Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre appears to have a new speech writer: the pharmaceutical lobby.

As the corporate lobby mounts an attack on the NDP and Liberal government’s new pharmacare program, Poilievre has been cribbing from their deceitful talking points.

The pharmacare program will provide free birth control and diabetes medicine to Canadians—and potentially pave the way for broader drug coverage under a universal, public, single-payer system.

That’s got the pharmaceutical and insurance industry panicked, since it would eat into their multi-billion dollar profits by lowering the exorbitant price of drugs.

They’ve turned to stoking fear and spreading outright lies about pharmcare, including by funding think tanks and institutes to amplify their attacks.

Despite once describing them as “crooked Big Pharma,” Poilievre has allied himself to their campaign.

Parsing his recent commentary in Parliament and interviews amounts to a quiz of “Who said it? Pierre or Pharma?”

Who said it? Pierre Poilievre or Big Pharma?

“…that [pharmacare] will make you worse off” – Pierre Poilievre

“…pharmacare would actually leave most Canadians worse off” – Kathy Megyery, former drug executive and Senior VP, Canadian Chamber of Commerce

More than three million people who live with diabetes have been paying as much as $18,000 a year out of pocket. Now they’ll get it free with a health card. Same goes for nearly ten million people who’ll be able to access free birth control pills and emergency contraception. Not exactly “worse off.”

“…most of your listeners already have coverage through their workplace” – Pierre Poilievre

“97.2% of Canadians already have access to pharmaceutical coverage” – Innovative Medicines Canada

The assertion that almost everyone’s needs are covered is from a study funded by the pharmaceutical lobby’s leading front group. It’s been described as a “lie” by academic experts, who say that in fact over 8 million Canadians have no drug coverage, and millions more split pills or skip doses because of soaring prices and inadequate insurance under their existing plans.

“Any plan…that would ban you from having a workplace drug coverage” – Pierre Poilievre

“The new law would probably prohibit purchasing complementary insurance.” – Pharma-funded Montreal Economic Institute

Nowhere in the pharmacare legislation is there any mention of abolishing workplace health benefits or private drug plans, which Canadians will be able to continue to use. But that hasn’t stopped industry voices in the National Post from claiming, with zero evidence, that the “Federal pharmacare is a bomb waiting to detonate your coverage.”

“..at higher cost to Canadian taxpayers” – Pierre Poilievre

“..costly for taxpayers.” – Brett Skinner, CEO, Canadian Health Policy Institute

In fact, pharmacare would mean the government can negotiate drug prices in bulk—which is why every serious estimate has shown that Canadians would end up with better coverage at lower cost. 

That’s why pharmaceutical companies desperately want to stick with the status quo: so Canadians continue to pay the second highest drug prices in the world, behind only the U.S. 

Poilievre’s alignment with the aims of the pharmaceutical lobby is at odds with some of his public rhetoric, which has included calling the industry “dirtbag companies.”

Last year, he described their tactics like this: “these powerful multinationals knew exactly what they were doing but they kept doing it anyway to profit themselves and their wealth executives.”

Now they’re doing it again—and Poilievre is repeating their spin verbatim.

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It’s amazing that Facebook is so much in favor of the right wing that they won’t allow anyone to post anything that undercuts their agenda

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