New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh says he can’t support the Liberal government’s Speech from the Throne because its pharmacare promise is too vague.

He’s right. It is.

At one level, throne speeches are always vague. They set out the broad direction where the government — in this case Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s minority Liberal government — intends to go. They avoid detail.

In that sense, Thursday’s throne speech was classic. It summarized most of the Liberal election campaign promises that the government intends to proceed with, ranging from measures to combat climate change to gun control.

But governments also use specific words to mean specific things. And pharmacare is one area where language is crucial.

That’s because the term pharmacare covers a lot of ground. To some, it means filling in the gaps — that is, providing drug insurance to the minority of Canadians who lack it.

That’s the version that Finance Minister Bill Morneau, in a burst of honesty, once said he favoured. It is also the preferred option of Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives.

To others, however, pharmacare it is a more ambitious idea, akin to medicare. Like medicare, it would be universal — that is, it would cover all Canadians, thus obviating the need for private or workplace-supplied drug insurance.

Like medicare, it would be comprehensive and cover all necessary pharmaceuticals. Like medicare, it would be accessible — available to rich and poor alike on the basis of need. Like medicare, it would be portable, meaning that it would cover Canadians outside their home provinces.

And like medicare, it would be publicly funded through tax revenue.

It was this more ambitious version that an advisory panel, chaired by former Ontario health minister Eric Hoskins, recommended to the Trudeau government earlier this year.

But Thursday’s throne speech contains none of the language associated with the ambitious version. All it says is that the government “will take steps to introduce and implement national pharmacare.”

What does “national pharmacare” mean? The throne speech doesn’t say. But as Singh pointed out, there is no mention of universality or public funding. Nor is there any reference to the Hoskins report that the government itself commissioned.

That Singh was able to find fault in the throne speech is politically convenient for the New Democrats. They need to stake out ground to the left of Trudeau’s Liberals without triggering a costly snap election.

In this case, they can do so. Bloc Québécois MPs have said that they will support the throne speech, thus giving the minority Liberal government enough votes to withstand any challenge in the Commons regardless of what the NDP does.

Once serious debate on pharmacare begins, however, the New Democrats will have to square their support for universal, public drug insurance with their position on Quebec.

That position, first articulated in the party’s 2005 Sherbrooke Declaration and reaffirmed 10 years later, is that Quebec should be allowed to opt out of any new, federally funded social programs, such as universal pharmacare, but keep the money.

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It was designed to appeal to Quebec voters and, for a while, succeeded. But it could play havoc with Canada’s ability to develop new national social programs.

If Quebec is granted the right to opt out with compensation, the other nine provinces will demand the same treatment. The premiers have long made that clear.

Still, kudos to Singh for pointing out the contradictions in the Liberal approach to pharmacare. If he could only sort out his own party’s contradictions, we might be able to get somewhere.

Thomas Walkom is a Toronto-based columnist covering politics. Follow him on Twitter: is a Toronto-based columnist covering politics. Follow him on Twitter: @tomwalkom

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