The NDP tabled Private Member’s Bill C-213, An Act to Enact the Canada Pharmacare Act, in February. Bill C-213 is groundbreaking new federal legislation, modeled off the Canada Health Act, to establish a universal, single-payer, comprehensive and public pharmacare plan that will deliver better healthcare and improve the health and lives of millions of Canadians.

The NEU is asking our Members to show support for this important Bill sponsored by Peter Julian (New Westminster-Burnaby BC) by signing an e-petition at https://www.peterjulian.ca/pharmacare.

The Canada Pharmacare Act specifies the conditions and criteria that provincial and territorial prescription drug insurance programs must meet to receive federal funding. This includes the core principles of public administration, comprehensiveness, universality, portability, and accessibility. Universal public pharmacare will extend prescription drug coverage to every single Canadian, while us saving billions every year. The final report of the Hoskins Advisory Council found that, once fully implemented, universal public pharmacare will reduce annual system-wide spending on prescription drugs by $5 billion. Businesses and employees will see their prescription drug costs reduced by $16.6 billion annually and families will see their out of pocket drug costs reduced by $6.4 billion a year.As you know, across Canada, people are making impossible choices every day because they cannot afford their prescription medications. Over the past year alone, one-in-four Canadians were forced to avoid filling or renewing a prescription due to cost or take measures to extend a prescription because they could not afford to keep the recommended dosage schedule.

Even those with private coverage are seeing their employer-sponsored benefits shrink – a trend that has accelerated due to the economic impacts of COVID-19. In fact, Canadians are twice as likely to have lost prescription drug coverage as to have gained it over the past year.