OTTAWA -Finance Minister Ralph Goodale has pulled the fiscal rug out from under the provincial premiers' demands for a multibillion-dollar national pharmacare program, saying it's unaffordable.
With a price tag potentially as high as $12 billion per year, a universal drug program would make any other initiatives impossible, Goodale said Thursday from the West Africa country of Mali.
"The pharmacare expense item is one that is really very, very extraordinary . . . that would crowd out quite literally everything in health care and a lot of other things, too," said Goodale.
"So we've got to be very careful . . . focused upon what Canadians have said over and over again is their greatest concern and that is waiting lists, having access to the right services at the right time when they need them."
Provincial premiers have demanded Ottawa set up and finance a national program that would cover all drug costs for all Canadians.
But that's "a very, very expensive item," said Goodale, who is on a fact-finding tour of Africa for an anti-poverty commission.
His comments echoed statements made last week by Prime Minister Paul Martin and reiterated earlier this week by the new federal health minister.
Ujjal Dosanjh told about 250 physicians at the annual meeting of the Canadian Medical Association on Monday that a program to provide drugs for all Canadians "is not the way to go."
Ottawa is prepared to invest more money in medicare, but not by sponsoring a national pharmacare program as demanded by the provinces, Dosanjh told the CMA.
Undeterred, premiers are planning to meet during the first few days of September to conclude details of the pharmacare plan they want Ottawa to finance.
They'll present their proposal to Martin at a first ministers' meeting on health care in mid-September in Ottawa.
Canadians spend about $8 billion annually on prescription drugs that are delivered through a patchwork of 13 provincial and territorial drug plans that premiers says is disjointed.
Experts have estimated a national pharmacare program would cost $7 billion to $12 billion a year -a price tag Martin has said is just too high.
And Canadians won't want to see more squabbling among politicians but instead, simply want to see medicare improved, said Goodale.
"I think Canadians want a health-care system that works, that delivers appropriate outcomes up to the standards that they would expect."
That means Martin's government will stick to its campaign promises from the June federal election: a catastrophic drug-care plan, which would cover unusually high drug costs; improved home care and spending to cut waiting times for care, Goodale added.
"It would be very difficult to see how the premiers' proposal could be accomplished within the known fiscal framework," he added.
In his first federal budget introduced last March, Goodale said he expected essentially no surplus dollars would be available this fiscal year or next.
However, he has set aside several billion in rainy-day funds, most of which are slapped on the federal debt of about $510 billion if not needed.
Critics have long complained the federal government consistently underestimates its surplus to reduce expectations and leave spending money for its own priorities.
