Thank you, Chair.
Thank you very much for preparing an excellent report. It certainly sheds a lot of light on the model, the costing, and the approaches to the model that we've been discussing for some time now here at committee, so thank you very much for that.
I want to summarize to make sure I have this right. In 2015-16, $28.5 billion was spent on prescription medicines outside of hospitals across Canada. Approximately $3.9 billion wouldn't have qualified for coverage under the Quebec model, which, we understand, is a sort of gold-plated model.
Some $4.2 billion would result in efficiencies, savings, and changes in pricing consumption, leaving a net cost to the federal government of $20.4 billion to cover all Canadians. All Canadians would be covered with $20.4 billion, because you've built in those that were not covered.
Then, in the same period of time, 2015-16, the public sector spent $13.1 billion and the private sector spent $10.7 billion—these are employers—so the public and private employers spent $23.8 billion.
Can I safely put those numbers together and say that we need $20.4 billion to cover every Canadian with a national pharmacare model and that $23.8 billion is already in play to cover drug plans? We could actually fully implement a pharmacare model and save employers $3.4 billion at the same time. Have I put all that together correctly?