The $300M E-Prescribing Failure Liberals Would Rather Adjourn
PrescribeIT was supposed to modernize prescriptions. Instead, nearly $300 million later, the program is ending — and Liberal MPs blocked a motion to bring the health minister before committee.
The latest Liberal accountability story is not complicated: a federal e-prescribing program burned through nearly $300 million over nine years, failed to achieve national adoption, and now the government does not want the health minister answering questions before MPs on a clear timeline.
National Post reports that Bloc MP Maxime Blanchette-Joncas moved to have Health Minister Marjorie Michel appear before the health committee before the House rises for summer. Liberal MP Doug Eyolfson moved to adjourn the meeting instead. Liberal members objected to the timing, debated it, and then ended the meeting by vote.
The program is PrescribeIT, overseen by Canada Health Infoway, a federally funded non-profit. It began in 2017 with an initial budget of $40 million. According to the report, the program has cost taxpayers nearly $300 million and is now scheduled to end at the end of May because national adoption never happened.
This is the pattern Canadians should recognize. First comes the promise: digital transformation, modern services, better health care, a smarter federal government. Then comes the bill. Then comes the excuse. Then, when MPs ask who was responsible and where the money went, Liberal committee management suddenly becomes very interested in procedure.
There are real questions here. TELUS Health reportedly received just over $98.1 million to develop and run the program. Opposition MPs raised concerns about intellectual property, with TELUS maintaining most of the IP while Canada Health Infoway held only a minority share. The former CEO’s compensation was also placed under scrutiny, with disclosures showing roughly $900,000 in salary, performance pay and taxable benefits for the 2024-25 fiscal year.
None of this proves wrongdoing by itself. But it absolutely proves the need for daylight. If a program launched at $40 million ends near $300 million, fails to go national, and shuts down with taxpayers still asking where the money went, the answer cannot be an adjournment motion.
Canadians were told the digital state would be cheaper, faster and more competent. Too often under the Liberals, it has become expensive, opaque and impossible to audit until after the cheques clear. PrescribeIT should not be another file Parliament quietly lets drift into the fog.