Bill C-213 (Historical)

Canada Pharmacare Act

An Act to enact the Canada Pharmacare Act

This enactment enacts the Canada Pharmacare Act, which establishes criteria and conditions in respect of drug insurance plans established under the law of a province that must be met before a cash contribution may be made.

Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2020

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, seeing as this is my first speech in 2021, I want to start by wishing all of my colleagues a happy new year. I also wish a happy new year to my constituents of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. I know we are all very hopeful that this is the year when we finally turn things around.

The experiences of this pandemic have shown that we are not, in fact, all in this together. What is closer to the truth is that we are in the same storm, but we are in different boats. Some of those boats have certainly been much better at weathering this storm than others. Indeed, many have sunk. We have people right across the country who are in extremely dire straits and, in the immediate future, things are not going to get better. We are still in a very rough patch.

All around my riding, I have been witness to people who have lost their jobs, to small business owners who have shuttered their doors forever, and to many who are very much struggling to stay afloat. It is an open question as to whether they will continue to be able to do so.

We are now dealing with an outbreak in a local first nation. Cowichan Tribes has seen an outbreak of COVID-19 that, unfortunately, has led to a strong rash of racist incidents, which I am joining other community leaders in my riding to condemn.

I also want to acknowledge that many people have stepped up to the plate to support those who have been affected by the pandemic. I want to acknowledge the work of the local chambers of commerce. I have five chambers of commerce in my riding, and they have all been very strong advocates for their members and for the needs of small businesses throughout the region.

Families and workers continue to be concerned about the impacts of job losses and the worsening situation that we find ourselves in. When we come to actual measures that are going to provide assistance, while some parts of Bill C-14 are good, unfortunately it is a continuation of half measures. Given the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic, including where we have been, where we are and where we are going for the foreseeable future, it is extremely important for us, as a House of Commons, to seize this opportunity to strengthen our social safety net by investing in programs that directly help people.

From the beginning, the goal of the NDP caucus has been to get more help to more people, more quickly. That has been our focus for the last 10 months. I believe that we were very successful in leveraging our position in a minority Parliament by working with the government and with our Conservative colleagues to make sure we could do things like increase the amount of the emergency response benefit. We managed to have that increased to $2,000 a month and we also managed to have it extended.

It was great to see our leader, the member for Burnaby South, join with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and unions like UFCW, Unifor and the United Steelworkers to ask the government to increase the wage subsidy from the initial 10% to 75%.

We have consistently pushed for more and stronger payments for students, for seniors and for persons with disabilities.

We were able to secure Canada's very first paid sick leave. That is incredibly important in the middle of a health crisis, because we do not want to see workers making the impossible choice between their health and their ability to earn money. If we are going to get through this pandemic, we absolutely must give workers a way to stay home if they are feeling sick. It is a way to not put anyone else in danger of catching COVID-19.

I looked back at the speech that the finance minister delivered in November: the fall economic statement. Bill C-14, the bill we are discussing today, is meant to be the implementation act of that speech.

It is quite clear to all parliamentarians that we are not going to effectively get through this pandemic until we see a very strong rollout of Canada's vaccines. I know that the government has consistently come forward with the message of how much it has invested in vaccine agreements and how much it has secured in a domestic supply, but it has become clear, over the last number of weeks, that there are some holes.

Not to play politics about it, but it is really our job in the opposition to hold the government to account and ask these probing questions. Why is there a delay in the vaccine rollout? Why is Canada not receiving any doses in some weeks and going forward?

My colleague, the member for Vancouver Kingsway, in the emergency debate last night referenced the fact that this is the third time in two weeks that the federal government's delivery schedule has been revised downward. Canadians have questions about that, and I believe it is incumbent upon the federal government, the Liberals, to be up front and honest about where we are at and to provide answers to those very important questions.

When we look at Bill C-14, we see that it is proposing a series of measures, including allowances for young children, a suspension of interest on student loans and an increase in the borrowing limit. I know my Conservative colleagues have great concern over that aspect, but if we look at the desperate times we are in, we can see that we absolutely need to have the federal government step in and provide that important backstop. The alternative is to have more and more businesses falter, never to open their doors again, and recovering from the economic circumstances in which we find ourselves will take so much longer.

I will concentrate on one particular aspect of the bill that has great significance for my riding. It is the fact that $64.4 million is being allocated for mental health and substance use in the context of COVID-19. Here in the Cowichan Valley, as in many parts of the country, we are still suffering through an opioid epidemic. Indeed, British Columbia posted record numbers of deaths last year from opioid overdoses. We have consistently asked the federal government to step in to do more to address this crisis, to provide more financial resources to the provinces, to declare a national health emergency and to start finally treating this problem like the health issue it is. We have to seriously look at criminal justice reforms and at decriminalizing possession of small amounts of illicit substances so that people do not have to fear the criminality of their actions and can actually get the help they need.

There were some missed opportunities, as I alluded to earlier. If we are going to make those bold policy fixes that are truly going to help Canadians get out of this crisis, we need to see massive investments in child care. It is one thing to give parents a financial contribution, but they will not be able to make much use of it if child care spaces are not available. I know that in Langford, which is one of the most rapidly growing urban centres in all of Canada and is full of young families, the lack of good available child care spaces is a huge concern to so many young parents and families.

Similarly, on pharmacare, I am glad to see the member for New Westminster—Burnaby stepping up to the plate with his Bill C-213, which would actually put Liberal promises into NDP action. This would make a huge difference, along with dental care, in actually addressing some of the real costs that so many working families have on their budgets.

We also need to have a serious conversation on how we are going to finance all of this. We have to have a serious talk about implementing a wealth tax to make sure that those very wealthy individuals and corporations that benefited from this pandemic and made profits in the billions of dollars are contributing their fair share and that the payment does not fall on the shoulders of working families.

The Liberals also missed a golden opportunity to fix the wage subsidy, in that start-ups that did not have payroll accounts before March 15, 2020, still cannot qualify for the emergency wage subsidy. I have one business in particular, V2V Black Hops Brewing, an amazing social enterprise that does work in my riding for veterans, that cannot qualify for the wage subsidy because of the payroll account issue. I implore my Liberal colleagues to please fix that in legislation, and this bill was a missed opportunity.

I will conclude by saying that Canadians can no longer wait for half measures. We need bold, decisive action.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby, and also congratulate him on Bill C-213. It is a perfect example of us once again taking Liberal promises and putting them into NDP action.

