Western Standard - February 26, 2024


NDP Leader Discusses Pharmacare Deal and Response to Bill C 63

Mentioned
Elon Musk Mark Zuckerberg
Nadine Wellwood on the formation of an Alberta pension plan #ableg #albertapensionplan ArriveScam： Contractors worked on federal 'Covid Alert' app contract prior to ArriveCan

Episode Stats


Length

3 minutes

Words per minute

194.55

Word count

754

Sentence count

44


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, learn about the importance of single-payer pharmacare and online child protection, and why the Tories are fighting to protect kids online from online harm. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's announcement that pharmacare will cover birth control and contraceptives across the country is a step in the right direction.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 We know in Canada, one in four Canadians skips their pill, doesn't fill out a prescription because it's too expensive.
00:00:08.240 So to be able to announce to Canadians that we are forcing the Liberal government to move forward to cover two classes of drugs with a single-payer public program to cover contraceptives and diabetes is historic.
00:00:23.060 We're proud of that. It's going to mean for a lot of people, for millions of Canadians, they're going to be able to save their money.
00:00:27.720 They're going to be able to stay healthier. For people living with diabetes, this is a life-saving and very hopeful message to them.
00:00:35.860 For them, many people are not taking the medication they need. They're not taking their insulin, they're not getting their blood tested, and it's costing them thousands of dollars out of pocket that they just can't afford.
00:00:46.100 And so for those Canadians right now who are hearing this, we're going to give you some hope. We're going to cover diabetes medication across this country.
00:00:53.000 It's going to save people money, it's going to keep them healthier, and it's going to take some of the burden off of our healthcare system.
00:00:58.580 Because we know what happens when people don't take the medication they need.
00:01:01.480 They end up getting more and more sick, and they end up in the emergency room. So we're going to save people.
00:01:06.060 For people who need contraceptives, one of my dear friends who used to work at a women's clinic tells me that for the days that they would provide contraceptives,
00:01:15.180 people would wait for hours and hours in line to get access to contraceptives, and that often they would run out of contraceptives before serving everyone in line.
00:01:24.320 This is going to mean for a lot of people, real access to the right to choose. Not just a right, but access to that right.
00:01:31.540 And we firmly believe in it, and we're very proud that we can deliver contraceptive coverage across the country.
00:01:36.500 We've also been able to force this government to move ahead with legislation that clearly, specifically will cite single-payer, universal, and public,
00:01:44.920 and the Canada Health Act, and the principles that guide the Canada Health Act, which reinforce public single-payer pharmacare.
00:01:53.040 This is something that we force the Liberals to do, and let it be known that this is not a coincidence,
00:01:59.360 that the Liberals have promised this for 30 years and broken that promise, and it is no coincidence that now they are moving ahead
00:02:07.500 with the first national pharmacare program because New Democrats forced them to do so.
00:02:12.660 This is not something the Liberals are going to do anyways. This is not something that they wanted to do, and we sped it up.
00:02:17.240 We forced them to do something they were never going to do otherwise.
00:02:20.860 And we know the Conservatives, where they stand on this, they want to cut health care.
00:02:25.000 They want to cut dental care. They want to cut pharma care. They want to cut investments that make people's lives better.
00:02:31.760 That's what Conservatives do. Ask anyone who lives in a Conservative province.
00:02:36.120 Conservatives cut health care, education, everything that families and workers need.
00:02:41.040 It's no different at the federal level. That's exactly what they want to do.
00:02:44.280 So we are going to continue to push forward and make sure people can get some relief, get some break,
00:02:49.560 and put money back in their pockets.
00:02:51.360 I also want to talk about the Liberals' recent legislation.
00:02:56.880 They finally announced steps to move forward on online harm.
00:03:01.280 They promised to do so 100 days after the election.
00:03:06.320 Now we're at almost 800 days.
00:03:08.960 Their inaction has meant that kids were harmed, that kids actually were exploited online because they failed to act.
00:03:16.040 So of course we support action to keep kids safe online.
00:03:20.040 We know that there's so much danger and harm to kids happening online.
00:03:23.820 We want to prevent that.
00:03:25.040 Of course, look at the details of the legislation, but this general principle is something that we support.
00:03:29.300 What we're concerned about, though, is that Conservatives don't want to protect kids
00:03:33.220 and instead want to cater to billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg,
00:03:37.880 who have no interest in protecting kids,
00:03:39.960 who have allowed online harm to continue and have not put in place any safeguards to protect kids.
00:03:44.580 So that's something that Conservatives are going to have to answer to families and to kids
00:03:48.260 why they would rather protect Elon Musk than children being exploited online.