Ottawa: Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said that he will sue pharmaceutical companies for $44 billion if elected president. He said this would be done to fix accountability of these companies for the role played by drugs (a substance that gives effect like morphine) in the pandemic.

Poilievre said that he would have also asked for an additional $4 billion for damage to the federal health care system by participating as a complainant in a class action lawsuit already launched by British Columbia. Apart from this, they would separately launch another lawsuit at the federal level and claim to recover non-health costs such as border security, prisons, indigenous programming, etc.

“Large pharmaceutical companies owe $44-45 billion to federal taxpayers and we will spend that money on recovery as well as treatment,” Poilievre said.

According to the province, BC filed a class action lawsuit in 2018 against major pharmaceutical companies on behalf of the federal, provincial and territorial governments, under which claims were made for manufacturing, distributing and recovering drugs from their consulting companies.

It filed the lawsuit against Purdue Canada, which is part of the American pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma, which is known for making the drug oxycontin.

The BC government had also made 40 of its producers and sellers as parties in its class action lawsuit and had also slapped a case against them. In June 2022, BC settled with Purdue Canada for $150 million. But the provincial government wants to hold the other parties accountable as well.

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