Bill C-51 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Food and Drugs Act to modernize the regulatory system for foods and therapeutic products, to strengthen the oversight of the benefits and risks of therapeutic products throughout their life cycle, to support effective compliance and enforcement actions and to enable a greater transparency and openness of the regulatory system.
It also amends other Acts in consequence and includes transitional provisions and coordinating amendments.

Health

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, natural health products are under attack. The Conservatives have made a mess of the approval process with unreachable deadlines to regulate a massive number of critical health products.

Canada has over 10,000 natural health stores, with over 25,000 people employed directly. Countless families rely on these products. The approval process is hopelessly backlogged and there is fear Bill C-51 is coming back. Small businesses will fail and consumers will suffer.

When will the government work with, and not against, the natural health community?

Health Protection

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by a good number of Canadians. This petition follows on the heels of other petitions tabled in the House pertaining to the direction of the government with respect to health protection.

The petitioners call upon the government to think twice before reintroducing the legislation formerly numbered Bill C-51 which dealt with health protection in areas of food and drugs.

The petitioners are very concerned that the present direction of the government will actually hamper access to natural health products and will not do the kind of job that is necessary when it comes to protecting Canadians from adverse reactions when it comes to drugs, medical devices and food.

The petitioners call upon the government to think twice before going down this path. They call on the government to do something that is right and fair for all Canadians.

RESUMPTION OF DEBATE ON ADDRESS IN REPLY

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Madam Speaker, since you are presiding this evening, let me offer my congratulations to you on joining the Speaker's team and being appointed to assist members of the House not just in this important debate but in managing our House affairs. It is great to see members from Vancouver Island playing a bigger role in the House.

It is a great privilege to take part in the debate in response to the Speech from the Throne, the first debate in Canada's 40th Parliament.

I begin by thanking the voters of the great riding of Nanaimo—Alberni for returning me as their MP for the fourth consecutive term. I am very mindful of the great honour and of the great responsibility that I have to them and so I would begin by thanking them.

I would like to acknowledge my supporters and campaign team who put a lot of effort into our re-election effort. I acknowledge the leadership of my campaign manager, Paula Peterson, who co-ordinated a great effort and ensured that we had a great time working together, and my financial agent, John Ward, who ensured we not only got the job done but given the complexities of financial obligations, that we did it right.

I know the families of every member here make a sacrifice so that we can come from our ridings across this great diverse country to participate in this House. I certainly have to acknowledge the great encouragement, and constant never ending support above and beyond the call that my wife Helen makes in order to make it possible for me to serve as the member for Nanaimo—Alberni.

The Speaker, the member for Kingston and the Islands, has done a remarkable job of not only being re-elected but for the fourth time being elected as the Speaker of the House. I certainly want to extend my congratulations to him. I think one of our members made reference to this today. It is certainly a historic event, being elected as Speaker for the fourth time and with the different sides of the House it is quite a remarkable achievement that is worthy of recognition.

It falls to each and every member, to our respective parties, to our leaders, to participate in this 40th Parliament at a time when our country is facing the challenges of a very troubled world economy and uncertainties unprecedented in modern times.

My riding is one of the most beautiful in the country. It covers both the east and west coasts of mid-Vancouver Island. From the rugged majestic heights of Mount Moriarty or Mount Arrowsmith in the Beaufort Range, one can look down across the oceanside communities to the east with their shallow, sandy warm water beaches, or west to Port Alberni and beyond to the world renowned Pacific Rim National Park with its famous Long Beach, favoured by surfers, and surf and storm watchers. This majestic place we call home is recognized by being the only federal riding to encompass not one but two federally recognized and UNESCO recognized biospheres, the Clayoquot Sound reserve on the west and Mount Arrowsmith biosphere reserve on the east, where we live.

That said, like other regions, the west coast is caught in a time of transition that has engulfed the forest sector, the fishing industry and greatly impacted our resource based economy.

The Speech from the Throne delivered in this chamber just a few days ago, on November 19, is very different from any I have heard or debated in the past four parliaments. The government has laid out its intentions to manage the economy in this challenging time.

The Speech from the Throne is entitled, “Protecting Canada's Future”. The government is committed to ensuring Canada's continued economic success at this time of global economic instability. Under the leadership of the Prime Minister, the Government of Canada has laid out a five-pronged plan to protect Canada's economic security. I shall briefly summarize those points.

First, there is reform of global finance by working with our allies and trading partners to re-examine and renew the rules that underpin the global financial system. This process has already begun with Canada's participation in the G-20 meetings on November 15 and the recently concluded APEC meetings in Lima, Peru.

It is probably appropriate at this time to mention that the World Economic Forum rated Canada's banking system as the best in the world.

I hear someone applauding. That is worthy of note and applause. I appreciate that enthusiastic response.

However, at a time when the world itself is reeling, it is good to know that while we face challenges we have some strong attributes to bring into these unstable times.

Measures taken to allow the Bank of Canada greater latitude in responding to world shifts and economic shifts allowed the Bank of Canada to respond quickly with nearly $20 billion to improve liquidity at a time when the credit crunch was having a devastating effect elsewhere and certainly challenging our economy here at home.

Further measures to protect our mortgage system, with shorter terms and mandatory down payments, helped to prevent the type of meltdown that precipitated the current U.S. and worldwide financial crises.

We want to ensure sound budgeting so that Canada does not return to ongoing unsustainable structural deficits while putting all federal expenditures under the microscope of responsible spending.

I think the operative word there is “all” government spending. It is a time when we need to examine how we are spending. As any family would when times get tough, we need to look at how we are managing our finances and determine that we are making the best investments and strategic investments at a time when times are leaner.

We need to secure jobs for families and communities by encouraging the skilled trades and apprenticeships, supporting workers facing transition and providing further support to the automotive and aerospace industries.

On that point, I was asked to respond to criticisms from the forestry CEOs in my own community objecting to this commitment. Of course they are facing a crisis of their own with an industry in transition. I will return to this point shortly to address their concerns.

Further, we need to expand investment in trade by modernizing investment, competition and copyright laws while working with the United States to address shared challenges and pursing trade agreements in Europe, Asia and the Americas.

Canada just recently signed a trade agreement with Colombia that will need to be ratified. Negotiations continue with other countries in Europe, Asia and the Americas, but we must expand our markets beyond our dependence on one large market south of the border. About 85% of our trade is currently going south and, as we know, at a time when our largest trading partner is in big trouble. It is a good time to be looking to other markets to diversify, stabilize and share our financial opportunities with other nations and to reduce our dependence on one factor. It seems a very appropriate thing to do and I think it is absolutely essential that we do this.

Further, we need to make government more effective by reducing red tape, fixing procurement, improving program and service delivery and improving the management of federal agencies, boards, commissions and crown corporations.

Again, I think “efficiency” is the key word in tough economic times. It will be appropriate for all levels of the Canadian economy to examine their efficiency in delivering services and ensure we are doing so without waste.

