Yes, I want to thank parliamentary co-operation.
Madam Speaker, I would say to this place that this is what we were intended to do. When we were elected as members of Parliament, we are not here to shout things at each other, to belittle each other or to put each other down. We are here to listen to each other. The purpose of debate is to ensure that we take each other's ideas and that we find common ground. In this bill, Bill C-64, in pharmacare and in dental care, we are embodying exactly what I believe our constituents elected us to do.
Right now, we have 1.8 million seniors who, in many cases, have never had access to oral health care in their lives. I talked to a denturist who knew a senior who has not had new dentures for 50 years. They lost their dentures and had no money to replace them. The denturist talked about the dignity and the way that senior felt, knowing that they were going to get new teeth and that they could go out in the world, feeling that somebody cared about them. Let us think of the extraordinary nature of that.
When going to seniors homes and when talking to people who work with seniors, they ask if this is really going to happen. They talk about the dignity that comes from it. It is not only about that healthy smile or that they are not going to wind up in an emergency room for an avoidable procedure, but also about the dignity of saying that we care about them, that we see them and that their health matters.
We have one of the most extraordinary health care systems in the world, but it cannot be the best health care system in the world unless oral health is part of the equation. When we do not take care of oral health, when we are not there for oral health, then the costs, not just in terms of social justice but also in terms of health outcomes, are entirely unacceptable. I would submit that is not the country we want to live in.
I am also extraordinarily proud that, about two weeks ago, the Minister of Families, with many of us there, launched the national food program. When I was at the Heart and Stroke Foundation, I advocated for fiercely for that, knowing when a child goes to school hungry, it is impossible to learn, and when a child is denied nutrition, it has devastating effects on their health. It is so sad to say that the research shows just one healthy meal a day has a dramatic change on health outcomes for children. The other thing it does is to give kids a taste for what nutritious food is. They develop their palates, and for their whole lives, their nutrition and nutritional profile is changed.
An essential part of being upstream and avoiding illness and sickness is dental care, a national food program and, yes, action on pharmacare. This is a big task. We know that some 21% of Canadians are struggling to meet the financial burden of being able to afford their medicines. We took essential action on bulk purchasing, reducing the cost of medicine in this country by hundreds of millions of dollars, by working with provinces and territories to do bulk purchasing.
We are taking critical action in P.E.I., with a plan for Islanders, on a pilot basis, to improve affordable access to prescription drugs. Since June 1, 2023, we have been able to reduce copays to five dollars for almost 60% of medications regularly used by Islanders. P.E.I. residents have saved more than $2 million in out-of-pocket costs. This was a precursor to show us what could happen. Whether one goes to P.E.I. or other provinces, and I know that the member for Malpeque talks a lot about this, they will hear about the difference it is making in the lives of people, having medication taken off the table as a concern. It is absolutely huge.
We also launched, in March 2023, a national strategy for drugs for rare diseases, with an investment of $1.5 billion over three years because we know that drugs for rare diseases can be cripplingly expensive, yet they are absolutely vital to keep people alive.
I will give one quick story before I talk about the bill in front of us and about the action we are taking. I had an opportunity a few weekends ago to be in the United States with my partner. We watched someone in front of us collapse. That person was obviously not a person of means. As they came to and I called 911, the thing that person was worried about was not their health, but it was how much money they were going to have to spend. How much money did my call to 911 burden that person with?
We do not want to be in a place, with any element of health care, where somebody of limited financial means, through no fault of their own, is in a circumstance that they cannot afford care, or where nurses on the front lines, taking care of patients and investing their entire lives in trying to make things better, are not given the opportunity to get proper health care for themselves.
Why these drugs? Why did we start with diabetes medication and with universal contraceptives? Let me start with diabetes medication. I want to thank the member for Brampton South for her fantastic advocacy on diabetes specifically. There are 3.7 million Canadians, and it is a growing number, who have diabetes. When I had a conversation in Ottawa with 12-year-old Raina, she summed it up better than anybody else. She said that as a 12-year-old it is really hard in this world, and that no 12-year-old should have to worry about all the problems of the world and also how they are going to afford their medication. If 12-year-old Raina can get it, then this House can get it.
When a person does not have access to their diabetes medication, it means they risk heart attack, stroke, kidney failure, blindness and amputation. I was talking to Sarah in a diabetes clinic, who told me about patients who were reusing syringes because they could not afford them. The risk of blood-borne disease is terrible. That is not the country we should live in, so we all need to rise to this moment to say that for people with a precursor disease like diabetes, which is so indicative of whether they will have future chronic disease and illness, it is essential that we are there with medication for people.
On contraceptives, let me just give one example that illustrates the case. Oral contraceptives cost $25 a month and have a 9% failure rate. The IUD costs about $500, lasts five years and has a failure rate of 0.2%. What it means is that a person who does not have money ends up choosing the birth control option that is cheaper, which has a 9% fail rate and means they are more likely to wind up with an unwanted pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease if they are not able to make the choices that give them autonomy over their own body and their reproductive health and future.
Therefore, it is absolutely essential, and not only for health. For example, in British Columbia, it has been demonstrated by UBC that it is saving more money with this initiative than it costs to roll it out. That is similar to what we are going to see in diabetes. This has such a powerful effect in prevention that it actually reduces costs overall.
The message it sends to women about their bodies and about their sexual and reproductive rights and autonomy is essential, which is that in this country, no matter where she is, a women will get what she needs to have control over her future and her body. That is a powerful statement, and it goes beyond just contraceptives as a drug.
As a very young person, when I was very, very young, I was exposed to sexual violence. That experience, in a family that did not talk about sex and did not have a conversation about what healthy sexual relationships were, had a devastating effect on my life, my self-esteem and my ability to stand up for myself at different moments in my life. It is difficult for somebody who does not have the information about their sexual health, who is not told that sex would never have anything to do with violence, that violence is about control and sex is about connection, that sex should always be consensual, should never be exploitive, should never involve violence and should always involve what a person wants for their body, that it should be pleasurable and it should make them feel like themselves.
As a health minister, it should not be in any way controversial for me to say those things to people. Whether a person is in a marriage or intersecting for the first time with somebody else sexually, they need to understand it is okay to be themselves and that as long as it conforms to those things, such as that sex should be pleasurable and that one should be empowered in one's body and have access to the reproductive medicines one needs to make choices about one's life, it is going to save lives, because the second-leading cause of death for young people is suicide. We lose about 500 kids every single year, and way too often it has to do with them not feeling comfortable in their own bodies. We have to end that.
In totality, looking at all of these actions, this is a new dawn for health, dealing with the crisis of now and also looking at prevention, so that we can build on what we started in the 1960s and ensure that all Canadians have access to the greatest health care system in the world.