drug program, lowering the cap on the amount of money a household needs to spend out of pocket on eligible medications. As a result, no eligible P.E.I. household will have to spend more than 6.5% of their household income on eligible medications. Once that 6.5% cap has been reached, eligible medication costs for the remainder of the year will be paid by the program. As members can see, this collaboration is already creating more affordable access to needed medications for island residents.
On a national level, we have launched the first-ever national strategy for drugs for rare diseases in March 2023, with an investment of up to $1.5 billion over three years. Most of this investment will be going to provinces and territories through bilateral agreements to improve access to new and emerging drugs for Canadians with rare diseases, as well as support enhanced access to existing drugs, early diagnosis and screening for rare diseases.
Similarly, we are providing $33 million over three years to support first nations and Inuit patients with rare diseases, and $68 million is being invested in various initiatives to support collaborative governance, data infrastructure and research for drugs for rare diseases.
Through this, the government will help increase access to and affordability of effective drugs for rare diseases to improve the health of patients across Canada. These principles will be further demonstrated and reflected in the next step of national pharmacare outlined in this bill, which describes our intent to work with provinces and territories to provide universal, single-payer coverage for a number of contraception and diabetes medications.
In addition, and separately from the bill, we will also create a fund for diabetes devices and supplies. This fund will be rolled out to support access to diabetes devices such as continuous glucose monitors, insulin pumps, syringes and test strips. This new coverage, to be delivered by provinces and territories that enter into a bilateral agreement, provides an excellent opportunity to see the principles of affordability, accessibility, appropriateness and universality at work. Canadians, no matter where they live or how much they earn, will be able to receive the contraception and diabetes medications they need. In turn, Canadians will be healthier, empowered to make important life decisions and will not have to skip doses due to the cost of these two types of essential medications.
In closing, we will continue to work on national pharmacare initiatives that include the principles of accessibility, affordability, appropriateness and universality laid out in this bill, because Canadians need national pharmacare that embodies these principles. We look forward to working with all parliamentarians to pass the pharmacare act so that these principles will continue to guide our ongoing efforts to advance the implementation of national pharmacare.
1136 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/6/24 9:33:08 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, my colleagues and I have been saying the same thing from day one: We are in favour of pharmacare for all Canadians. We think it is a good idea and it is high time for Canada to consider it. However, we have said and keep saying that this is a provincial jurisdiction.
If the other provinces want to have a federal program, then they can fill their boots. We know that the Constitution says that this is a jurisdiction of Quebec. Quebec already has its system. Why not leave us with our system? Let the government give us our share. We will keep making group purchases and everything will be fantastic in the best of all possible worlds.
Where is the problem?
124 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/6/24 9:34:08 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I agree with the fact that everything we do as a federal government has to be done in collaboration with the provinces and territories. We must communicate with Quebec, we must learn from Quebec and will continue to collaborate. It is not something we are going to do alone. We cannot. The provinces cannot do it alone either. We need to work together.
I thank the Bloc for everything they contribute to the House.
76 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/6/24 9:35:03 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.
Before I begin, I would like to recognize two very wonderful young men from my riding, both of whom received the Chief Scout's Award, one being Shawn Hodgkiss, who managed to collect over 1,000 pounds of food for the food bank, and another named Jared Roberts, who volunteered with The Loop and Our Street Church. I congratulate them. They are now in Hansard to reflect their incredible achievement.
At the end of the day, the Liberals have spoken so much about doing so many things, yet they have executed everything so poorly. We have had deficit after deficit. We could not even get a passport. The dental program has been a disaster as so few dentists have signed up in the Maritimes, for instance.
How can we have any confidence that the government will get this right?
159 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/6/24 9:35:57 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I congratulate the member opposite for getting his constituents' names into Hansard today. That was well done.
I note that one of the constituents he mentioned is involved in a food program. I would remind the member that one of the things the government has accomplished and that, hopefully, everyone will support is a national school food program, because we absolutely agree that we need to make sure children are well fed in school so they can learn and have good lives.
84 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/6/24 9:36:36 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to work with my hon. colleague across the way at the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. There are other folks on the committee and I really enjoy working with all of them, even across party lines, believe it or not.