Returning to the issue of assistance to industry, I think it is fair to say that while details of any assistance to the auto and aerospace sectors are in the process of being worked out, it is important to mention that many steps have already been taken to help all sectors of industry and business. It is a very competitive and challenging time, which is why, in addition to measures to help all taxpayers, measures were brought in to help students, seniors and, indeed, to lower taxes for every Canadian.

However, the government acted in the previous budget and in the previous economic update to lower small business and corporate taxes.

We acted earlier to resolve the softwood lumber dispute with the U.S., bringing more than $4 billion back to Canadian forest companies. I think it is a very good thing we did that. Given the challenge that we face now with the U.S. caught up in its own challenges, it is a very good thing that we had that resolved when we did. Even though it is not perfect and there are still challenges for sectors in transition, the fact that we made those provisions beforehand was very helpful to the current economic status of those industries going through transition.

We provided a billion dollar community development trust to help communities with economies in transition and incentives for companies to purchase new machinery and to upgrade equipment.

For the mining industry, the government will extend the mineral exploration tax credit. Further, for the forest and fishing sectors the government has o acted to extend support for international marketing efforts and to provide incentives for creating energy from biomass.

I can assure persons concerned from the coast, particularly those in the forest industry, that there will be no blank cheque to any industrial sector. I am sure that any support offered by taxpayers through the government to the aerospace or the auto sector will only come after all stakeholders also contribute in the transition to a sustainable future. I think an example of that might be the $82 million commitment to Ford to develop an energy efficient engine.

This is not about helping industries that are not producing something that will be of value in a competitive and changing market. It is about creating sustainable opportunities for the future and creating a sustainable auto industry.

An example in my own riding of a company that has made heroic efforts in transition to a cost effective and sustainable future is the Nanaimo Forest Products Ltd. that took over the Harmac pulp mill in south Nanaimo. This company bid on a court ordered sale of the mill. It as an ownership structure that is quite unique in the industry. It has 200-plus employees, each of whom made significant personal investments in the mill to the tune of $25,000 each for a 25% stake in the business, partnering with other business interests. Pioneer Log Homes is a tremendous corporate citizen. Totzauer Holdings and the Sampson Group are successful private companies. They each took 25% shares in the company.

With both employees and management having a stake in the success of the business has led to a very collaborative approach to labour relations. No labour contracts will need to be renegotiated until well into the future.

This mill is in a great location. It has a deep sea port, water resources and water treatment facilities. It has the potential to diversify into energy production. I use this as an example of all the stakeholders collaborating in a tough competitive market to make something happen and to sustain an industry that was in big trouble. We might have lost the mill. I think the community is extremely proud of its effort and we certainly want to see heroic efforts like these rewarded with success.

In a time of transition, we do need to collaborate and work together to ensure opportunities for success emerge from challenging times.

The Speech from the Throne addresses a whole range of other issues. We have a commitment to Canada's environment. We will continue with our process to reduce greenhouse emissions 20% by 2020. I am pleased to see that we are working toward continuing with alternative energy incentives to develop alternative energies.

We will be recommitting the ban on bulk water exports, which I know is an important issue to many people in my riding, and I am glad to see that mentioned in the Speech from the Throne.

Further, our government will be helping all Canadians participate by improving the universal child care benefit, increasing access to maternity and parental benefits under employment insurance and helping Canadians who care for loved ones with disabilities. That is a very important step the government can make, even in difficult times, to help those families who are working with a disabled child or a disabled adult at home and who are giving up other economic opportunities to look after a loved one in challenging circumstances.

We will be continuing to work on keeping Canadians safe by strengthening the sentences for serious criminal offences. We will be putting in place new rules for food and product safety and we will be introducing a new national security statement. We are also continuing to contribute to global security.

I will come back and talk about food and product safety in just a moment but perhaps I will go on to talk a little bit about sovereignty in the Arctic.

I am personally very pleased to see Canada's commitment to the Arctic moving ahead. It is a time when there are unprecedented not only changes in the Arctic but also challenges to our sovereignty and to the wealth and economic opportunities that northern Canada represents.

I am glad to see the commitment to assert our jurisdiction over lands and waters in the Arctic archipelago under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and to further expand our jurisdiction over the region under the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act requiring mandatory notification of any foreign vessels entering Canadian territorial waters. That will be asserting our control over a 200 mile limit into the Arctic.

I am glad to see that we are also proceeding with a new polar class icebreaker named in honour of the late great Prime Minister John G. Diefenbaker.

I have already mentioned the bulk water exports and that is important.

I will now return to efficiencies. It will be important for us to visit every sector of the economy to ensure we are actually producing the best product in the most efficient manner. One of my big concerns is in the area of health care. If we look back to the 1990s, British Columbia's budget for health was about 30% of its expenditures. When I first ran for office it was 40% of the provincial budget. It is currently about 44% or 45% of the provincial budget. Even though we are spending more and more of the provincial budgets on health care, it seems the demand is unceasing and the perception is that somehow the government is not delivering on health care.

We have been encouraging innovation in every sector but health care has been slow to embrace innovation. About 30% of our health care is already delivered outside of the public system. I am not talking necessarily about parallel systems. I am talking about efficiencies. I am talking about services that are currently available but perhaps underutilized and not funded by provincial plans under section 2 of the Canada Health Act, extended services.

There are tremendous opportunities. However, in our zeal to regulate I hope we do not become overzealous to the point where we take opportunities away from advancing health care opportunities for Canadians. I would suggest that perhaps status quo forces have been slow to pick up advances in low cost alternatives like vitamins, minerals, amino acids and the way we regulate our natural health products. I think we need to take a very good look at that.

I know a lot of concerns have been expressed in the House not only in the last Parliament but going back to the 37th Parliament when I introduced Bill C-420 addressing issues on how we regulate natural health products. Those concerns were discussed early in the 38th Parliament with the aid of the member for Oshawa and I know there were lots of discussions in the last Parliament under Bill C-51 about how we regulate these products.

I am concerned that opportunities for Canadians to purchase low cost, low risk, non-patentable products are currently being restricted by regulatory practices. I imagine legislation will be coming forward to address a whole range of health product safety issues. I hope that in this Parliament, when we review these issues, that we will get this right and that we will deliver an outcome that will ensure Canadians have access to low cost, low risk and non-patentable forms of medicines that promote wellness and address the prevention of illness and disease in the first place.

Those are some of my concerns and they are in the Speech from the Throne. I know members have been debating issues for several days now and a lot of ideas have come forward. I am pleased with the Speech from the Throne. It gives us the opportunity to move ahead on a whole range of issues that are of concern to Canadians. We will have efficient spending in our government. We will be addressing safety concerns and crime issues. We want ensure we create safe communities so Canadians can live safely.

Food and Drugs Act

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Minister of Health and Minister for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario]

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I wish to table, in both official languages, copies of a letter I have sent to the chair of the Standing Committee on Health setting out proposals for amendments to Bill C-51, which the government will invite the committee to consider.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-51. I have received a ton of emails both in my riding in east Vancouver and here in Ottawa. I have hear from constituents every day because the word is out in the community about the impact of the bill. I hope either we can defeat the bill, or if it does go to committee, that we can get it significantly changed so we can respond to the overwhelming concerns put forward by the public about the impact on the availability, accessibility and licensing of natural health products.