I listened very attentively to his speech, and he is right. It is not so much what is in Bill C-14, but what is missing. For me, a particular issue affects the city of Langford in my riding. A start-up business, V2V Black Hops Brewing, did not have its payroll account in place before March 15. Here we are, 10 months into the pandemic, and it is still unable to qualify for the emergency wage subsidy.

Perhaps my colleague, in his role as critic for finance, and with the incredible work he has done with the member for Courtenay—Alberni, could answer the question why, after all this time, the Liberals are still excluding start-ups from accessing this important wage subsidy? So many of them are struggling. Indeed, I fear many are going to go out of business.

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

Mr. Speaker, I think the debate tomorrow on vaccine distribution will be extremely important. I know that many parliamentarians from across the country will want to participate.

Before we rose for question period, I had raised issues with Bill C-14, but not in terms of content. The content is, in a sense, a small step toward meeting the challenge of the pandemic, but what could have been in the bill and what could have been in the fall economic statement but was not is the real problem, I think, with Bill C-14. It is not the content, but what is not in there and what could have been presented. In the midst of the worst pandemic that Canada has experienced in a century and the worst economic crisis since the Second World War, one would think that in combining those two things, the fall economic statement and the bill that emerged from the fall economic statement would have met the challenges that Canadian families are facing.

Even coming into the pandemic, Canadian families were beset and burdened with the heaviest level of family debt that exists among industrialized countries. The average Canadian family has more family debt than a family in any other industrialized country. That is in part because of decisions made over the last couple of decades that have pushed Canadian families down, including the unravelling of the social safety net and the emphasis on providing perks and tax holidays to the very wealthy and the most profitable corporations, rather than making the public investments that would make such a difference in the lives of Canadians. Then the pandemic hit, and Canadians are experiencing incredible challenges.

In my riding of New Westminster—Burnaby and in every other corner of this country, Canadians are facing daily challenges to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads, yet within Bill C-14 we do not see any bold attempt to meet those challenges. It is indicative, I think, that the new American president, Joe Biden, within the span of his first five hours and the executive mandates that he signed, has proven to be more proactive while using government machinery to work in the interests of the people than the current government has in five years. It is five hours versus five years. That is the real disappointment of the current Prime Minister and the current government.

What do we see in Bill C-14? Instead of investments in building a national child care program that we know Canadian families will need as a national network of universal child care as we emerge from this pandemic, hopefully in the next few months, we see scant support given to Canadian families in dealing with the crisis in long-term care. Instead of putting it under strict national standards and making sure that there is adequate funding for long-term care for our seniors, we see a small amount compared to what was given to the banking sector and no real attempt to address the crisis in long-term care.

We saw $750 billion in liquidity supports given to the banking sector through a wide variety of federal institutions within days of the pandemic hitting. Government MPs might say that this was liquidity support to help the banking sector; the banking sector so far in this pandemic has received profits of $30 billion. That should absolutely not have been the first objective of the government. There is a contrast between that $750 billion and what people with disabilities, people who are struggling to keep a roof over their heads, have actually received in support. I and other members of the NDP caucus, including our leader, the member for Burnaby South, have raised this issue numerous times. It took not one or two, but half a dozen fights to get a $600 one-time payment paid to a minority of people with disabilities across the country, yet we have seen $750 billion going with alacrity to the banking sector.

We see an interest-rate holiday for students when they are struggling to pay for their student loans. During this pandemic, as I mentioned, the banking sector has had $30 billion in profits. Canada's billionaires have had over $50 billion added to their wealth in the pandemic.

However, we see a government that steadfastly refuses to put in place what the member for Burnaby South and the NDP caucus have called for. The vast majority of Canadians, when they are asked in public opinion, say the same thing: that we need to put in place a wealth tax. We need to put in place a pandemic profits tax. We had those measures in the Second World War. It meant that we were all in this together, and it also meant that the federal government had the wherewithal to ensure that Canadians had the investments they needed as we emerged out of the Second World War.

We brought this forward in the House along with provisions for a guaranteed livable basic income, a right to housing and universal pharmacare. Government members voted against those measures despite the fact that they were supported by the vast majority of Canadians.

Next month, parliamentarians will have a second chance on universal publicly administered pharmacare, because Bill C-213 will be voted on in less than a month. Across the country we have seen thousands of Canadians write to their members of Parliament to say, “Vote yes on Bill C-213,” above all because in this pandemic a number of Canadians have lost their drug coverage. Ten million Canadians have no access to the medications that their doctors prescribe as necessary. There will be a second chance for that, and a second chance for the government to bring forward the bold ideas that the NDP has been proposing in a budget that should be tabled this spring.

I hope that the government will repair the mistake that it made in the fall and provide the supports that Canadians need.

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to wish everyone a happy new year.

We are jumping right into issues that will have a major impact on the future of all Canadian families across the country during the pandemic. I would like to start by talking about some of the impacts we have already seen. I know that my speech will be interrupted by question period and that I will finish it after that.

I would like to start by emphasizing how important it is for all parliamentarians to work together to mitigate this crisis, a crisis that is having a massive impact on every city and town in Canada and leaving no part of the country unscathed.

Just this weekend, we commemorated the sad one-year anniversary of the first COVID case in Canada. Since the identification a year ago of the first COVID case, 20,000 Canadians have died as the pandemic has ravaged this country.

I think all of us understand the importance of underscoring the incredible courage and bravery of front-line health care workers. They have gone to work often at peril of their lives, and dozens have perished during this pandemic. The impacts of COVID have been devastating, and we as parliamentarians need to underscore their courage and dedication in a time of immense tragedy, when in each and very case those health care workers were putting their lives on the line.

We are going through a pandemic that will have repercussions for years to come. I think back to the Spanish flu epidemic and the lessons we can pull out of what was such a tragic pandemic a century ago. In so many cases and in so many countries, the financial and economic repercussions of the Spanish flu, even after the actual pandemic itself had lessened and then ceased, were felt for over a decade afterward, so my comments today are not just about what we need to do now, but also about what we need to do over the course of the next decade. This is when the financial and economic repercussions are felt.

We need to be bold. We need to take action in a way that not only brings Canadians through this pandemic, hopefully safely and with their health intact, but lays the foundation for rebuilding afterward in a way that ensures that the decade-long economic and financial repercussions that will hit so many Canadian families will actually be addressed by the federal government, and it will provide supports to communities right across the country.

