Certainly having some help from the federal government to implement this would be something that would make things way easier, I think, for provinces.
You say that health care is a provincial jurisdiction. I don't want to get into legal stuff, but constitutionally, health care establishments are of provincial jurisdiction. When it comes to prescription drugs, it is more complicated, because this is outside health care establishments. That's one thing.
When it comes to drug approval, this is criminal law in terms of determining which substance is illegal versus legal, and if it's legal, there are ways to have some access to it with pharmacies and everything. This is why we have Health Canada, basically, approving the drugs. And at the same time, when it comes to the pricing of these drugs, this is based on the Patent Act, which is also at the federal level.
Like it or not, when it comes to prescription drugs, the federal government already has two feet, basically, in this field. It doesn't mean that the provinces shouldn't have anything to say about this. I mean, I'm a proud Québécois. When we put in place our pharmacare system in 1997, at the time, basically, it was perceived as a first step towards universal pharmacare, but when we put in place a hybrid system, we kind of locked in all these commercial interests, basically, that can abuse the system in different ways. It is not normal that, in Quebec, we are the second place on this planet with the highest cost per capita when it comes to prescription drugs. Nothing is being done about it. Instead of containing cost, we'll just shift the cost elsewhere in the system.