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.

Pharmacare

[Jagmeet Singh, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, today the Prime Minister has a choice. Will he stand on the side of people who cannot afford the medication they need and desperately need help, or will he stand on the side of big pharma, which does not want to see medication coverage for all?

The Liberal government's own report states that the Canada pharmacare act is one of the key steps in establishing medication coverage for all. That is exactly what our New Democratic bill would do.

Will the Prime Minister be voting in favour of our bill to bring in medication coverage for all Canadians, yes or no?

Canada Pharmacare Act

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

Mr. Speaker, it is rare that we have an opportunity in the House of Commons to make a difference in the lives of so many of our constituents. As we well know, over 90% of Canadians support the idea of putting in place public, universal pharmacare. Over 90% means that in every single riding across the country, the vast majority of Canadians support public, universal pharmacare.

When Canadians are asked what they are proudest of among our institutions, it is our universal health care system. Of course, the Canada pharmacare act would put in place the same principles around pharmacare that we already have in place around universal health care.

Any member of Parliament who consults with his or her constituents will get the same reply. Canadians want to see this. Particularly with the pandemic and the devastating impacts that we have seen both on the health and the financial well-being of so many Canadians, it is absolutely essential that we move forward and put in place public, universal pharmacare, which Canadians are asking for and desperately need.

We have been at this debate for a few months. Tens of thousands of Canadians have participated. They have participated by emailing their member of Parliament, by phoning their member of Parliament and by telling their member of Parliament to vote yes on Bill C-213.

During this debate, we have seen a number of facts come to light. We were made aware, through this debate, that millions of Canadians have no access to a drug plan. They have to struggle to pay for the medication their doctor has prescribed for their health and well-being. We have also learned that hundreds of Canadians die each year right across the country because they cannot afford to pay for their medication. Through this debate, we have also learned that for 60 years Canadians have been waiting to have the public, universal pharmacare they so desperately need.

The Hoskins report points out very clearly what the road map is, which is that we have to lay the foundation by ensuring we have the same principles around public, universal pharmacare that we already have around our public, universal health care system.

It would be dangerous to say no to this bill, because that would reject public, universal pharmacare. It would reject the expansion of our public health care system that Canadians are looking for, and it would reject the advisory council's Hoskins report. It would mean that there is no foundation to build the public, universal pharmacare that Canadians so desperately need.

During these debates we also learned that many people in Quebec are calling for a universal pharmacare program. Currently, many Quebeckers are not covered, and that is why the major unions are calling for this type of public, universal program. More than 40 or so municipalities in Quebec are calling on MPs to vote in favour of Bill C-213. There is widespread support.

We have also learned that dozens of organizations with millions of members are asking all members of Parliament to vote yes on Bill C-213. We have doctors and nurses right across the country who are saying that it is absolutely vital for Canadians' health and well-being. We must listen to those voices.

I mentioned earlier this is a historic moment. It is one of those moments that determine the strength members of Parliament have in consulting with their constituents, and we need to think of our constituents at this key decision point in our history.

I am thinking of Cole and his family. He is a constituent in high school whose family struggles with $1,000 a month in drug costs. Those drug costs, that medication, keeps the father of the family alive. That family struggles and every day has to decide how they can pay for that medication and whether they can also put food on the table and a roof over their heads.

Around kitchen tables right across the country, there are millions of Canadian families who are in the same situation. I ask members of Parliament to think of their constituents, more than 90% of whom who support this bill. If members of Parliament do that, I have no doubt they will vote yes next week on Bill C-213, the proposed Canada pharmacare act.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to speak in support of Bill C-213, sponsored by the member for New Westminster—Burnaby.

This bill is historic. It is a bill that would give us the potential to make history by finally getting pharmacare to Canadians who so desperately want it.

We have heard today that approximately one out of every five families in Canada struggles to pay for prescription medications, and we know that the claim that all Canadians have access to medication just is not true. It is not accurate. These are not statistics. These are real families.

Before COVID-19, when I was able to knock on doors and talk to constituents in person, access to prescription medicine was the number one issue I would hear from people. I remember talking to a man who struggled to speak as he was caught up with emotion. He talked to me about skipping days taking his blood pressure medication, hoping that he would get by: that he would make it and would not die. I spoke to a senior in my own neighbourhood who was sharing a prescription with her husband, because they could not afford both. I will never forget talking to one young father who implored me to get pharmacare passed. It was not because his family needed it. His family was doing quite well, but he knew families at his daughter's child care centre who did not have access, and he wanted to make sure that those children were taken care of. This was all before the pandemic, and before things got worse.

