Six months after Ottawa answered our petition: what changed, and what didn't
This petition lives two lives. On the official House of Commons petition, 549 certified signatures carried it into Parliament. Here on Change.org, more than 1,600 of you backed it — vastly outnumbering the official count. Behind those signatures are the reasons you gave when you signed: fathers and mothers lost to this disease, a fiancée gone decades ago and never forgotten, family members still fighting, and Heather's own cousin. This update is for you.
On February 23, MP Tom Osborne presented petition e-6492 in the House of Commons. On April 13, the federal government tabled its official response, signed by Health Minister Maggie Chi.
We have spent the months since doing what we said we would do: reading the response closely and checking what it actually delivered. We don't see a government response as the end-all-be-all — it's one milestone, and it deserves an honest accounting, not a victory lap. Six months on, here it is.
What the response pointed to
Modernized clinical trials. The government described a plan to update the rules for clinical trials: a risk-based approach, trials designed around patients, and better access for people in rural and remote communities. A public consultation on the proposed new rules ran over the winter.
More research money. The response cited $1.1 billion in federal cancer research funding from 2020-21 to 2024-25, including $34 million for pancreatic cancer research, and named projects in Saskatchewan and Toronto. It also pointed to $41 million for cancer prevention and early detection.
Faster drug funding talks. The pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance, the body that negotiates drug prices on behalf of the provinces, has cut its average negotiation time from 11 months to about six and a half months since 2020. Two faster pathways for cancer drugs were introduced in late 2025. One thing the response was clear about: the final decision on covering a drug still sits with each province.
What has moved since
In September, Health Canada published an interim policy that moves three pieces of the trial changes ahead early: simpler ethics review for trials running at more than one site, a wider range of qualified trial investigators, and consent by phone or online instead of only in person. The full new rules are now expected in spring 2027 and would take effect in spring 2028.
What the response never mentioned
The word "guidelines" does not appear anywhere in it. Neither do biomarker testing or precision medicine. In most of Canada, the tumour testing that matches patients to treatments and trials is still provided by charities, not the health system. Pancreatic Cancer North America's My CANcer Code program offers it free in most of the country. (New Brunswick patients already have access through their own province.) The work on national guidelines is moving ahead outside government: Craig's Cause Pancreatic Cancer Society is leading it, and our founder, Christopher Cutler, sits on the working committee.
The response also said nothing about travel help for patients who have to leave home for a trial, and it made no pancreatic-cancer-specific promises: no targets and no dates.
Our honest read: there is real movement on clinical trials and research. On testing, guidelines, and travel — the barriers families hit first — there is silence.
Where this goes from here
This is not where it ends. We will keep pushing: tracking what was promised, asking where each piece stands, and working with our partners — including Craig's Cause, Pancreatic Cancer North America, and the coalitions we sit in, Cancer Action Now, the CanCertainty Coalition, and the World Pancreatic Cancer Coalition — until it turns into meaningful change for patients and families. That is what your signatures started, and it doesn't stop with one government document.
We have also just launched r/CanPancreaticCancer, a Canada-only community on Reddit for patients, caregivers, and anyone trying to sort out drug access, biomarker testing, and clinical trials in this country. If you are on Reddit, come join us.
The full breakdown, with sources for everything above, is on our site: https://heathercutler.ca/government-response-petition-e-6492/
Thank you for putting your name behind this — all 1,600-plus of you here, and every person you signed for.
— The Heather Cutler Foundation