Madam Speaker, I would point out that the Liberals have been in power for 18 years of those years since 1993, 16 of that in majority government. They have had a lot of time to address these structural problems.
I want to just quote from a letter that was written yesterday by the president of the Canadian Medical Association, Dr. Ann Collins. She says:
I shared my deep concern about the state of Canada's health systems, which were stressed before the pandemic and now have reached a critical tipping point. Many of my physician colleagues ... are exhausted and facing burnout. They are under immense pressure while they tackle the second wave of this pandemic ... Today's federal economic update should have offered health care providers hope of relief and a glimpse of the federal leadership required to keep our health system afloat. But instead it fell short. ... The reality is that our health care system is on the verge of crumbling.
This is what the head of Canada's doctors is saying.
Pharmacare, to answer my hon. colleague's direct question, is something that all provinces will join if the federal government puts sufficient money on the table and plays a leadership role so we can expand pharmaceutical coverage to be the exact same as any medical service, from hip replacement to cataract surgery to broken arms.
It is long overdue and the government should play a leadership role. It continues to say that it wants it in every throne speech, but fails to act on it.