News
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the House of Commons, September 2020. Image credit: Adam Scotti/PMO
Liberals rhetorically support NDP pharmacare bill, then vote against it
Karl Nerenberg | The purpose of the NDP's pharmacare bill was to advance a process to which the Trudeau government claims it is fully committed. And yet the governing Liberals voted against it.
News
NDP finance critic Peter Julian. Image: Peter Julian/Facebook
NDP pushes wealth tax and universal drug plan
Karl Nerenberg | MP Peter Julian has introduced a private member's bill to create a national prescription drug benefit for all Canadians, in conjunction with the provinces.
Columnists
Image: Upstream/Facebook
Where is the present-day Monique Bégin in Justin Trudeau's Liberal party?
Bill Blaikie | Former health minister Monique Bégin worked to get her Liberal colleagues on board with the Canada Health Act in 1984. Who in today's Liberal party is pushing for national pharmacare?
Blog
Image: Jamie/Flickr
Canada's pseudo-health care system relies on people getting sick, not staying well
Ed Finn | Federal and most provincial governments continue to deny many thousands of citizens the basic preventive and protective health services that are standard practice in most other advanced nations.
Blog
Photo: Mpelletier1/Wikimedia Commons
Bogus concerns about pharmacare's affordability contrived by conservatives to block or delay it
Ed Finn | Conservative politicians and pundits are questioning the feasibility of adding pharmaceutical coverage to Canada's public health-care system, but they are asking the wrong question.
Podcast
Prescription drugs
Many more lobbyists hired to stop pharmacare
Marc Belanger, C. Marie Ainsborough, Derek Blackadder | RadioLabour's Canada Report April 19-26, 2019 -- Nurses say lobbyists are trying to stop pharmacare, what happened when British tourists supported a picket line, the LabourStart report and more.
Blog
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).
Liberals could have changed the channel and helped Canadians with a pharmacare program
David J. Climenhaga | Announcing a full pharmacare program would have shifted the nation's attention immediately away from the hostile media frenzy the gong show before the House of Commons justice committee has become.
Blog
Prescription bottles. Photo: Airman Valerie Monroy/U.S. Air Force/Wikimedia Commons
Long-delayed introduction of pharmacare should be top priority in this election
Ed Finn | If Canadian voters vociferously demand that all the contending candidates and parties make pharmacare an unbreakable priority in the 2019 federal election, it may really become a reality next year.
Podcast
For many Canadians, it's the rent or medicine
For many Canadians, it's the rent or the medicine - RadioLabour
Marc Belanger, C. Marie Ainsborough, Derek Blackadder | Weekly labour roundup by RadioLabour for Feb. 1-7, 2019 focuses on national pharmacare, the opioid crisis and the need for new rules for the global economic order.
Blog
Image: Linda Silas
The fight for a comprehensive pharmacare program
Maya Bhullar | Linda Silas of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Union discusses the fight for a national pharmacare guided by principles of universality, single payer, public administration, and national formulary.
Blog
Bill Morneau. Photo: International Monetary Fund/flickr
We will get universal pharmacare only if Canadians mobilize for it as they did for medicare
Dennis Gruending | The Liberals are promising pharmacare but not a universal program. Let's look to the wisdom of medicare founders T.C. Douglas and Emmett Hall on how to proceed.
Blog
Stephen Mandel (Photo: David J. Climenhaga)
Stephen Mandel to lead Alberta Party; probably won't take Tory insider's advice to go 'ultra-left'
David J. Climenhaga | A former chief of staff to prime minister Stephen Harper advises the Alberta Party, which chose former Edmonton mayor Stephen Mandel as leader last night, to "campaign against oil."