Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the friendly reminder. Yes, I will be sharing my time with the member for Halifax.
As I was saying, the great folks in Oshawa received some wonderful news today from a corporation: Over 2,000 people will be hired back at the Oshawa plant. That is where the direction of the Canadian economy is going as we recover. It is great news for all of Ontario and all of Canada, and particularly for suppliers, for the main street in Oshawa and for the supply base of our tier one, tier two and tier three suppliers in the auto parts sector. It sets us up in a really positive way. This comes after the announcements by Ford, another corporation, and by FCA, another corporation.
When we talk about these corporations, we must remember they are people. The interesting thing is that a lot of pension funds manage money for nurses, frontline workers and teachers. They invest in these corporations. They hold their shares, they hold their bonds and they hold real assets. They are corporations of people.
Sometimes I hear rhetoric on the other side of the aisle, and it is frankly disappointing. I find it unrealistic. I find it shameful, to be honest. Yes, corporations across this country and across the world need to pay their fair share of taxes and be good corporate citizens. I very much dislike corporate cronyism, as I call it. However, at the end of the day, they employ Canadians. Small mom-and-pop shops depend on corporations. We depend on them. It is a beautiful virtuous circle.
I ask the members opposite, when we talk about corporations, to remember that these are people. These are people who create good middle-class jobs and employ millions of Canadians.
I will now move on to the main area I want to focus on: pharmacare.
The Government of Canada recognizes Canadians should not have to choose between buying groceries and paying for medication. That is why the government is committed to implementing a national pharmacare program to ensure that all Canadians have access to the prescription drugs they need. It is a goal we have been working toward since we first formed government in 2015. It remains our goal, as clearly stated in September's Speech from the Throne.
The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us all how important it is that Canadians have access to the medicines they need for keeping themselves and their families healthy. This is particularly true for Canadians who have lost coverage, or are at risk of losing coverage, during the pandemic. In response, our government is ramping up efforts to implement a national pharmacare plan that gets Canadians the drug coverage they need.
Our actions to date are concrete. The government is already acting on key recommendations from the advisory council on the implementation of national pharmacare, and our approach is in line with the council's advice.
Given the scope of the transformation required to achieve national universal pharmacare, the council suggested it would be practical to adopt a phased approach to implementation. Guided by the council's recommendations, budget 2019 outlined foundational elements to help Canada move forward on implementing national pharmacare, including developing a strategy for high-cost drugs for rare diseases.
We recognize that for many Canadians who require prescription drugs to treat rare diseases, the costs of medications can be astronomically high. That is why budget 2019 proposed to invest up to $500 million per year, starting in 2022-23, to help Canadians with rare diseases access the drugs they need.
Working with the provinces, territories and other partners will be key to developing a national strategy for high-cost drugs for rare diseases that allows us to gather and evaluate evidence, improve consistency of decision-making, and access and negotiate prices to ensure that effective treatments reach the patients who need them. In the recent Speech from the Throne, we committed to accelerating work on this strategy and expect to begin consultations very soon.
Budget 2019 also set aside $35 million over four years to create a Canadian drug agency transition office. This office will set the stage for the creation of a Canadian drug agency, which will enable a more coordinated approach to assessing effectiveness and negotiating prescription drug prices.
We will also accelerate work on the development of a national formulary, with a comprehensive, evidence-based list of prescribed drugs. This will promote more consistent coverage and patient access across the country and help keep drug prices low.
All these initiatives must be done in close collaboration with the provinces and territories. They are responsible for health care design and delivery in this country, and their collaboration will be key to the success of national universal pharmacare.
However, before we can implement a national pharmacare program in Canada, we need to address the rising cost of drugs in this country.
As the use of higher-cost specialty drugs, or personalized medicine, increased, Canadians could not afford to pay higher-than-average prices for drugs. This was not sustainable. What could we do? The answer was not that we should spend more. We already spend more per capita on pharmaceuticals than nearly every other country in the world. We needed a solution to bring fair prices and sustainable drug costs to Canada.
Part of the problem was that Canada's approach to patented drug price regulations was outdated. Our previous pricing regulations were established in the 1980s. We have more than 100 different public drug plans and thousands of private drug plans, which means that drug coverage is provided by a patchwork of payers. It was well past time to bring these regulations into the 21st century.
To make drugs more affordable, Canada needed a modernized approach to regulating patented drug prices that would protect Canadians from excessive prices. That is why last summer the government modernized the patented medicines regulations that provide the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board with the tools and information it needs to protect Canadians from excessive prices of patented medicines.
We will now benchmark prices against countries that are economically similar to Canada from a consumer protection standpoint. This is known commonly as benchmarking. Previously, the price ceilings for patented drugs in Canada were set by comparing our prices against prices in seven predetermined countries: France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. As a result of this benchmarking exercise, the list of countries has now been updated to remove the United States and Switzerland, and to add Australia, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain, for a total of 11 countries. Now we must deal with drug value and affordability.
We must also consider the value the drug offers and its overall affordability. Most other countries with a national pharmacare program already do this.
When setting a price we need to consider three things. The first is value for money. Does the drug offer a therapeutic benefit that justifies its cost? Second is the size of the market. How many people will it benefit? Third is Canada's GDP and GDP per capita. Can we afford to pay for it? These changes will provide the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, commonly known as the PMPRB, with the tools it needs to protect Canadians from excessive drug prices, and this will bring us in line with the policies and practices of most other developed countries.
These regulatory changes were critical steps toward improving the affordability and accessibility of prescription drugs. Along with other consumer protection initiatives at the PMPRB, we anticipate these changes will save roughly $13 billion over the next 10 years. This is a significant savings for Canadians. From the savings, public and private drug plans will have greater capacity to improve benefits for plan members and to consider new therapies that are not currently covered. All Canadians, including those with drug plans and those paying out of pocket, will benefit from lower prices of prescription drugs.
Modernizing pricing regulations complements the work already under way at Health Canada to streamline the regulatory review process for drugs by enabling priority drugs to reach market more quickly, and it supports—