Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'll be as brief as I can, but this is critical to the bill. This essentially guts the bill. It takes the one licence–one drug application down to nothing and leaves things virtually unchanged. This would be the net result of destroying all the work that has taken place and all the attempts to get there.
In an offer of goodwill, I'm looking at withdrawing a series of clauses--clauses 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, and 14, and then I also mentioned the food and drug and safety act--to clean up this bill in regard to the concerns of those who are in opposition to it. However, this clause right here essentially will remain status quo, which is not acceptable in my opinion, and which is the reason that so many Canadians and people care about making a difference and getting a change on this particular issue.
We've also heard testimony from the witnesses for WTO in a series with TRIPS. They said we were actually in compliance before this, but if there ever were a problem with anything in this bill we could immediately change it without any major repercussions. As well, we can also ensure that those things could actually be adjusted.
As for those concerns that have been expressed about copyright infringement, diversions, safety of drugs, all those elements are all taken out and cleaned up. I don't believe the concerns are always necessarily true, but the fact of the matter is that members are raising them as substantial barriers, and I will take those barriers out.
But taking this out essentially destroys the bill and the concept and I can't support this. We have to ensure that this Liberal motion does not go forward, because if it does, all the efforts from everyone trying to make a difference will have been exhausted.
For that, Mr. Chair.... I'm hoping that the intentions might be fair with this, but certainly we know the facts of the matter. Nobody can be fooled about the fact that this just basically destroys the concept and the bill itself.