The Conservatives are talking about voting against free contraception in this plan. There is no question that they are anti-choice. All the members have been listed as anti-choice, but they also voted against the school food program and pushed against the national child care program. The Conservative Party does not seem to be supportive of equity in this country.
Supporting this bill is so important. I am wondering if they are really serious about advancing the rights of women, or if maybe they just want women and gender-diverse people to stay in the dark ages.
146 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/6/24 9:37:37 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I appreciate my NDP colleague's work on the status of women committee. She is a true champion for women.
I have appreciated in the debate this evening how she keeps bringing up the word “abortion”, because in this country, we have to worry about the rights of women in terms of their bodies, their right to choose, being taken away. We constantly see legislation proposed by the Conservatives that would restrict a woman's right to choose.
I stand with the member for Winnipeg Centre across the aisle on the right of women to choose for their own bodies.
104 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, Bill C-64 is a classic example of the legislation the Liberal government has brought before this Parliament. Once again, it has over-promised and under-delivered.
When the leader of the NDP sold his party's soul and coincidentally guaranteed that he would receive a pension for his efforts, many people thought he got too little for it. New Democrats did not even get 30 pieces of silver, as they betrayed their ideal and the Canadian people.
What has this betrayal cost Canadians? Inflation continues at record levels, fuelled by the carbon tax. Housing costs have doubled. Health care has vanished. Food bank use is at record levels. The immigration system is broken. Our military suffers from neglect, and foreign governments try to influence our elections. The Liberal response is to shrug. Canada has become a joke on the world stage.
What does the NDP receive for this blind support of the Prime Minister and his disastrous policies? It receives a promise to look at what it would take to establish a national pharmacare program. It is not even that, really.
Canadians thought a pharmacare plan would cover their drug costs. For the majority of the country, this was not a pressing issue. According to The Conference Board of Canada, 97% of Canadians are already eligible for some form of drug coverage, although the final report of the advisory council on the implementation of national pharmacare indicated that 20% of Canadians receive what could be termed inadequate coverage. In December of last year, a Leger poll indicated that only 18% of Canadians thought the establishment of a national pharmacare program was a health care priority.
It may come as a surprise to the Liberals and the NDP, but Canadians are worried about rising prices on everything, due in large part to the carbon tax. When people are worried about being able to feed their family, pay the rent or mortgage and put gas in their car so they can get to work, they do not spend much time thinking about a drug plan that does not cover the medications they need.
Canadians were hoping the Liberals could get it right. That turns out to have been a false hope. On this issue, as on many others, the Liberals are proving once again to have no idea what they are doing. The Liberal idea of pharmacare is restricted to just two types of medication. If one suffers from heart disease, one is out of luck. Heart disease is the second-leading cause of death in Canada, but medication for it would not be covered.
The Liberals' approach to pharmacare reminds me of their approach to Canadian liquid natural gas, or LNG. When the chancellor of Germany came to Canada looking to buy Canadian LNG, the Prime Minister told him there was no business case for such exports. That was a huge surprise to those companies looking to expand their markets.
Not only is there a business case for Canadian LNG, but there is a moral one as well. In the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, countries are looking to replace Russian LNG and have turned to Canada, only to be told by the Canadian government that it does not want to sell Canadian LNG. The Prime Minister needs to learn that when there is a customer willing to buy the product, there is indeed a business case to support it. If Germany and Japan and Greece want to buy Canadian LNG, why would we not want to sell it to them?
A previous prime minister asked farmers, “Why should I sell your wheat?” This tells buyers there is not a business case to sell them the product they are asking for, while at the same time offering Canadians a pharmacare program they did not ask for, a plan so flawed it is unlikely to work.
This is the government that promised a firearms buyback program four years ago. So far, it has not managed to launch it, yet it wants Canadians to believe it has the skills necessary to design and implement a pharmacare program. Put simply, what is being offered is not pharmacare.