First, I thank my colleague, our health critic, the member for Winnipeg North. She has very valiantly stayed on this file and kept our caucus updated as to the progress of the bill. I know she will be very active at the committee, if it goes to committee, working with community interests and practitioners to ensure it does not become a big stone wall that denies access for people. Therefore, I thank her for the work she has done and the work she probably will do in the future. There will be a lot of interest in the bill, and a lot of people will follow it.

Very briefly I want to go back to 1997, when I first ran for the NDP in Vancouver East as a member of Parliament. I remember at that time there must have been a proposal in the House, under the Liberal government, to try to regulate natural health products. During the election campaign in May 1997, all hell broke loose in the community because of that. The government was completely caught off guard. It had no idea that it would get the reaction it did. It tried to do what the government today has tried to do, and that is to put natural health products in a box with drugs and to give the nod to the big pharmaceutical companies.

People in communities across the country cottoned on to what was going on and a massive campaign took place. It was a fairly quiet federal election campaign in 1997, but this issue kept on coming to the surface. It was a grassroots issue because people were so outraged, particularly in a place in east Vancouver. The heart and soul of Vancouver is Chinatown, the very origins of our city. A lot of the Chinese traditional medicine practitioners were very concerned about how it would impact them. Therefore, it became very much a cross cultural campaign as well.

After the federal election, the federal government of the day had to back off on what it wanted to do. As we know, since then we have had various machinations in terms of attempts for a regulatory approach. Suffice it to say, all credit goes to well-informed citizens who pay attention to legislation that sometimes creeps in, and they get the word out there about it. As a result, we get all these emails from people who are alerted to what the government has tried to do.

I am very thankful our caucus, with our health critic, the member for Winnipeg North, has monitored the bill very closely. We cannot support it in its present form. We are very concerned that it will lump natural health products in with drugs under a category called “therapeutic products”, which reverses a long-standing practice and position of a separate regulatory framework.

When I read some of the concerns listed in the emails I receive, one of them is the change of the categorization of natural health products. To treat these products the same as drugs is very inappropriate and is much too rigorous.

There are other concerns as well. We know right now there is a huge backlog of applications for the marketing approval of natural health products. How will that be dealt with under the bill? How will we ensure that the backlog is dealt with?

We are very concerned that the fines and penalties within the bill are incredibly excessive. It will mean that practitioners, producers and people who retail or market these products will hang on with their fingernails for their livelihood, and that is a very serious concern.

Why would there be such excessive fines and penalties for these products? In fact, the enforcement provisions are very heavy. They even allow inspectors to enter private property without a warrant. What is going on here?

We are very concerned that in the bill, as we have seen in other bills, so much discretion is left in the hands of the minister and the fact that regulatory requirements can be overridden within the department. Why would that be allowed to happen? This sets off alarm bells for people, especially when they go through the fine print and look at what is taking place.

I am very thankful we have had so much response on the bill. I have had more response on this bill than any bill for a very long time. I gather that other members of the House are getting the same kind of response.

I will read some of the responses I received. Jennifer, from east Vancouver, said:

Bill C-51 undermines the civil rights of Canadians to take control of our own health and well being. It goes against all logic and intuitive common sense and in no way serves the interests of your electorate....

Millions of alternative health practitioners that are certified through Canadian educational institutions who have dedicated their life to studying the healing effects of herbs would not be able to stay in practice.

I have another email from Anne, who lives in east Vancouver. She says:

—categorizing Natural Health Products as therapeutic products, together with drugs, medical devices, cells, tissues, organs, and veterinary drugs, Bill C-51 is viewing these exclusively to the lens of pharmaceutical drugs.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to speak on Bill C-51, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act.

When we lay the grounds for legislation, it is important that we have confidence in the regulatory process and the ability to ensure that we are going to have accountability with this change to the act.

There has been a lot of discussion today about Bill C-51 and a good debate about its consequences. There is one thing I want to remind the House about, which creates the insecurity I wrestle with. I certainly am not going to be supporting this bill any further. I believe that the arguments have been well laid out as to why we cannot continue to move this forward. The legislation needs some fundamental changes.

I do not have any confidence that the drug industry is going to be subdued in this process. Let us look, for example, at the direct marketing that is going to happen with this bill. It goes back to an experience that I had here on the Hill in 2004 when we started looking at what I believe was Bill C-9 at that time, the Jean Chrétien Pledge to Africa Act, to provide help for AIDS in Africa. It was the precursor bill of Canada's Access to Medicines Regime.

The bill's purpose was to provide drugs to those developing countries that might be facing issues related to HIV-AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other types of diseases that were affecting civil society. The contemplation of the bill came through an international treaty that allowed the generic production of different types of medicines to proceed, medicines that may have already had a patent restriction on them, if the actual pharmaceutical company would not provide them at a low cost to those nations.

We went through a whole series of processes and lobbying at that time. There was a very powerful lobby by big pharma to stop that bill dead in its tracks. There was some political support to try to move it forward. What ended up happening is that big pharma got a provision in the bill that was not even part of the internationally signed agreement with the TRIPS and the Doha.

Where we actually could have provided any available drug to go forward, we created this artificial list of what drugs would be available to be sent overseas and which ones would not be. The danger behind this was that it allowed for lobbying to keep certain drugs off the market.

Many people said not to worry. They said that would not happen, that it would not be ethical and that the companies would not do this. We were told that the companies would behave themselves.

To make sure this would not happen, there was a provision in the legislation to make sure big pharma would not be doing it. Lo and behold, even as we were doing that, big pharma was caught lobbying, including by me. It was exposed. It made headline news that the pharmaceutical companies were already lobbying to keep some of the drugs off the market. This plan fell flat on its face.

This is what I am concerned about with regard to this bill and how we go forward. I am concerned about the active lobbying and also the prescriptive behaviour that can take place with drugs. This could actually affect everything from safety to health care costs. Also, we kind of have a self-prescriptive society. The commercials have hit the Canadian airwaves already. They are very clever. They have been done very well. Probably they should win awards, because everyone knows what is happening but they get around the technicalities.

At the same time, these commercials lead people to go to their doctors. The doctor may prescribe some type of medication or may want to provide some type of generic alternative. Then the patients perhaps insist that they know the actual effects better. It can create longer wait times, make people potentially consider changing doctors, or other types of behaviour.

This concerns us, because I certainly would hate to see the cost of drugs rise, some of which have already skyrocketed, based on marketing and advertising campaigns and influence from the drug companies. That is important to note, because we already know that women generally suffer the consequences from prescription errors. This problem actually could expand. We believe what the experts have said. They have noted this vulnerability in the system that is being proposed.

One of the other things that we have identified as very important with regard to this case is the issue related to the lack of parliamentary oversight. The fact of the matter is that this bill is going to give more provisions for the government to be able to override the parliamentary process and for the minister to have expanded powers.

