L081 - Tue 7 Jan 1986 / Mar 7 jan 1986
ONTARIO DRUG BENEFIT ACT (CONTINUED)
The House resumed at 8 p.m.
ONTARIO DRUG BENEFIT ACT (CONTINUED)
Resuming the debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 54, An Act to Authorize and Regulate the Payment by the Minister to Specified Persons on Behalf of Specified Classes of Persons for the Dispensing of Specified Drugs.
Mr. Villeneuve: Before dinner, I was reading into the record the concerns of different people, particularly those in rural Ontario, which is very much the type of riding I represent. I was quoting from a pharmacist in Vankleek Hill, Paul Trottier, as to his grave concerns about what is occurring with Bills 54 and 55.
Hon. Mr. Bradley: Does my friend have any letters from consumers he wants to read?
Mr. Villeneuve: Yes. I will be getting to that. The Minister of the Environment (Mr. Bradley) is concerned about consumers. I have had a number of consumers express very much the same concerns. They are concerned about the always possible situation in rural Ontario where --
Mr. Breaugh: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: This is a very important debate, and I am rather taken aback that only three members of the Tory caucus are here for it. I would like you to check to see whether we have a quorum.
The Deputy Speaker ordered the bells rung.
8:06 p.m.
Mr. Villeneuve: I was touching on a situation that is very much in vogue. Concerning the people of eastern Ontario, I was quoting from a constituent in the riding of Prescott-Russell. My colleague the member for Prescott-Russell (Mr. Poirier) is not here right now, but I am sure he will be reading Hansard and will realize there are some people in his riding who have great concern about Bills 54 and 55.
Hon. Mr. Bradley: We used to get those letters when the Tories were in power. We gave them the same answers they did.
Mr. Villeneuve: Prior to dinner, when the Minister of the Environment was not here, I was touching on the fact that we had government by consultation prior to May 2. Now we have government by confrontation.
Hon. Mr. Bradley: Who did the Tories consult on Suncor?
Mr. Wildman: Ask the public school boards about consultation.
Hon. Mr. Bradley: Who did they consult on separate school funding?
The Deputy Speaker: Order.
Mr. Villeneuve: Now that we have great numbers in this chamber, it is difficult to get their attention. When the quorum call went out, it was not difficult to get their attention. Now it is a little more difficult because of the large numbers that are here.
These are the concerns of a person who lives in a riding that happens to be represented by a Liberal member. He chose to send correspondence to his neighbour to the south, who happens to be the representative of the great riding of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry.
Interjections.
The Deputy Speaker: Order. The member for Essex South (Mr. Mancini) is not in his seat.
Mr. Mancini: Is that not the guy who --
The Deputy Speaker: Order.
Mr. Villeneuve: The member for Essex South is trying to get my dander up.
An hon. member: Dandruff?
Mr. Villeneuve: I did not say dandruff. Mr. Speaker, it is difficult, but I am trying.
Paul Trottier, a pharmacist from the town of Vankleek Hill, closes his correspondence by saying:
"I should add that the Health minister is playing with a very complex matter, so complex he does not realize that if his proposal goes through it will backfire at the government in power, and the time is near, in the future.
"For example, the simple forces of economics will push the acquisition costs upwards very significantly. Why buy stock and finance quantities of 1,000 and 5,000 when size of 100 are available and rotate the stock faster?"
8:10 p.m.
We are speaking about small-town pharmacies that do not have the volumes that are prevalent in the more urbanized areas of Ontario. Somehow or other, the government currently in power forgets that rural Ontario still exists. It is trying to go after the large populated areas, those areas that represent a great deal of power in this Legislature.
As we discussed in the redistribution issue and I do not want to get off the topic of drugs -- the voice of rural Ontario is always being diminished. This government is trying to further diminish the power of the part of Ontario, the agricultural sector, that probably generates more business and more jobs than anyone ever gave it credit for.
I am coming to the consumers. The consumers in small-town Ontario are so concerned that they have written me numerous letters, correspondence that expresses --
Hon. Mr. Bradley: They want to pay higher prices for drugs.
Mr. Villeneuve: I tell the Minister of the Environment that -- and I will read the correspondence into the record if you will permit me, Mr. Speaker; it is very important correspondence that expresses the real concerns of the small people.
The Deputy Speaker: You may read excerpts from the correspondence but not whole letters.
Mr. Villeneuve: The present-day government and its affiliates to the left seem to forget the small people of Ontario out there, the people who make Ontario work, the average people, the people who created and made the good life possible in urban Ontario. I am quoting from Mrs. Paul Lamarche, RR 2, Winchester, Ontario, small-town Ontario.
An hon. member: What does RR mean?
Mr. Villeneuve: It means rural route.
I will quote, if you will permit me, Mr. Speaker. Mrs. Lamarche has written me not a long letter, but one that is very significant. "I am writing to bring to your attention a matter which is of great concern to me, namely, the legislation which is currently being read in Parliament concerning the pricing of prescriptions in Ontario." These are the kinds of people who live and earn their living in these small towns.
As I told members earlier, we have eight pharmacies, give or take one; it could be seven or it could be nine, but I believe we have eight pharmacies in the riding I represent. Should we lose one, two, three or four -- if we can imagine -- it will mean people from Winchester, Avonmore and Lancaster may have to drive to Cornwall, the main centre in the great riding represented by my colleague immediately beside me here, the member for Cornwall (Mr. Guindon). I am sure he would welcome these people as consumers in the city he represents, but I sort of like them being able to do business in their own towns in the riding of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry.
Mrs. Lamarche says: "Over the years, the service I have received from my local drug store has been great, including the prices charged." I emphasize to the Minister of the Environment that this is a consumer speaking --
Mr. Mancini: How do they know what the prices are?
Mr. Villeneuve: It is right here. "The pharmacist here has been invaluable in answering my questions and taking the time to talk to me when the doctors' offices are closed after hours and on weekends." This is one of the consumers about whom the Minister of the Environment seems to be very concerned.
Hon. Mr. Bradley: Has the member ever seen a letter-writing campaign? Come on.
Mr. Villeneuve: As we well know, the people who are now in government originated many letter-writing campaigns.
Mr. Charlton: The member's party ignored them.
The Deputy Speaker: Order.
Mr. Villeneuve: "This new legislation, while designed to save taxpayers' money, will have a terrible effect on small communities." This, I emphasize again, is a consumer. "I am sure some drug stores will close and many will cut back on services such as delivery and extended hours."
Many of these drug stores are general stores. The pharmacists run general stores to try to make ends meet. That is the kind of business the government is trying to do away with today. Small-town Ontario is the backbone of the great life enjoyed by some of our urban counterparts. Probably 75 per cent of the members of the Legislature come from urban ridings. They do not realize that rural Ontario creates 25 per cent of the jobs that give them the big, fat salaries they earn here in urban Ontario, be it in Toronto, Hamilton, Kingston, London, Sarnia -- all of those great cities.
This is from another consumer concerned about the legislation that is being brought in by way of Bills 54 and 55, Mrs. Cathy Shay of Winchester: "I am writing to you about the legislation which is currently being considered by the new government of Ontario. I am a person who is functionally employed, and it also happens to be in pharmacy." This lady may have a small conflict of interest. Apparently she works in a small-town pharmacy. She is concerned about having the place where she --
Hon. Mr. Bradley: The member should not pass these people off as consumers. They have a vested interest, and that is fine, but he should not pass them off as consumers.
Mr. Villeneuve: We are all consumers.
Mr. G. I. Miller: And taxpayers.
Mr. Villeneuve: We are all consumers.
"I do not wish to join the forces of the unemployed, which might very well happen if this bill is passed. I am not only speaking for myself but I am speaking on behalf of the four employees in the small pharmacy where I am employed."
This is not only a pharmacy; it has many items for sale, almost like a general store. This lady is a consumer. She is concerned about how small-town Ontario will continue to function. She probably has some senior citizen friends or relatives in senior citizens' homes or nursing homes. In eastern Ontario, we have the largest concentration of senior citizens anywhere on a per capita basis. It is very important to them that they have a place where their prescriptions can be meted out to them without having to drive long distances.
We have a few doctors in rural Ontario in the riding I represent who have at their disposal some of the drugs they prescribe and sell, but they have a very minimum amount. Therefore, it is imperative that they have pharmacists operating in a viable fashion, not on a hand-to-mouth basis but in a manner in which they can serve the people who live in these small towns.
This is from another consumer, Cindy Kerkhof from Winchester: "I would like you to know how unhappy I am about the legislation being proposed and now affecting the pharmacies of Ontario." This is another unhappy consumer; we have many of them. Again, the government of Ontario is not listening; it is ramrodding.
As a resident of Winchester and as a taxpayer, Cindy Kerkhof says, "I have had excellent service from our local pharmacy and have had no problem with the prices." This is a consumer. "Therefore, I cannot understand why the legislation is necessary to begin with." This lady does not even know why these things are happening. No one has been able to explain why, other than to become literally dictators to the profession.
Mr. Brandt: It has to be a mistake.
Mr. Villeneuve: I am sure it is a mistake.
8:20 p.m.
Hon. Mr. Bradley: We know what used to happen.
The Deputy Speaker: Order.
Mr. Villeneuve: What used to happen was government by listening, always listening. It is most difficult, because I see that the government now feels the heat. The heat is rising.
Cindy Kerkhof continues: "lf pharmacies lose revenue, and there is no doubt that they will, they will undoubtedly cut down on services and some may even close. This would be disastrous for small communities like mine. This legislation would not hurt the larger chains."
This lady realizes the economies of scale and realizes also that in rural Ontario, where pharmacies probably have to run a general store, among other things, just to make ends meet to provide a service, they will not continue if Bills 54 and 55 go through the way they are.
I would also like at this time to mention the committee business. The minister has told us he would send this legislation to committee. There was a great question at one time about whether it would go to committee. As a matter of fact, I will not read the many telegrams I received on a certain Monday morning oriented towards ensuring that this legislation would not be railroaded. I have telegrams galore that ask me as a member of this Legislative Assembly to ensure that Bills 54 and 55 go to committee, much the same as Bill 30 went to committee, so that every individual who has a stake in Bills 54 and 55 has a fair hearing.
I can guarantee to the Minister of the Environment, who is very concerned about the consumers, that many consumers will come to this committee and state their concerns, particularly about small, rural Ontario pharmacies. That is what it is all about. We are concerned that some of these pharmacies may well have to close simply because they cannot make ends meet.
I hope we still have a system in this province that has a little bit of capitalist incentive left in it, but this government is in the process of removing that incentive. Bureaucrats, bureaucrats, bureaucrats: that is what this government is all about; plenty of bureaucracy to make sure that small business finally gives up, lies down and dies so that governments can take over. That concerns me tremendously.
