Bill C-64

Pharmacare Act

An Act respecting pharmacare

This enactment sets out the principles that the Minister of Health is to consider when working towards the implementation of national universal pharmacare and obliges the Minister to make payments, in certain circumstances, in relation to the coverage of certain prescription drugs and related products. It also sets out certain powers and obligations of the Minister — including in relation to the preparation of a list to inform the development of a national formulary and in relation to the development of a national bulk purchasing strategy — and requires the Minister to publish a pan-Canadian strategy regarding the appropriate use of prescription drugs and related products. Finally, it provides for the establishment of a committee of experts to make certain recommendations.

Bill C‑64—Time Allocation Motion

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That in relation to Bill C-64, An Act respecting pharmacare, not more than five further hours shall be allotted to the consideration at the second reading stage of the bill; and

That, at the expiry of the five hours provided for consideration at second reading stage of the said bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this order, and, in turn, every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

Pursuant to Standing Order 67.1 there will now be a 30-minute question period. I will ask hon. members who wish to ask questions to rise or use the “raise hand” function so that the Chair can have some idea of the number of members who wish to participate in the question period.

On a point of order, the hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, while you were reading the motion, I was unfortunately distracted by the Liberal government House leader when you were specifying the number of hours allotted for debate on this issue.

Could you please remind the House of the number of hours specified in this time allocation motion to discuss the bill? This will illustrate the lengths to which the government is going to prevent us from talking about it any longer and debating it as much we would have liked.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

The time allotted is five hours.

The hon. member for New Westminster.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Burnaby South, the leader of the NDP, was the leader in actually bringing the bill to bear, with pharmacare being so vitally important for so many Canadians. He basically said, last week, that the Conservatives had up until noon today to remove their blocking amendment.

The Conservatives put an amendment forward that would block pharmacare. What that means for each and every Conservative MP is that 17,000 people, on average, who depend on vital diabetes medication would still have to pay for it out of pocket, in many cases $1,000 a month. That is an unbelievable charge on their ability to put food on the table or keep a roof over their head, and the Conservatives did not care. The reality is that 25,000 women who are looking to take care of their reproductive health in terms of birth control or contraception are also being denied by the Conservatives' blocking this important legislation.

My question very simply—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

The hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable is rising on a point of order.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, has the question and answer period on the time allocation motion started yet?

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

Yes, the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby has started asking his question.

The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby may continue.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

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?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his work on this legislation. Specifically, I want to take an opportunity to thank the member for Vancouver Kingsway for his work as well.

Canadians expect parliamentarians to work together to get results, to get the services and the care that they need. It is fine that the Conservatives are going to vote against dental care or vote against pharmacare, which means they are voting against medication for diabetes and against women getting access to the contraceptives they need. It is bad enough that they would vote against it, but to block it actively, to block the elected will of the House to be able to get care to people, is extremely disturbing.

I will talk about dental care. It was really revealing to talk to dentists across the country who had been filled with misinformation, and who were shocked by how easy it is to use the dental care plan. The reason that confusion, in many cases, exists is because of the confusion deliberately being pumped into it.

Again, I would say this to the Conservatives: It is fine that they do not want people to get diabetes medication, they do not want seniors to get dental care and they do not want people to be able to get access to the contraceptives that they need. That is one thing, but they should allow the House to do its work, allow us to move the legislation forward and allow us to make sure that those people who need care get care.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the minister when he said to allow this House to do its work. Allowing the House do its work also means not limiting debate. I know the minister to be a reasonable man. Is he not embarrassed to be limiting debate?

Bill C‑64 includes some extremely important powers. There is a danger. No one will be surprised to learn that the Bloc Québécois is against encroachment, against jurisdictional overlap, against what will likely be a waste of public funds on administrative redundancy. I think it is important to take the time to debate this properly.

Is the minister not embarrassed to be limiting the time for debate?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there will be time for the committee to conduct a study. After committee, there is still going to be time for the report stage and third reading. After that, there will be time in the Senate. It is important to keep the debate going, one step at a time. We need to make sure we can have a conversation with the Quebec government.

I had a good conversation with Minister Dubé. Quebec is ready to move forward. If the House takes too long, it affects people who really need medication, whether it is diabetes medication or contraceptives.

Yes, it is important to debate. However, there is plenty of time for debate in committee and during the rest of the House process. It is time to get on with it and move forward.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question is about pharmacare, in particular, the contraceptive angle of this and the supports it is going to provide.

At the heart of this is really a woman's right to choose. I found it very alarming that, on Friday, the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes stood up in the House and said, “A common-sense Conservative government would use the notwithstanding clause only on matters of criminal justice.”

It was in the nineties when it was actually made a crime to perform an abortion. What we have seen is that the Supreme Court, using those charters rights, overturned that law. We now have Conservative members saying that, in terms of criminal justice, which that law was, Conservatives would consider using the notwithstanding clause. In theory, Conservatives could bring back a similar law to that which was in the nineties, using the notwithstanding clause to make sure that it stuck, something that the Supreme Court would not be able to overturn.

I find it alarming that, only a year after the United States reintroduced legislation regarding a woman's right to choose and preventing it, Conservatives are now toying with and basically laying out the framework for how they would restrict those rights in the future. I am wondering if the Minister of Health would like to comment on that.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think it really is reprehensible to see the backward movement we are seeing over women's reproductive health and rights, where their autonomy over their own bodies is being called into question.

Let me make it very clear, as Minister of Health, that we will do everything in our power to make sure that women have full power and autonomy over their bodies. That is a fundamental freedom. That includes their reproductive futures.

In many of these instances is an inability to have real conversations about sex and about whether a woman should have the autonomy to make a choice about the way in which she makes decisions with her body. It is absolutely unacceptable in this country. When we take something like contraceptives, such as a condom, that have a failure rate of about 9%, and an IUD, which has a failure rate of 0.2%, how could people, first of all, have the position that they are going to tell a woman what she does with her body and then, secondly, try to block her ability to get reproductive technologies so that she does not wind up with an unwanted pregnancy?

Those things, to me, seem to be diametrically opposed. If one was opposed to abortion, if one was opposed to a woman being able to make that choice over her body, it would seem to me that one would at least stand up and support her ability to get reproductive medicine.

For me, it is extremely disturbing that this is any kind of debate in this country. Everywhere in this country, every woman should be told that she has autonomy over her body and that she has access to the medication she needs. That is fundamentally what this bill is about, in part. I am sure we will get an opportunity to talk about diabetes as well.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the debate right now is on time allocation on Bill C-64, and I would put it to the Minister of Health that I would love for us to be having a debate on an actual proposal for pharmacare.

It has been since June 2019 that the former Ontario health minister, Dr. Eric Hoskins, gave the government and this country clear direction that we need a national pharmacare program. We are the only country in the world with a national health care program that does not automatically include the provision of needed prescription drugs. We know from the Hoskins report that, properly implemented, a full national pharmacare program will save this country $5 billion a year at least.

However, the bill is picking out only two things, which is what is so strange about this bill and why I object to the debate being closed before we can actually discuss it. Why are we only talking about reproductive health care and diabetes medication? What that may end up doing is giving those opposed to pharmacare evidence that it costs more than it is worth, when we need to prove to everyone concerned that national pharmacare will save our health care system money and ensure Canadians get the health care they need.