Bill C-14 is certainly not a bold response to the pandemic's devastating repercussions. A closer look at what is in this bill makes it clear that the government does not know how to respond boldly to all the challenges Canadians are facing.

When I look at the substance of this bill, I can see that it is a long way from meeting the expectations of Canadians going through this pandemic and taking a financial and economic hit. Overall, this bill offers a little help, and that is good. A little help is better than nothing, for sure.

It is important to say that the government could dare to do more and go much further. As the leader of the NDP, the hon. member for Burnaby South, and the entire NDP caucus have already made very clear, help is needed now. We need to look at each and every element of the bill and see what is missing.

Long-term care is getting help, help that is clearly needed. We are seeing that the epicentre of this pandemic is in Quebec's long-term care homes and in long-term care centres across the country. In these places, we are seeing thousands of deaths resulting from a lack of rules aimed at reinforcing standards of care provided there.

Our seniors deserve better in all the services they receive. A billion is not much when we look at what the government has done since this crisis began. From the beginning, we have seen the government offer $750 billion to Canada's major banks. Government members will say that this liquidity support is not just coming from the government, but from a number of sources. The fact remains that in the few days when the pandemic hit hardest in March, the government had to act quickly, and its first act was to provide $750 billion to Canada's major banks. The government's first instinct was to say that it needed to come to the aid of Canada's banks, and it made $750 billion available to that sector.

If all the expenditures under this bill are spent, seniors will receive just under $1 billion. The ratio is 750 to one: $1 billion for Canada's seniors, who have died by the thousands during this pandemic, but $750 billion for the banking sector, which has already made $30 billion in profits since the pandemic began. What message is the government sending by throwing so much money at Canada's big banks? Is that our priority?

Meanwhile, this bill has only crumbs to offer, and that includes the Canada child benefit. Yes, $100 a month certainly helps, but what is really needed right away is a $2-billion investment to lay the foundation for a national child care system. The unemployment rate continues to rise, and economic difficulties have existed since before the pandemic. Canadian families already had, on average, the highest level of family debt among the most industrialized countries as a result of policies put in place by previous Conservative and Liberal governments. The government could have done better, much better, and been bold enough to do more than simply offer $100 a month to families struggling to keep their homes and put food on the table.

The bill also mentions student loans. The government is suspending student loan interest payments. However, students trying to get through this crisis as best they can still have to repay their student loans. Even if interest rates are lower, the amount of the loans is minimal when we think of all the difficulties they are experiencing. Just compare the amount of student loan interest that has been suspended with the $750 billion in liquidity supports given to major Canadian banks.

With respect to pharmacare, next month we will have the opportunity to vote on Bill C-213, which will establish the legal framework for pharmacare. I must say that we are seeing strong support for this bill across the country. As a Bloc Québécois member mentioned, dozens of Quebec municipalities have just expressed support for this bill, which will establish a universal pharmacare plan that all Canadians will be able to access. Unions in Quebec and across Canada are also calling for a plan that will leave no one behind.

With the pandemic, we are talking about tens of millions of people who do not have access to a pharmacare program, either because they lost their job or because they do not have access to a protection plan through their employer. Bill C-14 could have included certain aspects that the NDP will bring forward during the vote in Parliament next month, but right now, that too is being left out.

I know that my time is nearly up, but I would like to say that the most disappointing thing about this bill, even though some aspects are rather positive, is the government's lack of ambition at a time when Canadians are going through an unprecedented crisis.

Fall Economic Statement

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start off by saying that a big part of this economic update touched on things that have happened over the course of the last few months. As members are well aware, when we first hit the pandemic, the government was certainly willing to work with opposition parties, and the NDP stepped up.

Members will also recall that the first action of the government during the pandemic was to offer supports to the banking sector with about $750 billion in liquidity supports from a number of different federal institutions. That was a bold move. It is not matched by any boldness to actually support regular Canadians at this stage in the pandemic.

We are well aware of what the member for Burnaby South did. The entire NDP caucus stepped up with a series of proposals that we knew would make a difference in the lives of Canadians. Canadians have really struggled through this pandemic. They are still struggling. We believed that there needed to be a series of measures that would make a difference in the lives of individuals as they struggle to put food on the table and keep a roof over their head.

We needed measures to support small businesses. People often give their lives to their small businesses, and we want to keep them operating so we can avoid the tragedy of people turning the key in the lock for the final time as they leave that small business behind. That was the measure that was brought to this pandemic response. This is what we proposed and pushed the government to put into place.

We had the emergency response. When the government had a series of holes in the emergency response benefit, we pushed for the student CERB as well, and we pushed for a 75% wage subsidy. The member for Burnaby South was very eloquent in this regard. Other countries had already done that, and we believed firmly that Canada needed to put in place a 75% wage subsidy too to make sure that businesses could continue to operate and people could continue to work.

We then pushed support for seniors through this House. We pushed for a moratorium on student loans. We did not think that students should have to pay back their loans to the federal government during a pandemic. We pushed for supports for first nations communities. A number of members from our caucus were very strong in pushing the government to provide those supports.

We also pushed for supports for the people who were not receiving supports through other means. That is why we pushed for things such as the Canada recovery benefit. The member for Burnaby South, numerous times, pushed for a national sick leave, which is historic in nature. It means that people who are unfortunately not able to work because of their sickness, or are concerned about catching COVID-19, could actually, for the first time, take that paid sick leave and not have to choose between putting food on the table or doing the right thing. That paid sick leave is historic, and we believe it should be made permanent as well.

We provided and pushed for sectoral supports for a variety of industries. Members of this caucus, including the member for Courtenay—Alberni, who is our small business critic, pushed for an emergency rent subsidy. We pushed for very strongly for this and for our supports for people with disabilities. These are two areas in which the government basically only did a part of what was needed to be done to provide those supports and make sure that those Canadians had the wherewithal to get through the pandemic.

Originally the emergency rent subsidy the government rolled out was a program through a company that had ties to the chief of staff of the Prime Minister. The initial program that was rolled out was actually with a commercial mortgage company, and it was for landlords who held commercial mortgages. This is very clearly inadequate and a very strange approach.