Mr. Speaker, I know you would not allow me to read into the record the numerous items of correspondence I have had. I will not go into all the telegrams, but I have one here from the Woolco Pharmacy on Brookdale Avenue in Cornwall, signed by Wayne Miller, a man who lives in the riding of my colleague the member for Cornwall. I am going to read part of it because I think it is important that it be shown in the record.
"I am writing to you as a concerned pharmacist regarding the content of the new Health Disciplines Act Mr. Elston has presented to you for your consideration. If this bill is passed, it will almost certainly mean the end of many small pharmacies and it will also mean much unemployed staff presently earning a living within the confines of these businesses." Again, we are talking about a pharmacy in a city of almost 50,000 concerned about not having the volume to be able to purchase the drugs it has to purchase to supply its customers, the patients, and not being able to make ends meet.
"Mr. Elston would have you believe that pharmacies are making huge profits because of price-spreading policies." Next is a four-word sentence with an exclamation mark, "This is not so!" This was said by just about every pharmacist who has taken the time to write to me and, I am sure, to all my colleagues.
"When the fee-and-cost pricing system was first instituted in pharmacies, many of us were 100 per cent in favour of it. It would give pharmacies a great professional aspect as well as protecting the consumer from having to pay excessive costs for expensive drugs. Since this inception, costs of drugs have greatly escalated, and we have many prescriptions selling for well over $50 and we still stay with a $5 dispensing fee."
Economics comes into play. We are dealing with situations where many of the consumers and the professionals who are involved are getting the very short end of the stick.
I have a letter from a consumer that I want the Minister of the Environment to note. It is not typewritten, but very well handwritten. It comes from Stella Montroy of Mountain, Ontario. Mountain is a little south and a little west of Winchester. It is a great little community. It has a lovely fall fair. They would have to drive to Ottawa if the pharmacy in Winchester should ever happen to close, heaven forbid. It is about an hour's drive one way.
Mr. Pierce: A nice Sunday afternoon drive.
Mr. Villeneuve: They are not open on Sunday afternoon.
Mr. Pierce: They are not going to be open at all.
Mr. Villeneuve: It reads, "Attention: regarding legislation concerning pharmacies, what is happening with our government today?" I wonder about that myself quite often. They seem to be isolating the professions. Members well remember that before Christmas the words "Queen's Counsel" disappeared from the dictionary. The words disappeared in one fell swoop.
Non. Mr. Bradley: All the Tories lost their QCs.
Mr. Villeneuve: Goodbye. The government is now attacking our pharmacists, our doctors --
Hon. Mr. Bradley: Bring back the QCs that were really earned on merit.
Mr. Villeneuve: Yes. The government of the day is separating and attacking every different profession. I am concerned about agriculture. When are they going to jump on them?
Hon. Mr. Bradley: What are you doing about Sundays now? I see you want to open the stores on Sundays. What does rural Ontario think about that?
The Deputy Speaker: Order.
8:30 p.m.
Mr. Villeneuve: They have already put a very heavy burden on agriculture with the introduction of a spills bill without protecting agriculture. Liability insurance is going through the roof.
I am getting back to the drug problem. "I am really worried," says Stella Montroy from Mountain, "about the legislation the government is putting through concerning the pharmacists and how it will affect pharmacy. I am afraid that if pharmacies lose money they will understandably cut down on services and may even close their doors; disastrous to small communities such as ours. I see every day the services that pharmacists provide to my neighbours and friends and in particular to senior citizens. I have worked in a pharmacy in the past number of years. I certainly do not want to lose my job and it is very important to me and to the people of my community that pharmacists do make ends meet."
I have a number of telegrams that will possibly be overlooked because basically the message is the same. I am sure my colleagues in government have also received many of these telegrams. They express concern about what rural Ontario will have to live with: problems of no service or reduced service.
The dispensing of drugs is very important to the senior citizens in the riding I represent. As I said prior to the dinner break, we have gone ahead and built a number of lovely and comfortable senior citizens' homes in some of the small towns in rural Ontario.
Mr. Pierce: That was under the Conservative government.
Mr. Villeneuve: Yes, under a Tory government.
I do not know whether we are trying to discourage them or what, but if these small towns lose the pharmacies they now have, that will force some of the senior citizens to go to larger centres to live. No one on the government side seems to care about senior citizens. We have a minister who is supposed to be looking after the interests of senior citizens, but I have not heard him speak one word about the concerns senior citizens have expressed to my colleagues and, I am sure, to those on the other side of the House.
Hon. Mr. Van Horne: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I have not heard one question from the official opposition in the more than 50 days we have sat. How can one speak when one is not asked questions? Where have those guys been?
The Deputy Speaker: That is not an appropriate point of order.
Mr. Villeneuve: I am glad the minister made it just in time to hear that statement. I am still waiting to hear his statement about the concerns of the people his ministry represents. We will be watching the papers for some news releases from the minister. I appreciate that the minister is here and is listening.
This is from the Ingleside Pharmacy, a little pharmacy in small-town Ontario in a great tourist area. "Attached you will find a copy of a letter addressed to the Minister of Health, the Honourable Murray Elston. As you are aware, the minister has submitted some rather startling, in my opinion, proposals for legislation which would affect all pharmacies in Ontario and damage their ability to provide top-quality health care to the people of Ontario."
We are talking about dismantling one of the best health systems that exists anywhere, bar none. If this starts to degenerate and disintegrate, I do not know where it will stop. It is a very important subject to everyone, but in particular to senior citizens.
It goes on to say, "While there were some actions taken by previous Ministers of Health of your political persuasion with which I was prepared to take issue, there was never any possibility of a minister going off the deep end as the present minister seems to be prepared to do."
That is a letter from a constituent, a man who is in the pharmacy business, and he says the minister is going off the deep end. Draw your own conclusions, Mr. Speaker.
"I would hope, as your constituent, you will do all in your power to provide a sympathetic voice on behalf of pharmacists in your riding to make sure that this matter is raised in the Legislature and that this bill" -- and again, this pharmacist is concerned -- "will go to committee and receive a fair hearing."
I think there have been some communication problems, because I had occasion to sit in on the Ministry of Health estimates. The minister told us he was always prepared to go to committee. How did this message go out to all of our pharmacists so that, indeed, they were very concerned this may not go to committee and receive a fair hearing?
Mr. Wildman: The Conservatives gave them the wrong information.
Mr. Villeneuve: The Conservatives were simply watching what this so-called new alliance was doing. This new alliance was shoving --
Hon. Mr. Bradley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: One always has to word these carefully so that one does not say the member is misrepresenting the truth. Let me put it this way, so I do not say that --
The Deputy Speaker: Get to the point of order.
Hon. Mr. Bradley: The member is obviously not relating the facts as they are, because if he did, he would know the Minister of Health has indicated at all times that this legislation will be going to committee, as legislation of this kind normally would.
The Deputy Speaker: That is not a point of order.
Hon. Mr. Bradley: The Tories provided the wrong information to the pharmacists.
The Deputy Speaker: Order.
Mr. Villeneuve: Mr. Speaker, I am simply relating to you the perception that pharmacists in my area had obtained from the information, or the lack of information, coming from the new government allied with our friends to the left. It left them wondering and pondering.
At that point they had no one, no political party other than this one right here. The Progressive Conservatives were the only real alternative and real speakers for the people involved here. That is why they came to us.
I must tell the Minister of the Environment that when I sat in estimates of the Ministry of Health -- and I do not recall seeing the Minister of the Environment there; I am sure he was busy --
Mr. Gillies: He was dispensing largess.
Mr. Villeneuve: He was cleaning up spills or whatever. I am sure he is very busy. It keeps him quite occupied, with the number of spills that have occurred.
I was in those estimates, being a member of that committee. On a particular Monday morning, we received hundreds of telegrams concerning the very strong possibility at that time -- I guess I have to say it was a lack of communication on behalf of the Minister of Health or the government in general. Why would the information be perpetrated throughout the industry that the minister was going to shove it through?
Hon. Mr. Bradley: It was deliberate misrepresentation.
Mr. Villeneuve: Oh a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: I do not know what the Minister of the Environment means by "deliberate misrepresentation." I would like him to explain that to me.
The Deputy Speaker: No. I listened to it. He did not refer to any person or group when he stated those words. However, while I am on the point, I am hearing some words over here for the second time that are getting awfully close to being unparliamentary.
Mr. Villeneuve: Mr. Speaker, I want that to be on the record. When you say "over here," you are speaking of the Liberal benches. Is that right, Mr. Speaker? Are you speaking of the Liberal benches?
The Deputy Speaker: Order. Carry on with your speech, please.
8:40 p.m.
Mr. Villeneuve: Mr. Speaker, I am sure you will be pleased to know I am getting near the end of the correspondence I want to read into the record.
We have here a consumer, one of the people whom the Liberals are supposed to be concerned about, John Worrall from Avonmore. He says:
"No doubt you are aware of the Minister of Health's recent courageous act to protect the public interest by arbitrarily bypassing the negotiation process and imposing an unrealistic decision on the pharmacies and pharmacists of Ontario."
This is a consumer who is actually saying exactly what this party has been saying all along, namely, that the government is attempting to look courageous by trying to be white knights in shining armour to protect the consumer, while the consumers feel they do not need the kind of protection this government is attempting to provide, for the simple reason that they are very satisfied and happy with the services being provided in rural Ontario by the pharmacies and the pharmacists who live and work there.
I have a number of other situations, but I want to close by quoting again some really important facts from a pharmacist who has done a fair bit of in-depth study. He comes out with this:
"The Ontario Drug Benefit Act, 1985, would enable the Minister of Health to unilaterally set our professional fees. These clauses eliminate any meaningful negotiations between our association, the OPA and the ministry."
Therefore, we are talking about dictatorship right off the bat. I can accept setting the dispensing fees, but the dictating of the price of drugs is intolerable and unbelievable.
"Subsections 9(1), (2) and (3): This clause gives inspectors of the Ministry of Health enormous and unreasonable authority of search and seizure."
Are we in Russia? This is search and seizure of information that is confidential to the doctor, to the pharmacist and to the patient.
"In addition, the ministry at great cost would have to hire and train these people. Moreover, the Ontario College of Pharmacists, the regulating body, has inspectors at present, and this section takes away most of their authority."
This is a self-regulating group of professionals who are going to be dictated to by bureaucrats. What is this province coming to?
"Subsections 4(1) and (2) of the Prescription Drug Cost Regulation Act, enforced posting of prescription fees in front windows of dispensaries. Are we running an auction sale? No other profession is required to post fees. Also, it is meaningless because the final price will depend on acquisition costs, and large pharmacies and chains, buying for less, will have a lower final price."
