From the Globe and Mail:
How the door to national pharmacare swung open
This was no precooked communiqué. The electrifying decision by Canada's premiers to ask the federal government to establish a national pharmacare program was not even on the agenda when provincial and territorial leaders first met on Thursday morning.

The idea had occurred earlier to several of the leaders. British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell raised the subject with Ontario's Dalton McGuinty in a meeting a week ago in Vancouver. But it was only an ill-defined germ of an idea when the Ontario Premier convened the annual premiers conference two days ago in the elegant Queen's Landing Inn overlooking the Niagara River.