Health Committee on May 23rd, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Minister.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

If the answer is “No, not this”, then it's a fair question for Amber or Raina to say, “Well, then what?”

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Minister. That's all the time for this round.

Next up is Ms. Goodridge for five minutes, please.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the minister for being here.

Is there anything in this legislation that will prevent employers from cancelling or downgrading existing insurance plans?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

There's nothing that would change that. I was a head of the Heart and Stroke Foundation, so I negotiated private insurance plans. I can tell you that insurance companies very much want to continue their businesses. The fact that under-insured and uninsured people are now going to have the ability to get the medicine they need represents no threat to insurance companies. I think that—

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

I didn't ask about insurance companies. I asked about employers.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

But that gets to it. I mean, if you're an employer.... As I said, I would negotiate the health benefits for employees. Obviously, health benefits for employees include much more than just diabetes, drugs and contraceptives.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

I understand. I'm asking if there—

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

To drop your plan because a portion of medicine.... It's just not logical, right? No company would do that.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

All right.

If this is a single-payer program, is anyone going to lose coverage from existing plans?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

The objective here.... No, we're making sure that people have choice about where they will go. For example, if you have somebody with 70% coverage and they can go to a public plan with 100% coverage, I imagine that they would make that choice. However, if they prefer their private plan, they would continue to use their plan.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Then can you assure us that no one will lose coverage based on this legislation?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

I can assure you, yes, that —

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you.

What consultations did you do specifically with Minister Adriana LaGrange in advance of putting forward this bill?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

I had conversations with all ministers, including Adriana. Obviously, there's a lot to settle. We know that we're talking here about just diabetes, drugs and contraceptives, but there have been positive conversations.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

She has stated that you did not consult with her before putting forward this bill.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

She and I have talked many times—

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Did you do it before putting forward this bill, on this bill?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Yes, but I mean.... I want to be careful, Mr. Chair, if I could be precise, because I don't want to mis-characterize it. Obviously, before the introduction of the bill, those conversations had to be at a very high level. In fairness to her, they were not detailed conversations, because of course I would have been precluded from having those. However, we had conversations before and after generally about it, yes.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

What about with Everett Hindley, the minister from Saskatchewan?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

It would be the same thing.

Obviously, before a bill exists, I can't share something of that nature. That would be violating and disrespecting Parliament, but at a very high level, for sure, there were conversations with Everett in Saskatchewan and elsewhere about the general concept and that I would come back to him with more details.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Minister Hindley is saying that you also didn't have specific conversations with him in advance of this bill.

My question becomes.... If you didn't have conversations with the two ministers from Alberta and Saskatchewan, and we know Quebec has shared some concerns regarding provincial jurisdiction, and we've had Saskatchewan, Alberta and Quebec all state that they want to opt out of this program, why did you not just put your ego down and work with the provincial governments and their existing plans to provide the coverage for those gaps?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

That's precisely what we're going to do—

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

That's not what this bill is. That's not what this bill does—

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Mr. Chair, if I could be afforded the opportunity....

There were a lot of people who said that we wouldn't get an aging with dignity agreement or a working together agreement with Alberta or Saskatchewan, but of course, we did.

I can say that on this subject, we've had very productive conversations around the needs in those provinces. I couldn't go into the level of detail of what would be in the bill because that would have violated parliamentary privilege, but afterwards, we've had very constructive—