Therefore, economics dictates that the little guy will just slowly go away and disappear. The big guy will take over. Competition will be eliminated. Who pays? Mr. Speaker, you know who pays. You and I the consumers pay.
Mr. Speaker, I have overstayed my welcome. I thank you very much for the time. It has been most encouraging to be able to present the concerns not only of the pharmacists, the professionals, but of the little people, the people in rural Ontario, whom I am so proud to represent.
Mr. Mancini: It was only a few short weeks ago -- maybe a couple of months ago -- that the member for Don Mills (Mr. Timbrell) made a public statement that said something like this, "The Progressive Conservative Party is not fit to govern." After listening to some of the speeches --
Mr. Newman: Who said that?
Mr. Mancini: It was said by the member for Don Mills. He said just a couple of months ago that the Progressive Conservative Party is not fit to govern. After listening to some of the speeches over the last couple of days, I have to say the member for Don Mills is absolutely right. The Progressive Conservative Party is not fit to govern.
If I were a pharmacist, I am not sure I would want the Conservative members speaking on my behalf. If I were a pharmacist involved in trying to lobby the government, I am not sure I would be confident in moving my case forward after listening to a lot of the BS we have heard tonight, and BS stands for Bette Stephenson. We have heard many allegations and distortions. As a matter of fact, all we have heard are allegations and distortions of the truth.
Mr. Speaker, as a former chairman of the standing committee on procedural affairs, and being very knowledgeable about procedural matters, you know very well -- and I am surprised that some of your knowledge has not rubbed off on the Progressive Conservative members -- and anyone who knows anything about parliamentary procedure knows that after second reading of a bill is completed, the Speaker asks, "Shall this be ordered for third reading?" The customary action and tradition of this Legislature is that someone says, "No, committee." Then the government House leader stands up and says: "Yes, committee. Which committee do you want it to go to?" Then someone else usually says, "We shall have the House leaders decide which committee it goes to."
This is customary parliamentary procedure. I am sure some of the new members over there are not aware of that, but I know members, such as the members for Wellington-Dufferin-Peel (Mr. J. M. Johnson) and Lanark (Mr. Wiseman), are very well aware of these parliamentary procedures. The member for Lincoln (Mr. Andrewes), the former Minister of Health, is very well aware of these procedures.
There was never a doubt that these bills would go to committee, for several reasons: (1) the customary parliamentary tradition; and (2) we are in a minority government. We are not ramrodding anything through. We are putting forward legislation and we are asking all members of the Legislature to participate in the committee system. We in this House cannot run the committee or the members assigned to that committee.
Mr. Speaker, you know yourself that what happens in a committee cannot even be raised as a point of privilege in this House. I am surprised the members over there do not realize that yet. It will be a committee that decides the structure of its work and how it plans to hold hearings. Members opposite should be aware of that.
8:50 p.m.
From day one it was automatic that this would go to a committee and that the committee itself would structure the rules by which it would operate. It would consult with all three House leaders and it would try to organize its business so that the regular business of the House and other committee work could proceed at the same time.
I want to address some of the other allegations and distortions that have been made. A couple of the members across the floor have said the minister has not met with pharmacists and has not talked to pharmacists. This is a complete untruth. The minister has met with members of the executive of the pharmacists' association. As a matter of fact, I believe the minister spoke to 300 pharmacists at a meeting in Barrie. That does not take into consideration the number of other delegations he has entertained, nor the meetings his officials have held, nor the meetings some members of the Liberal caucus and cabinet have held with local pharmacists.
Frankly, the members opposite can go on with these distortions and making these allegations, but the facts do not substantiate what they are saying. The facts will come out when we have the committee hearings and when people make their representations on how they want to improve the legislation.
One thing we have never said we would not allow is improvement of the legislation. This is a minority parliament. We are prepared to listen and to let the majority of the members on the committee decide whether the amendments are appropriate or not. It is not like the old days from 1981 to 1984 when nothing of what was concrete information, given by the opposition to the government, was ever taken under consideration. That is one of the principal reasons the members opposite are over there today and we are here.
Mr. Wiseman: You are only over there because of these fellows.
Mr. Mancini: Do they not count? Do those 25 seats not count?
I want to give these people another parliamentary lesson. The New Democratic Party counted between 1977 and 1981 when they, on occasion, voted to keep the present official opposition in office. Now the official opposition is saying they do not count because they refuse to support their regressive policies. I say congratulations to the New Democratic Party.
As an individual member, I have had an opportunity to talk over the phone and to meet in my constituency office with individual pharmacists, and one Saturday morning I met with a group of pharmacists. I know some of the concerns they have and I am absolutely confident they will get a full hearing in the committee. I am absolutely confident every member in the committee will have an open mind and that if a case can be made for a proper amendment, then that amendment will be accepted by the majority of the committee.
There is one thing the Conservative Party has yet to recognize --
Hon. Mr. Bradley: Sunday shopping.
Mr. Mancini: Sunday shopping, for the member for Scarborough Centre (Mr. Davis), who has left.
The Conservative members still have not realized that in a minority parliament we have to get a consensus. The reason they have not realized that is they have never operated on a consensus basis. They have always operated on the basis in the past that they were in charge and that was the way it was going to be. l am told, getting back --
Mr. Foulds: The member exaggerates. Davis was in charge; no one else was.
Mr. Mancini: Davis was in charge, excuse me.
After the committee begins its work, we will obtain information from different sectors of society. Perhaps some of the consumers who wrote letters to the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry (Mr. Villeneuve) will appear before the committee and give their views. Perhaps other consumer groups will appear before the committee and give their views. Perhaps representatives of senior citizen associations will appear before the committee and give their views. I am sure people from rural Ontario will appear to speak before the committee.
One of the things that distresses me the most in the debate, in my view, is the lack of concrete proposals that have been made by the members opposite. Instead, they have dwelt upon two consistent themes: (1) that the minister has failed to meet with the members and executive of the association, which is not true; and (2) that up until only a few days ago the bill was not even going to go to committee.
Those are the two concurrent themes we have heard up until tonight. Now at least the latter is changing somewhat. Now that those two themes have been dispelled and have clearly been proved untrue, we are anxious for and look forward to some of the thoughtful suggestions that members may have, as we are anxious for and look forward to some of the thoughtful suggestions other people may have.
The members who will serve on this committee will have a grave responsibility, because some of the problems they will be talking about were not created yesterday. They are problems that were allowed to fester and problems that people had to work around. Changing any system in which problems have developed and people have found a way to work around them is very difficult.
However, it will be done. We can do it and at the same time maintain rural pharmacies, allow for competition, save consumers money and have a system in place of which we can all be proud.
I do not know this for sure, but I am told that in the past one or two Ministers of Health had realized the problem and wanted to do something about it but were rebuffed.
Mr. Foulds: They were mugged.
Mr. Mancini: They were mugged in the corridors of power. I cannot prove that. These are statements that are made around the building; usually there is some bit of truth to them. However, if these former ministers had some terrific ideas and also some concerns, maybe we will hear them expressed at the committee.
I have great confidence in the Minister of Health. I respect the pharmaceutical association and the people who work --
Mr. Timbrell: Where is he?
Mr. Mancini: He is sitting under the press gallery. His attendance has been very good, I might add, but he has other things to do also, as the member opposite would know as a former Minister of Health. I am surprised that member would be the first to ask where he was.
I look forward to the process that is going to take place. It is a process that is normal and customary. I want the pharmaceutical industry and pharmacists to understand that this is parliamentary procedure. When the Speaker asks, "Shall it be ordered for third reading?" it is normal for it to be sent to committee. That is nothing odd or extraordinary.
The member for Don Mills knows that; he has been around here a long time. As a matter of fact, sometimes he is quite good in parliamentary procedure.
I have confidence in the minister. I believe he wants to improve the system. We know and realize we need the help of pharmacists to improve the system. We want input from consumers, from senior citizens, from pharmaceutical companies and from any other person who wants to make positive statements, particularly some of the back-benchers, maybe one in particular in the Conservative Party. They may want to make negative statements; I do not know. They may not want to make any positive statements whatsoever. However, a committee will be in place at which the members on the opposite side will be allowed to do this.
9 p.m.
I believe in the process, I believe it will work and I believe it will work in this instance to the benefit of the many who are concerned.
Mr. Gillies: In joining this debate on Bill 54, I wonder whether the House might indulge me for a moment. I learned in the past several minutes that our former colleague Margaret Birch, the former member for Scarborough East, was seriously injured in a car accident today and apparently has a broken back. I am sure all members of the House wish Mrs. Birch a very speedy recovery.
This is especially significant in view of the former member's concern for all areas of social policy when she was a member of this assembly, but especially for senior citizens. I suspect that if Margaret were still a member she would want to join the debate this evening, not to hurl accusations -- that was not her style -- or to engage in partisan jousting, but to talk about the effects of this legislation and what it will or will not do for the people of Ontario and for the people who use the Ontario drug benefit plan.
I would like to focus my remarks on that aspect of what we are about. I feel this debate has unfortunately degenerated this evening into a lot of accusations and name-calling. The situation is not helped by the kind of remarks just made by the member for Essex South. He was displaying the kind of myopic arrogance that has quickly become the hallmark of this government and that completely belies the 48 seats the government has.
It is that kind of myopic arrogance, that kind of closed-mindedness and that kind of callous disregard for the aspirations, wants and legitimate desires of ordinary people in this province that is quickly going to be the downfall of this government. I caution the member for Essex South to reflect on this, not just with regard to this bill but also with respect to all the workings of this Legislature.
The bill before us is a response by the Minister of Health to problems that exist and to problems that he perceives to exist with the Ontario drug benefit plan and with the dispensing of pharmaceutical products and prescriptions across the province.
Typically, the bill has been introduced with a singular lack of consultation and a singular lack of concern for points of view that may differ from those of the bureaucrats in the Ministry of Health who designed the bill, views that I believe differ with the magnitude of the problem. They have come up with solutions that go far above and beyond the requirements of addressing what every member of this assembly recognizes is the legitimate problem of the price spread.
I would like to go back to the statement made by the Minister of Health when he introduced this legislation. He was chatting with me a few minutes ago. I think he was fairly upset about some of the names he feels he is being called in this debate. I know the Minister of Health pretty well. We were both elected at the same time. The minister is not any number of things I have heard him called in this assembly. He is not a communist and he is not a fascist and he is not any number of these things.
The minister did meet with the representatives of the pharmaceutical industry and the pharmacists. However, while the minister met with the representatives and may have listened to them, he did not hear and he did not understand.
The legislation before us is tantamount to killing a fly with an elephant gun. I am sure that in one of his rare moments of lucid fairness, even the Minister of the Environment, for all his unparliamentary language earlier in the evening, would recognize that and leap to his feet in support of the arguments that have been made by this party.
Hon. Mr. Bradley: Is the member voting for the bill?
