- Member of Parliament
- Minister of Health
- Liberal
- Ajax
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $134,982.00
- Government Page
- May/29/24 11:10:10 p.m.
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Madam Chair, in the first order, I want to say to the member and to Noor and her family how sorry I am that she is going through this, and how dreadfully difficult it would be to get that diagnosis and live with that condition and then have to worry about medication on top of it.
We do have action on drugs for rare diseases. We are negotiating now with provinces to try to identify what drugs we can look at to help folks who have a rare condition and need rare drugs so they can get help dealing with these extraordinary costs. One of the reasons it is so important that we take the collective action we are taking with pharmacare and take these steps is that we need to get to a world where everybody gets the medication they need and they are not in the kind of situation that the member described Noor is in.
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- May/29/24 9:11:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is one of the most heart-wrenching things in the world. I can go back to my time at the Heart and Stroke when I headed its Ontario mission. I was the national director of children and youth, and I would see folks who had heart attacks and strokes because they did not have access to their diabetes medication and were not following a proper regime. As I mentioned, it can lead to all kinds of other terrible outcomes.
Adherence to these medicines is essential for their health. It is also essential as a matter of cost reduction. It is extraordinarily expensive to allow somebody to get into a catastrophic state. We need to get out of the business of crisis management in health care. We need to be up the stream preventing these things. The Public Health Agency of Canada has done extraordinary work, but we need to do a lot more work on prevention. The future in this country is avoiding illness before it ever happens and making sure that people live long, healthy and full lives by avoiding illness and disease and keeping our hospitals empty because the services are simply not needed.
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- May/21/24 3:12:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her important work on this issue.
We share the goal of ensuring that everyone across the country can access the medication they need. This is essential. I have a very simple question for the vast majority of Conservative Party members who oppose abortion. Why do they also oppose access to contraceptives? The only answer is that these members oppose women's rights in general.
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- May/10/24 10:33:58 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it was a tough conversation. Virtually every day we were talking about different elements of it.
The member for Vancouver Kingsway was very clear that his heart and his intention were on fixing the very issues he is talking about. I know that he carries heavy in his heart, as I carry heavy in mine, the types of circumstances that he is talking about, where families desperately need these medicines in order to keep their kids safe and healthy.
I remember Sarah from a clinic in Ottawa, and I talk about this often just because of how much it rattled me. She said that people are reusing syringes, increasing the danger of blood-borne disease, and that there are people who wind up having a limb amputated or going blind unnecessarily because they did not have the medication they needed.
We cannot afford to delay; we have to get this done. There is too much need and there are too many people who are suffering.
Again, I get that the Conservative Party is against the plan. Conservatives made that very clear. They do not want it. They do not believe that this is an area in which we should be taking action. However, the collective will of the House is that we do serve and help these people. I would say that blocking the bill under the pretense of wanting more debate is nonsense. The Conservatives are against it and are never going to be for it. There is no amount of debate that will ever get them to a different position. Their sole purpose is obstruction, which would block these essential medicines from getting to the people who need them.
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- May/6/24 3:44:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is a concrete proposal to move pharmacare forward in this country. The drugs are two classes of drugs. They represent more than 80 different medical drugs that deal specifically with diabetes and contraceptives. It is part of a broader suite of actions that we are taking, such as, for example, drugs for rare diseases. I am currently having conversations with every province and territory about how we can take action on drugs for rare diseases so that folks with rare diseases can get access to the medications they need.
It is part of what we have done on bulk purchasing to realize $300 million in savings for Canadians across the country. It also builds on the work that we are doing with a pilot in P.E.I., where we have been able to get copays down to five dollars there, saving seniors hundreds and hundreds of dollars in P.E.I.
Action is taken one step at a time by demonstrating in evidence exactly what is going to be saved and exactly how this should function. As an example, in British Columbia, when it comes to contraceptives, it already shows that the province is saving more than it costs to run the program. I suspect we will also see that in diabetes. Canadians, rightfully, want to see this in evidence. They want to see these things live out there, demonstrate how they work in each example and then build on that successively.
Our health care system was based on an iterative process by making sure that the steps we take are prudent, smart and fiscally responsible, and that is the way that we need to proceed with pharmacare as well.
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- Apr/16/24 11:15:50 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. House leader for the NDP. I am very pleased to work with him again in his role as the critic for health. He is absolutely right. I appreciate that these were not always easy conversations. They were indicative of the conversations we had when we were both House leaders. Finding that common ground, as two different parties, is often difficult.
I think, for people like Amber, we can see what the difference is. The cost consequence for Amber of not being able to have access to the life-changing medication she needs, let us be very direct, could be devastating. It could mean that Amber winds up with a heart attack or stroke. It could mean that she has a limb amputated or that she dies. It certainly means that Amber is less productive, less able to contribute to society and almost definitely going to have an earlier death. The cost of not providing that medication is far superseded by those negative outcomes, not just as a matter of social justice but as a matter of material cost.
Are the Conservatives going to be there for Amber? Are they going to be there for people who need their diabetes medication? Are they going to vote for their constituents who need these medications, or are they going to vote against them?
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- Feb/29/24 2:49:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, access to medication for diabetes is not just a question of social justice, it is a question of saving lives. It is a question of prevention. It is a question of reducing costs enormously across the country. Specifically with Alberta, I have had very constructive conversations with Adriana LaGrange, who has been willing to work, compromise and find that common ground.
Unfortunately, across the aisle, that is not what we see. Today, the leader of the official opposition, the Conservatives, ran away when asked if he would support diabetes medication. He refused to answer whether he would slash contraceptives for women. The Conservatives are already against dental. I would really like to know where they stand on pharmacare.
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- Feb/5/24 2:29:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is crucial that we reduce the cost of living in general and ensure affordability. That is why we worked with all provinces and territories to co-purchase medications so we could reduce costs. With respect to the question about lobbying, I think that is a great question for Jenni Byrne.
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