That is a concern because what we have seen with this administration is very much a centralized ideology. That has been its choice of how it wants to govern and that is fine, but at the same time, it opens up the probabilities for greater control. And it may not even be necessarily this administration that does it in the future.

I am suggesting that in the future we could once again have these types of control elements that really change the nature of how we actually have drugs administered in our society. This is another reason that New Democrats are saying at this point that we do not want to change the law right now.

Another thing I wanted to connect to right now is that we seem to be moving to a less regulatory society in some respects. Some of that is of great concern. I can tell members about it based on my background in the transportation sector. For example, in rail and air when we have been moving to safety management systems and letting the industry police itself, and there is going to be more of that with this type of bill, we have seen what is really very much a falling out of safety in many respects.

For example, there is the transportation sector. We just did a complete study. There was a panel. We talked about a culture of fear and intimidation that prevents the actual workplace from operating the SMS properly. What we have actually seen is a step back in rail safety over the last number of years as we have had increased problems.

We are really worried about having the regulatory body become more involved with regard to policing itself. What we would say is that we need to have a stronger involvement by Health Canada.

We have seen these actual situations in the past in our society. It is not just Canada that has this problem. It is in the United States as well, where active lobbying has put drugs on the market that do not necessarily meet the tests of the day and have to be recalled. That includes everything from a series of drugs related to heart medications to others such as breast implants. There are the tragic circumstances with thalidomide. These have had consequences. I think we are going to witness greater problems there.

There is a legitimate problem that we have in this country with regard to getting some of the drugs and medications to market. The hope for this bill is that it will expand those opportunities, but it is very much based upon a risk management cycle. Once again, that risk management, left in the hands of the industry for the most part, is something that gives us some trouble because of the influence.

I have witnessed it myself, as I mentioned, with Bayer doing the actual lobbying to keep some of its drugs off Canada's Access to Medicines Regime. That was even at a time when there was heightened awareness and there were actual hearings going on in Ottawa. There was discussion about that bill. There were a lot of politics around it and active lobbying on behalf of NGOs, the generics and the pharmaceutical companies. The spotlight of the nation was on this and they broke the rules at that particular time with no hesitation. They were not apologetic about it.

So when we move into this type of system, we have a lot of concerns, because it will not just be the attention that is being provided right now. It will also be later on, as the politics about the bill wind down, where the regulatory regime and the oversight are so necessary, because then what we will probably be faced with, unfortunately, is a clawing back of decisions that caused problems for Canadian consumers and their health.

With regard to health products, I know that the Natural Health Product Protection Association has been very adamant about changing the way the system is being done here. Unfortunately, this is a regressive step. I have seen a lot of emails and letters and have had phone calls come in, not only just to my office but also in the Windsor and Essex County region. They are from people expressing disappointment with the government for not adequately fixing their situation. This bill is going to compound their situation so they certainly are not supporting this.

Therefore, with the way this is right now, what we are calling for is to make sure that we actually have a new bill. I know that the government is intending to table some amendments and it is positive that the government is actually looking at some of the weaknesses of the bill, but we believe the bill is far too weak in many respects. We should be re-entering a debate and forming a bill that is going to work.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-51.

There are many Canadians who have an intense interest in issues related to prescription drugs and natural health products. Their use has skyrocketed over the last number of years. I think Canadians can rest assured that when the bill is sent to committee, the committee is going to give due diligence in a very professional and consultative way. I am convinced of that.

My colleague from Oak Ridges—Markham is the vice-chair of the committee. On behalf of the committee and the chair he invites those who have a wide interest to make their concerns known to the committee. To use a clinical analogy, after the kind of analysis that will go into this legislation the prognosis for action is going to come to grips with some of the more modern issues that have evolved over the last three or four decades.

It is amazing to me that the Food and Drugs Act has not been updated since 1953. When we think of it, traditionally the debate centred around generic and brand name pharmaceutical companies. At one time the brand name pharmaceutical companies did most of the research and the generic companies picked up some of their patents after they had expired and brought cheap drugs to Canadians. The debate was always about achieving the right balance between the pharmaceutical companies in terms of serving the best and higher interests of Canadians. The debate has evolved far past that now, not that that debate is not still going on.

Natural health products are being used now by a large spectrum of Canadians. These products are supported by research and development by many companies that are Canadian and that are part of the health care system.

I would like to add one element that has not been touched on by any of the members that I am aware of to this point. Not too long ago in Maclean's magazine it was indicated that in fact megadoses of vitamins and nutrients taken in combination with certain prescribed drugs could have a deleterious effect with respect to the very objectives of the regime that had been entered into either on the advice of a physician or in a haphazard way by the consumer. Sometimes people will take megadoses because they have concluded they could not be harmful. Taken on their own the publication indicates that they probably are not, but taken in combination without appropriate advice, they can have a very disastrous effect.

I do not intend to pass any judgment on those conclusions because I am not qualified to do so, but those particular conclusions were picked up by several research based publications in the medical field. They in turn have said that this is a very important health risk, that the legislative regime should start to come to grips with.

For example, selenium taken on its own has certain advantages, but taken with warfarin, which is a blood thinner, the medical research documents and Maclean's magazine indicate it could have a very bad effect. I just use that as an illustration.

What is our responsibility with respect to the legislation that would take all of that into consideration?

The government has said that there should be elements of what is called a life cycle risk management system. In other words, the onus is not on the companies that all of a sudden see something in terms of research to say to Mr. and Mrs. Consumer that they had better not take that product in combination with the prescription they are taking, and the company will withdraw that from the market.

The onus is voluntary on the producer of the particular vitamin or whatever it may be, and it could be a prescription drug. We have had examples of that before. The life cycle risk management places the onus on the sector, be it pharmaceutical or natural health products. When they have, on the basis of the best available research, even an inclination that there is a problem, they have the responsibility to come forward. That is as it should be. I do not think anyone on this side or the government side should be arguing about those components to give the minister more authority, either through an injunctive mechanism or whatever it may be, to react in keeping with the seriousness of the medical implications of pharmaceutical drugs or naturopathic or natural health products. That is something we do in terms of serving the higher interest of consumers. As representatives of Canadians, we have a responsibility to make sure that the regime that is in place will do that.

It is interesting to note from the documentation I have read that for the first time the generic and non-generic pharmaceutical companies are in agreement with respect to consumer advertising. There are some consumer groups that take exception, but the generics and non-generics have said that they think there is a higher interest to be served by allowing consumers to see the full picture of a pharmaceutical product before them.

I have seen those truncated ads on television that do not give any background. They give a name but they say that people should go to their doctor. That is fine, but people should go to their doctor anyway. If it is on the basis of a little more information to talk to a doctor, why should we be saying to consumers that they should not have that information?

The generics and the non-generics in fact are agreeing with those provisions of the proposed legislation that really attempt to give more information.

I am not going to come down on either side of that issue, other than to say to my colleagues that I have been impressed with their understanding of these issues. When the bill comes to the committee those issues will be well debated. The committee will be hearing from a broad spectrum of interests and I am convinced that the public interest will be considered.