Mr. Andrewes: He is in charge of the elephant gun.
Mr. Gillies: My colleague the member for Lincoln points out that the Minister of the Environment has his finger on the trigger of the elephant gun, poised to shoot.
Mr. Speaker: Does that pertain to this bill?
Mr. Gillies: Speaking to Bill 54 particularly, I think the Minister of the Environment should put some distance between himself and all the toxic substances to which he has been in close proximity in recent months.
In the minister's statement introducing Bill 54 and Bill 55, he made a number of statements which misrepresented, I am sure inadvertently, the history of the drug benefit plan and some of the problems that have come forward and led to this legislation.
The minister said: "The cost of financing the Ontario drug benefit program has been rising by nearly 23 per cent annually for the past six years, from $100 million to $350 million." Because of the thrust of this legislation, the implication is that this is the fault of the pharmaceutical industry, the pharmacists, the people dispensing to all of us and to our constituents across the province.
Let us put a couple of facts on the table regarding those increases. First, with regard to the increases over the years, the minister is quite correct; the scale of the increase is correct as he stated it. However, there are many explanations and factors I do not believe the ministry has taken into account, most evidently higher drug costs.
The average increase in drug costs of 12 per cent a year, on a compounded basis over the past five years was 75 per cent in total. Those were increases that were allowed by the ministry; it was a cost pass-through. Those were the increased charges that were coming from the pharmaceutical manufacturers and were being allowed by the ministry, often at the expense of increasing dispensing fees. Therefore, the pharmacists have not been the beneficiaries relative to the increase in the cost over the past five years. That implication in introducing this bill is unfair.
Let us talk about dispensing fee increases for a moment or two. The maximum dispensing fee under the Ontario drug benefit plan in 1978-79 was $3.27. In 1983-84 it had risen to only $4.65, an average increase of 7.2 per cent a year, compounded for a total of 42 per cent over five years which, with regard to the five years about which we are talking, did not even keep pace with the rate of inflation.
Mr. Mancini: Whose fault is that?
Mr. Gillies: Who are the bad guys in the increased cost of the drug benefit plan? I say to my friend the member for Essex South and the Minister of the Environment, it is not the pharmacists. The pharmacists should not be beaten up over this. The burden of the increased costs has been with the manufacturers.
Another factor the minister and his colleagues ignore is increased utilization. Ministry figures show an increase of 21.73 per cent in the average number of prescriptions provided to eligible people in the plan.
Hon. Mr. Bradley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I have been listening carefully and I have not heard the honourable member say his party is voting for the bill. Will he say that some time during his speech tonight?
Mr. Speaker: That is far from a point of order. The member will continue.
Mr. Gillies: I say to the Minister of the Environment, I have been sitting in here with him for five years and I have never heard a clear, unequivocal statement from him; so please bear with me.
I was talking about increased utilization under the drug benefit plan. The number of eligible people in the plan has increased by more than 23 per cent. It is very clear the major reasons for the large-scale increase in the cost of the plan are not the pharmacists or the dispensing fees; they are other factors, such as utilization.
I could go on, and I will, because this issue deserves a full airing in this House. I am sure many of my colleagues will want to bring out all the points at some length about this legislation, as I will be doing, through this evening and in the days to come.
9:10 p.m.
Another factor is the greater number of drugs provided under the drug benefit plan. It has mushroomed over the years, and who can speak of this entirely negatively? Wonderful new products are coming on the market on a weekly or daily basis to the benefit of us all as advances in medical science benefit all our citizens and as more and more drugs become available to people to help them with the range of ailments from which they suffer. What is the scale of that? Again, the minister's own data reveal that in the same five-year period to which I was referring, the number of drug entities listed under the ODB plan has risen to 2,718 from 1,842, an increase of 47 per cent.
We have greater utilization, we have greater costs from the manufacturers and we have many more drugs available under the plan. We also have single-source products. This is very important. These are products for which there is no competition. Even under the minister's misguided legislation, he cannot go to another product to try to come up with the lowest-priced source, because the number of single-source products has risen to 1,493 from 911, an increase of 64 per cent, in five years. The frequency of special authorizations for single-source drugs under the plan has increased by 67.4 per cent in the same five-year period.
This range of facts says to my colleagues, to my friend the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry and the people for whom he spoke earlier and to myself, that we have a bigger and more expensive plan but also, to the credit of our former government and medical science in our province, that we have a better plan, with better products, better coverage and a better ability to treat the ailments our people fall prey to.
Let us all be proud of that. The Ontario drug benefit plan is better and more able to serve our constituents than it has ever been; so let us shelve for the moment any suggestion that the plan is weak or flawed or that its costs are out of control .
Hon. Mr. Bradley: Would you like to quote the Provincial Auditor?
Mr. Gillies: Let us talk about the Provincial Auditor, because my ever-articulate friend the Minister of the Environment raises that. I am going to go back to the minister's statement when he introduced this legislation. He said:
"Based on an examination of the July 1983 Ontario Drug Benefit Formulary, the auditor found the province of Ontario had incurred an estimated $14.5 million in excess costs under the plan as a result of high spreading practices. He also found, in a comparison of 30 high-volume, multisource drugs in the Ontario and the Saskatchewan drug benefit formularies, that the Saskatchewan formulary had a lower price for 80 per cent of the drugs."
I want to make a few points that should be made in reply to what the minister has said, in reply to the auditor's findings at that time and, of course, in reply to the Minister of the Environment.
I will preface that by saying the representatives of the industry, the representatives of the pharmacists with whom I have met and spoken, recognize the problem of the price spread. I do not believe there is any disagreement in this House about the problem of the price spread. However, as I will be going on to demonstrate, the legislation brought in by the minister goes far beyond and above the changes required to take care of the problem in the price spread, which I believe could be resolved by regulation and which would make the kind of draconian measures brought in under Bill 54 completely excessive and unnecessary.
In response to the minister's statement and to the findings of the auditor, we should look at the pharmaceutical association's response to the Provincial Auditor, which expressed anger. It also listed a number of reasons for the disparity in many of the prices between Ontario and Saskatchewan. There are about six or seven points here. They are very important and I would like to go through them.
Mr. Philip: It has not been dealt with by the standing committee on public accounts.
Mr. Gillies: It has not been dealt with by the public accounts committee, and as a member of that committee I can tell my colleague the member for Etobicoke (Mr. Philip) I look forward to that discussion.
However, in this response to the Provincial Auditor from the pharmaceutical association, to whom I am sure my friend from Etobicoke would want to give a very fair hearing, I would make the following points.
First, "The province of Saskatchewan Ministry of Health tenders for a single supplier of each interchangeable drug for each six-month period, thereby assuring the low bidder a tied house contract for all the province's requirements for that product for the period in question."
It is a completely different system from the one we have in Ontario.
Second: "Saskatchewan does not provide any purchasing advantage as a result."
Third: "The successful low bidder has no selling or distribution costs to account for in Saskatchewan."
Again, this is unlike the Ontario drug benefit plan, and if the Minister of Health intends to change that, it would behoove him to bring that to the House's attention.
Hon. Mr. Bradley: Is the member voting for the bill or not?
Mr. Gillies: Rather than hide under the cloak of just criticizing or comparing the two plans, I suggest that my friend the Minister of the Environment tell his seatmate the Minister of Health that if the minister has any plans to change that fundamental difference between the two plans, he should tell the House.
Hon. Mr. Bradley: Is the member voting for the bill?
Mr. Gillies: Mr. Speaker, I know you are trying to get the attention of the Minister of the Environment so he will stop disrupting the House.
Mr. Ashe: He has been sniffing glue lately.
Mr. Speaker: I was going to tell him he is becoming very repetitious.
Mr. Gillies: Fourth, in terms of the very different nature of the Saskatchewan plan from the Ontario one, which I was trying to discuss before all the very rude interruptions by the Minister of the Environment, "Many manufacturers bid at or near their costs in order to retain a presence in the province of Saskatchewan for their product, recognizing that the Saskatchewan market is less than five per cent of the total Canadian market."
If one talks to people in the pharmaceutical industry, with all respect to the great province of Saskatchewan, the large pharmaceutical companies will almost use the province of Saskatchewan as a loss-leader to get the product distributed on a wide basis in a province-wide plan so the more populous markets, such as Ontario, will become aware of the product and will want to utilize it. As the most populous province in the country and the greatest utilizers of pharmaceutical products, we will never have that luxury.
Fifth, "Saskatchewan has a very high incidence of no-substitution prescriptions -- 20 per cent, compared to less than one per cent in Ontario." That is another significant difference, which obviously would affect the cost patterns of the plan.
Sixth, "According to a study conducted for the Saskatchewan Minister of Health in August 1983, Saskatchewan's pharmacists are grossly undercompensated because of nonexistent product markup to cover inventory investment and carrying costs."
This is a study done for the minister in that province, the province held up as the great example by the Minister of Health in this province. A study done for that government says that they are undercompensated and that one of the flaws of the plan in the province is that it is not adequate in its compensation.
Seventh and last in this list of points on the comparison, "Saskatchewan exports almost half of its graduating pharmacists every year to other jurisdictions with more realistic conditions of practice."
I know my friend the Minister of the Environment will be astonished to learn this about that great province, which is held up as an example by our friend and his seatmate the Minister of Health. How does he feel about that province having half its talented young graduate pharmacists move to places such as Ontario, where they feel the industry is more properly regulated and where costs and expenses are more realistically recognized? I can see this revelation has shocked the Minister of the Environment into a sudden silence.
Mr. Andrewes: He has put down the elephant gun and picked up a pot of glue.
Mr. Gillies: He has put down the elephant gun and picked up a pot of glue. That is right.
We can talk about comparing the plan in Saskatchewan with that in Ontario, but I feel the most compelling arguments about the deficiencies and flaws in this bill are the arguments made earlier by my colleague the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry. The very real concern and upset being felt in our communities across the province is not only because of the legislation but also the way the government brought it in.
9:20 p.m.
We have a government in Ontario right now that will launch into a chorus of, "Are we not wonderful? Are we not open? Are we not approachable? Are we not fair? Are we not refreshing? Are we not the greatest?" at the drop of a hat or at the drop of a $1,000 cheque. There are days when it really tries the patience of a member of this party who knows what is really going on. Even in the way this bill was introduced, the sneaky and underhanded way --
Hon. Mr. Bradley: You are voting for the bill then.
The Deputy Speaker: Order. I would like to say to the Minister of the Environment that I have heard the same comment many times and I hope I do not hear it any more.
Mr. Gillies: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I completely concur with your point. I was just hoping it would be long enough for me to find a piece of paper I am looking for, but it was not.
