Drugs
Status: Regulatory concept received general consensus at Transition Council at the January 9, 2025 meeting. Prior to public consultation, the Transition Council will review all the proposed concepts again.
Overview
Veterinarians are granted the ability to sell a drug through their status as practitioners under the federal Food and Drug Act, Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, and their associated regulations. Details related to the prescribing, dispensing, compounding, administering, and/or selling of drugs have been outlined in the Veterinarians Act and Regulation 1093.
The Veterinary Professionals Act identifies the prescribing, compounding, dispensing, or selling a drug as an authorized activity and further that prescribing a drug is non-delegable and only permitted to be performed by a veterinarian.
The dispensing and/or sale of veterinary drugs by both veterinarians and other non-veterinary professionals (most notably, pharmacists) has received increased attention recently due to a federal review conducted by the advocacy branch of the Competition Bureau.
The regulatory concept on drugs includes:
- maintaining that veterinary technicians can dispense, sell, compound under either an order or delegation
- a regulatory exemption under that authorized activities model that pharmacists licensed with the Ontario College of Pharmacists can dispense, compound, and sell drugs for animals in accordance with a veterinary prescription.
- clarity that the act of prescribing remains available only to veterinarian members
- amending the current requirement for veterinarians to provide a written prescription upon client request and instead require a veterinarian to offer a client a written prescription to help increase public awareness of this option and to remove the onus from the client
- continuation of existing approaches to deliver safe and accountable care related to the prescribing, dispensing, compounding, administering and/or selling of drugs