There is no doubt that COVID-19 has made Canadians' ability to access medication so much worse. Millions of Canadians who lost their employment due to COVID-19 also lost their prescription drug coverage. People who could count on their health plans before COVID no longer could.

In Alberta, when we were entering the pandemic about a year ago, our provincial Conservative government cut drug benefits for seniors, spouses and dependants so 46,000 people, mainly with ongoing health issues, including dependants living with disabilities, were suddenly without coverage. I find it shocking that the member of Parliament for Calgary Shepard can speak of Minister Shandro as being compassionate, when 46,000 Albertans lost their drug coverage. Many Canadians were facing the stark reality that our medicare system was not going to be able to keep them healthy. This pandemic has opened their eyes, and COVID-19 has shown us just how vulnerable we are.

Canadians have been waiting for this. Canadians have been waiting for nearly 60 years to get prescription medications included in our health care system. Twenty-three years ago, the Liberals first promised Canadians a national pharmacare program, and they have been repeating that promise ever since. We have had five public commissions on pharmacare, and study after study. If the member for Calgary Shepard does not want to believe the PBO report, perhaps he will believe the Hoskins report. All of these reports said the same thing: Canadians need pharmacare, and pharmacare will save Canadians money. However, here we are.

As Canadians face an unprecedented health crisis with COVID-19, there is another health crisis that we can and need to fix right now. Millions of Canadians are without access to medication, and we can fix that with Bill C-213. We need to vote yes to Bill C-213.

We have an obligation to learn from COVID-19 as well. We have a duty to Canadians to create a better Canada that will be more resilient to the crises of the future, including the next pandemic. We must build systems that protect all Canadians, not just some Canadians and not just Canadians who can afford it. When everyone has access to the medication they need, they are healthier and the burden on our health care system is lessened. It is really that simple.

The government has floated the idea of partial pharmacare that is not universal. That is not what Canadians want. Canadians want a simple program that includes everyone. Canadians want to go to the pharmacy and pick up their medications. That is the system we want, and that is the system we need: a national universal system protected against people like Jason Kenney who are determined to undermine it, and a system that will actually save Canadians billions of dollars.

There is something else vitally important that we have learned from COVID-19: Canada has the capacity to do this. We saw how fast Canada moved when the pandemic was declared.

The cost to enact pharmacare is pennies on the dollar compared to the savings. Pharmacare will save families on average more than $500 a year, whether they are insured or not, and employers and small businesses will save $600 a year per job. Pharmacare will reduce emergency wait times and free up more hospital beds for those who need them. It will save the government billions.

I urge this House to follow the recommendations of the Hoskins report and apply them by supporting this bill. The Hoskins report recommends that the federal government enshrine the principles and national standards of pharmacare in federal legislation separate and distinct from the Canada Health Act. The Hoskins report also recommends that the five fundamental principles of medicare embodied in the Canada Health Act also be enshrined in federal pharmacare legislation. Those principles are universality, comprehensiveness, accessibility, portability and public administration. The Hoskins report also proposes that this legislation come into force no later than January 1, 2022.

Now is the time. Now is the time we can do this. As parliamentarians, this is something we can give to Canadians right now, at a time when they need it more than ever. Today is the day to support pharmacare for all. I implore my colleagues within the House to vote yes on Bill C-213.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the most difficult medication to buy is the one that is not available in Canada. It is the one someone finds out about after going to their doctor and being told that it is in the United States, and if they were an American citizen, they could get access to it. However, since they are a Canadian, they cannot. That is the news that too often happens to patients with rare diseases and to their families. My family is one of those families. The families dealing with cystic fibrosis, with SMA and with cystinosis are other ones. The list goes on and on.

Bill C-213 is a solution looking to address the wrong problem. The problem is access, and access is what I want to talk about this evening.

I have gone through the speech by the member for New Westminster—Burnaby. My colleagues from Calgary Nose Hill and Sarnia—Lambton went over a lot of territory in pointing out what is wrong with this particular piece of legislation.

The legislation is trying to address the wrong problem. I want to demonstrate that by sharing some of the issues I have with what the member for New Westminster—Burnaby said and address them piece by piece to demonstrate why this is the wrong bill.