There are words we cannot use in this House. There are words my friend the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Riddell) would never use in this House, such as "duplicitous," "underhanded," "sneaky." I would never use those words with reference to any member of the government or any honourable member of this House. They are terrible words. However, these are the words that come to mind when we see the way the government brought in this bill.
Mr. Philip: Such as the words he used in public accounts.
Mr. Gillies: My friend the member for Etobicoke is so frustrated about having to support this legislation, because he knows how bad it is, that he is having to speak out in his frustration and disgust.
When the bill was introduced in early November with the usual heralding trumpets and outriders, the government talked about all the debate and consultation that would be available on this legislation. They sneaked it in a week before our party's leadership convention. They called it for second-reading debate days after that convention. They left all the groups that are legitimately concerned about this legislation spinning in the breeze and wondering what was going on. This government, in what even for it was an unusually stealthy and cunning mood, honestly thought it could get away with it.
I can just picture it now. We are up on the 22nd floor of the Hepburn Block, I believe. The Minister of Health can correct me.
Mr. F. S. Miller: The 10th floor.
Mr. Gillies: My colleague and former leader, the former Minister of Health, corrected me. It was the 10th floor.
Mr. Foulds: They are in the clouds anyway.
The Deputy Speaker: Now that that decision is made, how about getting on with the bill?
Mr. Gillies: Let me try to get it back. Let me try to set the mood again. I want every member here present to come with me now. We are getting off the elevator on the 10th floor. As we walk through the plush carpeting into the minister's fabulous suite, the minister is closeted in his office with his deputy minister. Allan Dyer is sitting there, biting on his lip he is so excited about the bill. The assistant deputy minister is sitting next to him, his hands perspiring with anticipation, he has been working on this so long.
The minister looks across the desk at the deputy and the assistant deputy. Fresh from a weekend in the riding and eager to do all sorts of wonderful things for the people, the minister says: "How are we going to pull this one off, guys? You know this is a weak bill. You know we are killing a fly with an elephant gun. You know we are never going to get away with this. How are we going to do it?"
One of his advisers, eager for advancement, leaps forward, his red tie fairly choking him at the neck, and says: "Minister, we will sneak it in just before their leadership convention and we will try to slide it by. We will sell them the usual line that we have a poll up our sleeves showing that this would be very popular and they will collapse like a house of cards. We will pass it in no time. Unless we are really caught, maybe we will even slide it by without any committee hearings."
The minister breaks into an angelic smile; this is it. He says: "Allan, we are going to do it. Crank up the presses. Put out a release. Call a Liberal Economic Advisory Forum dinner for next week before the pharmacists catch on to it. Get a few bucks into the coffers before they get too mad. Let's go for it."
The minister sits here in early January wishing he was on the beach in Florida and shaking his head because it did not work. He did not get away with it. I have to give him marks for trying. It was a hell of a good try. I cannot use that word, Mr. Speaker; it was a heck of a good try.
It did not work. Suddenly, the people most affected by this most unwise legislation caught on to what was going on. One day before the bill was introduced into the House, in what can only be described as an absolutely uncannily insensitive move, they were invited to consult. A letter went out to all the pharmacists saying: "We are going to introduce some legislation to take care of the price spread and a few other problems. We invite your participation and consultation on this matter." Then the next day they introduced the bill.
That is consultation in Liberal Ontario. That is listening and open government circa David Peterson 1985. That did not work either. I do not know what they thought they were going to get away with. They are not dealing with a bunch of dummies. They are dealing with the pharmacists of this province who have worked over the counters and in their laboratories for years; they are not dealing with stupid people. They are dealing with professional people who know their business; they know their customers and what is good for them and what is not. The government is not going to fool them with that kind of trick. Anyway, it did not fly.
9:30 p.m.
Here we are in January in what has unfortunately become a fairly acrimonious debate, for which, I caution my friend the Minister of Health, he is largely responsible and he must not shirk that responsibility. I have not been here as long as some, but in this business the chickens always come home to roost.
The minister introduced this legislation, which will fundamentally change the relationship between the client and the dispenser, fundamentally change the ability of a physician in this province to prescribe a drug for his or her patients -- not a drug arrived at by a bureaucrat, not a drug that is decided upon by the Ministry of Health or by somebody in the Hepburn Block, but the drug the physician wants his or her patient to have for any number of reasons. That relationship is being changed by this legislation.
There are any number of drugs on the market in this province and many of them are similar. If one talks to doctors or pharmacists, the professionals, they will say there can be very subtle differences between reasonably comparable drugs. There can be a very close proximity between those drugs, but one can have a side effect on a patient that another very similar drug does not have. With some patients, changing the drug prescribed to another very similar drug can also have side-effects and serious implications for the patient.
Under the legislation contemplated by this government, I believe -- and I do not say this in a partisan fashion, I say it very seriously -- the ability of the physician to prescribe the suitable drug for his or her patient changes, albeit very subtly. I would urge my friend the minister, if he changes nothing else in this bill, to please look at that section again. There is grave concern among the pharmacists of this province and among many in the medical profession about that aspect of his legislation and I urge him to take another look at that.
I have somebody very close to me in my family who is very sick and has been on a number of medications for a number of ailments for some years. I am talking about my own mother. I know that when my family doctor changes a drug on which she is dependent, it is done very subtly.
With some diseases, one is always trying to strike a very delicate balance between different prescriptions and different drugs and the effects they can have. The minister knows this. One can be taking one thing for arthritis that can have a very serious effect on something else one has to take for migraine, and vice versa. Sometimes just changing, oh, so subtly, one of those medications -- the dosage or the frequency or the very product from one prescription drug to another closely approximate generic drug -- can be injurious to the patient. These changes can have very serious side effects on a patient.
I will leave it at that. I urge the minister to take another look at that because when he says the ministry can have the power to substitute a lower-priced product because of his probably legitimate perception that it is a better deal for the ministry and for the consumer, he can be changing the medical effects of that medication, very subtly, but he can be changing them.
During the course of our consideration of this bill in the last several months, I have had the opportunity to talk to people from several companies who are connected with the manufacturing of drugs. I have had the opportunity to talk to pharmacists and, while I am not an expert -- I would never pretend to be an expert in this area -- they tell they are very concerned about it.
There are a couple of other implications to the legislation. I wonder if the minister has thought about them. Both the Premier (Mr. Peterson) and my former leader, the former Premier of this province, in turn have expressed the position of the government of Ontario regarding free trade and the concerns of this province about free trade, the job implications and so on.
I would put it to the minister that there is an implication in terms of free trade and the health of the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry in this province that will be affected by his legislation also because of several things I am told by the people in the business. One is that the pharmacists who produce name-brand drugs, the smaller Canadian companies for the most part, do about 99 per cent of the research and development in the drug industry in this country. I am led to understand the producers of the generic drugs do about one per cent of the research and development. More of the lower priced generic drugs come across the border from the United States.
By changing the program, as the minister does in Bill 54 and Bill 55, he can affect the pattern of consumption of pharmaceutical products. I believe he could inadvertently encourage the greater use of imported generic drugs to the disadvantage of the Canadian industry, which, I remind the minister again, is doing the bulk of the research and development.
There are companies in our own province developing new products all the time to try to attack diseases about which we are all concerned. Some are doing research related to cancer, to acquired immune deficiency syndrome, to any number of things. We want them to be able to continue that very valuable work.
Interjections.
Mr. Gillies: My colleagues are chiding my friend the Minister of the Environment, who has been very good for a while. I think it is because he is trying out the Premier's chair.
Mr. Andrewes: Look where he is sitting.
Mr. Gillies: He is sitting in the Premier's chair and it does not look all that bad, but the minister should not get too anxious.
I believe the last thing the Minister of Health would want would be for the pharmaceutical industry in Canada and Ontario to have to curtail any of its research; to have to stop any of the work it is doing in any number of areas of research valuable to the progress of medicine in our country. The minister will know some of that research is financed by our governments, provincial and federal, some by our institutions of higher learning, our universities, but some of it is also financed by the pharmaceutical industry itself out of the profits made by selling its products in our country. I am sure the minister would not want to hamper their ability to do that to the benefit of the companies which produce generics -- which, as I understand it, are more likely to be imported -- and do not do as much research and development.
The industry has a great many concerns; those are a couple of them. The pharmacists themselves and the people who use pharmacies have some others. The minister has heard about these because we have been trying very anxiously to bring these concerns to his attention.
Some of the minister's colleagues in the governing party have been suggesting our party's approach on this bill has been alarmist. They have been trying to suggest we are blowing things out of proportion; that the concerns being brought to us by consumers and pharmacists are in some respect not legitimate. I do not want to impute those sentiments to the minister himself, but I have heard it from some of his colleagues.
One of his colleagues was calling pharmacists -- what was it? -- peanut vendors, saying the person to whom we entrust our health when we are prescribed a drug over the counter was probably shuffling peanuts and razor blades with the other hand. I believe that was roughly what the member for Kitchener (Mr. D. R. Cooke) said.
It betrays a complete lack of understanding of the profession of pharmacy in this province, and I would urge the minister -- as one of his many jobs must be the education of his caucus -- immediately to inform the member for Kitchener that pharmacists are not peanut vendors and they are not sellers of razor blades. Pharmacists are trained people whose job is to fill the prescriptions our physicians make out for the good of our people, and they are well trained and for the most part experienced in doing that.
Mr. Haggerty: I go into the pharmacy and I can pick up a pipe wrench.
9:40 p.m.
Mr. Gillies: Sure, one can buy a pipe wrench in a drug store; I am not saying one cannot. However, when a member suggests that the guy behind the counter who makes out the prescription when he needs one -- if he ever does, and I hope he does not -- is just fit to sell razor blades or peanuts, I do not think that member thinks that and I do not want any of his colleagues to think it either.
I believe many people in this province enjoy a different relationship with their pharmacist, a relationship which is quite different from the purchase of a pipe wrench, a peanut or a razor blade. I know the small pharmacists in my constituency of Brantford exercise particular care when they deal with the people they feel are most dependent on their expertise -- senior citizens, people with serious ailments and people with multiple ailments.
They are not selling peanuts. When senior citizens go into Cowell Pharmacy Ltd. on Colborne Street West in Brantford and walk up to Ron Cowell, Peter or one of the other pharmacists in that store with their prescription for their very serious ailment, I know that pharmacist spends a little time with them. I know they talk with them about how they are feeling and they are very careful about filling that prescription. It is a very serious responsibility. It is not like selling peanuts or razor blades. For it to be suggested otherwise does a disservice in this chamber.
When the pharmacists come to the representatives of the people who sit in this chamber, and when they come and talk to us in this party about the list of concerns they have with this legislation, I, for one, listen. I listen just as seriously to them as I would listen to any other professional or any other person with expertise in a certain field who brings his concerns to us.
