Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's important that I preface my remarks by telling the public that we are racing through this massive budget bill. For those who are aware of the flaws in the bill, certainly with pay equity this morning we saw that flaws in the bill were not addressed.
As we adopt these whole clauses, opposition members are striving to make improvements and fix the flaws in the bill, but there is by no means a clear idea of how many errors and omissions exist in the bill, given how this is being rammed through Parliament.
This amendment, NDP-3, is seeking to fix a problem that happened with the last massive budget implementation bill that the Liberals put forward, which had a series of errors in it as well. You'll recall that we raised the point at that time that medical cannabis inadvertently, all of a sudden, became taxed. The prescription medication became taxed and hundreds of thousands of Canadians were impacted because the BIA was rammed through the House without sufficient consideration given to the errors and omissions.
This is indicative of absolutely the wrong way to govern. Canadians pay us to scrutinize legislation, to make sure that it is done effectively and that the flaws are fixed.
With pay equity this morning, this committee has decided to throw on the floor of the House of Commons—which will be surely subject to immediate closure—part of the BIA that will now be subject to court challenge. In this case, with the amendment NDP-3, we're trying to now fix the problems that were caused by the last BIA that was thrown into the House, rammed through with closure and rammed through committee without due consideration.
It is not the way to govern. It's certainly not the way the Prime Minister said he would govern when he came before the public in 2015.
In the last budget implementation act, witnesses were saying that it was a problem that we were now taxing prescription medication. It would increase the cost. It would mean that Canadians would have less access to the cannabis that they have been prescribed for pain or for other symptoms of profound health problems. Despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of Canadians were impacted, this was rammed through the House.
Now we have a second chance to fix the problems from last spring. I have no doubt that we're going to be looking in the spring at fixing the problems of what is being rammed through today. Everything has to be considered by nine o'clock, so we are trying to rush through these clauses.
I've done the best I can with my team to find and indicate the flaws. The NDP has offered far more amendments than the other parties, but I can't say with any assurance at all that we're not going to have other massive problems because of the speed with which this is being bulldozed through Parliament.
Today, if we're not willing to fix this bill in any way—if we're ramming through provisions that will surely be the subject of court action later on by pay equity advocates—at least we can fix the problems that happened the last time this government rammed a bill through Parliament. That is to take off the excise tax on prescription cannabis for the 250,000 Canadians who are prescribed cannabis, who have found the cost of that prescription skyrocket because of the actions of the government in bulldozing through legislation. At least we can fix this. At least let's fix the problems that happened the last time the government rammed this through.
At the end of the day, the government seems intent on ramming this through, despite the problems. We already know this entire bill will be subject to court action because of the government's refusal to consider amendments, but at least let's fix the problems with the last bill that came through.
NDP-3 endeavours to do that. What we would insert in this bill is an amendment that states:
(c) if the cannabis product is a prescription cannabis drug, the consideration is deemed to be zero.
It eliminates the excise tax on medical cannabis that has so detrimentally impacted hundreds of thousands of Canadians. I hope the government will at least see fit to fix its last errors, even if it doesn't see fit to fix the current errors.