I have concentrated mainly on the implications with respect to the therapeutic category. I do believe that the natural products portion of the bill needs to receive more intense consideration. The reason is that Canadians generally see that as an opportunity for them to participate in their health care. The more we can help them to do that, the more we will be invigorating our health care system and bringing Canadians into the health care equation as active and informed participants.

If this legislation does those things, it will serve Canadians well. I am convinced, having listened to this debate, that in submitting this bill to committee, the broad spectrum of interests will be considered in a balanced and fair-minded way.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-51. We know the overhaul of the Food and Drugs Act in Canada has been years in the making and successive governments have attempted and failed. Canadians rely on their government to ensure safety standards are in place to protect their food, drugs and the natural health products they might want to take.

Over many years, we have seen far too many scares. There have been some serious consequences. Drugs and other products have ended up on the market and the health of Canadians has suffered. We certainly can point to Thalidomide as one of those drugs, as is Vioxx. Silicone gel breast implants had consequences that people did not anticipate.

It is very important that a legislative and regulatory process be in place to protect the health and welfare of Canadians. However, we do not see Bill C-51 as being that legislation. Although some aspects of the bill have merit, other aspects of the bill warrant additional attention. Because I only have 10 minutes to talk about this, I will talk only about a couple of aspects of it.

Before I get into this, governments in the past have made the lives of scientists very difficult. We only have to turn to the BSE crisis. Scientists were fired under the previous Liberal government for highlighting the problems with BSE. The case went on for years for those scientists who dared stand up and talk about the fact that some of the products in Canada simply were not safe. We also want to ensure there is adequate protection for employees who dare to blow the whistle on current government practice that affect the health and welfare of Canadians.

The couple of pieces I want to touch on are progressive licensing and direct-to-consumer advertising in the natural health products. I also want to highlight the fact that first nations traditional healers are not protected under the bill. Many of the first nations traditional healers have sacred medicines, which they have used for centuries. However, because they are sacred, they also are not in the public domain in the way that other products are. There needs to be a way to ensure first nations traditional healers are not impacted by the bill as well.

Under the progressive licensing aspect of it, one of the things the bill talks about is setting up an ongoing life cycle approach to drug safety. However, it does not have the needed improvements for pre-market testing and there will be heavy reliance on industry-led post-market follow-up. One of the things we want to see is improved pre-market safety. Any post-market oversight must be done independently. If we turn it strictly over to industry, it is like the fox in the henhouse. Any oversight must be done at arm's length so industry is held accountable both for its pre-market and post-market testing.

In the past we have called for a system to record adverse reactions. I know there has been some movement on recording adverse reactions, but more work needs to be done in this area as well. Largely one of the ways post-market problems show up is in adverse reaction. There needs to be much more work done on ensuring there is a national system in place to look at adverse reaction.

I want to touch on direct-to-consumer advertising. This is a very small piece in the bill, but it opens the doors to look at banning the current act's straightforward ban on direct-to-consumer advertising for health conditions, as outlined in a schedule in the act. The way the new legislation is written this prohibition could be exempted through regulation. This would allow pharmaceutical companies, with an order in cabinet, to bypass the regulations that are in place.

I want to turn to an article that was written by Barbara Mintzes called “Disease Mongering in Drug Promotion: Do Governments Have a Regulatory Role?”. It is an extensive article, so I will not have time to read the whole thing, but I want to touch on two pieces. She starts the article by saying:

Ray Moynihan and colleagues describe disease mongering as, “widening the boundaries of treatable illness in order to expand markets for those who sell and deliver treatments”. In this article, I examine one aspect of disease mongering: activities financed by drug companies to promote sales by expanding the pool of patients potentially treated by their products, when no benefit in terms of reduced morbidity is likely.

Then she goes on and talks about the fact that often these are very emotional responses and cites a couple of ads from pharmaceutical companies that say if people do not take their produce, they will end up dead. That is kind of the short form on it. That kind of fearmongering to encourage patients to use a particular pharmaceutical company's product is not the most reasonable way to make decisions on particular treatments.

In her conclusion, she says “Is a More Robust Regulatory Response Needed?”

She says:

The rationale for regulation of drug promotion is health protection, encouragement of appropriate medicine use, and prevention of deceptive advertising.

She goes on to say:

Canada's Food and Drugs Act prohibits advertising a drug that is “false, misleading or deceptive or is likely to create an erroneous impression regarding its character, value, quantity, merit or safety”.

I think many Canadians would be very uncomfortable with anything that would allow pharmaceutical companies to do more direct-to-consumer advertising than they already do. There is a way they can circumvent the regulations currently, and many Canadians are very uncomfortable with that. We are strongly opposed to anything that would open up the door to allow that to happen. We are opposed to that one aspect of the bill.

I know other members in the House have talked about the hundreds of letters they have received from their constituents, and certainly Nanaimo—Cowichan is no different, around the concerns about how this may impact on their ability to use natural health products. People in Nanaimo—Cowichan like the option of being able to access natural health products without facing some of the same costs involved with pharmaceuticals. They like to have that access through their local health food store. Many are raising concerns around whether this will impact on their access.

The Canadian Health Food Association has written a letter to the Minister of Health, on June 9, outlining many of its concerns around the natural health products aspects of the bill. I will touch on a few of them, but the association has quite accurately outlines.

The association talks about the fact that in the preamble to the bill there is no identification of the importance of health promotion or disease prevention. We know health promotion and disease prevention are very important aspects. If we want to talk about impact on our health care dollars being spent, we know health promotion and disease prevention need far more emphasis than they current get.

The association talks about categories, that the proposed amendments to the act include a new term called “therapeutic product” under which NHPs, as a subset of drugs, fall. It says, “The term “NHPs” does not appear anywhere in C-51 until page 40 when transition provisions are discussed.

It talks about authorization and licensing, that the applicant is required to establish that the risks of the product are outweighed by the benefits. Its comment on that is:

There is nothing in the Bill that indicates in what manner the applicant is to satisfy the risk-benefit ratio. No parameters or definitions have been included, that recognize the inherent differences between NHPs and pharmaceuticals, in particular new drugs.

It goes on, as well, to talk about the fact that, in many cases, the minister would have far more powers through the regulatory process and that it would not be an open and transparent process.

The association's brief to the minister talks about the fact that there needs to be accountability, openness and transparency around how decisions are made, that we do not need a regulatory process. In fact, we know that most regulations do not need to come to the House of Commons for approval.

We have heard the Conservatives say, “trust us”, that the regulatory will be in place to ensure that everything will lineup the way the bill says it will, but that is not true. The regulatory process happens outside the House of Commons, outside the legislation, so there is not that openness and transparency.

I encourage members of the House to take a look at the very concerns that have been raised by constituents in our ridings and across the country and ensure that natural health products and the safety of consumers is protected by the bill.

[Lui Temelkovski, Liberal, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will comment on the process, but I will mention a couple of things with regard to the doctor shortages.

The immigration bill has passed, without our support. If the parliamentary secretary is thinking the bill will solve the problems he has as the parliamentary secretary, and Canadians endure, he is dreaming in Technicolor.