We continued to push for the second emergency rent subsidy, which is a much better program. That program has not been retroactive for the course of the spring and summer. It should be because many of the businesses that went through all those difficult periods in the spring and summer are now living through these difficult periods in the fall. They need the wherewithal, and they need those supports.

We continue to press the government to make that rent subsidy retroactive to the spring for those business owners who were not able to benefit because the program is so complicated. It is actually a failed program in so many respects. With this new rent subsidy program, which the NDP applied pressure to bring to bear, those business owners would actually be able to benefit from it.

For people with disabilities, I have expressed on the floor of this House my deep disappointment. While the banking sector got three-quarters of a trillion dollars within the first days of the pandemic, the government had to be pushed and prodded repeatedly. The member for Elmwood—Transcona, the member for Hamilton Centre and other members of the NDP caucus pressed the government repeatedly, and finally, after an eight-month wait, the Liberals put in place partial supports. They are only for people with disabilities who are registered and exist in the federal database.

There is no doubt that there are many other people with disabilities who need support. The only way for them to receive support is with planning and forethought to make sure that those who are registered provincially for disability programs get supports. In short, what the NDP brought to bear was a series of measures that would make a difference for people, and we will continue to do this.

This is where my disappointment lies and our disappointment with the fall economic statement. We believe that those supports need to be continued. There needs to be a sense that all Canadians matter, that we can all come through this pandemic, and that, coming out of the pandemic, we can actually put in place a very solid foundation for Canadians in the future.

However, the government has refused to do this. With the fall economic statement, the Liberals have refused to take any of the revenue measures that have been suggested, not only by the NDP but by many forward-thinking people who are thinking ahead.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer is an independent officer. All Canadians can rely on his advice. He said, very clearly, that with the fiscal situation of the country there are only two alternatives. One is to cut those services and supports to people, otherwise known as program cuts or austerity.

Liberals may laugh at that, but they also laughed at austerity when we suggested it back in Paul Martin's day, and we know the result. The cuts in programs have an impact even to the present day. Ending the national housing program for the justification of austerity meant that today there are people who remain homeless because the federal government stopped building affordable housing, which is so necessary for so many Canadians.

We look at the fine print. We in the NDP do not only look at what is said, the basic speech and the basic balance sheet of this economic statement, we also look at the details. The summary statement of transactions clearly indicates that the government is planning substantial cuts in program expenses next year. Many of those program expenses came through COVID-19. The intention of the government is not, on the revenue side, to put in place supports that make our rebuilding sustainable. Instead, it is making the choice of looking to wind down programs of support without looking to replace them with other programs that can make a difference in people's lives.

Members will recall that so far during this pandemic, Canada's billionaires have added to their wealth in the order of $53 billion. Canada's big banks, who received that massive dose of liquidity support within days of the pandemic hitting, are looking at substantially increased profits. In the next few days, when each of the big banks release their latest quarterly figures, there is no doubt that we will see an increase, just as we did in the spring and the fall. They have had $15 billion in profits so far during this pandemic.

The reason 90% of Canadians support a wealth tax is they see that discrepancy. They see that contradiction of billionaires having massive increases in wealth, some web giants having massive increases in profits and significant profits for the banking sector through the pandemic, while so many Canadians are struggling to put food on the table, making ends meet and keeping a roof over their heads. Many small business people are struggling to keep that small business operating. They see the contradiction between the banking profits and the addition to billionaires' wealth of over $53 billion. They are well aware of the massive amounts of money we lose every year to overseas tax havens.

As the House is aware, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, as an independent officer of Parliament, has advised all parliamentarians that we lose over $25 billion each and every year to overseas tax havens. That means that over the last five years under the Liberal government, over $125 billion have been lost to overseas tax havens. When we talk about the supports Canadians need now, those massive amounts of money have not been diverted to help Canadians, but rather have served to pad the bottom line of some of Canada's wealthiest people and some of Canada's most profitable corporations.

We also have the web giants. During this pandemic, we have seen substantial increases in profits by the web giants like Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google, yet they do not pay corporate taxes in Canada. The measures announced today, which only talk about implications around the GST-HST, are minor compared to the impacts of those web giants not paying that corporate taxation.

As well, we have seen significant subsidies going to oil and gas companies. The government wants to spend what could be up to $20 billion on the Trans Mountain pipeline. The private sector walked away from this project, a project that has profound implications for the climate emergency. The government is intending to spend money on this project. The PBO will define that in the next week or two. It has been asked to produce a study and the bottom line in the rapid rise in construction costs. However, we are looking probably in the order of $20 billion that the government wants to spend on a project that is not financially viable. Basically, it will have dramatically negative impact on any hope of Canada meeting its obligations to meet the climate emergency.

The question is very simple. Why does the government's priority always seem to be billionaires? Why is protecting that increase in wealth and those profits more important than ensuring we take care of regular people?

I mentioned people with disabilities earlier. Most of them have not had access to even that one-time emergency benefit of $600. Getting that $600 makes a dramatic difference in a person's life. A constituent of mine was unable to get medication for a number of months. With the $600 the person did receive, they were able to get their medication for the first time in months.

When we think that most people with disabilities are suffering the same type of financial challenges through this pandemic and were not able to receive even that one-time payment, we can understand there has to be higher priorities than allowing Canada's billionaires to increase their wealth by tens of billions of dollars and Canada's banks to reap the profits they have during this pandemic, and having the web giants not pay a dollar in corporate tax. The priorities of the government really do not seem to be in conjunction with what most Canadians are feeling through this pandemic.

It is really a matter of billions of dollars for billionaires.

When we look at this economic update as a whole, the government is giving Canadians crumbs compared to what is needed. Meanwhile, as I said, the government is not putting a tax on wealth or excess profits, web giants are not being required to pay business taxes, and tax havens are having a huge impact on the money laundering that we see across the country.

What is more, the government is still refusing to implement a public registry of beneficial owners, which would enable us to put an end to money laundering. The government could have and should have made investments in a different approach in this economic update. I am thinking about measures like pharmacare, which people across the country are calling for. I will come back to that later, but the reality is that pharmacare is essential. We have seen that. Coming out of this pandemic, people are still going to be in great need of a pharmacare program.

There is also child care and the day care system. That comes up all the time, but it is a shortcoming of this economic update. The issue of affordable housing is even more critical right now because so many Canadians are struggling and having difficulty finding affordable housing because there is a shortage of it across the country. Some members of the Liberal Party are saying that it is okay. I can point out every cut that was made under Paul Martin's government, which are, of course, still having an impact on today's lack of affordable housing in Canada.