What do they say? They are very concerned. First, they say, "We know the spread pricing is a problem and it should be addressed, so let us get that off the table from the start." They go on to say that the proposed legislation addresses issues that go wildly beyond that of spread pricing. The government is intervening in the marketplace to an absolutely unreasonable degree. It is intervening in a way they believe will hurt innovative manufacturers, the ones doing the research. They feel it puts the innovative manufacturers and the concerned researchers at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the generics and the copy-cat drug artists, etc.
Mr. Foulds: Who brought in rent review?
Mr. Gillies: What on earth has this to do with rent review?
Mr. Foulds: That is interfering in the marketplace.
Mr. Gillies: I am so completely immersed in the concerns and the problems about pharmaceutical dispensing in this province that I cannot even think about rent review now. The member for Port Arthur has lost me. I am sorry. Let me think about it.
Mr. Foulds: Does the member not see any parallels with respect to controlling the market?
Hon. Mr. Van Horne: The member has them all here.
Mr. Gillies: I say to my friend the minister responsible for seniors' affairs that he --
Mr. Foulds: The member for Brantford is voting for this bill, is he not, in spite of all this talk?
Mr. Speaker: Order. We were getting along fine a few moments ago.
Mr. Gillies: What is that?
Hon. Mr. Van Horne: Whatever it is, drag it out.
Mr. Gillies: The minister, of all members of the government, should be concerned about this because the vast majority of the people we have had contact us who are concerned about this legislation are the senior citizens. The people who most often are most dependent on prescription drugs in this province are senior citizens.
Hon. Mr. Van Horne: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: When the member for Brantford speaks of what I should know, I remind him that my father is a pharmacist and that I know much more whereof they speak than he does.
Mr. Gillies: That is even worse then, because the member for London North should know better. When he sits on his father's knee and his father tells him, "Ron, I am really excited and I am so proud of your being a cabinet minister," I am sure he should know better than to try to foist this kind of legislation on the pharmaceutical industry. That is no defence. He has no defence now because he should know better.
Mr. Epp: But the member opposite should not know better. Is that right? Why should he not know better?
Mr. Gillies: I learned years ago never to try to fight a two-front war. I am not even going to try.
The legislation the minister has brought in is of great concern to the pharmacists and to many of the people who use their products -- the elderly, the infirm, the bedridden, people who are not able to go to the pharmacy themselves to get their prescriptions.
My colleague the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry has touched on this. However, let us go the extra step at which a senior or someone otherwise not able to go to the pharmacy entrusts to a friend, a relative, a social worker or a neighbour to go and do that for him, and this person goes into the pharmacy and may not be particularly conversant or familiar with the product his friend or the person in his charge is using. That is even worse. One is sending a third party to deal with a pharmacist who may have been instructed by the bureaucracy of the Ministry of Health to substitute another drug, while the patient is not even there to try to correct the situation at the time of the transaction. That is even worse.
There are people with any number of disabilities or handicaps, as the minister well knows, who may not be quite aware of the nature of the drug when they take it. I would suggest to the minister that it is absolutely the worst-case scenario, in that someone who is not able, for whatever reason -- mental incompetence, vision impairment or whatever -- to differentiate has bought a drug he has trusted his pharmacist to prescribe, as his doctor has always prescribed it, yet it has been changed or substituted for because of the minister's legislation, and he takes it, possibly without knowledge of the change.
I do not think this is what the minister intends with this legislation. I hope it is not what he intends and I urge him to look at that. I urge him to have his officials go back again at that one.
Questions come from people concerned about the legislation, and they are not only about Bill 54. We will be talking again, when Bill 55 is called, about the intervention there. That one, in a way, is even worse. It is even worse because it does not deal with the Ontario drug benefit plan. It does not deal with a plan under the direct jurisdiction of the government of Ontario.
There we are talking about people who are just buying a prescription drug prescribed by their own physician for their own use. Again, the long arm of the minister and the long arm of the legislation are going to be right in that pharmacy, making decisions that come between the doctor and the patient, making decisions that come between the intentions of the healer and the need of the person being treated.
Mr. Laughren: Does this mean the member is voting against it?
Mr. Gillies: Who said that?
Mr. Foulds: How is the member going to vote on the bill?
Mr. Gillies: We will get to that. In a way, that is even worse, so we will come back to it when we get to Bill 55. However, I wanted to touch on it now because the two bills are so integrally locked together that they go hand in hand, and I would suggest it is a rather unholy alliance.
Then we get to the question that has been raised by pharmacists across this province and that has been brought to the attention of members of this House across the province about the very future of the small, neighbourhood, and often family-run pharmacy.
There is a feeling abroad and there is a very strong indication in the industry that the legislation brought forward by the minister is going to work to the detriment of those small pharmacies, the old neighbourhood pharmacies, the ones that people in smaller communities like mine go to because they know, they trust and they have a relationship with the pharmacist.
9:50 p.m.
There is a very strong feeling that this legislation will hurt them and will hurt their ability to continue to do their work vis-à-vis the larger chain drug stores that are more liable to have special price deals with the pharmaceutical manufacturers and large-scale purchasing arrangements that the small neighbourhood pharmacies do not have.
We have to wonder about the future of the small family-run pharmacy. There is concern to the extent that hundreds of pharmacy students from the University of Toronto marched on this Legislature to express their concern about the actions being taken by this government.
I dare say some of them live in St. Catharines, as my friend the member for Durham West (Mr. Ashe) points out, and some of them live in the minister's riding. They are confused and upset. They cannot understand the draconian steps being taken by this government, which they feel are going to hurt their future careers.
I went out on the front steps that day with my leader. It was the first day our new leader was here at the Legislature and he went out.
Hon. Mr. Bradley: Which leader?
Mr. Gillies: Believe me, they are all going to know who. Do not worry about that.
The students were saying: "Mr. Grossman, what is going on? There was an election in this province. We had a government come in that promised consultation, openness and new directions. Mr. Grossman, we do not understand what is going on because the government will not talk to us. This new Liberal government has come in with draconian legislation, without consulting, circulating or trying to educate the industry as to what it is all about."
They could not understand why the Premier or the Minister of Health wanted to do it to them and they could not get any explanation. That makes a sham of this government's contention that it is in any way listening to the people and it makes a sham of its contention that it is open and accessible. In fact, this government is running a closed shop with blinkers on a mile wide.
Hon. Mr. Bradley: Are you voting yes or no?
Mr. Gillies: I say to my friend the Minister of the Environment, who has woken up again, to enjoy the polls while he can because he is not fooling many people any more. They bring in a bill on a Tuesday, invite consultation on that bill on the Monday, then want second reading on it a week later while we are tied up in a leadership convention and think they are going to get away with it. It does not wash.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Morin): Order. Come back on topic, please.
Mr. Gillies: Mr. Speaker, I am very much on the topic.
I say to my friends opposite that they are not fooling many people any more. It is fine to smile and put out press releases, but they are running the most closed, narrow-minded government over there that I believe the people of this province have seen since Confederation.
They are running a shell game. It is a government that is open all right, open to anyone who has a $1,000 cheque burning a hole in his pocket and a red tie in his closet. They are not fooling the consumers of pharmaceutical products who have had an opportunity to talk to their pharmacist or doctor about this. They are not fooling the manufacturers and the pharmacists. They are not fooling us. They should not give us that stuff about open and accessible government -- no doors, no windows and all that stuff. It may have washed in the fall, but it does not wash any more.
The legislation before us puts the onus of product selection on the consumer who, for the most part, has the least knowledge about the medication and has the most at stake. It does not put the onus on the physician who has the greatest knowledge and the greatest ability to judge these matters. It puts the onus and responsibility on the weakest person in the chain, which is what has become very typical of the way this government operates. It loads it on to the person who has the least information at hand.
Hon. Mr. Bradley: The Tory leader.
Mr. Gillies: No, the consumer, because then the government says, and the bureaucrats in the Ministry of Health say: "Is this not great? We are going to save money, score some public relations points, make the minister look good and the consumer will not know what is going on, so we will never get called on it."
Of course, they were not counting on our party or the industry finding out very quickly exactly what they were up to. They are not fooling anyone. The consumer is hampered. The liability for product selection has been legislated away. The liability has gone. If a mistake occurs under the minister's bill, it is no one's fault. It is not the manufacturer's fault, it is not the pharmacist's fault, it is not the minister's fault and it is not the consumer's fault because the liability for product selection has been legislated away.
If something goes wrong, it is no one's fault. How can my friends in the third party, who all espouse things they believe are important to the little guy, agree to the onus being put on the weakest and the least equipped people to make a judgement in these matters, the consumers, and to the liability being legislated away?
Mr. Philip: How about the seniors? You guys want to let them have opted-out drugs.
Mr. Gillies: Why does my friend the member for Etobicoke want to take the responsibility and the onus for selection away from the physician who is armed with the greatest tool, knowledge? Why take the responsibility away from him and put it on the consumer? The member for Etobicoke knows that it does not make any sense at all, but he sits there quietly propping up the government yet again.
We see no recourse for damages to the consumer, and the consumer is further hampered in not being able to select the medication of his choice. Some day I am going to drop into a Liberal Economic Advisory Forum dinner and tell some of the business people this one. They will love it. I say to the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry that this is the Liberal Party circa 1986.
The consumer is further hampered by not being able to select the medication of his choice even if he pays the difference from his own pocket.
Mr. Ashe: I do not believe it.
Mr. Gillies: Frankly, I buy it from these guys. This is how far the Liberal Party in 1986 has sunk.
Even if the consumer believes the other product is the one he wants, even if his physician believes it and even if he wants to pay the difference out of his own pocket, he cannot. That is Liberal democracy in 1986. It is absolutely incredible.
10 p.m.
Let us talk about some of the hazards to the patient, to the consumer. As I mentioned before, most of the recipients of the Ontario drug benefit plan are seniors; they are the elderly, and they are taking multiple medications. Again, the potential confusion for a senior citizen on multiple medications because of drug substitution is going to lead to increased concern and anxiety among our seniors. I am sorry the minister responsible for them has left, because I imagine he has heard this from his pharmacist father.
There is going to be a feeling among many of our seniors that a lot of things are being taken out of their hands. Any member of this assembly knows how much a senior citizen who is in need of medical attention relies on the knowledge and goodwill of his or her physician. We all know that. We see it in our constituencies. We see it in our own families. That relationship is being changed.
I have had more than one senior citizen phone me, saying, "I am really concerned." They are concerned that some matters regarding their medications are being taken out of the hands of their physicians and being put into the hands of the government. One senior told me on the phone about two weeks ago, during the holiday period, she was very worried that she was going to start getting second-class health care. She said:
"When you go up there to Toronto, how can you sit by and watch this happen? The Ministry of Health is spending all of these billions of dollars and people are having difficulties in some communities getting into hospital beds and all of these other concerns in health care. Why do you politicians want to load one more aggravation on a poor old senior like me and have me worrying about whether I am getting the right medication?"
