Thank you, Chair.
Dr. Boothe, in your presentation you mentioned the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance. I want to talk a bit about that.
Currently, the Canadian provinces, and I assume the territories as well, through the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance, are signing confidential deals with pharmaceutical manufacturers that give them the off-invoice rebates from the drug manufacturers.
Advocates of this approach say this is simply a matter of governments using their purchasing power to get a better deal for government, but there is a lot of secrecy around these deals. Some could argue it is unethical for governments and their drug plans to get that preferred pricing, when 60% of the pharmaceutical purchases in Canada are paid for by the private sector at list prices that are inflated as a result of the deals that the governments put together with the pharmaceutical manufacturers. Basically, the out-of-pocket and the corporate personal plans are left paying the inflated price.
Do you think we should have in Canada some principles, rules around how these price agreements are designed and used? I'd like to get your thoughts on that, or the panel's thoughts.