It does not achieve any goals. The goal should be to provide access to patients in Canada through greater choice in drugs, drugs that will actually ensure they get over their condition or that will provide a therapy that reduces their symptoms, instead of looking at their American counterparts, citizens of America. Some of them are dual citizens, and they, for example, can have access to that medication when they go to the United States, but they cannot access it here in Canada unless they are one of the very few who have a special access program for it.

One of the NDP members mentioned that currently in Canada we have a patchwork of provincial systems. We know that in Canada, 90% to 98% of Canadians have access to some type of either private or public insurance. In fact, nearly all the provinces have a public insurer. In Alberta, it is the Alberta Blue Cross that people can get access to.

Two provinces that I am aware of have already said they will not participate in national pharmacare. In November of 2019, Alberta finance minister Travis Toews sent a letter to the federal government indicating that the provincial government, the Government of Alberta, would not participate in national pharmacare. It will want an opt-out. Members for the Bloc have said that their provincial government will not participate either. What will happen? We will have a patchwork system again. Again, because this bill does not consult with anybody or ask the provinces what they are thinking or recognize that it is in the jurisdiction of provinces, it does not achieve any of the goals.

Speaking of access, the Ontario government, the previous government, took a bunch of people and put them onto OHIP+. It transferred 2.1 million Ontarians who already had private plans onto a public plan at a higher cost, a plan that provided worse coverage than what they had before. I had many people explain their particular situation. They liked their private plan.

When a survey is done to ask people if they like the private plan they are on or the public plan they are on, most Canadians, by a wide majority, say that they do like the plan they are on. I agree that there are people who have difficulty paying for some of the copayments, but this bill does not address that. This bill proposes to centralize everything in Ottawa and then figure it out later.

I have come to believe, after five and a half years here in Ottawa, that when someone says they will figure it out later, it usually will cause harm to Canadians in the long term, especially if they are one of those one in 12 Canadians dealing with a rare disease. Many people have someone in their life who has a rare disease. I have three children with a rare disease. I had a daughter pass away from a different rare disease three years ago.

The problem in Canada, as I said, is being made worse by federal government action through the PMPRB. This problem will not be addressed through anything in this particular piece of legislation. This measure is coming forward because of a false belief that it could somehow artificially reduce the price of medication coming into the market in Canada.

There is a PBO estimate that has been provided and repeated now by several members that the total spent on public health care will be reduced by $4 billion to $4.5 billion. They call it the universal discount. Actually, if we look at the data in the PBO report, 25% is completely random. This is one of the rare times when I disagree with the methodology used by the PBO. This 25% discount is already happening through the pCPA, the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance, which is used by the provinces to negotiate with manufacturers. They are basically assuming an extra 25% discount “just because”. I do not think that is the way statistics should be done and I disagree with the analysis.

In fact, one of the members on the NDP side then went on to quote New Zealand as a good example of how it had been able to reduce drug costs. What people in New Zealand do not want to have is a rare disease. There is very little access to rare disease medication or the latest and greatest most innovative drugs to address their condition. There are countless examples online of New Zealand citizens fleeing to other countries to obtain access to medication. New Zealand is the worst example anywhere in the world if people have a rare disease.

There is a Yiddish saying, “He who runs away from fire, falls into the water” and that is what is happening here. There is a problem and the solution that is being called upon is a centralization of all the plans in Canada to wipe out the architecture, the jobs, the system that many Canadians rely on and generally like. It is not perfect; there are issues with it. We are running into a system, we are going to fall into the water and drown. Things would be made worse by the changes being proposed.

On the issue of PMPRB's costing, for example, we often talk about rare disease drug costs and how it puts a huge dent in provincial budgets. If we look at non-oncology drugs, 70% of what the PMPRB says is for rare disease medication is actually being used for secondary uses. Therefore, if people have a rare disease and there is a drug for, it is given by a doctor and it is used, but then there has to be a second, third or fourth usage. The medical system says that it can be used for those other purposes. That is being included in the final statistics. It is wrong to say that rare disease patients will cost the system more when in fact different types of medication are also used for other purposes or uses.

