Mr. Speaker, I am here today because Canadians simply cannot wait for pharmacare. Last spring, I asked the Prime Minister in the House about the urgent need for pharmacare in the face of so many people in the country not filling their prescriptions and with the Parliamentary Budget Officer clearly stating that over $4 billion a year would be saved by having a national pharmacare program. The Prime Minister's response was, “it is not surprising to see the NDP trying to implement something without a clear plan.”
I am not sure how many studies or consultations the government needs before it takes action. I would assume that the many exhaustive studies done in this place, the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report and the many Canadians who cannot afford their medications might be enough to engage the government to actually move forward and take some action. In fact, the consultation process the government has put forward is to consult on whether to do this. It is not a group that is set up on actively putting together a strategy for implementation.
Canada pays the second highest medication costs in the world. In my riding of North Island—Powell River, too many people are making terrible choices, which include choices between medication and food, or medication and heat or medication and a place to live. I often feel like I am a broken record, but I will keep speaking in this place until the government finally hears.
Seniors in my riding and across Canada are taking half of their medication to extend how long it lasts. Families are going into serious credit card debt to afford their children's medication costs. Doctors come to see me to talk about how hard it is to try to treat people who cannot afford their medication. It is more expensive to pay for a hospital stay than it is to pay for that medication.
Consultations are overdone and it seems to me that the government has this theme song of we are going to talk about it, we are going to consult about it and we are going to talk about it some more.
I really hope the government will hear really clearly from Canadians that pharmacare needs to happen now. There are too many high-risk people who are making terrible choices. I think of a constituent in my riding who recently had some severe challenges with his income. He is a senior, he is struggling every single day and has said that he just needs a little help because he cannot afford his medication. That is terrible.
I am asking the government to take some responsibility, to look at the reports that are coming out of this place, to look at the years and years of promises made that this would actually happen, that we would finally fulfill our medicare system with a pharmacare system, which every other country that has a medicare system has, and actually take action so people in our country are not going without their medication simply because they cannot afford it.