I said: "Ma'am, I do not want to do that. We do not want to do that to you."
I believe the best person to prescribe medication for me and to decide what that medication will be is my doctor. With the greatest of respect to my friend the Minister of Health, it is not he, it is not Allan Dyer and it is not anyone else in the Ministry of Health; it is my doctor. That is probably true for our senior citizens.
Another concern is the increased cost to physicians and again all the implications this has for the Ontario health insurance plan. The government is obviously concerned about OHIP. It is taking its approach on the OHIP problem, and that is other legislation. We had concerns about OHIP, and we took our approaches, but this is just one more thing.
Physicians have indicated to us that changes in medication result in increased patient phone calls or visits to the physician for clarification and assurance that the changes in colour, shape and size of the medication are all right. It is obvious; let us walk through it. Senior citizens cannot get out of the house, so they send somebody to get their prescriptions for them. The prescriptions come back. They are not quite sure, but they think they are different pills from the ones they had last month. What is the first thing they are going to do? Possibly they will call the pharmacy but just as likely they will call their doctors.
The doctors are so darned mad at this government right now that people may not get the information they want on the phone. The senior is going to have to get dressed up, get in a cab and go down to his doctor. It is one more fat bill to OHIP. Why? It is because the Ministry of Health decided they needed pill X and not pill Y.
Our seniors are heavy consumers of OHIP health care and, God bless them, I am glad of it and glad we have it. It is probably the finest system of medical care in the world, and we should be proud of it, but it is one more burden on OHIP and it is an unnecessary one. Why is it going to come about? It is because the minister has put the long arm of the government into that relationship between the patient and the provider of health care.
That begs the general question: Who makes the decisions relating to the health care of patients in this province? Are they being made by the person in whom the patient placed his or her trust, his own physician? Is that the hand that is being strengthened through this legislation, the hand of the person who knows the patient, the family, the situation, the community and the context of the illness and of the medication?
I do not think so. I think quite the reverse: That is the role that is being weakened in favour of the intervention of the ministry. It is as simple as that. It displays a distrust by the government of the doctor's ability to care properly for his or her own patients. I might add that this same distrust of the profession is cropping up elsewhere in this government's legislation regarding health care.
There are other things in the bills that do not seem to make sense. Let us talk about liability. The government is promising in the legislation that pharmacists and physicians will not be liable in any action where an interchangeable drug is dispensed. I then ask the minister, what protection and rights will the consumer have? Where is the protection if that liability is removed and if the substitution is made, not by the physician and not by the patient's informed choice but by the ministry, and since the first thing governments do -- heaven only knows, governments of all stripes -- is to remove themselves from any liability, saying: "There it is; but wait a minute, it is not my problem. There you go, sucker"? Where is the protection for the patient? Where is the protection for the consumer of the product?
We hear that through this legislation there will be forms. They are going to have forms coming out of their ears. "Patients will be faced with receiving different forms every time a prescription is refilled, since pharmacies will keep less inventory of each drug and will refill prescriptions of product at the currently lowest acquisition cost." This is a substitution in the drug itself and a substitution in paperwork, because it will not be straight renewal; it will be a change in the medication.
This is a slight change perhaps, but because we do not live in a perfect world, we have to wonder in how many of those instances, when the patient goes back for a refill and the pharmacist is pretty sure the drug he is about to prescribe is comparable -- but it may not be -- how many of those calls will have to be rerouted to the physician. How many of those cases will have to go back to the physician? How many patients will have to go back to the physician, to the inconvenience of everybody and at the expense of our Ontario health insurance plan?
Mr. Laughren: The member for Muskoka (Mr. F. S. Miller) wants the floor. Will the member give it to him?
Mr. Gillies: At any time. Does the member want the floor?
Mr. F. S. Miller: No. I am patient.
Mr. Gillies: No? Good. I will tell my friend from the third party that I am drawing to a close. However, I want to take a few moments to try to impress something upon the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren). He is a reasonable man, an understanding person generally. Now that this is in Hansard, I have to qualify it immediately by saying that, naturally, any Progressive Conservative candidate in that riding would probably be better.
The Acting Speaker: Please address your remarks to the chair.
10:10 p.m.
Mr. Gillies: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have tried to enumerate some of the problems with this legislation. We have tried to demonstrate the weakening of the physician-patient relationships, the possible increased costs to an overburdened health care system and the confusion and anxiety that may be caused for some of the most vulnerable people in our society: people with multiple illnesses, the bedridden, the housebound and the senior citizens.
Now that we have demonstrated these things, I have to say to my reasonable friend the member for Nickel Belt, to his friend adjacent to him and to all the other members of the third party that they cannot support this legislation unamended. I refuse to believe it.
Mr. D. S. Cooke: What is the member doing on second reading?
Mr. Gillies: I believe my friends the member for Windsor-Riverside (Mr. D. S. Cooke) and the member for Nickel Belt are going to get together and say: "My gosh, did you hear all those problems? Can we really go along with this? Maybe we should caucus this again. There are going to be all kinds of problems for the ordinary people of this province, the people we try to look out for. We did not really contemplate this. When the Minister of Health first brought it in, at first glance it looked like a pretty good idea, but there will have to be some changes."
Mr. D. S. Cooke: That happens in committee.
Mr. Gillies: My friend the member for Windsor-Riverside will say, "Thank goodness the official opposition made such a strong case for full public debate in committee and for public input on these bills so that we, in combination with the official opposition, will have an opportunity to make the changes that are needed." I can almost hear him saying it right now.
Those are some of the concerns we have. The minister has looked at several legitimate problems and has completely overplayed his hand. He thought he did so with a timing, a procedure and a finesse that was close to sneaky, but it did not quite work.
We insist that these bills and the legitimate concerns that surround them be given a full public hearing. We insist that we have the opportunity to move amendments to this bill so the concerns of the consumers, of our constituents who have contacted us about this legislation, of the health care professionals who are concerned about this legislation and of the members of this House can and will be addressed.
We as a party take pride in having forced the ministry into this course of action. We take pride that there will be full public hearings on these bills. We will be moving amendments to try to minimize the damage that could be done by Bill 54. We will be looking for a response from the Minister of Health to some of the issues we have raised surrounding this legislation.
Mr. Wildman: I am going to participate in this debate briefly. I am very interested in the legislation proposed by the government. I participated in the Ministry of Health estimates along with other members to raise concerns that had been raised with me as a representative of a rural area with a number of small communities and municipalities. I have listened very carefully to the debate, the arguments and the concerns raised by members of the Conservative Party.
I am concerned about this legislation. I recognize there are problems that have to be resolved with regard to the price spread. I am also concerned about the viability of small pharmacies in small communities. For those reasons, I want this legislation to go to committee and be dealt with there, as has been indicated by the minister all along.
Frankly, the debate that has been prolonged by the members of the Progressive Conservative Party has been silly. We have heard the members say things such as, "The government has overplayed its hand." It is the members of the Conservative Party who have overplayed their hand. They have raised concerns and overblown the problems to the point where they have alarmed people. For instance, they have been so alarmist that some seniors, about whom they have been talking, have got a completely incorrect view of what this legislation may mean.
There is a need to improve the legislation and that is what the job of the committee will be; to suggest and make amendments. I do not understand why this party refuses to pass the legislation on second reading so we can get to that stage and raise the concerns it has gone on at length about. We can then have hearings and input and decide how amendments might improve the legislation.
I am very concerned about some of the comments that have been made during this debate. The Conservative Party has argued that it has forced the legislation into committee; that it forced the government to agree to a committee. All of us knew all along that it was going to committee. The only reason it is not in committee now is because the members of the official opposition have refused to let it go to committee.
I have even heard during this debate from members such as the members for York West (Mr. Leluk), Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, and Brantford (Mr. Gillies), who instead of making very serious, thoughtful presentations made very extreme accusations against the minister, the government and even against other members of the Legislature.
One of those members went so far as to quote from a letter and then defend the comments, which almost accused the minister of being a communist. I wonder whether that is helpful in this debate. Putting it into the context of the overall problem we all face as legislators responsible for protecting the public purse as well as for raising the concerns of our constituents, I wonder whether that kind of comment quoted in this House and then expanded upon with accusations of dictatorship and so on really is helpful. Frankly, as a member of this Legislature for 10 years, I do not believe that kind of statement in this House is at all warranted. I do not think it is productive.
I also heard an interjection by the member for Durham West during the presentation of the member for Brantford to the effect that the minister would attend all the funerals -- that is what he said -- if seniors had received improper medication. Mr. Speaker, I was disappointed that you did not call the member to order when we heard that kind of an interjection in this House. I do not know whether it went into Hansard, but it has now. That kind of accusation or statement about the minister is hardly helpful. It is something that denigrates this debate and this chamber.
It is about time we got on with the public business of the people of this province and dealt with the business at hand as responsible members of this House. It is about time this assembly passed this bill on second reading so we can deal in committee with the legitimate concerns that have been raised and amend the bill properly. I said, and I believe, that the comments made by some members of this House during this debate have been silly. Those members themselves will look even sillier when they vote for this legislation on second reading.
10:20 p.m.
Mr. Wiseman: I am pleased to be given an opportunity to speak for a few minutes on Bill 54. I was not going to speak on this bill until all the pharmacists in my area either came in to see me, wrote or phoned me with their concerns. These people, being reasonable -- all the people I have the honour to represent are -- I felt I should bring their concerns here, as I did to the Minister of Health in our estimates, and let the Speaker and others know what they are.
Most of the concerns have been touched on by other members of the Legislature, but those who contacted me all said the same thing: that the minister did not show them the legislation prior to introducing it in the House and calling a press conference where he made some quotes they claim were not factual.
They have some concerns about the three-month supply of drugs for a patient. As well, they have some concerns that all pharmacies must be in this plan when the legislation goes through. At present, I understand pharmacists do not mind belonging to Parcost, though they do not have to, and they find it a little hard to swallow that they must join the plan. However, with respect to the setting of fees, they are concerned with the fact that in a democratic society the minister can arbitrarily set fees for pharmacists in this new bill.
In some of these things, I suggest tonight we have not had anything constructive from the government party. I would suggest to the minister, as I did in his estimates, that rather than having him set the fees arbitrarily -- or someone in the Ministry of Health or some other minister who might be setting them in the future -- it should be the Minister of Health and the Ontario Pharmacists' Association, and if they cannot come to some agreement an arbitrator should be set up, and whatever his or her findings are that should be the case.
In the estimates of the Ministry of Health, I asked the minister whether he had gone over some of the questions I have said the pharmacists asked me. I asked him if he had met with the pharmacists' association prior to bringing in the legislation.