It is just another Liberal election gimmick, a promise they will campaign on in 2025, hoping that voters will not look at how many promises they have already broken. Anyone who has looked at the current state of drug coverage in Canada is concerned by this attempt to create additional bureaucracy. We already have some public drug plans; they do not seem to be as good as the private ones. Private drug insurance plans cover many more different medications than public plans do. The difference varies by province, but, on average, private coverage is 51% more extensive than its public counterpart is. In Quebec, the figure is 59.6%. Then there are the delays. Once a drug is approved by Health Canada, it takes an average of 226 days for a private insurer to approve the coverage. By contrast, it takes 732 days for approval by Health Canada, or a little over three times as long, for a public plan to add a drug to its list of covered treatments. These figures do not paint a rosy picture of the ability of public insurance to meet the Canadians' needs.
The marriage contract between the Liberals and the NDP required that the bill come before us last year. It did not. It took the Liberals two years to come up with the legislation, a bill that seems to have been put together without much thought, just to meet a deadline. Given how weak the bill is, I can only imagine what the first draft looked like. Maybe it was just one line, such as “We promise to look at establishing a pharmacare program in the hopes people will vote for us before we have to deliver.” Wait, is that not what Bill C-64 is?
After almost nine years of misgovernment, incompetence and mismanagement from the Liberal-NDP coalition, Canadians have lost all faith in the government's ability to discharge its responsibilities. What is the cost of this national pharmacare program? With two years to look into it, the Liberals either did not think to ask or are afraid to tell Canadians just how much more they want to raise taxes to pay for a plan that would benefit almost no one.
The bill is a public relations exercise by an utterly desperate government that is disliked by more and more Canadians every day. The inability of the Liberals to deliver on their promises is well known. Already, two provinces have opted out of this program. There is no indication that other provinces are interested. One would have thought that, in attempting to create a national program in an area of provincial jurisdiction, the Liberals would have consulted with the provinces. One might have expected that they would have hearings and consultations with stakeholders to see what exists now, what needs to be improved and the best way to do that. As far as I can tell, all they did was ask the NDP the minimum they could promise to keep the NDP's support.
Can the Minister of Health tell us what impact the bill will have on the 27 million Canadians who rely on privately administered workplace plans? If he is an honest man, he cannot, because he does not know. There was no consultation with the insurance industries when the bill was being drafted. Maybe he felt there was no need to check the facts. A promise had been made by the NDP, and the Liberals had to deliver. The needs and wishes for the Canadian people were not worthy of consideration. What is not worthy of consideration is this sad attempt at legislation; Canadians deserve much better than that.
1315 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/6/24 9:48:03 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I have heard a number of Conservatives say the same thing today. They keep saying that only one out of five Canadians wants the legislation; only one out of five Canadians wants pharmacare.
If one out of five Canadians is not good enough for Conservatives—
48 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/6/24 9:48:29 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I want to call to the attention of the House that I do not think we have quorum.
20 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/6/24 9:48:52 p.m.
- Watch
We are on autopilot. We do not need quorum.
9 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, debate on second reading of Bill C-64 took place tonight without quorum, which means that Bill C-64 will have been considered without the constitutional requirement of quorum. In the event that Bill C-64 receives royal assent, I trust that the fact—
47 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/6/24 9:50:40 p.m.
- Watch
Before the member goes any further with his point of order, I will remind him that, on February 28, 2024, the House duly adopted an order prescribing that the Chair not receive any quorum calls after 6.30 p.m. today. Back in May 2022, the Speaker delivered a ruling as to the admissibility of the same provision from a similar motion, including the section dealing with quorum calls during extended seatings of the House. That ruling can be found in the debates of May 2, 2022, at pages 4577 and 4578. I would invite the member to read the ruling of the Speaker to find that this matter has already been settled.
It being 9.49 p.m., pursuant to an order made earlier today, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the second reading stage of the bill now before the House.
The question is on the amendment.
If a member participating in person wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
205 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/6/24 9:50:47 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I would request a recorded division.
8 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/6/24 9:50:57 p.m.
- Watch
Pursuant to Standing Order 45, the division stands deferred until Tuesday, May 7, at the expiry of time provided for Oral Questions.
The hon. deputy House leader is rising.
29 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/6/24 9:51:08 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I understand that you have received proper notice from all recognized parties, and if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to see the clock at midnight.
30 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/6/24 9:51:41 p.m.
- Watch
I have received notice from all the recognized parties that they are in agreement with this request.
Is it agreed?
Hon. members: Agreed.
23 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
