Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to this bill. I am pleased that the bill is in the House.
As I said in my questions to the member for Oakville, that speech took a lot of courage. I do not think my speech will be quite as courageous. The words that the member for Oakville said are exactly the words I wish I had said in this place.
The bill is long overdue and I am glad it is here. I am not going to criticize the delay, because it is here. I do think it needs to go a bit further, but it is a great first step.
When I was the health critic a few years ago, I knew nothing about the pharmaceutical industry. As a critic, people started giving me books and articles and I started talking to experts. I went around Canada and talked to all kinds of folks working on this issue. When we start peeling back the layers of the onion, we realize what a messy, dark world that is. The power and control that pharmaceutical companies have is quite amazing, as is the trust we give them. We hand over our lives in this way because we think they know what is best.
One example I often used when I was talking to people was the therapeutics initiative in British Columbia, which is an arm's-length body, not a government body. There are experts on that panel who make recommendations about what drugs will be covered under British Columbia's pharmacare program. One might wonder why we would have to do that. Can one not just look at the label? Can one not just find out if a drug is worth covering or not?
We are not always told the truth. Drug companies will go to great lengths to ensure that their drugs are on those pharmacare lists because they have a lot of money to make from it. Sometimes they will take a drug and change one molecule and say it is a new breakthrough drug when it is just one molecule different from the old drug that works. Maybe they are not making enough money off it. That one molecule change can do a lot when it comes to having an impact on the people’s health.
I am reminded that I need to seek unanimous consent to split my time. I hope the chamber will allow me that.