With pleasure, Mr. Chair.
Here, once again, what we see is the original clause stating, “provide universal coverage of pharmaceutical products across Canada”. It's an aspirational goal; it's just not the truth. I think we've heard this resounding over and over and over again, and the reasoned argument that we have presented is that in Bill C-64, clause 4 will be amended by replacing line 30 on page 3 with the following “(d) make progress on providing universal coverage of pharmaceutical” products across Canada.
You know, Chair, I think it important again that this is about having Canadians understand that transparency and sunny ways are something that, at the current time, very sadly for Canadians, do not exist with this NDP-Liberal coalition government. What we are seeing is a lack of transparency.
They are spending money at the risk of insulting drunken sailors. To say that they are spending money “on behalf of Canadians” is in line with the problems that they have already created. We've heard the number of people who are living in food insecurity because of the spending of this NDP-Liberal costly coalition. Then what do they say? The statistic is that 26% of Canadians are going without food. Those are mostly parents who are going without food so that their children can eat. They're skipping meals, going to food banks, etc. They have food insecurity so that their children can eat.
What do we see now? We see that the government that created this problem is going to swoop in and save Canadian children by creating a national school food program. Well, let's be honest. If they hadn't created the problem in the first place, such that Canadians couldn't afford to feed themselves, they wouldn't have to create a national school food program.
This is like if I have a prosthetic business and I remove one of Mr. Doherty's legs, and then I sell him a prosthesis. It's not a funny analogy. It's something that's shared between Mr. Doherty and me. I apologize for being rather graphic, but it just makes no sense. It's like I rammed into his car when I have a car business, and I sell him a new one. I mean, I am creating a problem for him and then selling him the solution. Canadians who are no longer ready to be fleeced by the costly coalition know what lies at the heart of the spending addiction that this government has.
The cost of mortgages has doubled. The cost of rent has doubled. The number of homeless encampments is beyond imagination.
You know, it's always interesting to be in the House of Commons and listen to question period without answer. Folks ask, “Well, back when Pierre Poilievre was the minister of housing, how many houses did he build?” He didn't have to build houses, because there wasn't a housing crisis. The federal government didn't have to step in or didn't have to try to step in, as they have tried to do now, and they have failed miserably by building fewer houses and spending more money. The economy of the country worked in the way that it was imagined to work, such that people who are house builders were building houses. Permits were granted by municipal governments, and Canadians had money in their pockets that allowed them to afford to pay their mortgage. Interest rates were not out of control, while now they are rising the most rapidly that they have in the last 40 years.
In the economic situation that has been created by this costly coalition, they have the audacity to say that they will step in and solve your problem, even though it's a problem that they have created.
You can't afford your medications. What we heard some of the testimony talking about was that Canadians are choosing between eating and paying for their medications. Well, if the cost of food wasn't so high, then they could pay for their medications. If the leader of the NDP's brother were not a lobbyist for Metro, then maybe the cost of food would be less.
If we didn't have a carbon tax, the dreaded tax on everything.... I know that Canadians have heard this before, but it bears repeating. If you tax the farmer who grows the food and the trucker who ships the food, then the people, like all of us who buy the food, are going to have to pay more.
As we see that cascading effect, then we know that is where the problem lies. It's the spending addiction. It's the $10-a-day day care program, again, that can't be delivered. We know there are not spots out there for Canadian working families in which both people have to work because of the costly coalition and the cost of everything. They are unable to find a day care spot for $10 a day.
Again, they have the.... I can't even explain it. They have the anti-Midas touch. It's not that things turn to gold; it's that things turn to something else in a very different colour when they touch them, which again doesn't allow people to have appropriate access to the things they need in this country.
Allowing the costly coalition to create another costly program for two medications, two conditions, in this country would be a significant jeopardy. To go on and again suggest that this is more than what it is, which is what line 30 is suggesting with “providing universal coverage of pharmaceutical” products.... This is not doing any such thing.
I know that every other time we have brought this up, pointing out that all of the testimony was directed exactly towards contraceptive pills and devices and diabetic medications and devices, this costly coalition today has voted it down, because they do not want Canadians to know that what they are attempting to create here is very limited in scope and does not fulfill the needs of all Canadians.
Further to that—I'll say it again—this does not mean that Conservatives are against medications or against contraceptives or against the good health of Canadians. That is not what this means. What it means is that the way they are going about it, without transparency, without accountability and with the background of spending money foolishly on things like consultants.... We're seeing hundreds of millions of dollars being spent there that could be spent elsewhere. I clearly outlined previously the money that was wasted on the Medicago fiasco—half a billion dollars—and now we have the Novavax fiasco at another $130 million, with a recurring cost of $17 million to Canadians without anything at all to show for it—nothing.
It's not their money they're spending. It's our money. This is our money. What we're asking for is accountability and transparency, and we're telling the truth and pointing out that what is happening is not the way they're portraying it. This is about contraceptives and diabetes medications. That's what this is about. This is not a universal pharmacare program in which it doesn't matter where you go. You probably won't even have to show a card, if everything's free. You just have to have your prescription—boom, everything is free.
Nothing is free. There's no such thing as a free lunch. This is coming out of the pockets of every Canadian. With the amount of debt and the debt servicing costs that are happening now in this country, the debt servicing costs are more than $1 billion, with a “b”, every single week—every week—which, sadly, we know is more than the Canada health transfer. It is more than that because this Prime Minister of the costly coalition believed that interest rates would never go up. Of course, there's the infamous quote that budgets balance themselves.
We know that this costly coalition continues to have an ongoing deficit spending position, which was never the expectation of any government in the history of the free world. That's not their expectation.
Folks out there listening, think of it from your own perspective: If you're making $500 per week and you're spending $600 per week every single week, then it becomes very difficult—