The province’s finance minister says they would have liked to have been able to sign on to a federal pharmacare program, but he stopped short of declaring pharmacare in Newfoundland and Labrador dead.

Craig Pardy says the province is on record as wishing to sign on to the program.

Premier Tony Wakeham wrote the Prime Minister last February expressing the province’s desire to sign on, as well as concern with the federal government’s “fractured approach” to the program’s implementation.

Only British Columbia, Manitoba, PEI and Yukon are part of the federal pharmacare program.

Pardy says it’s up to Ottawa to make the next move.

“They’re the ones deciding as to whether or not to take on any more bilaterals, they’ve got to finance it as well, so if they’re going to add more to it knowing that later on, they’re going to have to pull out, I can understand taking time,” said Pardy,

“So, I don’t know, but I know that we haven’t seen anything and there’s been no conversation on the finance side related to that.”