On August 13, 2012, an oncologist submitted an application for a nonmarketed drug to treat the cancer of a patient named Ms. Lajoie, a Canadian citizen who lived in Saint-Pascal in my riding. The application was made under Health Canada's special access program. The treatments were supposed to start in September. With no reply received, Ms. Davies and I had to make a number of requests. It was not until November that the treatments were finally scheduled to start. All those requests went to you, Madam Minister.
If the process had taken two weeks instead of ten, it would have been possible to delay or prevent Ms. Lajoie's death. She died two weeks before the treatments could begin. Ms. Lajoie's family join all concerned Canadians in wanting to know what happened.
Madam Minister, do you acknowledge that the response time did not conform to the special access program timelines? In the wake of a failure of this kind, can you commit to establishing the position of Health Canada ombudsman as quickly as possible, so that someone can investigate it?