Strictly speaking, this is not true. The Patented Medicine Prices Review Board does set prices based on comparable prices in other countries, but the actual purchasing happens by a wide variety of public and private payers. Most working Canadians have private insurance that covers pharmaceuticals, and each province maintains its own separate drug insurance scheme for low-income citizens.

In response, pharmaceutical companies inflate prices of new medications, then negotiate confidential deals that make it difficult to get a realistic comparison for the purpose of setting prices. Because we don't actually have a single payer for pharmaceuticals (there is no national pharmacare program), this program fails at price discovery, since the review board does not go about the actual purchasing of said drugs.

The net result is that Canada has the 3rd-highest per capita drug spend in the world (Switzerland is #2).