OTTAWA, Ontario (LifeSiteNews) — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Health Minister is pushing to get a bill before the Senate that would provide “free” contraception to all Canadians, to be passed as soon as he can, despite the fact it faces opposition from healthcare groups and some provincial governments who are not yet on board.
Last week, Health Minister Mark Holland said that his “pharmacare legislation needs to pass through the Senate,” claiming that it is “important to know we (the Trudeau government) are squarely and continually focused on helping folks and trying to make things better.”
Holland’s comments concern Bill C-64, also known as “An Act respecting pharmacare.” Bill C-64 was introduced by Holland earlier this year and recently passed the House of Commons. It is now before the Senate Social Affairs Committee for review.
The bill will allow for “universal access to contraceptives,” including the “morning-after pill, a point that the Trudeau Liberals have made many times. The aim of the bill is for Trudeau’s cabinet to make a new “national universal pharmacare” program.
Last week, the Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association raised new concerns over the bill, observing that many “aspects” of it have not “been articulated and will not be determined until after Bill C-64 receives Royal Assent which presents a challenge.”
The group is seeking “greater clarity” over Holland’s Bill C-64. Holland has said previously that terms of this bill if it gets enacted need to be negotiated with the “provinces” that are in charge of health care in their respective regions.
“That is going to take some period of time. Obviously, not all the provinces are going to come on line at once. That is very hard to forecast,” he has previously said about the bill.
Some provinces such as Alberta have been cold to the idea of any federal law impacting health care, seeing them as intrusions into their authority. In Canada, health care exclusively falls within the jurisdiction of provinces.
The Canadian Medical Association, as noted by LifeSiteNews recently, said that it will only perpetuate “Canada’s fragmented approach to pharmaceutical purchasing which results in higher drug prices than in countries with universal public pharmacare systems.”
Campaign Life Coalition, Canada’s top pro-life group, as reported by LifeSiteNews, said that Bill C-64 is nothing more than a plan to spread the “big lie” that women don’t have control over their fertility unless they are “popping” contraceptives.
Trudeau’s pharmacare bill also promotes the drugs for at-home, or chemical abortions, which are typically done through the ingestion of drugs like Mifegymiso. In January, CLC reported on a 19-year-old Canadian girl who died after taking Mifegymiso.
The bill, as observed by the Canadian Medical Association, calls to create a “Canadian Drug Agency” but does not provide any way to do this or give it any powers. The bill allows the federal government to spend at will by throwing money as it sees fit to fund contraceptives and other drugs. Also, Bill C-64 appears to interfere with private insurance coverage for drugs, which is a roadblock that must be looked at by the Senate committee, the Canadian Medical Association noted.
Most Canadians already have either drug coverage via their work or a provincial program.
For Catholics, the Church’s teaching prohibiting the use of artificial contraception, including the morning-after pill and abortion-inducing drugs, has remained constant. The Catholic Church also proclaims that the right to life of every innocent person from conception to natural death is a truth knowable by reason and contained in the natural law.
Canadian Association of Retired Persons chief policy officer Bill VanGorder testified in May about the bill giving a warning that the “federal government’s proposal of a single public payer approach to deliver pharmacare because we fear this could crowd out private payers which currently cover the majority of Canadians.”
This could mean that Canadians could be forced to accept an insurance plan that covers contraception and abortion pills. Many Christian and Catholic organizations that provide insurance coverage opt out of this coverage.