According to the annual report of the PMPRB, the changes in the cost is 2.5% to 2.6%. I will credit the Canadian Forum for Rare Disease Innovators for these statistics and these points. It is very compelling evidence that the costs for rare diseases are not caused by rare disease patients. In fact, it is other uses for the same innovative medicine that is coming to Canada. To reiterate my point, the hardest medication to purchase in Canada is that which is not available in Canada.

I want to take a moment to credit and thank Alberta Minister of Health, Tyler Shandro, for his January 17 interim agreement for Zolgensma, which is a groundbreaking, innovative medication for children with SMA type 1 spinal muscular atrophy, one of the most dangerous conditions that will kill children if they do not get access to a type of medication. This is the same minister who compassionately approved and ensured there was access in Alberta quickly for Spinraza, three weeks after he was named minister. I told him I would hound him until he made it happen. To his credit, he did, and compassionately years later he ensured there was access to Zolgensma for children under age 18 in Alberta. I do not believe a national pharmacare minister like that could act as quickly as a provincial minister could acct when he feels the pressure from constituents, residents and elected officials.

We have Cystinosis, examples of cystic fibrosis, and Trikafta and Orkambi. There is groundbreaking medication out there being made available to people living in other countries that is not available here. The bill would not fix any of those issues. There are other solutions to fill the gaps in place and I would love to discuss those solutions and look for ways to improve the system in different matters.

The member for Calgary Nose Hill brought up a few of them, so I will reiterate them. Common drugs are classified in different countries as over the counter. Australia does an amazing job of this as does the United Kingdom. We can look at what the public health spends on certain medications and maybe find a lower dose that could be available over the counter. Some antibiotics come to mind. Some estimates suggest that just three of those drugs could save $1 billion a year on drug spending.

There are other things we could do to reduce the bureaucracy in the system. Too many Canadians are trapped between the CADTH approval and the pCPA reimbursement agreement.

What I care most about is access for patients with rare diseases. Bill C-213 does not achieve any of those goals. I cannot support it.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to address Bill C-213. As all members know, I firmly support national universal pharmacare and the government knows that pharmacare is the missing piece of universal health care in the country. Pharmacare must remain a priority for all members in the House.

Implementing national universal pharmacare is one of the government's top priorities, as reiterated in the September 2020 Speech from the Throne and in the 2020 fall economic statement.

No Canadian should have to choose between paying rent or paying for needed prescription drugs. Too many of my constituents, too many Canadians, are experiencing this every day. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed many unfortunate truths in the country and one of those truths is that too many Canadians are also a step away from this unfortunate reality.

While drug coverage is an area of provincial-territorial jurisdiction, the pandemic has reminded us that collaboration between governments is essential to support the health of Canadians. The federal government recognizes the important role that both orders of government must play to ensure all Canadians have the drug coverage they need. We understand that the federal government must support provinces and territories as they implement pharmacare so it will become an enduring element of our health system. This simply is not achieved by imposing federal legislation without consultation and without co-operation of our partners at the provincial and territorial level.

I firmly support national universal pharmacare and I will continue to work tirelessly with our government to move it forward. I will be opposing this private member's bill. The issue at the heart of the bill and the reason I will be opposing it is that it discounts the need for co-operation.

We know that in order to make national pharmacare a reality in Canada, we need to recognize the key role the provinces and territories play in providing health care for their citizens. The bill misses the mark and overlooks a wealth of experience built up about how to do that, not in Ottawa but in Dartmouth, Victoria, Quebec, Charlottetown and all across this amazing country.

Establishing universal pharmacare successfully requires a collective approach, a collaborative approach, where the federal government works with and through the provinces and territories. Unilateral federal action to impose national universal pharmacare as proposed under Bill C-213 would be akin to establishing public medicare for hospital and physician services without prior discussion with provincial and territorial governments and health system stakeholders. Such unilateral action would contradict commitments the Government of Canada has made over the past three decades to take a collective approach to social policy issues of a national concern.

The government must be careful not to disregard the vital role that provinces and territories currently play in designing and delivering public drug coverage in Canada. Over time, provinces and territories have developed more than 100 distinct public drug plans, typically designed to provide coverage for vulnerable groups, including seniors and people on social assistance. If we are going to transform a complex patchwork of drug coverage into a national pharmacare program, we must do it in collaboration with our partners, relying on the considerable expertise that jurisdictions have in this area.

Our government has been clear in its commitments to national pharmacare. Now is the time for governments to take action and make it a reality. Co-operation from provinces and territories will not just get pharmacare up and running; it will ensure it continues to operate smoothly well into the future.

