Okay.
It will take too long to ask for individual responses, so I'll just ask everyone to raise a hand if they respond “yes” to this: Is the cost of medication a barrier to access for patients?
I would say there was a unanimous raising of hands.
The reason I ask is that, as you know, we did a two-year study on national pharmacare. Many of us, including me, advocate for a universal system. I was at a meeting last week that was supposed to be a casual meet-and-greet with the new incoming head of our local chamber of commerce. I was more or less ambushed with some literature from a policy resolution meeting of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. Among these resolutions was one on pharmacare, painting national universal pharmacare as something that was somehow going to have a number of negative effects on small business. It would take over an hour for me to describe the logic of this publication, so I won't go into that.
One of the things the publication they handed me said was that if we, in a national system, put the emphasis on cost rather than access, it would inhibit the development of new drugs and endanger the lives of Canadians.
Could we go down the line to get a response to that statement?