I want to thank you for your advocacy on this matter, because it's something that I am very interested in. I've talked to others about it and I think it's terrific that you are continuing to press on this matter. If I'm not mistaken I believe that the committee is planning to look at this issue. I think that's terrific.
I really, genuinely look forward to your report and your ideas as to what pharmacare could look like in Canada. Having said that, you know that it's not part of my current mandate. What the Prime Minister has asked me to do at the moment is to work on bringing down the cost of pharmaceuticals and making sure that they are accessible and affordable for Canadians.
I think that as a responsible step this is an important first step. If we were to lock in the prices that are there now, if we were to instantly institute a universal pharmacare program, we'd be locking in extremely high-priced medications.
There are actually a number of very interesting levers, and this is something you might want to ask about after I've left as well today, because I think you might be interested in some of the things that can be done. You talked about the pan-Canadian pharmaceutical alliance, which we're delighted to have joined as a federal payer, but there's actually a lot of work that can be done, for instance, with the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board around the regulations that are associated with that, which can help to drive down costs. There's work that needs to be done on the development of a national formulary, which we currently do not have and it will take some time to develop.
All of those are steps toward...and if you as a committee can help to make the case, then that's something I think I'd be interested in talking about.