Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you to the committee for this invitation.
The Canadian Health Coalition was formed in 1979 in response to the crisis around extra billing that people were experiencing in the 1970s.
We are pleased that we had three major federal parties participate in the founding of our coalition. We had Tommy Douglas, Justice Emmett Hall, and Monique Bégin. That symbolizes the fact that we're a non-partisan organization, and also that Canadians, no matter what their political stripe, support an improved and strengthened public health care system. So that's really the focus of our work.
I want to speak on one topic, because obviously innovation is a very broad topic and it's better in 10 minutes to focus.
I just returned yesterday from a conference in Toronto organized by the Conference Board, which had a lot of presentations about innovation. There were two presenters who struck me, and I wanted to share their perspective with you on the topic I want to raise, which is an innovative approach to managing pharmaceuticals in the health care system. The first was the head of the Canadian Blood Services, who gave an example of bulk purchasing. In just one category of blood plasma products, one product line, a national approach to purchasing saved $160 million over three years—for one product. Now, of course, you can't do that unless you're prepared to work together as a nation, all jurisdictions. Prince Edward Island or British Columbia or Ontario or Quebec cannot make those savings on their own. Together there is strength.
The second person who presented—he was the last presenter—was the Minister of Health from Alberta. He made a very powerful case that medicare was about sharing risk and then sharing resources, and he said we're failing today. He said the federal government is failing in that responsibility. He said it is especially true with pharmaceuticals. There is no collaborative leadership and national coordination, and I would argue there is not an innovative approach to pharmaceutical management.
I want to make the case here for a national pharmaceutical strategy, national purchasing. The first of the three objectives really is to make pharmaceuticals accessible to everyone. We have nearly eight million Canadians who are falling through the cracks. It's a myth to think that if you're in need you're taken care of. Actually it's not true. There are a lot of Canadians who don't have access to essential medicines. You know that, I'm sure, from your constituents. Medicines are very expensive, and if you're not fortunate enough to have a good private drug plan at work, or if you lose your job, you don't have access. So we would focus on access.
We would also focus on making pharmaceuticals affordable. Canada spends 30% more on new brand-name drugs than the industrial average. That's a lot of money.
The third objective is appropriate prescriptions. We are getting over-prescribed. There are too many prescriptions and inappropriate use. There's over-marketing of pharmaceuticals. We also, of course, want safe prescriptions. Adverse drug reaction is one of the leading causes of death in Canada. That clearly has to be addressed with a national pharmaceutical management approach.
In a sense, what we're saying is only pay for what works and make sure you get value for money. It sounds like common sense, but actually if we really did that in pharmaceuticals, it would be a major innovation.
My colleagues from Quebec used a couple of words: collégialité et équipe. These are very evocative words for health care because health care is not a business. Health care professionals are not trained to compete; they're trained to cooperate. There are fantastic examples of innovation within the public system, and most of the innovations are in the public system, whether it's surgical clinics or whatever. I think as you all know, the problem is that a lot of these things are just pilot projects, and what we need to do is.... The colleague from Winnipeg mentioned the issue of coordination. The system is crying out for coordination. We're hearing that all the time.
Of course, I would make a strong appeal for the irreplaceable role of the federal government. The reason I raise the issue of pharmaceutical management is because this is one area of health care that nobody with credibility could argue there's no federal role.
I want to address a federal role in innovation. Clearly the federal government regulates pharmaceuticals and is setting the price of new drugs through the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board at a level that is way too high. It is 30% above the industrial average. In Quebec the prices are 40% above the international average. Just think of what you could do to make our system more seamless, with more integration and more home care but with all those savings. I handed out a sheet with a cost breakdown of how much we would save: $10.7 billion a year.
This is a very credible study from Marc-André Gagnon. We have to consider this. We don't have enough money to be throwing away overpriced drugs and using drugs inappropriately and yet having Canadians go without essential medicine. We have the worst of both worlds: too much for some, not enough for others. We have the know-how to be smarter. We're one of the only countries in the world that does not have a universal public drug plan. It's time to move forward.
We're very pleased to see the provinces...and in this case there is a lot of leadership coming from the Province of Alberta on this file. I'm convinced that all the provinces are there. We need a federal partner. I would encourage you to really look seriously at this area of health care.
I'll stop there and maybe leave some time for questions.