Mr. Speaker, it is with great pride that I speak to Bill C-213, the Canada pharmacare act.
I would like to recognize my colleague for New Westminster—Burnaby for his tireless advocacy in support of universal public drug coverage and thank him for introducing this historic legislation.
We introduce this bill in a unique moment in time. One hundred years ago next year, Sir Frederick Banting, a Canadian orthopaedic surgeon, along with his colleagues, Charles Best and J.J. Macleod, discovered insulin at the University of Toronto. However, Dr. Banting did something exceptional with his life-saving medicine: He sold the patent rights to the university for one dollar, claiming that the discovery belonged to the world, not to him. This allowed insulin to be mass produced, making it widely available to all who needed it no matter their financial means. The bill before the House reflects this noble principle.
The Canada pharmacare act would establish a framework for the implementation of universal public pharmacare in Canada. This legislation is modelled on our cherished Canada Health Act. It mirrors the 2018 majority support of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health, which studied the issue of pharmacare for two solid years. It also is based squarely on the recommendations of the Hoskins Advisory Council on the Implementation of National Pharmacare.
Like the Canada Health Act, the Canada pharmacare act specifies the conditions that provincial and territorial prescription drug insurance programs must meet to receive federal funding. This includes the core principles of public administration, comprehensiveness, universality, portability and accessibility. The Canada pharmacare act would establish a new Canadian pharmaceutical policy by declaring that it would be the duty of the Government of Canada to facilitate access to prescription drugs without financial or other barriers in order to protect and promote the physical and mental well-being of Canadians.
The overarching purpose of universal public pharmacare is simple. It will ensure that all Canadians get access to the medication they need regardless of their ability to pay. For too long, prescribing decisions in Canada have been influenced by industry profits, marketing and lobbying efforts. Instead, decisions about what drugs are covered ought to be based on empirical evidence and the best health outcomes for patients.
To accomplish this, formulary coverage must be managed by an agency that is arm's length from government and free of industry interference. As such, New Democrats believe that it is imperative to construct a comprehensive public drug list that meets this goal.
For this reason, the Canada pharmacare act would give the federal health minister the authority to work with the provinces and territories to establish an independent drug agency with the mandate to the following: assess the clinical and cost-effectiveness of prescription drugs compared to other treatment options; advise on which prescription drugs, supplies and devices should be covered; negotiate prices and supply arrangements with drug manufacturers; provide advice to health care practitioners and patients on how best to use prescription drugs; and monitor the safety and clinical effectiveness of prescription drugs.
New Democrats are also very mindful of the need to ensure that Canadians with rare diseases and disorders are well served and that promising drug therapies are accessible. We believe that special care must be taken to ensure that drug listing decisions are responsive to these requirements and future pharmaceutical innovation. Ultimately, the goal must be to construct a broad, comprehensive, national drug list that all provinces and territories agree to cover, without cost to their residents, in exchange for federal transfers. This is the premise of our successful medicare system. It works and it is deeply valued by Canadians.
Importantly, New Democrats believe that pharmacare is an important piece of a large, comprehensive pharmaceutical policy reform. In addition to public pharmacare, Canada needs the re-establishment of public drug manufacturing in Canada, an intellectual property innovation fund that ensures taxpayer-funded research is commercialized for our citizens' benefit, patented medicine pricing transparency and the use of compulsory licensing when drug companies refuse to make patented pharmaceuticals available to Canadians on reasonable terms.
To situate this legislation in its historical context, it is important to remember that universal public drug coverage was always intended to be part of the medicare. In 1961, the Royal Commission on Health Services was appointed by Progressive Conservative prime minister John Diefenbaker to study the concept of universal public health care. Mr. Diefenbaker appointed a fellow Conservative, Justice Emmett Hall, to chair that royal commission.
In 1964, the Hall commission released its report, which surprised many by recommending the adoption of the comprehensive health insurance program based on New Democrat Tommy Douglas's Saskatchewan model. In response, some provincial premiers charged that this approach was an intrusion into their jurisdiction, and there was reluctance to proceed within then prime minister Lester Pearson's Liberal caucus. Ironically, we hear much of the same claptrap today.
However, because Canadians had elected a minority Parliament in 1963, with New Democrats holding the balance of power, Tommy Douglas was able to leverage this influence and work with the Pearson government to advance the implementation of medicare, and indeed they did. In 1966, Parliament adopted the Medical Care Act by a vote of 177 to two.
At that time, it was understood that prescription drugs and other essential health services would incrementally be integrated into medicare. In particular, the urgent need to provide coverage for out-of-hospital prescription drugs was specifically highlighted by the Hall commission. However, over a half-century has now passed and, despite repeated studies, proposals, pledges and solemn political promises in campaign platforms, Canada remains the only major country that offers universal health care without some form of universal pharmaceutical coverage. This is not just unjust; it is perplexing from both a health and fiscal perspective.
Canada's failure to implement universal public drug coverage means that at least 20% of Canadians, some seven and a half million Canadians, cannot access the medicine they need when they need it. One in four Canadians is forced to avoid filling or renewing a prescription due to cost, or skips doses because they cannot afford it. To add injury, Canadians pay among the highest prescription drug prices in the industrialized world, due to our U.S.-style private patchwork approach to drug coverage. Even those with private coverage are seeing their employer-sponsored benefits shrink, a trend that has accelerated due to the economic impacts of COVID. In fact, Canadians now are twice as likely to have lost prescription drug coverage as to have gained it in the past year. Worst of all, Canadians die each year simply because they cannot afford the medicine they need.
It is time to finally address this serious deficiency. Evidence has been clear for decades that universal public pharmacare would expand coverage and improve outcomes, while reducing costs for Canadians. Most recently, the Liberals' own Hoskins advisory council found that universal public pharmacare would reduce annual system-wide spending on prescription drugs by $5 billion through the negotiation of lower drug prices, increased generic substitution and streamlined benefits administration. The Hoskins report also found that businesses and employees would see their prescription drug costs reduced by $16 billion annually under pharmacare, and families would see their out-of-pocket drug costs reduced by over $6 billion.
Under this NDP bill, the average Canadian family would save $500 per year and the average employer would save $600 per employee. Universal public drug coverage would also mean long-term savings for our public health care system when those who cannot afford to fill prescriptions achieve improved health outcomes. Yes, it is a fact. With universal, comprehensive and public pharmacare, we can cover every single Canadian's prescription medicine and devices and save billions of dollars every year.
In public life, it is rare to find such an effective policy innovation staring us in the face. Only the most obtuse right-wing ideologue or courage-challenged centrist could fail to see the clear health and economic benefits of this necessary and sensible public policy. It is time and Canadians know it. Polls repeatedly demonstrate astronomical support for public pharmacare because, as with medicare, Canadians know a good idea when they see it. Just as establishing universal hospital and physician care took courage and cross-partisan collaboration, so too will the implementation of pharmacare.
I urge all parliamentarians to join us at this historic hour by supporting the swift passage of the Canada pharmacare act. Let us follow in the brave footsteps of those who served before us, and march forward together toward a more just and healthy society for all.