Of course there is the climate emergency. Trans Mountain might end up costing us up to $20 billion. The Parliamentary Budget Officer calculated some estimates that will be released in the coming weeks. We already know about nearly $13 billion to which is added nearly $5 billion for the cost of acquiring the company, while the private sector saw no interest in Trans Mountain. Of course, we are in a context where the government is prepared to pay any price for this project, even though the private sector does not think it is profitable and did not want to invest in it. We know full well that the repercussions on the environment will be enormous.

These are not minor decisions. This is a series of decisions and Canadians are the ones who will pay the price for these bad decisions. The choice is very clear. We have to prioritize the needs of the people instead of always prioritizing corporations that make huge profits. We have to stop thinking that billionaires have to come first.

On this side of the House, we do not agree that we must not tax excessive profits, wealth, or the profits of web giants, and that these companies should not even pay a corporate tax just as everyone else in the country does. We do not agree that we should continue with the Trans Mountain project, no matter the climate cost to be paid and no matter the cost of construction. The private sector does not want to have anything to do with the project and taxpayers will have to pay for Trans Mountain.

That is why we can say that this economic update is extremely disappointing. This government refuses to think clearly, make good investments and take charge of its revenues. The Parliamentary Budget Officer was very clear about that: Either the government cuts services and the assistance it provides to people, or it increases revenues. There is a significant amount of missing revenue, and the government refuses to collect it.

What is missing from this economic update that could have made a difference?

We have the regular reference to pharmacare, which has been written for the last five years, and the government keeps saying that eventually it will do something about it. However, commitments for pharmacare have been made for over a quarter of a century and we still do not see or have in place a universal pharmacare program that provides supports for everybody.

Ninety per cent of Canadians support universal, publicly administered pharmacare in this country, so we are talking about a broad public consensus. Why is that? It is because we know that hundreds of Canadians die every year because we do not have universal, publicly administered pharmacare.

We know as well that a million Canadians are trying to pay for their medication now in a pandemic. They have to make the desperate choice between putting food on the table, heating their home and paying for their medication. In a country as wealthy as Canada, for anybody to be forced into that position is simply irresponsible governance. When a government puts a person in that position, the government is neglecting that person's basic needs.

The reality is that pharmacare brings a huge cost savings to Canadians. The Parliamentary Budget Officer, an independent, non-partisan officer of Parliament whose reports are well worth reading, says that we would save $4 billion overall as Canadians. Businesses would save about $6 billion, and individuals who are paying for medication out of their pocket now would save about $5 billion.

What the economic update should have announced, instead of the direction the government took, is that we are moving to get pharmacare in place now, that we are actually going to put in place the steps that are needed and that we are going to sit down with the provinces. We already have an NDP bill on this, Bill C-213, which is coming up for a vote in February. Thousands of Canadians have written to their members of Parliament urging them to support Bill C-213, which is the legal framework for universal, publicly administered pharmacare.

The Liberal government should have said that it was going to sit down with the provinces now because it understands, from this pandemic, that it is time it actually put in place a universal pharmacare program in this country. It is long overdue. It should have happened 50 years ago, and the cost to Canadians has been enormous ever since. Now that we have a bill that would actually set the legal framework, the government should have sat down with the provinces to negotiate the financial framework and made sure that pharmacare became a reality in 2021. That should have been in the economic update.

What also should have been in the economic update is a real commitment to child care. Child care advocates across the country know how important child care is for our economic prosperity. The reality is that for every dollar invested in national child care, we get about six dollars in economic stimulus. It is probably the best investment a country could make. Countries that have universal child care programs know that with the participation of families and women in the workplace, there is a huge economic boon that happens when investments in child care are made.

Tragically, in this economic update, the government just basically drew the line on the next steps that should have been phase two for national child care. It basically stopped at phase one and said that was enough. However, the reality is that Canadian families are spending up to $2,000 a month per child because there is no child care. We need to turn this around and put in place a child care program.

We already know from child care advocates the investments that are needed. The investment for next spring would need to be $2 billion or more. The government is not even providing half of that amount and is basically freezing it at an amount that is well below what is needed for national child care.

A constituent of mine named Michelle works with her family and children. She says trying to find a child care space has been a real struggle. She has been able to substitute in with a local child care facility, which is filled up, so her child can sometimes have access to it, but she is like so many other families across the country struggling with child care costs of up to $2,000 per child. They think this needs to happen. It is surprising to me that the government has not taken the opportunity, in looking to build back better, to build into the framework coming into 2021 a universal pharmacare plan and a national child care plan.

If we are looking to build back better, we need to establish the revenue foundation. We need to put into place the measures I spoke about earlier. We cannot keep giving $25 billion away to overseas tax havens. We cannot refuse to put in place a wealth tax next to this profits tax when billionaires have increased their wealth during the pandemic by $53 billion. If we do not put in place the revenue foundation, it will lead to, as the Paul Martin government found out, austerity and cuts.

When we look at the fine print of this document, we see that once we get past the spring, the government intends to dramatically decrease the number of supports that are going to regular Canadians. This should give everybody pause, because it is exactly what happened when Paul Martin was finance minister and we saw cuts to the national housing program, which was eradicated for a generation. We continue to deal with the fallout of those cuts.

We also have to deal with the climate emergency. We have the pandemic and the climate emergency occurring at the same time. The government is making these massive investments, up to $20 billion, in ramming through Trans Mountain when indigenous people have raised huge concerns and when there is a variety of very legitimate criticism of the government in this regard. The government cannot pretend to be working on the climate emergency when it builds a massive pipeline that will undercut anything else that it does.

This economic update should have had an announcement that the government was not going to pour more money into Trans Mountain, the $20 billion. Instead, the Liberals should have announced a shift to clean energy. That $20 billion could have been used to create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the clean energy industries.

We know that in the United States, with the change in government, the most recent projections indicate that the clean energy sector will quadruple over the next 10 years. Canada could be in a position to take advantage of that if the federal government worked with the provinces on clean energy production and on ensuring clean energy investments. However, instead, the Liberal government is building a pipeline. It makes no sense. It means the direction the government is taking in this document is simply not sustainable.

