Pharmaceutical prices and the Canadian Health Minister

Here in Canada we generally pay less for prescription drugs than Americans do, because of government controls that do not exist in the States. Consequently there are businesses that buy drugs in Canada and sell them across the border, though legality is iffy at best.

According to a front-page story in today’s Globe and Mail, four organizations representing Canadian pharmacists and drug distributors have asked the Canadian Health Minister to ban the export of prescription drugs to the United States. They fear that a bill introduced in Congress last Wednesday, which would allow drug imports to the USA from certain other countries, including Canada, would cause the manufacturers to end their willingness to keep Canadian prices low.

Health Minister Tony Clement has said in the past that he doesn’t expect possible U.S. legislative changes to affect Canada’s supply of drugs. And his spokesman has commented that the southward flow has actually dropped since 2004.

Wait a minute. If the flow has indeed dropped in the past, that is irrelevant, because the threat is of a change that would increase the flow in the future. Why would the minister’s spokesman try to misdirect the public? Something doesn’t smell right here.

Tony Clement is well known in Ontario, as he was a minister in the widely hated Mike Harris government (which gained power only because the majority of the voting population split its vote between two other major parties). Based on his past behaviour, my suspicion is that he is ideologically against price controls, and would be happy with an end to artificially low drug prices in Canada. But he won’t admit it for obvious reasons.

If I’m right about what’s happening then he’s being dishonest. (Something he would be well used to from his Mike Harris days.)