On July 16th Canada’s premiers gathered in Halifax, and were met by about 300 people with a clear message: private health care is a poison pill.

The Council of Canadians rallied in favour of public health care and pharmacare alongside patients, health care workers, and health care advocates from the Canadian Health Coalition, the Nova Scotia and PEI Health Coalitions, CUPE, UNIFOR, NUPGE, NSGEU, PSAC, CFNU, the Canadian Labour Congress, Wellness Within, Access Now Nova Scotia, Transition Housing Association of Nova Scotia, Wije’winen Health Centre and the Centre for Migrant Worker Rights Nova Scotia.

Council of Canadians campaigner Nik Barry-Shaw spoke about how far we’ve come in the fight for pharmacare, and what is left to accomplish.

“With the Pharmacare Act, we won a huge battle against big pharma, against the insurance companies that are trying to eat into our public health care system,” Barry-Shaw said. “But the fight is far from over.”

Once the Pharmacare Act passes the Senate and becomes law, which is expected in October 2024, it will be up to provinces and territories to establish agreements with the federal government to implement pharmacare across the country. At this point, the fate of pharmacare is in the hands of the premiers.

Will they quickly negotiate deals with the federal government that provides universal coverage with no out-of-pocket cost for contraceptives and diabetes medications and devices ? Or will they allow progress towards national pharmacare to fall victim to wider federal-provincial disputes?  Big Pharma and the insurance industry are hoping that premiers take the latter route – and lobbying to make it so.

“We forced the federal government to do the hard work of passing pharmacare legislation after years, decades of delay,” Barry-Shaw told the rally. “Now, it’s up to the premiers to do the easy work of accepting federal funding to roll out pharmacare in their provinces.”

Vigilance is key going forward. Our movements can have a big impact on the premiers’ decisions in the coming months. This rally was just one way to demonstrate that people are watching and waiting for pharmacare to be implemented in their provinces. Over two-thirds of Canadians (68%) say they want their premiers to make working with the federal government on pharmacare a “high priority” and nearly half (46%) say a rejection of national pharmacare will make them less likely to vote for incumbent premiers and their parties, according to a new poll by Environics commissioned by the Canadian Health Coalition.

The looming 2025 federal election makes rolling out pharmacare now even more important. We know that the Liberals and NDP brought in the Pharmacare Act, and we know that the Conservatives are already talking about getting rid of it if they come into office. “We won pharmacare,” UNIFOR president Lana Payne declared in an impassioned speech at the rally. “And we’re not going to let f—– Pierre Poilievre take it away from us!”

In order to make pharmacare election-proof, we need to ensure that it is implemented in as many provinces and territories as possible before the election. It would be easy to scrap a program when it’s only on paper, but it would much more politically difficult to take pharmacare away once people have already experienced the life-changing benefit of receiving their medications free of charge.

You can read a full account of the rally’s speakers by the Canadian Health Coalition here.