Madam Speaker, as I said, guided by the initial recommendations in the council's interim report, budget 2019's first step was to create a Canada drug agency to take a coordinated approach toward assessing the effectiveness of negotiating drug prices. Part of the work of the agency is the development of a national formulary, promoting more consistent coverage across the country and creating a national strategy for the high cost of drugs for rare diseases to help Canadians get better access to the effective treatments they need.
That is why budget 2019 proposed to provide Health Canada with $35 million over four years, starting in 2019-20, to establish a transition office to support the creating of a Canada drug agency and a national formulary, so everyone could benefit from it. This is the initial step toward national pharmacare.