When it comes to implementing universal pharmacare, it doesn't have to be the federal government that does this. It can be done at the provincial level. It can be done through specific agencies that are being put in place for this through different types of social insurance systems. You can have an independent agency taking care of this.
With the current fragmented system, there are no common objectives, and there's massive waste. Right now we have 100 different public drug programs, and we have more than 100,000 private drug programs going in every direction. You end up with a system that, if you want to navigate and play the game, basically, doors are very much open for abuse, and we're seeing this a lot.
When it comes to cleaning up what's happening, a universal single-payer public system remains the best thing to do. Then you can have all the other players adding on with supplementary coverage. Be they provinces or private payers, it's not an issue, but we need a solid foundation that works well, is efficient, works rationally, gets us value for money and also promotes a more appropriate use of medicine.
If we have these building blocks, then we can see in terms of.... In French, we say la finition. We basically see what adds up, and we can build different things. However, we need the solid foundation, and it's not there right now. For example, we are not prepared for all these new, superexpensive drugs coming to the market. We are not prepared to face the music. Canadians are not prepared, because we don't have these foundations now.