In the 2020 Speech from the Throne and the fall economic statement, the government reiterated its intention to accelerate steps to implement national universal pharmacare, including a rare disease strategy to help Canadian families save money on high-cost drugs; establishing a national formulary and a Canadian drug agency to keep drug prices low; and, perhaps most important, working with those provinces and territories that are willing to move forward without delay. We all know that actions speak louder than words, which is why I am pleased to say that our government has already started taking these steps.

In November, the government initiated discussions with provinces and territories on the strategy for high-cost drugs for rare diseases. Earlier this month, the government began engaging with key partners and stakeholders, including patients and patient groups. As public engagement continues, our government will also consult with clinicians, academics, researchers, health technology assessment organizations, pharmaceutical manufacturers, private insurance providers and indigenous partners.

Budget 2019 also announced $35 million over four years to establish a transition office. This office is being created to provide dedicated capacity and leadership to advance work on pharmacare-related priorities.

We are committed to taking the appropriate next steps to implement national universal pharmacare. We are rolling up our sleeves and putting the resources in place to make it happen. First ministers have initiated a dialogue on health care funding, and that conversation will continue. In parallel, the Minister of Health will seek to establish a collaborative process with willing provinces and territories to define the broad terms of the pharmacare plan.

As I have said, our government fully supports national universal pharmacare and will continue to do the work needed to make sure this becomes a reality for all Canadians. Although we support the spirit of Bill C-213, we recognize that imposing this criteria on the provinces and territories without working with them would be premature and would not build national pharmacare as an enduring final piece of Canada's universal health care system.

People do not frame and put a roof on a house without building a strong foundation first. That is why we are moving forward with willing jurisdictions to build a collective commitment to national pharmacare, guided by the advisory council on the implementation of national pharmacare.

Turning our current patchwork of drug plans into a coherent, comprehensive approach that benefits all Canadians will be no small feat. As we move forward, we need a thoughtful conversation about how best to meet this challenge together. We must work with the provinces and territories, as I have said, to implement a national pharmacare plan that works well for our residents. We must work with first nations, Inuit and Métis governments and representative organizations to make sure national pharmacare is appropriate for their communities. We must work with patients and providers to make sure a national pharmacare plan gets Canadians the drugs they need.

I am looking forward to discussions with provincial and territorial counterparts. Together, we are making progress toward a pharmacare program that will meet the needs of all Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

[Jagmeet Singh, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to share my thoughts on this very important bill. It is an immense honour for me to take the mike right now and speak to my colleague's bill. I want to thank my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby for bringing this bill forward. This is a very special opportunity that we have right now to make a massive difference in the lives of Canadians.

In Canada in this pandemic, we have seen millions of Canadians lose their jobs, and when they lost their jobs, they also lost their benefits. That means millions of Canadians were not able to purchase the medication they needed. This is on top of the millions of Canadians who already simply cannot afford their medication. Whether they do not have coverage at all or have coverage that costs too much, very, very many Canadians are not taking the medication they need because they simply cannot afford to.

I have spoken to so many families and so many people who tell me of the pain of not being able to afford their medication. I think of a family in which the father works in construction, and he has a heart illness that requires him to take medication to stay healthy, but he cannot afford that medication, and on top of that, his children need medication. Therefore, he has to choose not only between paying the bills or buying his medication, but also between buying the medication either for himself or for the children he loves. That is an impossible position to be in, and he is not alone. There are so many families that face the same decision.

We know that one out of five Canadians are not taking their medication, simply because they cannot afford to. We know that when someone cannot treat an illness, they end up at the worst stage of that illness, and it costs the system and the family and the person so much more. Having universal access to medication so that everyone in our country could afford it would dramatically improve the lives of everyone.

The Liberals have been promising universal pharmacare for 23 years. They promised again in 2019, but have people seen any difference in their lives when it comes to accessing medication? They have not. We have seen, sadly and again and again, that the Liberal government sides with the pharmaceutical industry instead of with Canadians who are desperate to stay healthy and afford their medication.

