Health Minister, Ajax MP makes Maclean’s Magazine annual top 100 Power List
Published April 11, 2024 at 7:09 pm
Federal Health Minister and Ajax MP Mark Holland has made the annual Maclean’s Magazine Power List, a compilation of the top 100 movers and shakers in Canada in ten different categories.
The hundred Canadians “shaping the country” this year, according to the magazine, including a career-long central banker who is determining the fate of the housing market (Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem), federal immigration minister Marc Miller, who is “radically curbing” the $20-billion international education industry, a teenager fighting climate change in the court system (Sophia Mathur) and the “savviest businessman in the country,” none other than Deadpool himself, actor Ryan Reynolds.
Broken down into ‘top 10’ in each of the ten segments (with Hamilton NBA superstar Shair Gilgeous-Alexander topping the sports category), Holland was ranked #2 in the health care section for “adding life-changing drugs to Canada’s coverage list.”
For decades, Canada was the only country with universal health care that didn’t also provide universal drug coverage – until now. This past February, Mark Holland – the MP for Ajax, Ontario, who was installed as minister of health last year – made good on a much-delayed Liberal promise, introducing Bill C-64, or the Pharmacare Act. It’s not comprehensive national pharmacare, but it’s a significant first step: contraception is now covered, as is diabetes medication for the 3.7 million Canadians living with the disease, a quarter of whom struggle to afford treatment. (The plan could save loads of cash, too: the parliamentary budget officer estimates the government’s purchasing power could preserve more than $2 billion per year.) Holland’s next challenge? Hammering out funding agreements with the provinces.
Hamed Shabazi, the founder and CEO of Well Health Technologies, was ranked #1 in Health Care.
Other category leaders in the list include Gilgeous-Alexander in Sports, Macklem in Housing, Reynolds in Business, Mathur in Climate, Miller in Education and MILA founder and scientific director Yoshua Bengio (AI), Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow (Politics), GEO Comply CEO and co-founder Anna Sainsbury (Tech) and pop sensation Tate McRae (Arts & Culture).
Flavio Volpe, who helped design the Arrow – Canada’s first zero-emission vehicle that was designed (and put through its paces) at Oshawa Ontario Tech University, was ranked tenth in the Business category.