There are issues like affordable housing and investment. Affordable housing and the right to housing that the NDP brought to the House just a couple of weeks ago are fundamental in ensuring that the needs of indigenous communities are met. They are fundamental and yet what we see from the government is an approach that prioritizes the needs of wealthy Canadians and Canada's most profitable corporations over the needs of Canadians from coast to coast to coast. This is what is most disappointing about this economic update.

There are some measures that we could all say we can support. Those measures are all below what is required in this time of a pandemic and at a time when so many Canadians are suffering. So many Canadians want to see a difference in this country, with a federal government that has quite often neglected so many fundamental issues, whether it is the climate emergency, the needs of indigenous communities, the need for affordable housing or putting in place pharmacare and national child care. Those are all legitimate needs that have not been met for years and yet the government continues to prioritize other things. The result is something that Canadians will say, particularly when they read the fine print, this is not the direction they want to see going forward.

What would the NDP have been announcing today? If we had been making this economic update, what would we be saying? Of course we would be talking about the programs that we would have put into place over the course of the last few months. I would say we would very clearly have taken a different and better approach in terms of the pandemic. Some of the suggestions and things we pushed, fought for and negotiated on are in place during this pandemic and some are not.

Some things are absolutely fundamental to us. First off, for people with disabilities, months ago we would have sought to get the provinces on board to make sure that the pandemic payment that went out to people with disabilities went to every single person with a disability across the country. We would have made absolutely sure of that. It would have meant a couple of months of preparation, but it would have made a difference. There is no doubt.

On the rent relief program that New Democrats had pushed and prodded the government to bring to bear, we would have made it retroactive for all of the businesses that simply could not access the program when it was originally set up. We would be making sure that those businesses could take advantage of that retroactively.

We would be making sure that the many holes we saw through the pandemic response were filled. That is an effort that we undertook. When we saw the government leaving holes, we fought back, negotiated and pushed to make sure as many holes as possible were filled. We would have taken the approach that everybody matters and we should not leave anybody behind.

In the economic update today, New Democrats would have been announcing that we are putting in place adequate funding for the next stage in the national child care program and we would have made sure that funding was available so that Canadian parents and families could see the next stage of child care funding being put into place, the national child care program that has seen delay.

If it were up to New Democrats today, we would have said no more money for oil and gas subsidies, that we need to focus on the climate emergency, we will not be spending $20 billion on Trans Mountain and would make sure that money goes to ensure clean energy development and jobs. We would be investing in indigenous communities. We would be making sure that the shortchanging that has created so much suffering and so many crises in indigenous communities was ended and the supports were in place for health care, housing, clean water, all of those things.

We would have made sure that today we were announcing an affordable housing program that ensures the right to housing and would put into place something that, within a short period, would actually end the homelessness crisis we are seeing in our country and that has been aggravated by the pandemic.

We would have made sure that we pay for these things by putting into place the revenue measures I mentioned earlier.

The first would be an excess profits tax, as we had in the Second World War because Canadian governments understood the importance of making sure that, when we are all in this together, everybody pays their fair share. We would have made sure that there was in place a wealth tax so Canada's billionaires with their $53 billion in additional wealth during this pandemic paid their fair share. We would have made sure as well that the web giants actually paid a fair share of corporate tax, instead of taking the windfall profits they made during this pandemic and simply doing whatever they wanted with it.

In this economic update we would have ensured the legislative tools to crack down on overseas tax havens, which costs $25 billion every year that Canadians simply cannot afford.

We would have been building a country where everybody matters and where nobody is left behind. We would have taken a different approach on this economic update.

National Framework for Diabetes Act

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, these days the world is focused on a pandemic, but that does not mean we have to forget about the myriad of other illnesses suffered by humanity. That is why I am happy to voice my support for Bill C-237, which would require the Minister of Health to develop a national framework for diabetes prevention and treatment in consultation with the provinces, indigenous groups and relevant stakeholders.

I support the bill because I believe we truly need a new national diabetes strategy. That strategy should be based on the diabetes 360° framework developed in 2018 by Diabetes Canada and dozens of other stakeholder groups. I also believe that the Government of Canada must support indigenous-led diabetes programs, services and research; prioritize food sovereignty; provide access to appropriate care and treatment options; and raise awareness about gestational diabetes and the increase in diabetes among young indigenous women.

I also strongly believe that there is an urgent need for a national approach to pharmacare that would ensure all Canadians living with diabetes have access to the medications they need when they need them. This must include coverage for diabetes devices and supplies, such as test strips, syringes, insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors.

We all know the story of Frederick Banting and Charles Best, who, with their colleagues James Collip and John Macleod, discovered insulin in a University of Toronto lab in 1921. This discovery revolutionized the treatment of diabetes worldwide and remains among the most celebrated medical discoveries in Canadian and even world history. Diabetes was formerly a death sentence for young people who developed the disease, but now they could look forward to long and productive lives.

We are on the eve of the centenary of that discovery, and one would think that we could celebrate that centenary with pride. Unfortunately, the scourge of diabetes is, in many ways, far worse than it was 100 years ago. Canada has one of the poorest records in the world, and it is getting worse.

Every three minutes a Canadian is diagnosed with diabetes. The number of Canadians with diabetes has doubled in the last 20 years. Right now, one in three Canadians either have diabetes or have a high risk of developing it. It is an epidemic. People who are 20 years old in Canada have a 50% chance of developing diabetes in their lifetime. For first nations people, that risk is 80%.

The health care costs of diabetes will top $40 billion by 2029. Diabetes causes 30% of strokes, and it is the leading cause of blindness. It causes 40% of heart attacks, 50% of cases of kidney failure, and 70% of leg and foot amputations. It reduces lifespans by five to 15 years, and about 7,000 Canadians die each year as a direct result of diabetes.

Thankfully, there is a plan for how to fight this scourge. Diabetes Canada has developed a detailed plan called diabetes 360°, which could dramatically improve our rate of diabetes and reduce the significant impacts it has on the health of Canadians. It will cost money, but that investment will repay itself a hundred times over in savings to our health care system.

The goal of diabetes 360° is to have 90% of Canadians living in an environment that preserves wellness and prevents the development of diabetes, 90% of Canadians aware of their diabetes status, 90% of Canadians living with diabetes engaged in appropriate interventions, and 90% of Canadians engaged in interventions achieving improved health conditions. Diabetes 360° must be the basis for any national strategy.

