Canada’s pharmacare bill has officially been introduced in Parliament

Minister of Health Mark Holland rises during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. Holland is expected to introduce legislation for a national pharmacare framework on Feb. 29

Health Minister Mark Holland has tabled the legislation to create the framework for a national single-payer pharmacare program Thursday afternoon.

This legislation is a key piece of the supply and confidence agreement that sees the NDP support the Liberals on confidence votes in exchange for advancing key priorities including pharmacare.

Federal Health Minister Mark Holland is expected to speak on the tabling shortly.

“This is a historic day for Canadians,” said NDP health critic and lead on pharmacare negotiations Don Davies Thursday morning.

“This is the culmination of a dream that began when Tommy Douglass invented health care in Saskatchewan in the 1940s. It’s the culmination of decades of  hard work by New Democrats, progressive Canadians and allied organizations.”

The original deadline to introduce legislation was the end of 2023, but it was pushed to the end of February. In exchange for the extension, the NDP pushed for coverage of contraception, like birth control and emergency contraception, and diabetes medication to be included in the future implementation of pharmacare.

“We have taken that first big step of national, universal pharmacare today,” NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said.

The NDP first said that they reached a deal for single payer pharmacare framework last Friday, and the government confirmed it.

Video: B.C. diabetes patients await Pharmacare details

On Sunday, Alberta Health Minister Adriana LaGrange said that her province planned to opt-out of a national program, instead looking to get their per capita share of funding in cash.

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Quebec also intends to pull out of a national program because they already have a provincial drug plan.

Singh said that he is open to Quebec having it’s own plan for pharmacare as long as there are not gaps between the two programs.

Meanwhile, he calls on Alberta and the other provinces to negotiate with Ottawa once legislation is passed to get deals in place for contraception and diabetes coverage.

“There are going to be a number of provinces that are very excited to jump into this, but this is very similar to how things started with our healthcare system. Initially many said no, they said no off the top, and then they saw many people getting free healthcare in their provinces,” Singh said.

On Tuesday, Health Minister Mark Holland said he wished the agreement did not leak ahead of time saying it is causing confusion. He added he sees plans to pull out of national pharmacare as premature as the legislation had not yet been tabled.

Holland said that he planned to call his provincial and territorial counterparts to bring them up to speed on the legislation prior to tabling it.