We have a concrete solution. The solution is to use the combined power of our entire nation to negotiate better prices so that everyone in our country can afford medication. This is so important. This is an opportunity to save lives. I am asking everybody to think about the millions of Canadians who cannot afford medication, to think about our health care system that allows someone to go to a doctor and be diagnosed with an illness but not to be able to afford the medication they need to stay healthy, to think about the only health care system in the world that provides universal health care but does not include medication coverage, and to pick up their phone and call their local MP.

I ask people to sign petitions and write letters. We have a week left. This vote on the first step to establish the first-of-its-kind, free medication coverage for all Canadians is next week. We can put pressure. We can show that this is the way forward and we can win. People have shown the power of organizing; they have shown again and again that when people come together, we fight and we win.

Once implemented, medication coverage for all Canadians would mean that no one in our country would have to worry about paying for medication. If someone needed medication in this country, they would use their health card and not their credit card. That dream can be a reality, and once implemented, it would establish a savings of at least $4.2 billion that could be reinvested into our health care system.

Here is an opportunity for the Liberal government to back up its words. Its own report states that one of the key steps to establishing a universal public medication-for-all system is to pass a pharmacare act like the one we have proposed. It is far past time to pass such a measure and deliver universal pharmacare to Canadians. Let us get it done now.

No one should have to choose between paying the rent and filling a prescription. One in five Canadians is not taking the medication they need because they cannot afford it. Many Canadians are cutting their pills in half or even deciding not to buy their medication at all because they cannot afford it. Too many people are ending up in the emergency room or in the hospital for an extended stay because they cannot afford to take the medication they need. Hundreds of people are dying prematurely every year. Even those with private insurance are seeing the coverage offered by their employer decrease. People are in more precarious jobs, and their family budget is getting tighter and tighter. We need to help families, not make their lives more difficult.

I have met many families in Quebec who say that it is getting harder and harder to buy private prescription drug coverage. It is getting harder and harder to get drug coverage and buy medication. I spoke with unions that represent thousands of workers, and they all say that prescription drug insurance cost workers too much.

It is essential to have fully public pharmacare in Quebec and across the country. Canada is the only industrialized country whose health insurance does not include universal, public coverage of prescription medication. That does not make any sense.

The Liberals have not stopped breaking promises for the past 23 years. They would rather protect the profits of big pharmaceutical and insurance companies than help people. In 2019, they made yet another promise to introduce pharmacare, but they have done nothing concrete since to keep that promise. The Liberals say all the right things in public, but they keep putting powerful pharmaceutical companies' profits ahead of people's needs. They now have an opportunity to vote for our bill to give Canadians a comprehensive universal pharmacare program.

This bill is the first step toward creating a pharmacare program. If the Liberals really want to help Canadian families, they can work with us to provide the universal pharmacare program people need.

I invite all Canadians to contact their MP and ask him or her to vote in favour of a universal public pharmacare program. We must vote in favour of Bill C-213, a bill to help families and save lives.

I am grateful I had the opportunity to share these words. Again, we have an opportunity to save lives, to help families and workers. It is essential that our health care system cover everyone and that also means providing a universal pharmacare program. Together, we can do this. I invite everyone to demand that we undertake this next step towards a universal, comprehensive health care system.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-213 builds on the Canada Health Act to establish a universal, comprehensive, single-payer pharmacare program.

The federal government would simply provide money to the provinces who would put in place a pharmacare program that meets the criteria it sets. The federal government can impose sanctions if it deems that the province's pharmacare program does not meet the federal criteria. The bill also creates a drug agency responsible for approving the drugs covered by the program and negotiating drug purchases.

The Bloc Québécois is against this bill primarily because we represent the voice of Quebec in Ottawa. If the government did not need NDP votes to stay in power, it would never accept the centralist agenda of this bill that completely violates Quebec's jurisdiction. In fact, the National Assembly of Quebec was unanimous on June 14. I will read the motion that was passed unanimously by all the parties at the National Assembly of Quebec: Québec solidaire, the Parti québécois, the Quebec Liberal Party and the Coalition avenir Québec.

The motion reads:

THAT the National Assembly acknowledge the federal report recommending the establishment of a pan-Canadian pharmacare plan;

THAT it reaffirm the Government of Québec's exclusive jurisdiction over health;

THAT it also reaffirm that Québec has had its own general prescription insurance plan for 20 years;

THAT it indicate to the federal government that Québec refuses to adhere to a pan-Canadian pharmacare plan;

THAT it ask the Government of Québec to maintain its prescription drug insurance plan and that it demand full financial compensation from the federal government if a project for a pan-Canadian pharmacare plan is officially tabled.

