We are not trying to place the blame here, but rather to find solutions. Across Canada, the responsibility for this complex mechanism is shared by federal and provincial entities.
We have a many ties with European countries. As my colleague from the Association des pharmaciens des établissements de santé said, this is a global issue. I went to the same congress organized by the International Pharmaceutical Federation, and I can confirm that statement. So, it is not a matter of feeling more or less guilty, but rather of asking ourselves what needs to be done so that Canadians can have proper access to their medications.
So, various aspects are involved. The government is responsible for approvals. We met with Sandoz officials. That company has 37 factories abroad, but very few of them can produce injectable medications. Therefore, Sandoz was really limited to one or two close factories that could offset that deficiency here.
The only organization that can recommend expediting the approval for importing drugs from other international pharmaceutical companies is Health Canada.
That said, there are some province-wide responsibilities involved. Incidentally, we have a long list of responsibilities in our report we will present in two weeks; there are some adjustments. However, since we are here before you today and you are open enough to welcome us, we have made our objectives and requests specific to the federal government.
Other countries have some more explicit requirements, and that is the second point: the industry should really inform the authorities when it receives a notice of non-compliance and when it anticipates a stoppage—at times voluntarily—in the production of certain medications. That is its choice. We cannot stop the industry from doing that. A very exceptional measure must be involved, but when the industry decides to stop production, we must allow it and we must find other international pharmaceutical industries ready to produce those medications. That information is currently missing.