Liberal
Leader Stéphane Dion, centre, makes a campaign stop on Tuesday with former leadership rival Scott Brison, left, at Dalhousie Medical School in Halifax. A Liberal government would create a $900-million catastrophic drug coverage plan to reduce financial burdens on Canadian families coping with debilitating and chronic illnesses, party leader Stéphane Dion pledged on Tuesday.
The plan would cover drug costs for people with serious illnesses such as cancer, diabetes and arthritis, Dion said during a campaign appearance at Dalhousie University in Halifax alongside star candidates and former leadership rivals Bob Rae and Scott Brison.
"When drug costs of an illness become too much for a family to manage, the federal government should be there to help," Dion said.
He said the proposed Liberal plan would ensure all Canadians have access to badly needed drugs no matter where they live.
Nowhere was this more evident than in Atlantic Canada, where some 600,000 people have no drug coverage, Dion said.
"Far too many Canadians have no drug coverage protection at all," he said. "This shouldn't happen in our Canada."
Green Shift means tax cuts: Dion
Dion also said a Liberal government would work with its provincial and territorial counterparts to determine a minimum standard for federal coverage of catastrophic drug costs.
He said the Liberals would also compensate provinces already providing that level of coverage.
The drug coverage announcement comes a day after NDP Leader Jack Layton used the same backdrop to propose a five-year, $1-billion investment to boost the number of doctors and nurses being trained in Canada, the CBC's Susan Bonner reported from the Liberal campaign.
Dion, who has reportedly faced criticism from within his own party for failing to deliver his message to Canadians during the campaign, also used the opportunity to defend his Green Shift carbon tax plan.
"It's a very simple idea; we'll cut your taxes and we'll shift it to pollution," Dion said, while claiming the plan would result in a 10 per cent income tax cut for most Canadians.
Rae praises former rival as 'man of great vision'
The Liberal leader also lashed out at continued attacks on the plan by Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, who has said the Green Shift would increase the cost of living and pull Canada into a recession.
"He speaks English better than me, but I speak the truth better than him in French and in English," Dion said.
In first high-profile appearance during the campaign, Rae introduced his former rival to the crowd as "a man of great vision and a man of great determination" while referring to Harper as "Herbert Hoover in a blue sweater."
Hoover was the U.S. president in office at the start of the Great Depression in 1929 and is widely blamed for failing to act quickly to counter the economic crisis.
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