When our National Assembly speaks with one voice on an issue dealing with Quebec-Ottawa relations, we in the Bloc Québécois pay attention and make sure that that consensus is echoed in the House of Commons of Canada. Given that the National Assembly was careful to specify that Quebec would refuse to adhere to a pan-Canadian pharmacare plan, we would find it strange to ask for a program that would not apply back home.

The NDP adopted the Sherbrooke declaration in 2005, in which it said it recognized asymmetrical federalism and intended to give Quebec the systematic right to opt out, so it is odd that the New Democrats now seem to be writing off Quebec.

There is no question that health is a Quebec jurisdiction. The Bloc Québécois finance critic, my hon. colleague from Joliette, took a similar position before the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec, the FTQ. His position echoed that of the FTQ.

Let me quote from a statement from the FTQ, a labour organization that has been advocating for a universal public pharmacare program:

For the FTQ, the terms and conditions of a public, universal pharmacare program must first and foremost be discussed in Quebec and established according to the needs of its people.

That is why Quebec must be able to opt out with full compensation from any pharmacare plan...

Furthermore, the federal government cannot discuss pharmacare without addressing the problems in health care funding....The Liberal government's desire to expand public coverage of health care by including prescription drugs is not consistent with its intention to limit health transfers to the provinces....To ensure the viability of Quebec's health system, the portion of federal funding must be increased.

If Ottawa wants to move forward with its national pharmacare plan, Quebec must have the unconditional right to opt out with full compensation. Ottawa must respect the solemn moment on June 14, 2019, when the Quebec National Assembly unanimously adopted a motion calling on Ottawa not to interfere in Quebec's jurisdictions and to provide full and unconditional financial compensation.

It was impossible for the member for New Westminster—Burnaby to not be aware of this when he introduced his bill.

Quebec is a progressive nation. It is surprising that the NDP, which calls itself progressive, wants a nation that lags behind ours to tell us what to do. Generally speaking, Quebec society has more comprehensive social programs than Canadian society. Quebec has the best family policy on the continent, which includes parental leave and child care. Quebec has the best access to post-secondary education and the most progressive taxation on the continent. Furthermore, Quebec has a pharmacare plan that leaves no one behind. Everyone is covered by insurance.

Although it is not perfect, our situation is unlike any other in North America. Quebec's pharmacare plan has been leading the pack among Canadian provinces and territories since 1996. Quebec will not entrust the development of its social programs to the neighbouring nation, whose coverage does not compare to ours.

The members of the Quebec National Assembly are unanimously opposed to this initiative. The members of the Bloc Québécois, who rise in the House to impart the general consensus of the Quebec National Assembly, will not compromise at the expense of Quebeckers to salvage some votes in the west, in the east or in Ontario. Not to mention, Ottawa is not even able to manage its own affairs. Just look at the firearms registry, which ended up costing $2 billion, or the Phoenix pay system; and yet people think Ottawa should manage our pharmacare program?

Quebec is quite capable of improving its own program without surrendering its autonomy. The $3.6-billion price tag for Quebec's public pharmacare plan is fully covered by the Régie de l'assurance maladie du Québec, or RAMQ, which covers health care costs. What Quebec needs is an increase in health transfers.

Since 2017, the health transfer escalator has been capped at 3%, but health care system costs are going up by about 6% because of factors like technological advances and the aging population.

The Bloc Québécois is asking Ottawa to respect the wishes of Quebec and the provinces and increase its share of health care funding from 22% to 35% unconditionally. Let us not forget that, back when the Canadian system was created, federal funding covered 50% of the cost.

The Bloc Québécois is also opposed to the creation of a Canadian drug agency that would tell Quebec how to use its drugs. Quebec is already managing its public prescription drug insurance plan expenses itself through the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance, the pCPA, and the national institute for excellence in health and social services, or INESSS, and Quebec's system has rigorous criteria.

The INESSS supplies Quebec with its own expertise and updates the list of drugs covered by the RAMQ, Quebec's health insurance plan. A new Canadian drug agency would just duplicate the work being done in an area that is not under federal jurisdiction. That is nonsensical.

That is why I moved a motion on October 26 at the Standing Committee on Health to study how reforming patented medicine pricing could affect the whole life sciences ecosystem and patient access to innovative therapies.