The minister put into Hansard a list of meetings he had. I took from it, that particular day, he had met with them prior to the introduction of this legislation or his press conference. The following week, we got back into it again -- I know the minister is not listening, but he heard it there -- and found out he had not met with them and corrected the record where he had misinformed me the week before in his statements to me at that time.
I can go back to when I was parliamentary assistant to the former Ministers of Health, the member for Muskoka and the member for Don Mills. I was parliamentary assistant to both those gentlemen, and while I was there we never brought in a piece of legislation in the manner in which this government has brought this forward.
As I watched the Minister of Health consulting with his legal counsel and others under the gallery tonight, I thought one or two of them looked like new people, but David Bernstein certainly was not. Some of the older ones must have thought back to the days when the members for Muskoka and Don Mills were in Health -- and a farmer politician from Lanark -- and that sort of thing never happened.
If the people of Ontario today think they have an open government, one that consults with and listens to people, it does not show it in this case and a couple of other examples I could mention. However, those are not under this legislation.
Hon. Mr. Riddell: The member has a lot of respect in his riding. He should try to retain that.
Mr. Wiseman: Yes, I am, and I note --
Hon. Mr. Riddell: His constituents are not going to be happy with this kind of speech.
The Acting Speaker: Order.
Mr. Wiseman: I note to the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Riddell) that I have that in the riding and I will have it after I say what I am saying. I am going back and the record will show that when we were in power, to the best of my knowledge, in any ministry I had the privilege of serving in we never brought legislation through in a manner such as we have seen here today, without consultation, without discussion with the discipline before it was brought forward.
In the statement the minister made the day after introducing the legislation, there was a figure of $50 million the pharmacists were supposed to be ripping off the public. In the minister's estimates I asked him to clarify that $50 million because the pharmacists could not get a statement as to where he got that figure, where he pulled it from.
When we talked to him and his officials, that figure was down to about $17 million or $18 million. Hansard will prove me right or wrong on that. I asked the Minister of Health at the time if he took into account that the pharmacists had not had a raise in dispensing fees for two to three years and if they had raised it to be somewhere in line with some of the other provinces, by at least 50 cents a dispensing fee, how would that balance off with the $17 million or $18 million the pharmacists were supposed to have by the pharmaceutical manufacturers reducing their price of drugs, how would that work out.
If that had been done, it would work out in favour of the pharmacists. It seems to me that when we talked to the Minister of Health at the time --
Hon. Mr. Bradley: I think the member is saying this just for the Hansard and he is going to vote for the bill. He is saying this just so he can mail this back to the pharmacists and tell them he is opposed to it.
Mr. Wiseman: The Minister of the Environment has a lot to say at all times.
I have a fork down on the farm that I use in the spring of the year. It is not quite spring but I would bring it up and give it to him and put the loader someplace over there and he would have it filled in no time.
Mr. Gillies: The minister has a loader of his own.
Mr. Wiseman: I was told by the honourable member that the minister maybe has a loader of his own. However, the Minister of Agriculture and Food knows what I am talking about, and if I run out of mine, maybe he has one he can bring down from the farm. But he is interrupting me and I forgot where I was.
I was at the $18 million and the dispensing fee. They are trying to provoke me and at this time of night, being the person I am from the part of the world I come from, I will not be provoked. This is a serious matter. We have never seen a discipline such as the pharmacists so upset. I have not seen them so upset. Knowing how fair they are, and that they are, in my opinion, a lot like our doctors, dedicated to their job, dedicated to helping people, to have legislation pushed down their throats like this without consultation is wrong.
Going into this debate tonight, I was not aware that the government had decided to hold full and open hearings for all the public to come in and --
An hon. member: The minister said that last fall.
Mr. Wiseman: No, he did not. I am pleased they are going to have full and open hearings and let the pharmacists and some of the elderly people come in and let the government know what they are thinking; they really have a chance now to correct the injustice they did earlier by bringing the legislation through without consulting with the people. They have a chance to have good, open government and listen to the people when they come into committee, bring in the amendments and bring a piece of legislation that will fly, that the pharmacists will be happy with, the people of Ontario will be happy with and we as legislators will be able to support.
Hon. Mr. Riddell: Before the member sits down, let him tell us how he is going to vote.
10:30 p.m.
Mr. Wiseman: Maybe I should send the spreader over to the Minister of Agriculture and Food as well. I will give him a seven-pronged fork, one he knows how to use.
On motion by Mr. Wiseman, the debate was adjourned.
JOB CREATION
The Acting Speaker: Pursuant to standing order 28, the motion that this House do adjourn is deemed to have been made. The member for Lincoln (Mr. Andrewes) has given notice of his dissatisfaction with the answer to his question given by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology (Mr. O'Neil) concerning job creation programs. The member has up to five minutes to debate the matter, and the minister may reply for up to five minutes.
Hon. Mr. Bradley: Is he telling us how he is voting on the pharmacists' bill first?
Mr. Andrewes: In order to give the member for St. Catharines (Mr. Bradley) some satisfaction from his earnest efforts and his interjections for this whole evening, I am going to tell him I will be voting against Bill 54.
Yesterday in question period I raised with the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology a very serious issue with respect to job creation. The question was raised after a question by one of my colleagues to the Minister of Colleges and Universities (Mr. Sorbara) -- the minister of Futures, as we assume he wishes to be called -- in answer to which he revealed to this House the rather shocking fact that after all the hype and advertisements that have been put forward to the public inviting participation in the Futures program, they have received fewer than 5,000 applications for this program and fewer than one in five of those people who have applied have been placed up to this time. This does very little to solve the chronic problem of unemployment, particularly among our younger people.
My concern went further. My concern was directed towards a budget offered to us by the Treasurer (Mr. Nixon) that, for the first time in six or seven years of budgets presented to this Legislature, contained not one expenditure program that would address the chronic unemployment problem among people who are older than 25 and do not qualify for Futures.
In the budget debate the Treasurer gave us a recitation of employment figures that had pertained to Ontario for the last three to six to nine months. He gave us a recitation of the programs that the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Ridden) was going to put in place to address chronic problems in the agriculture industry. He gave us a recitation of the wonderful programs the Minister of Colleges and Universities was going to undertake under the cover of Futures.
However, in the whole budget debate, he did not address the very serious chronic problems among unemployed adults over the age of 25. A budget that takes $750 million in additional revenue from the people of this province and increases the deficit by $500 million does not contain one program for unemployed people over the age of 25.
I posed a very serious question to the minister. I got back from him the same recitation of figures. These figures, I am sure, were very comforting to the minister to look at and very comforting to his government, but not very comforting to those who are unemployed in this province or to their families who are depending on them to provide a livelihood and to put bread on the table.
I did not ask the minister to be an apologist for the inadequacies of the Treasurer's programs and I did not ask him to be an apologist for the inadequacies of the Treasurer's budget. I asked him simply whether he would tell us what programs he is suggesting to his cabinet colleagues that would alleviate these problems.
I asked by way of supplementary whether he would support and bring forward to cabinet a program his leader endorsed in the last election campaign, a program the small business community would find very useful in employing people over the age of 25, in finding retraining programs for these people and undertaking to make them a useful part of the work force once again.
I asked him to tell us whether he would bring that kind of a recommendation forward to his cabinet colleagues. Again, I got the same recitation of employment figures. So we come to this time when there is an opportunity to debate this issue once again. I am pleased the minister is here. I await his comments.
Hon. Mr. O'Neil: First, I welcome the opportunity tonight to respond again to the question posed to me yesterday afternoon by the member.
Yesterday the member for Lincoln charged that this government had failed to create new jobs. The answer I delivered to the House refuted that claim. I will repeat, as I did the other day, that in the month of November alone employment in Ontario grew by close to 51,000 people. Overall, employment during the first five months of our government has increased by approximately 74,000 jobs. Some of those jobs are held by the younger class and many of those are held by people who are over 25 years of age.
Jobs are clearly the highest priority of this government. Let me now remind the House about the specific initiatives we have undertaken to ensure that Ontario's economic performance continues to exceed that of the rest of the country.
Our first budget contained a number of measures to strengthen Ontario's small business and industrial sectors. The small business development corporation program saw a 20 per cent increase in its budget from $25 million to $30 million, for one thing alone.
We are very concerned about the employment needs of northern and eastern Ontario. We have taken positive steps in that direction. We have expanded the eligibility requirements in these areas to include companies that provide services to the mining and forest industries.
Interjections.
Hon. Mr. Elston: Listen, we are supplying jobs to those people the government of members opposite was not able to help. We are creating more jobs for the people of Ontario. This minister is doing an excellent job.
Mr. Andrewes: The government is going to have to employ a lot of pharmacists after this legislation.
The Acting Speaker: Order.
Hon. Mr. O'Neil: These would be in such areas as transportation, contract drilling, machine and equipment rental and leasing, engineering and other scientific and technical services. To further stimulate the investment and the employment situation in these areas, we have also reduced the minimum capital requirements for an SBDC cash grant or tax credit in those areas from $100,000 to $50,000.
The Ministry of Skills Development has recently introduced a new program for young people aged 16 to 24, who face difficulty in getting their first jobs. It is called Futures, as the member has mentioned on a couple of occasions. The program provides counselling, training and work experience and is designed to help these young people find and maintain a permanent job. In two short months there have been 2,200 new placements.
These initiatives demonstrate this government's willingness to tackle complex issues. Our policies will continue to reflect this commitment to economic expansion, which will lead to further job creation. Key current economic indicators point to continued growth.
Unemployment has fallen to 7.4 per cent, well below the country's overall rate of 10.2 per cent. Housing starts were up by 22.7 per cent in the first eight months of 1985 over the same period last year. According to the survey of business capital investment intentions of large firms, the business community is more optimistic than it was six months ago. Ontario will show the greatest increase in capital spending, up 10.7 per cent over 1985 and well above the country's overall rate of 7.5 per cent.
The confidence the business community has in this government tells me we are on the right track. We will continue to work together in partnership with the business community to stimulate economic growth in order to create a prosperous and dynamic future for the citizens of Ontario.
May I say to the minister -- or to the previous minister, now the member -- that I also have the greatest faith in the --
Mr. Andrewes: I resigned gracefully.
Hon. Mr. O'Neil: He did resign, did he?
Mr. Andrewes: Retired.
Hon. Mr. O'Neil: I have the greatest faith in the Minister of Skills Development (Mr. Sorbara), in the job he is doing in the ministry and in all the people who work for him. He has been travelling around the province visiting universities, schools and factories along with myself to see what we can possibly do to create more jobs in the areas the honourable member is talking about and is concerned about. We will do our best to see that these things happen.
I want to note just one other thing our ministry has been doing, and that is the hotline for people wanting to start up new businesses or small businesses.
The House adjourned at 10:41 p.m.