NDP leader Jagmeet Singh made public a memo from federal drug regulators to the Health minister, raising concerns about the pharmaceutical lobby’s political influence.. Jagmeet Singh .“The pharmaceutical industry is simply not amenable to any measure that would further constrain its ability to sell patented medicines in Canada at free market prices,” said the memorandum to the Health minister..According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB), a government agency that oversees drug pricing, wrote the document on Dec. 8, 2021..“The hard reality is even wealthy countries like the US and Canada find themselves at an increasing disadvantage in their dealings with a sophisticated, transnational trillion-dollar pharmaceutical industry when seeking to advance reforms that put long-term sustainability over short-term profitability,” said the PMPRB memo..In a 2022 Supply and Confidence Agreement, New Democrats agreed to vote with the Liberal government in the minority 44th Parliament on a Liberal promise to pass a bill on universal public drug insurance coverage by Dec. 31, 2023. No bill has been introduced to date..“It is very clear the Liberal government is in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry and you are paying the price of that,” said Singh..“You are paying higher drug prices because of this.”.On Thursday, NDP MP Don Davies from Vancouver Kingsway, BC, told reporters the government failed to keep several promises regarding the regulation of drug prices..“In 2015, the Liberals came into office promising to lower prescription costs for Canadians,” said Davies..“Today, in 2023, we don’t have a single reform actually in force.” . Pills .The NDP proposed a pharmacare program during the 2019 election campaign that taxpayers would fund. It included a $5 user fee for patients who chose brand-name medications over generic substitutes..The Parliamentary Budget Office expects the pharmacare program to cost $10.5 billion annually..Aides to former Finance minister Bill Morneau were discovered to have attended confidential meetings with insurance lobbyists who were opposed to pharmacare, according to Access to Information records obtained by the NDP in 2020..“At the end of the day, it’s certainly important we're able to brief up internally here at Finance with the clearest picture possible of the state of play and potential impacts for the insurance sector,” read one staff email..Despite Morneau’s aides attending the meetings with the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association, none of the meetings were reported under the Lobbying Act..Lobbyists provided in-house research comprised of “sensitive information not to be shared” indicating pharmacare was costly and not viable, said records.
