On Tuesday, Canada\u2019s NDP introduced Pharamacare legislation, outlining the New Democrats’ expectations of the government on the universal prescription medication program. \u00a0As part of the Confidence and Supply agreement, New Democrats are using their power to force the government to pass pharmacare legislation by the end of the year.<\/p>\n
Northern Ontario NDP MP\u2019s Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay) and Carol Hughes (Algoma\u2014Manitoulin\u2014Kapuskasing) say this move to make prescription medication universal is crucial to help families, seniors and those struggling to keep up with their monthly bills as the cost-of-living crisis continues.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m hearing how hard it is for residents of Northern Ontario to pay for their groceries, mortgage, gas, let alone their medication,\u201d said Angus. \u201cFor over 25 years now, Liberals have been promising Pharmacare. Our parents, grandparents and children are paying the price for this broken promise, while Big Pharma keeps making record profits.\u201d<\/p>\n
Liberals have delayed price reforms of patented medication four times; they reduced their initial reforms from estimated savings for Canadians of $13 billion to $3 billion. Last November, after his department was lobbied 126 times by pharmaceutical companies, the Minister of Health intervened to suspend even these price reforms once again\u2014opting to keep drug costs high for Canadians.<\/p>\n
And despite having an insurance program paid for by the taxpayers, Pierre Poilievre doesn\u2019t want Canadians to have free medication to stay healthy.\u00a0 The Conservatives teamed up with the Liberals last year to defeat the NDP Canada Pharmacare Act, but Jagmeet and the NDP didn\u2019t stop fighting. Now, New Democrats are using their power to force the Liberals to act.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout this pressure from the NDP, the government wouldn\u2019t act on this. We\u2019ve seen repeatedly how eager the Liberals are to work for big pharmaceutical instead of the senior or hardworking family who scrimp and save to afford their medication,\u201d said Hughes. \u201cThousands of people in my riding will benefit from Pharmacare, it will not only put money back in people\u2019s pockets, but it will save lives. The Liberals need to act on this now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Tuesday, Canada\u2019s NDP introduced Pharamacare legislation, outlining the New Democrats’ expectations of the government on the universal prescription medication program. \u00a0As part of the Confidence and Supply agreement, New Democrats are using their power to force the government to pass pharmacare legislation by the end of the year. Northern Ontario NDP MP\u2019s Charlie Angus …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[216],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorials"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 17:53:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61277"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61278,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61277\/revisions\/61278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}