Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for coming before the committee at this early hour. We appreciate the accommodation.
As you know, we've spent a lot of time over the past couple of years preparing the report on pharmacare. One of the biggest items in the discussion is the numbers involved.
We had the Parliamentary Budget Officer report, and we had information from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. I was concerned about some of the information in the dissenting report by the opposition party, claiming that, according to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, $39.8 billion a year is spent on prescription drugs. In fact, this figure of $39.8 billion includes prescription and non-prescription drugs. As we've said, we weren't thinking of covering non-prescription drugs under a national pharmacare program.
Again, at committee, the PBO analyst, citing Canadian Institute for Health Information data, said that “public spending on prescription drugs accounts for roughly 43% of total prescription drug spending in Canada”. “The total spending on prescription drugs”, according to that PBO testimony, “is just over $29 billion”, as opposed to the $39.8 billion.
It appears that this dissenting report has a lot of incorrect information. Has it impacted any of your decisions on implementing a pharmacare program, or the advisory committee by Dr. Hoskins?