About 100 pharmacists rallied outside the Ontario legislature Friday to offer an alternative to a plan to eliminate $750 million in professional allowance fees.

The pharmacists presented a petition with 500,000 signatures calling on the government to stop cutting health care by phasing out payments made by generic drug companies to pharmacists.

Ben Shenouda, president of the Independent Pharmacists Association of Ontario, says they could live without the professional allowance fees if they received $260 million a year in direct government funding.

He says that would allow them to support the elimination of the fees and a reduction in price of generic medications.

Shenouda says the pharmacists also want to see the dispensing fee rise from $7 to $11.25 for each prescription, but the province is offering only a $1 increase.

The Liberal government says Ontario pays much higher rates for generic drugs than many other jurisdictions and wants to eliminate the professional allowance fees to lower prescription costs.