When Dr. Banting discovered insulin, he gave the rights to that discovery to the University of Toronto, so that diabetics around the world could have affordable access to this life-saving drug. However, times have changed, and many of the monitoring and injection devices are very expensive. Many Canadians living with diabetes are unable to afford the medications, devices and supplies they need.

This cost related non-adherence can lead to avoidable complications and mortality, and that is why there is an urgent need for a universal, comprehensive and public pharmacare plan to ensure all Canadians have access to the medications they need when they need them. As I mentioned, this must include coverage for devices, such as test strips, syringes, insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors.

The Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions produced a report that found that 57%, over half, of diabetics in Canada reported failing to adhere to their prescribed therapies due to affordability issues related to those medications.

According to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Canada, 830 young and middle-aged diabetics in Ontario die each year because of poor access to insulin. That could dramatically change if all Canadians had access to the medicines they need, but they do not.

Canada is the only country with a universal health care plan that does not include free access to prescribed medications. Some 10% to 20% of Canadians report not filling their prescriptions because they simply cannot afford the cost. That non-adherence costs all of us in added hospital stays and extra pressure on our health care system.

A universal, single-payer public pharmacare plan would save over $4 billion per year because we could get better deals on our drug costs. Right now, we pay more for drugs than almost any other country in the world.

All Canadians would benefit from a public pharmacare system, but diabetics would benefit more than most, because they would be assured of access to insulin and the monitoring equipment they need to manage their disease to stay alive.

Canada should be proud of its history in the treatment of diabetes and the discovery of insulin, but right now, we are at the bottom of the list when it comes to treatment, hospitalizations and needless deaths. We need to turn this trend around.

Bill C-237 would go a long way to achieve this turnaround by mandating the creation of a national framework. However, for rapid and lasting success we need real government leadership and investment in community health programs and public pharmacare to make a real difference in the health of Canadians.

I call on all members here to support Bill C-237, and even more importantly, Bill C-213, the bill calling for a universal, publicly funded pharmacare program tabled by my colleague the member for New Westminster—Burnaby. That program would save billions of dollars in public expenditure and most of all, would save thousands of lives of people, young and old, who suffer from diabetes and other ailments across the country.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for the important bill before us. I fully support it.

She has pointed that from the start, Canada has been a world leader in the technology of treating diabetes. However, we are really near the bottom of the pack when it comes to access to treatments, needless hospitalizations and needless deaths. That is because half of the diabetics in Canada cannot afford to pay for their insulin and the devices they use to monitor it.

I am wondering if the member and her Liberal colleagues will be supporting Bill C-213, the NDP bill on a publicly paid universal pharmacare plan, which would solve this problem once and for all.

Health—Main Estimates, 2020-21

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Chair, that still was not an answer. I will move on.

The NDP has introduced Bill C-213 in this House to create a structure to establish universal public pharmacare in Canada. The minister would also be aware that this bill mirrors the Canada Health Act by allowing any province that agrees to provide necessary prescription drugs to their residents at no direct cost via our public health care system would receive federal funds to do so.

This is exactly the same way we fund all other covered medical services, from hip replacements to cataract surgery to broken arms. Will the minister support this bill?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Chair, the minister knows the NDP introduced Bill C-213 in the House to create a structure to establish universal public pharmacare in Canada.

She is also aware this bill mirrors the Canada Health Act by allowing any province that agrees to provide necessary prescription drugs to its residents, at no direct cost via our public health care system, to receive federal funds to do so. This is exactly the same way we fund all other covered medical services, from hip replacements to cataract surgeries and broken arms.

Will the minister support our bill?

Opposition Motion—Pharmacare

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak on my party's opposition day motion on pharmacare. I have to say that my twentysomething self would be somewhat perplexed that I am actually doing this, and that is not just to think that as a gay man I might be an MP, but also that we still have not finished Tommy Douglas' dream of comprehensive public free health care.

Strangely, we have convinced ourselves we already have that. We seem, somehow, to be turning a blind eye to the gaps in that system. Tommy always thought it would be a step-by-step process, but that eventually we would get there. I think we have to ask ourselves how we have convinced ourselves for so long that pharmacare and dental care should not become part of our comprehensive public health care system.

I am very pleased to sit in an NDP caucus, led by the member for Burnaby South and by the member for Vancouver Kingsway on this important question of how to advance toward the goal that Tommy set so many years ago. It is a caucus that has put forward clear and achievable plans to fill those gaps.

When the Liberals proposed the so-called middle-class tax cut last December, we proposed in return that we limit the benefits of those cuts to those earning less than $90,000. With the savings from limiting that tax cut's benefits to the rich, we could in turn finance a dental care program for everyone earning less than $90,000 a year.

There is a practical step we could take and a way to pay for it, one that is clearly within our means and clearly doable. I am hoping, after we debate pharmacare, that we will move to that next stage of debating dental care in this Parliament.

As promised by our leader, our first private member's bill that is going to be brought before the House here will be by the member for New Westminster—Burnaby, Bill C-213. This lays out a specific plan for pharmacare, based on the principles of medicare. Once again, this is a program that is universal, comprehensive, accessible, portable and publicly administered.

My twentysomething self would also be perplexed about why we do not already have this. When Tommy Douglas set out his dream, first in the provincial campaign in 1960 in Saskatchewan, he knew it would be difficult, he knew it would be step by step. In 1962, when he tried to add doctors' visits to the existing hospital insurance plan, he had to face down a 23-day doctors' strike.

We know there will always be people who will step forward, who will say there are so many reasons why we should not take the path we know is the right path.

In 1965, B.C. joined Saskatchewan with a hospital and doctor visit insurance plan, and then in 1966, in Pearson's second minority government, we had a federal government that finally offered financial assistance to provinces that had such a universal plan. Sure enough, within 10 years, we had public health care plans established in every province across the country.

When Tommy moved to the federal level, he brought his dream with him. In 1961, he became the leader of the newly established NDP. In the first platform the NDP put forward, specifically, a proposal to have a pharmacare program on the same principles as a medicare program. Unfortunately, it has taken us a bit longer than I think Tommy thought it would to get an NDP federal government. I know that, because in his last term I had the great privilege of having Tommy as my MP.

Along the way there were other reasons to be optimistic about pharmacare. I guess I would have to admit that. First of all, as previous members have mentioned, we have had numerous commissions, advisory councils and studies dating back 60 years, probably to the first one that I saw, recommending a universal pharmacare program.

