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Adjournment Proceedings

2026-05-06 Sitting 118 Showing 1–2 of 2

A debate about a $300 million government health program. The Conservatives criticized the waste and inefficiency of the program, while the Liberals defended 25 years of government funding for it despite it still faxing messages instead of being digital. No real conclusion was reached.

Official Hansard ↗

Tim Louis

Liberal 6:30 p.m.

“For 25 years Liberals and Conservatives kept funding this program. Nobody used it much. We finally looked at it again and ended the funding. Why are you suddenly upset now that we stopped?”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, as the member knows, Canada Health Infoway has received funding from the Government of Canada for 25 years. That is 25 years of Liberal and Conservative governments alike recognizing that we need to come together with the provinces and territories to jointly fund an organization that promotes improving our health data infrastructure. This collaboration with provinces and territories is essential in a country like Canada, where health care falls under provincial jurisdiction. This means that we need to work together, alongside the provinces and territories, ensuring that our health care system responds to the needs of all Canadians. That is why the previous government worked with Infoway and the provinces and territories to launch PrescribeIT in 2017. The federal government heard from our provincial and territorial partners that our health care data was being held back by a long-standing dependence on paper and fax to transmit prescriptions. We should not be relying on fax machines at a time when information is so easily accessible. To try to address this challenge, the previous government provided seed funding to Health Canada Infoway for a program that would replace this outdated reliance on fax machines. This was never intended to be long-term, ongoing funding. From the beginning, the plan was for PrescribeIT to become self-sufficient. Nearly a decade later, it was clear this plan had failed. While nearly 11 million prescriptions were fulfilled last year using PrescribeIT, that number is only 5% of prescriptions across Canada. Doctors and pharmacies alike did not use the system. Our new government came into office and took a look at what was working and what was not. Based on our careful review, we saw that there was no path for PrescribeIT to become financially sustainable, and we ended the funding for the program. The Conservatives seem to think there is something wrong with ending a program that has low uptake, but the fact is that our new government takes its role as steward and custodian of taxpayer dollars very seriously, especially when it comes to health care. We are committed to focusing on resources where those dollars will deliver the greatest benefit to patients and our health care system.

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Tim Louis

Liberal 6:45 p.m.

“I don't want to admit anything bad happened. Look over there at other people. We spent money because others said to. It didn't work. We stopped. That's good.”

What they said. What they meant.

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