In terms of the process, it is such that we will now move the bill to the committee and the committee will do an intensive study. We will hear from the brightest minds and most of the shareholders who are involved with the bill. We have looked at our agenda and we will bring Bill C-51 to the committee's agenda upon our return in the fall. At that time, we will discuss and hear witnesses from across the country. If people are watching and would like to be witnesses, they should get in touch with our clerk and she will ensure they are added to the list of witnesses. We like to hear from everyone.

This morning my assistant opened over 100 envelopes with the same message inside. The names of different people were added on to the letter of request or comments that people had made. Therefore, I believe there is a movement, in terms of Bill C-51, looking to stop the bill dead in its tracks right now.

However, we will send it committee, work on it and come up, hopefully, with an improved plan than the one with which the parliamentary secretary gave us to work, which is not enough.

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary for Health]

Mr. Speaker, the member is very able in his capacity as vice-chair of the committee. I look forward to working with him in committee on Bill C-51.

With respect to the issue of the physicians, I would like to remind the member that it was under the previous government that positions were cut and $25 billion was removed from the transfers to the provinces. We are dealing with it now and we are dealing with it well. The minister has done a remarkable job in attracting new professionals through working with colleges.

As well, just last night we passed an immigration bill that will fast track health care professionals such as doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and the like. We are making substantial progress.

On the issue of Bill C-51, we have heard from the NDP accusations that are not correct. I wonder if the member, as vice-chair of the committee, could explain how the committee process works. The fact is that once we go through second reading the committee will have the opportunity to amend the legislation, listen to witnesses and so on. It also gives the government the opportunity to incorporate into the bill suggestions that it has heard from across the country, because of course the government is listening to Canadians. Can the member explain the process a little?

[Lui Temelkovski, Liberal, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise today to speak on Bill C-51, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

First and foremost, as vice-chair of the health committee, I would like to say that we have looked at some of these issues and it is a pleasure to see the parliamentary secretary here to support this bill and to debate it.

First, the bill looks at modernizing the regulatory system. What does that mean? It means that because the act was introduced in 1953 and is a little bit older than I am, we can see that it needs some improvement, just as I do on a regular basis.

Second, it looks to improve the surveillance of benefits and risks of therapeutic products throughout their life cycles. At the committee, we have been looking at licensing or surveillance of medication.

At this time, what happens with medication is that some pre-market tests are done, but we all understand that pre-market tests cannot be done on young children or on elderly people, pregnant women and so on. At the same time, when products are introduced into the market, they are taken by those people as well, so we have been doing a study on post-market surveillance to see what can be done and how to improve the system of post-market surveillance.

The post-market surveillance assessment will be done soon and I believe the report should be hitting the House either this week or next week, hopefully before we rise. The report will have some recommendations about which I am not at liberty to speak at this time.

The other issue this bill looks at is improved compliance in reporting adverse reactions. As for adverse reactions when someone takes a medication, the medication is either reported back to their doctor or not reported at all. So far, our information tells us that only 10% of adverse reactions are reported.

We have been wondering about that. We have been consulting with stakeholders from across the country, the people who really do this work, such as the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian pharmaceutical associations, the Canadian Nurses Association and so on. We will be coming up with some recommendations on those issues before the House rises, but what is important is that the issue of human resources for health professionals is not being dealt with.

When the Minister of Health appeared in front of the committee, we asked if he was aware of how many Canadians did not have a doctor, a health professional. At that time, which was about three months ago, he was not aware. Further, when we asked if he was aware of what the doctor shortages were in Canada, he was unaware. The third question was the clincher and that was about whether he had a plan. He obviously had a plan, but having a plan for improving the situation of health care professionals in Canada and not being aware of the first two questions begs the question of how he could be fixing a problem without being aware that it exists.

The minister came up very short in front of the committee. I was very surprised when he did not know that three million to five million Canadians do not have a doctor and that in Canada there is a doctor shortage of about 26,000 physicians. They were needed yesterday, not tomorrow, not next year, not 10 years from now, but yesterday.

Because the minister said he had a plan, we asked him what his plans were in the health department to fix the human resources situation. He told us that residency spots in Ontario were available. When we asked how many, he said they had been increased by roughly 100.

I was born in a very small village and my math may not be so good, but when three to five million Canadians do not have a physician and we are told that 24,000 to 26,000 physicians are needed to make sure that Canadians are looked after, it does not take a genius to figure out that we need an aggressive plan for human resources in the health care system. The minister's aggressive plan was to increase the number of residency spots in Ontario by 100.

Twenty-six thousand doctors are needed, yet we are increasing that number by only 100. It will take a zillion years, let me note for the parliamentary secretary, to solve this huge problem. It is a problem in the beautiful riding of Oak Ridges--Markham, the largest riding in Canada when it comes to eligible voters. We need more health care professionals in our riding.

I would like to go back to Bill C-51 and put on the record a number of emails that I have received from people in my riding.

Linda wrote to me and said:

If I prepare apple cider vinegar steeped with a few herbs like sage and lemon balm in my garden for a general winter tonic to ward off flu or colds, or to give in case of sore throat, I could find myself in jail if I give this to my children or husband or give a jar to my neighbour or a friend. Or if I make some skin cream for my son's eczyma from beeswax from some herbs growing in my garden I could be thrown in jail....

She went on to say:

I don't trust Health Canada to keep my family safe. I don't trust the health minister to keep my family safe...

If this bill does pass, and I pray it does not, I will be contacting you and your colleagues....

Another email is from Angela, who says:

I wanted to write to you to see if there is anything you can do to help out with Bill C-51, which the government is trying to pass as law. If passed, Bill C-51 will ban our access to all vitamins, herbs and alternative therapies.

I would like to read a couple more, with the House's indulgence. The next email is from Rosie, who says:

You might remember chatting with Jeff and myself...a few weeks ago...I am writing to protest the passing of Bill C-51 in its current version.

She says that we should take it out of here, pass it on to the committee and have a look at it at committee. That is a great idea. That is what our party is suggesting.

With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I will finish with an email from Marjorie, one of the many that we have received. She says:

By now, many people in the Natural Health Product (NHP) community are pulling their hair out over Bill C-51, an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act.

I end my speech with that.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think the member is betraying the Conservative approach on health care. Rather than addressing any of the concerns that have been raised by the thousands of Canadians who have written to his office, as they have to every other member of Parliament here, he denigrates them. He attacks them, he insults them and he calls them names. That is exactly the Conservative approach. It is a kind of thuggish approach on health care.

To put it quite simply, the Conservatives have not made the case for Bill C-51. Quite simply, when we look at the American style of approach that they are attempting to use through Bill C-51, the evidence is there in the United States from The New England Journal of Medicine, which he is calling loony leftist. The New England Journal of Medicine has a lot more credibility than the hon. member does when it comes to health care issues.