One would think we would get to this. Skipping over all that time, last June we had the Hoskins report from the Liberal government's own appointee. A Liberal from Ontario sat down and worked through all of the issues, and ended up recommending the same thing that we have all known we needed, according to the five principles of the Canada Health Act. It was something he judged we could implement by January 1, 2022.

Perhaps today's motion is the first step toward that date: January 1, 2022. I really hope it is. I am encouraged by the things I have heard from previous Liberal speakers, that they are going to support this motion. This motion commits the House to moving forward on pharmacare. It is not just an expression of opinion, as opposition day motions sometimes are. It is a commitment, if it is passed by the majority, that we will actually do something to get pharmacare in place.

I would hope that action would occur quickly. The NDP has offered that opportunity with our private member's bill.

However, we would not be disappointed if the government introduced a bill even before that and decided to move it through expeditiously as a government. I am not seeing that happen, but maybe today this opposition motion marks a change in direction toward finally getting this done.

Let me talk for a moment about why we should be doing universal pharmacare, and in doing so I could talk about savings to the health care system. The Hoskins report was very clear that overall expenditures on prescription drugs in this country would drop by about $5 billion a year. This would come from a number of sources. One is, of course, that we would get the ability to negotiate lower prices for drugs through strategies such as bulk buying of drugs, increasing generic substitutions and also eliminating administrative costs.

For those members in the House who like to go on about bureaucracy, let us look at the patchwork system we have across the country with literally more than 1,000 health care plans all being administered to accomplish the same purpose. The Hoskins report was very clear about the savings overall to the system if we adopted a universal, comprehensive and publicly delivered pharmacare program.

I could talk about the savings that would come to the health care system through better health outcomes. This goes beyond that $5 billion. What it would really mean is if we remove the barrier of cost for people to actually get the treatment they need, in terms of prescription drugs, they are going to be healthier. That would reduce the stress on our already overburdened health care system.

This would mean that we could do more with the same resources we have now if we did not have people who end up in the emergency room, in the hospital or ill because they could not afford their prescription drugs. That is an additional savings that would not show up in dollars, but it would show up in less stress on the dollars we are already devoting to our health care system.

I could also talk about savings to business. This may be a strange one for some people to think about, but there would be important savings to businesses here from adopting this kind of national comprehensive program. Right now, businesses and their employees jointly spend about $16.6 billion in expenditures on drug plans. What happens to that money? That money takes costs away from businesses and their employees and transfers it over to be shared by all of us through the taxation system.

Therefore it would reduce the burden that businesses have to carry, but also, and here is where I am going to be an advocate for small business again, a comprehensive universal plan like this would help level the playing field for employment in small business. Lots of small business owners tell me they have trouble getting the highly skilled help they need because the scale of their operation is not big enough for them to offer a good drug plan. If we have a comprehensive public plan, when it comes to hiring employees, small businesses can compete with the big companies that already have those benefit plans.

We can understand why people might prefer to work at a small business in the community they are from, but have to think about their family when it comes to drug protection. Maybe they would choose their second choice as an employer and go with a big company because of the drug plan that it offered, and the safety and security that it would appear to offer their families. There would be an important benefit for small business by this levelling of the playing field when it comes to prescription drugs.

I can also talk about equity. A good reason for a national pharmacare program that is comprehensive and universal is that the patchwork we have now means that the treatment people get in Canada depends on which province they live in, who their employers are and how big their wallets are. That is certainly something that I, as a Canadian, do not believe we aspire to in this country when it comes to the health of our citizens.

The real reason I believe we should have a public universal program for pharmacare is its impact on ordinary families. Let me take a minute to talk about what this really means in everyday situations.

One in five Canadian households reports a family member who in the past year has not taken his or her prescribed medicine due to its cost. This means more sick days in families and, in many cases, means earlier deaths in families because people were not taking their proper prescriptions.

More than three million Canadians per year report that they are unable to afford one or more of their prescription drugs, and there are the same outcomes. It is bad for families, bad for their health and bad for the health care system.

Almost a million Canadians reported that each year they cut back on food or home heating in order to pay for their medication. This is a cruel choice that we are forcing on Canadians who do not have prescription drug coverage.

Finally, Canadian adults are two to five times more likely to report skipping their prescriptions than those who live in a system which already has a comprehensive and universal public program.

Here in 2020, we are at a historic moment. The Liberals have a minority government. Universal health care came through a Liberal minority government. Well, here is another opportunity to move forward. We in the New Democratic Party have presented proposals consistent with the Hoskins report, which will help us get a detailed plan in place.

Today we have the motion from the member for Vancouver Kingsway before us, a motion that will commit us to move forward to where we all want to go in this country.

Opposition Motion—Proposed tax changes

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

Madam Speaker, I enjoy hearing from the minister, but I am a bit perturbed. I have been door knocking in Ottawa—Vanier, because there is a provincial by-election going on. People in Ottawa—Vanier, the minister's own riding, are talking about the importance of having access to basic dental care.

What the Liberals are offering this morning is unbelievable, in the same way that for 23 years they have been committing to pharmacare and studying pharmacare and have not been willing to move forward on it. Now there is a bill, Bill C-213, that all members of the House will be voting on in just a few months' time that will enshrine and put into place pharmacare, finally after 23 years, but the Liberals seem to be proposing more studies on dental care.

There are millions of Canadians who need basic dental care. The NDP's proposal does not increase costs. Why are the Liberals reluctant to endorse the motion we are debating today?

Canada Pharmacare Act

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

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-213, An Act to enact the Canada Pharmacare Act.

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to introduce the Canada pharmacare act, a historic step in the history of our country.

The bill is seconded by the member for Burnaby South and supported by millions of Canadians across the country, like Jim, who has to beg at the entrance of Parliament Hill to find the money each month to pay for his medication, and Cole, a constituent whose family pays $1,000 a month for medication that keeps one member of their family alive.

The Canada pharmacare act would ensure universal, comprehensive public pharmacare that is accessible and affordable, the very principles of universal medicare. This would save Canadians billions of dollars. It would save the lives of thousands of Canadians who die from preventable causes because they lack medication coverage.

The Canada pharmacare act will benefit millions of Canadians. If members support this bill, we can tell everyone that our country is finally getting pharmacare.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)