During the election campaign, the Liberals said they wanted to do something about the cost of drugs used to treat rare diseases. They reiterated that intention in the throne speech, but we are still awaiting the strategy. The federal government needs to give us more details about its plans. Most importantly, it needs to tell us whether it intends to harmonize its rare disease strategy with Quebec's.

In closing, recognizing that Quebec's plan is the best one on the continent and emphasizing that Quebec has the right to decide does not mean that our plan is perfect, but Quebeckers are perfectly capable of managing it. The NDP and the Liberals have a harmful obsession with wanting to interfere and wanting to decide for Quebec where Quebec should spend its money. Rather than clinging to its centralizing vision, the government should instead agree to Quebec's demands and permanently and substantially increase health transfers so that Quebec can take care of its people.

The House resumed from November 18, 2020, consideration of the motion that Bill C-213, An Act to enact the Canada Pharmacare Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Health

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it has been decades, and it is still all talk and no action.

The Prime Minister criticized Harper's health care cuts to the provinces, but then kept the cuts to the funding. No wonder the provinces do not trust that the federal government will keep any commitment on pharmacare.

The Liberals are running out of time and out of excuses. Later this month, every single MP will have an opportunity to vote on the NDP’s Bill C-213, the Canada Pharmacare Act. They can either tell their constituents that they stand with everyday Canadians or they stand with big pharma. They can help realize savings of roughly $4.2 billion annually, as indicated by the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s report. They can break the trend of the Liberals' broken promises to Canadians and support meaningful action to realize universal pharmacare once and for all.

The choice is theirs. I call on all members to support the NDP's Bill C-213.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Canada is the only country in the world with a universal health care system that does not provide universal prescription drug coverage outside of hospitals. People in Canada pay among the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs due to our patchwork of 100 public and over 100,000 private drug plans. As a result, we lack purchasing power and many Canadians do not get access to drug coverage. The Liberals have promised universal pharmacare for Canadians decade after decade, and there is still no universal pharmacare.

The NDP tabled the Canada pharmacare act in February 2020. Immediately following the last election, the NDP began working to draft a legislative framework to enable the implementation of a universal, comprehensive and public pharmacare program. It is based on the recommendations of the Hoskins Advisory Council on the Implementation of National Pharmacare, and modelled on the Canada Health Act. The proposed Canada pharmacare act specifies the conditions and criteria that the provincial and territorial prescription drug insurance programs must meet to receive federal funding. This includes the core principles of public administration, comprehensiveness, universality, portability and accessibility. Universal public drug coverage has been recommended by commissions, committees and advisory councils dating as far back as the 1940s.

People across Canada are making impossible choices every day because they cannot afford their prescription medications. Millions of Canadians have inadequate prescription coverage or no coverage at all. Sixteen per cent of people in Canada have gone without medication for heart disease, cholesterol or hypertension because of the cost. Over the past year alone, one in four Canadians was forced to avoid filling or renewing a prescription drug due to its cost, or to take measures to extend a prescription because they could not afford to keep the recommended dosage schedule.

Even those with private coverage are seeing their employer-sponsored benefits shrink, a trend that has accelerated due to the economic impacts of COVID-19. In fact, Canadians are twice as likely to have lost prescription drug coverage as to have gained it over the past year. The amount of prescription drugs spending paid out of pocket in Canada in 2016 was $7.4 billion. Universal public pharmacare would extend prescription drug coverage to every single Canadian while saving us billions of dollars every year. The final report of the Hoskins advisory council found that once fully implemented, universal public pharmacare would reduce annual system-wide spending on prescription drugs by $5 billion. Businesses and employees would see a benefit to the tune of $16.6 billion annually for businesses, and families would see their out-of-pocket drug costs reduced by $6.4 billion per year, collectively.

I ask the members to support this bill. Over 13,000 academic experts in the health care and public policy community support this. It is time for us to act. It is time to put the needs of Canadians ahead of big pharma.

Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2020

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague talked about having a bold agenda, and the NDP has actually been doing that in real time.

I wonder if the member supports Bill C-213, the pharmacare bill we put forward; Motion No. 46, which would guarantee a livable income and dental care; and certainly Bill C-232, my private member's bill that supports a bold climate agenda. It is a climate action emergency framework that is about bold work. The NDP is doing it in real time.

[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 afer 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 are 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.