Budget

• While Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos claims this is part of the government’s strategy to offer Canadians “access to quality and affordable medicines,” the policy is likely to cause more harm than good.
• Adoption of Agile Licensing would allow companies to market drugs up to six months earlier than under the current system.

Flawed assumptions

• By design, Canada will have less information about the risks of new medicines if those drugs enter the market with less pre-market clinical data.
• This will become a problem if a company fails to conduct promised post-market studies or if Health Canada does not remove unsafe or ineffective medicines from the market.
• New medicines are (and have long been) the primary driver of increasing spending on prescription drugs, for both private and public drug plans.

Affordability

• However, they can also enable manufacturers of specialized medicines to charge exorbitant prices due to the life-or-death situations faced by patients who need such treatments.
• Pharmaceutical companies are using this market power to charge extraordinarily high prices with increasing frequency.
• Before 2006, only four drugs approved in Canada had annual prices above $50,000 per patient — which is clearly a lot of money.

The harms of high drug prices

• This discrepancy between reasonable prices for generating health benefits and the prices charged for many new patented medicines indicates a failing system.
• Before fast-tracking drug approvals so that manufacturers can increase sales, policymakers should develop and enforce measures to ensure the prices charged will fall within reasonable limits.
• He was previously a member of the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB), and received honoraria for his public service.

• Reporting back from the mission to the USA - 28.06.23
  23-06-2023 - 14:16
  The Committee on Budgets will hear the Chair of the Committee on Budgets, Johan van Overtveldt, who was also the head of delegation, and the other participants of the delegation on some key take away messages from their mission to Washington on 15-18 May 2023.
• Members met with a range of political decision makers and stakeholders in Washington DC to exchange views on topical issues of common interest.
• BUDG Members met, inter alia, with Senators and members of the House of Representatives, high level representatives of the executive branch (Treasury, White House Budget Office) as well as the IMF, the Chamber of Commerce and the Brookings Institute.

• The public heard about a lack of support for LGBTQ2S+ identities, chaotic and divisive school trustee meetings and a rise in violence in schools.
• A major contributing factor to this rise in violence in schools is the chronic underfunding of public education and the social service sector.

Violence in schools

• An alarming three-quarters (77 per cent) of members of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO), said they have “personally experienced violence or witnessed violence against another staff member” in a recent survey conducted by Strategic Communications.
• Black and other minoritized youth and educators are becoming collateral damage by being pushed out of schools due to wilful neglect of institutions in not supporting their needs.

The school-to-prison pipeline

• The school-to-prison pipeline continues to cast a dark shadow over the education system in Ontario.
• This “pipeline” refers to the systematic processes that push students, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, out of the educational system and into the criminal justice system.
• This trend disproportionately affects marginalized communities, particularly Black and Indigenous students, perpetuating a cycle of poverty, systemic discrimination and mass incarceration.

Tragic impact on marginalized communities

• This is a result of many institutions and leaders at all three levels of government collectively failing to support the needs of racialized communities.
• Suspensions and expulsions disproportionately affect marginalized students.

Calls to action

• Redirect funds towards mental health services, counsellors, social workers and community programs that prioritize prevention and timely intervention.
• There needs to be a more urgent implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s 94 Calls to Action.
• At the end of April, Ontario’s Ministry of Education announced funding to combat violence and improving safety in schools through community partnerships.
• We all have to do our part to hold institutions accountable, including for failures and neglect.

• Long-term reinforcement of the EU budget: mid-term revision of the MFF - 27.6.23
  21-06-2023 - 09:14
  The Committee on Budgets will host a presentation by Commissioner Hahn on the mid-term revision of the Multiannual Financial Framework proposing targeted reinforcements in a limited number of priority areas.
• The Commission's main objectives include inter alia securing continuous financial support for Ukraine, reinforcement of financing for migration and external challenges, as well as funding for key technologies like deep tech and digital, clean tech and biotechnology under the initiative Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform.
• Commissioner Hahn will also present the Commission's proposal for the second package of own resources, which consists of a statistical-based own resource on company profits as well as an adjustment of the ETS own resource.
• Commissioner Hahn will also present the Commission's proposal for the second package of own resources, which consists of a statistical-based own resource on company profits as well as an adjustment of the ETS own resource.