A memo obtained by the NDP through access-to-information law and viewed by Blacklock’s Reporter showed that Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos was made aware of the difficulties in convincing pharmaceutical companies to lower their drug prices before he urged an independent federal agency to pause the discussion for more consultation. The memo, titled “Memorandum to the Minister of Health,” dated December 8, 2021, stated that “it would appear the pharmaceutical industry is simply not amenable to any measures that would further constrain its ability to sell patented medicines in Canada at free market prices.” The Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPR) is responsible for monitoring drug prices, and its members held over 110 hours of meetings with members of the pharmaceutical industry but said they “steadfastly refused to engage on the substance” even after the consultations. The proposed changes to federal rules announced by the government in 2017 to bring prices down have faced pushback by the pharmaceutical sector and resulted in court challenges from late 2020 to early 2022, causing amendments related to “the new price regulatory factors” to not come into force till July 2022. Duclos suggested the process be paused in November 2022 to allow time for the stakeholders to fully understand the short- and long-term impacts of the proposed new guidelines. In March 2022, the NDP signed a Supply and Confidence Agreement with the Liberals to back the minority government till June 2025, with one of the conditions being the government passing a bill on universal public drug insurance coverage by the end of 2023, but no bill has been introduced to date. The Parliamentary Budget Office estimated that the NDP’s national pharmacare plan would cost the nation around $11 billion a year. A poll conducted in April 2022 by market research firm Leger indicated that over half of Canadians would lose enthusiasm towards the program if it’s paid for through an increase in taxes, particularly the goods and services tax.