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Adjournment Proceedings

2026-05-06 Sitting 118 Showing 1–4 of 4

A late night debate about a health records program called PrescribeIT, on which hundreds of millions were spent for little result. Both the Conservatives and Liberals argued about who was to blame for its failure, and how much the program cost.

Official Hansard ↗

Helena Konanz

Conservative 6:45 p.m.

“$300 million for a useless program. No results to show. I want an investigation. The CEO was overpaid and now he's fired. What a waste of taxpayer money!”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to speak about a scandal that is only growing in size, complexity and cost to taxpayers. The Liberals' PrescribeIT was launched in 2016, promising to put every prescription in Canada into a digital system, allowing our pharmacies to move off their reliance on fax machines. At least $300 million in taxpayer dollars was spent in the following decade in pursuit of this goal. The result was complete failure. This taxpayer-funded boondoggle failed to fill even 5% of all prescriptions and cannot be shown to have replaced a single fax machine. It is now being shut down entirely, with the few partners who used it now likely to have to find someone who can reinstall a fax machine in 2026. Canada did not invent e-prescription services. Health care systems and private firms around the world have upgraded their prescription systems from fax machines to serve doctors, pharmacists and patients better. We did not have to reinvent the wheel. Only in Canada and only under the Liberal government could yet another government-funded IT project create absolutely nothing of benefit to Canadians. It is another ArriveCAN, except with an even higher price tag for taxpayers. In the time that I have spent in the House and on the health committee, it has become apparent to me how much better $300 million could have been spent on our health care system. It could have gone toward health transfers to British Columbia, to hire dozens more doctors, nurses and specialists, especially for rural regions like mine that suffer constant closures of many of our emergency rooms for lack of staff. It could have gone toward treatment beds, to give people with addiction in my province a path to recovery. Instead, it was hundreds of millions handed off to a quasi-governmental agency, Canada Health Infoway, in partnership with Telus, with nothing to show for it and the vast majority of the IP created left in private hands rather than the public interest. This disastrous waste of taxpayer money on the Liberals' $300-million PrescribeIT deserves a full investigation but Conservative attempts to do so have been stonewalled every step of the way. When I questioned Michael Green, the CEO in charge of the agency that oversaw PrescribeIT, Canada Health Infoway, about what went wrong, he could not provide a straight answer despite having worked on the failed Liberal program for 10 years. When I asked how much he was paid, he refused to answer, saying that it was in the public record, but, as his own board chair later admitted, that was a lie. Mr. Green's compensation was not public at that time. There is a reason he wanted it that way. He was paid almost $900,000 when we include the hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses and a taxpayer-funded car. Between our first and last meetings on this topic, the board of Canada Health Infoway fired Mr. Green to prevent him from returning to answer questions. Was the $300 million spent on PrescribeIT a good use of taxpayer dollars, considering that it did not permanently eliminate a single fax machine?

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Tim Louis

Liberal 6:50 p.m.

“The previous government started this. We all thought it was a good idea at the time. It didn't work out. We decided to stop wasting money on it. I want to sound reasonable and responsible about cutting the program.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member opposite for her question, and I will say many of the things to her that I said to the member's colleagues. As my colleague knows, PrescribeIT was launched by the previous government in collaboration with Canada Health Infoway, the provinces and territories because it saw that there was a need for it. The provinces and territories wanted to move doctors and pharmacies away from using fax machines and toward a system where important health care data could be sent electronically. Infoway was chosen for the job because it had received funding from Liberal and Conservative governments alike since 2001. The organization has long been a place for federal, provincial and territorial governments to come together to work on improving Canada's health data infrastructure. The resulting program, PrescribeIT, was launched in 2017, following extensive consultations with the provinces and territories. It is important to note that the goal was never to have the federal government fund PrescribeIT indefinitely. From the outset, the plan was for the program to be self-funded over time. This meant that, when our new government came into office last year, we took a hard look at what was working and what was not working. We take our responsibility as stewards and watchdogs for taxpayer dollars very seriously. We saw that PrescribeIT did not have the level of pick up that was expected when it launched nearly a decade ago. As was mentioned, only 5% of prescriptions were filled using the system. Rather than continuing to fund a program that no one was using, we decided to end funding for PrescribeIT. At a time when Canadians expect that we will spend health care dollars wisely and carefully, we wanted to make sure that we were investing taxpayer money in a way that delivers the greatest benefit to patients and the health system alike. Are there questions about the future of lnfoway following this decision? Of course there are. That is why we are refocusing government spending and ensuring that Canada Health lnfoway focuses on what it was intended to do, which is to build up Canada's health data infrastructure and support the development of national health data standards. This work is important, and it speaks to the future of Canada's health care system. Canadians deserve and expect a system that meets their needs and adapts to the world as the flow of information changes. Our government will always be there for Canadians, for our health care sector, and for our provincial and territorial partners, to make sure that we are helping to deliver health care in a way that puts the needs of patients first.

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Helena Konanz

Conservative 6:50 p.m.

“We argued about this before. I asked you to investigate a failed program. I say you shut down debate and hid the evidence. I want Canadians to think you are hiding something.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, what Canadians deserve is transparency. Conservatives want to get to the bottom of how $300 million of taxpayer money was wasted on this project, PrescribeIT. When Conservatives demanded that Mr. Green return to the committee to account for the millions of tax dollars that he had been paid for no results, the Liberals voted us down. When the Bloc moved to have the Liberal health minister appear within the next month to testify to her role in this scandal, Liberals ended our meeting entirely. When Conservatives moved to call on the Auditor General of Canada, a non-partisan official, to investigate, the Liberals moved to turn off the camera and seal the records of that committee for the next 30 years. My question is simple: Why did the Liberals turn off the camera and seal the records of that meeting for the next 30 years?

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Tim Louis

Liberal 6:50 p.m.

“The old government started a program with problems. We decided to stop giving it money. We say we will spend money on things that work.”

What they said. What they meant.

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