As you can imagine, this won't be a surprise question from a New Democrat who was part of the team that negotiated a pharmacare plan in the confidence and supply agreement with the Liberals.
Back in 2017, you conducted a cost analysis for a single-payer universal pharmacare program for Canada. The report found that we can extend comprehensive prescription medicine to cover every single Canadian while also saving billions in overall drug costs.
Last week you published a report updating that analysis of single-payer universal pharmacare and once again found that it will save Canadians billions of dollars over the next five years, starting with $1.4 billion of savings in the next fiscal year alone.
Can you explain why you found that comprehensive, single-payer universal pharmacare will expand access to the millions of Canadians who currently lack adequate coverage while also reducing overall drug costs?