When The New England Journal of Medicine says that 56,000 person-years were “lost to the harmful effects of drugs approved but later withdrawn for safety reasons” because of fast-tracking of pharmaceutical drugs in the United States, one would expect that the Conservatives, in the public interest, would actually say, “Hold on, let us take a step back on this. We have put together this legislation. Obviously there are some negative impacts on this legislation so we are going to have to--

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to follow my colleague from Winnipeg North on Bill C-51. She has been very eloquent on this bill and has been, I think, by far the best speaker thus far in terms of exposing what really seems to be at work here regarding the agenda that the government has put forward. I am pleased to speak in opposition to Bill C-51.

As with a number of other initiatives from this Conservative government, what it says it is trying to do is quite different from what it actually tries to do when it is seen in legislation. We have seen this time and time again, that essentially what the Conservatives try to use is a smokescreen, political spin. It takes scrutiny, particularly from the NDP corner of the House, to scrutinize very carefully the actual legislation to find out what indeed is the intent of the Conservative government.

Here again is a case where the Conservatives announced, with a great deal of political spin and marketing, that somehow they were trying to add to safety in our health care system with health care products and pharmaceutical drugs.

But the devil is in the details. When we carefully read through this bill, as our health critic the member for Winnipeg North has done and other members of the NDP caucus, we find the intent is quite different than the actual wording of the bill itself.

I would like to touch on two of the most egregious aspects of what is contained within Bill C-51, which essentially, in a very bizarre way, is an attempt to push a very strict regime around natural health products and at the same time, there appears to be an attempt to lessen any sort of regulatory oversight around pharmaceutical drugs.

On natural health products, we have seen over the past few years a growing waiting list for approval of natural health products in Canada. A little bit like the immigration system and a little bit like our health care system, that is the result of both successive Liberal and Conservative governments essentially giving away the public management and the public trust that Canadians have entrusted to Parliament.

What we have seen over the past 20 years is very much a right wing agenda that puts the emphasis on corporate tax cuts above all other things. The result of that is underfunding of our health care system. The result of that is underfunding of our immigration system and the result of that as well is underfunding of the approval process to actually ensure that natural health products are not subject to these long wait lists.

The solution the Conservatives offer up is to simply lump in pharmaceutical drugs with natural health products. I have received far more letters and emails from my constituents in Burnaby—New Westminster on this issue than I have on practically any other. I am going to read into the record a few of the comments that my constituents in Burnaby--New Westminster have written to me on this particular issue.

Mr. Thuot writes: “We all recognize that the pharmaceutical industry has been waging a relentless war internationally on vitamin and alternative natural health supplements for quite some time”.

We have Dr. Chan from Burnaby who writes: “I definitely do not support legislation that treats natural health products in the same manner as pharmaceutical products. Now would be an excellent time for the government to implement a third category for natural health products as was recommended by the Standing Committee on Health in 1998”.

We have Mr. Johrden in New Westminster who writes: “I am opposed to Bill C-51 which has been set in motion to amend the Food and Drugs Act, a bill with worrisome implications for the natural health products industry and consumers”.

We have Ms. Balabanov who writes: “Vitamins and minerals are very important for health and prevention. They cause no deaths as opposed to pharmaceutical drugs that do cause many deaths”.

We have Ms. Lum from Burnaby who writes: “I dare say the only industry being helped will be the pharmaceutical industry who can rake in even more profits once all health foods have been banned or made into prescription drugs”.

We have Mr. Hollenstein from New Westminster who says: “I do not wish this manipulation of the term therapeutic drugs to be an umbrella for all pharmaceutical drugs, to include vitamins and herbal remedies and food in general”.

We have Mr. Robertson who writes, referring to me as his member of Parliament. He said: “I ask you to take a strong stand on this and I for one would like to state that I am vehemently opposed to the passing of such a bill”.

Ms. Bredburn from Burnaby writes: “I am a woman who has greatly benefited by natural health products after years and years of unsuccessful mainstream doctor prescribed drugs”.

The constituents in Burnaby and New Westminster have written time and time again about this foolhardy notion that the solution to the waiting list, that has been caused by government underfunding, will actually ensure that the system works effectively and that new natural food products that are brought on the market will be subject to the appropriate scrutiny and then brought on to the market.

Instead of providing the adequate funding, in a bizarre world that only Picasso could have imagined, we have the Conservatives making the situation worse. However, there is another element to Bill C-51 that I would like to address.

As the government seems to be putting the thumbs to the natural food products industry and most Canadians who rely on herbal remedies and natural food products to maintain their health and well-being, we are seeing, at the same time, an American style approach to the approval of pharmaceutical drugs. What sense is that when in the United States we have seen huge problems with its fast tracking of approval of pharmaceutical drugs?

Progressive licensing simply ensures that drugs are brought onto the market without appropriate scrutiny. We have seen this from other Conservative initiatives in transportation, where it wants to hand over safety management to the airlines themselves. It did not work for railways, as we saw an escalating accident rate, but the government wants to try it for airlines. This type of approach simply does not make sense.

We have seen in the United States drug after drug after drug that has provoked deaths because it was fast tracked. We know that the Conservatives, like the Liberals before them, in these behind closed doors negotiations, the so-called security and prosperity partnership, are trying to harmonize all of our regulations, standards and safety protections that we put into place to lower American standards.

We saw that with transportation safety. We have seen it with the attempt by the Conservative government to raise the pesticide residue permitted in Canadian food. We see this through the SPP process that essentially copying what has not worked in the United States is not in the interests of Canadians.

I would like to read a couple of excerpts from news articles that came out last year around this issue of progressive licensing and how it worked in the United States. I will read a couple of paragraphs from the Washington Post:

Three drugs--Vioxx, Ketek and Avandia--are casting long shadows over the congressional debate on how to update and revise the 15-year-old system that has dramatically sped up the process of bringing prescription medicines to American consumers. All three ran into problems after the Food and Drug Administration approved them for use. The problems ranged from thousands of heart attacks partly attributable to the painkiller Vioxx to a few cases of liver failure caused by the antibiotic Ketek. And the hazards of the diabetes drug Avandia are only now emerging.

The New England Journal of Medicine did a study around cases of these fast tracked drugs, such as the Conservatives are proposing, and these are the comments that came out of that study:

It is incredible that the Agency charged with protecting the public health has such a poor record when it comes to post market drug safety. Regrettably it is incidents like this that demand legislative changes in the way FDA deals with drug safety.

That particular study indicated that 56,000 Americans died as a result of drugs being fast tracked onto the market. This is the danger with this kind of foolhardy Conservative initiative that may mesh with its right wing ideology that government and safety is bad, let us do away with all of that, and let the company CEOs decide what degree of safety or risk Canadians should have.

Very clearly, all the emails and letters that have come from my constituents say the contrary. Canadians believe the government should ensure a higher standard of safety, a more secure process of approving pharmaceutical drugs.

Bill C-51, the thin edge of the wedge, does exactly the opposite, moving toward a kind of progressive licensing, the fast tracking of drugs that did not work in the United States. That is why in this corner of the House we are saying no to Bill C-51.

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary for Health]

Mr. Speaker, in this circumstance, the question is sometimes more important than the answer.

I am a little disappointed that the member did not use his full time to talk about the issue at hand, which is Bill C-51. The member talked about the doctor shortage, and I will just address that for a moment.

