Fw: Pharmacies step up fight with McGuinty by targeting Liberal MPPs ( Globe & Mail)

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To <Undisclosed-Recipient:, > cc Subject Pharmacies step up fight with McGuinty by targeting Liberal MPPs ( Globe & Mail)

 

Pharmacies step up fight with McGuinty by targeting Liberal MPPs

Adam Radwanski

From Saturday's Globe and Mail Published on Friday, Apr. 30, 2010 9:30PM

Ontario’s pharmacies are escalating their fight against the Liberal government by aggressively targeting the ridings of 25 MPPs.

For the most part, they are MPPs who are expected to face tight contests in the next provincial election – including several ministers. The aim, according to a source close to the pharmacies’ campaign, is to sow dissent among Dalton McGuinty’s caucus members.

If they’re successful, the pharmacies hope the government will feel compelled to soften its plan to reduce prescription costs by eliminating “professional allowances” – the large sums paid by generic manufacturers to stores in return for selling their products.

The drugstores are clearly sparing no expense.

On Friday, a busload of about 50 pharmacy students departed Queen’s Park, aiming to make two stops in each of the 25 ridings.

Three separate flyers are being sent to every household in each of the constituencies – a total of about three million mailings. Each mentions the local MPP by name, charging that his or her “prescription for your family” is “$750-million in cuts to frontline health care.”

Radio and prints ads similarly call out individual representatives, while encouraging listeners and readers to phone a toll-free number that redirects them to their local constituency offices. To add to the volume, voters are receiving unsolicited calls whether they’re upset by health-care cuts; if they answer in the affirmative, they’re put through to their MPP’s office.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Association of Chain Drug Stores has contracted the polling company Angus Reid to conduct surveys in each of the 25 ridings.

Among other questions, the poll asks whether respondents agree that “cutting local pharmacy hours... would cause difficulty to many people in my community”; that “cutting half-a-billion dollars out of pharmacies is basically a health cut”; and that “if pharmacists were unable to give advice to their patients one-on-one as they do now, it would disproportionately hurt those who seek their advice.”

It also asks whether the local MPP “has a responsibility to speak out and oppose the cut from local pharmacies.” And it wraps up by testing the impact of the issue on voting intentions.

The poll seems to be aimed less at gauging broad public opinion than at testing which of the pharmacies’ messages are taking hold. But it’s likely also intended to put a scare into incumbents, if the results show growing awareness and concern.

Despite the campaign, senior Liberals appear to remain confident. They believe they successfully framed the issue as a matter of lowering drug costs, rather than cutting services, before the industry got its act together. And they don’t think the pharmacies have endeared themselves to the public with aggressive tactics, which included Shoppers Drug Mart cutting store hours in Health Minister Deb Matthews’s hometown of London before the government’s changes had even been implemented.

The Liberals are also confident that their advance work preparing MPPs for the pharmacies’ reaction is helping prevent divisions in caucus. And they think the resolve of Ms. Matthews – who is one of the 25 members being targeted, despite having shown little inclination to bend – is rubbing off on her colleagues.

Still, the pharmacies’ hope is that it will require only a few MPPs to get queasy in order to capture the attention of the people running the next Liberal campaign. And that in turn, they think, will lead to some manner of compromise.

It’s widely believed that the government left itself room for a “give,” in which they’d increase the amount of money coming back to the pharmacies in return for losing the professional allowances. If nothing else, the pharmacies hope to create enough internal pressure to require the Liberals to use it.