Mr. Speaker, I do not question the Liberal member's sincerity on this matter, but I have to say we are having a heck of a lot of difficulty stomaching this kind of policy from the Liberals of the House. A couple of members have suggested that the Liberal position is otherwise. We are dealing with a Liberal government decision to bypass its own promises made to the Canadian people. We are dealing with a government that has had ample opportunity to correct the situation and deal with such matters as the elimination of the automatic injunction that gives patent drug companies another two years of protection on top of the twenty years they now get. We are talking about a Liberal government that promised the Canadian people a national pharmacare plan and has done nothing since.
It is one thing for the member to stand up in the House and be a maverick but it is another to work steadfastly to try to convince his own colleagues to change the situation.
What did he do in 1998 to stop the Minister of Industry from bringing in notice of compliance regulations that actually made the situation with respect to the automatic injunction worse? What has the member done to convince his colleagues to implement their campaign promise of 1997 of a national drug plan, which would help today?