The doctor shortage is due to cutbacks in the mid-1990s, when the brain trusts of the governing party, the Liberal Party at the time, thought it would be a good idea to reduce the number of family doctors graduating from medical schools. So, we now have, 10 years later, not surprisingly, a doctor shortage.

We have an immigration bill that will allow the fast-tracking of medical professionals, which the opposition party railed against, but yet let pass, very hypocritically. It will address the medical crisis that the Liberal Party initiated and now we, as Conservatives, have to do what we always do; that is, clean up after the Liberals.

With regard to Bill C-51, the member, I think, being a doctor, understands the importance of natural health products. I am pleased to see that he is willing to let it go to committee where the appropriate amendments can be brought forward and so on.

I wonder if the member would agree with the government that the health and safety of Canadians needs to be balanced with the ability of Canadians to have the freedom of choice in dealing with their care needs?

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak to Bill C-51. All of us in the House have received a lot of correspondence from very concerned Canadians. They believe that the bill will impede their access to substances that they have freely bought over the counter for many years, products that are used by naturopaths and herbalists across our country and products that are used by first nations healers in Canada. Those groups are concerned.

The government has done a very poor job of describing what the bill is about. That the government will be putting forth amendments which it is not willing to share with us speaks to the fact that it is proceeding in a way that is less than organized with respect to the bill. The government is hearing about it from Canadians and from members of the House of Commons.

The crux of the concerns of most Canadians is whether the bill impedes a person's ability to access those products. The bill touches on a lot of things that are very important. It covers many substances. It covers pharmaceutical products and medical equipment. It enables the minister to more rapidly assess whether a product is good or bad for the public. It enables him to remove products more quickly.

Right now product removal is voluntary in nature and it is up to the private sector companies to remove them. The bill would give Health Canada the ability to better monitor products that come on the market and to remove them if there are problems that are identified. In fact, the Food and Drugs Act, which this bill amends, has not to my knowledge been significantly amended since 1953. Obviously we need to do a better job of that.

Penelope Marrett, president of the Toronto based Canadian Health Food Association, said:

People need to remember that we're an already regulated industry....Herbalists and naturopaths will still be able to provide the products and the compounds that they do under the current situation.

I hope that allays some concerns. However, the proof of the pudding is in the bill. We want to make sure that the bill goes to committee, which is the next stage after this one, and that members on the health committee have ample time to dissect the bill from stem to stern. Members of the naturopathic groups in Canada, the aboriginal groups and other groups that are concerned will be able to appear as witnesses in front of the health committee. We are hoping this will happen in a very public fashion. I hope that the government sees fit to televise the hearings of this investigation. It is very important for all Canadians to witness the people who come in front of the committee so that all sides can be heard. I know that the concerns of Canadians about the bill will be expressed in that committee and will be heard and understood.

If the bill compromises the ability of Canadians to access the naturopathic products that are safe and to which they have traditionally had access, then we will not support the bill. We will not compromise people's ability to access these products, but we are obviously in favour of ensuring that whatever products come down the line are safe for Canadians.

I would ask why on earth the government has not taken it upon itself to deal with what is arguably one of the two most important issues affecting Canadians, and that is health care in Canada. The government has been missing in action. Why have we not seen a plan to deal with the health care human resources catastrophe that we will be facing in the coming years? Physicians, specialists and general practitioners, nurses, technicians and other health care workers, there is a huge aging out of the population taking place. The average age of many physicians and specialist groups is in the fifties and for nurses it is in the low forties. This is a problem that cannot be rectified overnight. The government has not done anything about this. It has to work with the provinces.

Here is one easy solution. There are some 1,800 Canadian students who could not get into medical school in Canada who are studying abroad in places like Australia. Those Canadians would dearly love to come back to this country, but it is exceedingly difficult for Canadians working abroad to come back. They even have to write a test to determine whether or not they can speak English or French. Can anyone believe that?

The system makes it very difficult for Canadians abroad to come back. Why do we not make it easier? Why do we not enable Canadians to be quickly assessed and to either have extra training or be allowed to practice in Canada if they are Canadians who are studying abroad? That would potentially introduce 1,800 doctors into Canada in a very short period of time at a very low cost.

Where is the government on other issues? Where is it on home care? This is a serious issue given our aging population. Where is it on a national mental health care strategy? The government is moving slowly in that direction. It is a positive direction and we continue to encourage that. Where is it on modernizing the Canada Health Act? There is silence from the government.

Where is it on information technology? This is something that could radically and dramatically improve our ability to care for our patients. Where is it on the head start program for children? That was passed in the House in 1998. It would be the simplest, least expensive and most effective preventive measure we could possibly have in our country.

Where is the government on research and development? Where is the government on its science and technology strategy? I can say where it is. The government's science and technology strategy is to fire the science adviser to the Prime Minister and eliminate his office. Firing Dr. Arthur Carty, one of Canada's finest scientists, and eliminating the post of science adviser to the Prime Minister is the government's science and technology strategy. What kind of strategy is that?

What is the government doing to facilitate the connection between bench discoveries and putting them into clinical practice? Where is its ability to move forward on the scientific discoveries that we have and commercialize them? Why is it not connecting up groups like the MaRS centre in Toronto and the 27 science and technology parks from coast to coast in our country? Why is it not working with them to connect them and maximize their possibilities. That is the future economic ability of our country to compete.

China and India are building dozens and dozens of these parks. They know that the future does not lie in petrodollars. The future does not lie in resource extraction. The future lies in our ability to maximize technological advances in science and research and to commercialize an operationalize them.

Our fine scientists are some of the best in the world, but they are being left to drift by the government. There is no plan whatsoever from the government. Why? Because in part everything is controlled by the Prime Minister's office and it chooses to deal with only a few things.

I would strongly advise the government that there are members in the Liberal Party who would very much like to work with the government to advance ideas and solutions to enable Canadians, particularly those who are sick, to access the care they require.

Most Canadians would be fascinated to know that with respect to modernizing our health care system in Canada, it is not a binary question. It is not our system or the U.S. system. What about all those systems in Europe where for a lower price and less cost there are better health care outcomes? There are no, or small, waiting lines. There is better access to new technologies.

Canadians would be interested to know that we fall somewhere in the lower third of OECD countries in our ability to access modern technologies. Technologies and medicine are out there. Can Canadians get them? No. Why is the government not working with the provinces to look at best practices in Europe and bring them here to Canada?

Why do we not have a centre for best health care practices in our country? This is something for which I have been calling for a few years. The government could organize a centre for best health care practices, take the best ideas from around the world, bring them here to Canada and push those out.

One particular area that is important to my riding of Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, as it is to the country, is the health care of our Canadian Forces members and their families. They are suffering in silence, in part because of the situation in Afghanistan. We could set up a centre of excellence for health care for our Canadian Forces members and their families. In doing so, we would be more effective in addressing PTSD, preventing PTSD, dealing with the anxiety issues and psychological problems and other physical problems they have.

We look forward to having a strong debate in committee regarding Bill C-51.