Bill C-393 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Patent Act (drugs for international humanitarian purposes) and to make a consequential amendment to another Act

This enactment amends the Patent Act and the Food and Drugs Act to make it easier to manufacture and export pharmaceutical products to address public health problems afflicting many developing and least-developed countries, especially those resulting from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other epidemics.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Yes. Essentially what happens here is that we are... As you know, in Bill C-393 there's a description of a pharmaceutical product, and we are now referring to pharmaceutical products that come under the new schedule 1 that we just finished talking about, that came from the Patent Act. There's the additional point that these are at the recommendation of the Minister of Health. So there's that fact that this is a list of medications approved by Health Canada.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

If this is done, what problems remain in this regard in Bill C-393?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

If you look at the current schedule in Bill C-393, we can argue about whether countries such as Poland, Singapore, and Hong Kong should be on the list. I didn't tackle that issue in what we're talking about today.

The reason I wanted to put this schedule 1 list of medications back in is that at the moment, the way the legislation is written, there is no defined list of medications.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Chair, it's really understood in the context of what we're talking about now plus the first two amendments I've put in. If you look at these three together, it makes sense--I think it makes sense. The intent was to get the list of medications back into Bill C-393. It had been removed.

The other schedule, the existing schedule in there, is the schedule of countries. Whilst I may have some problems recognizing that Singapore should be eligible for CAMR medication, I'm not going to go after that in today's discussion.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

That's right. So the effect of this amendment refers to schedules 2 to 4, but there's only one left right now. I'm not understanding where schedules 2 to 4 come in. I understand that by adding one more schedule—the schedule of drugs—you get one more schedule, but you're referring to schedules 2 to 4.

Bill C-393 leaves us with only one schedule. You're adding one. We don't have a schedule 3 or a schedule 4. So what do schedules 2 to 4 of the act refer to?

[Mona Frendo]

Bill C-393 proposed, as Mr. Marc Garneau said, to remove schedule 1, which is a list of drugs that was contained in CAMR, the drugs that were eligible for manufacture and export under the regime. It also contained three lists of countries--so schedules 2 to 4.

The countries that were included were least developed countries, countries that were WTO members, and others. Each of those lists had varying responsibilities as per the WTO requirements and they were classified according to their pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity and their level of development.

My understanding of Bill C-393 would be that it would remove all four schedules, as per clause 15.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

That's what I'm trying to clarify. I guess my question to the officials is what the impact of Bill C-393 is, so just for clarity, let's go back to the beginning.

What impact does Bill C-393, as it stands, have on the schedules?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Essentially what it does is ensure that CAMR is consistent with Bill C-393 in terms of the drugs and the countries. That's what will happen by these consequential acts.

Although TRIPS and WTO didn't require that list, it was built in during the original CAMR, for a number of different reasons. I'm agreeing to them even though I don't believe it's necessary, but at the same time, it is what was done before and there has been some concern expressed about that, so that will allow the current Bill C-393 to be consistent with the drugs and the countries and the language from the previous bill.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

I'm not talking about changing schedules 2 to 4 in the Patent Act. I'm not touching them; they're not affected by this. It's only bringing schedule 1 from the Patent Act into Bill C-393 and moving the existing schedule of countries to become schedule 2.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Except for the one that's in there, which is a kind of a composite of what were schedules 2 to 4. What I'm proposing is that the aim is to get a new schedule into Bill C-393, which is a list of drugs approved under CAMR, and that becomes the new schedule 1, and therefore the existing schedule in Bill C-393 becomes schedule 2.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

But Bill C-393 takes all of them out except one--

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Chair, what I'm suggesting, essentially, is that we take schedule 1 that exists in the Patent Act and make it schedule 1 in Bill C-393. The existing schedule that's in there right now would become schedule 2, so we'd have schedules 1 and 2.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As you know, Bill C-393 deals with a part of the Patent Act that deals with the use of patents for international humanitarian purposes to address public health problems. In it there are four schedules. One of them is a list of drugs that are approved under CAMR. The other three are lists of countries that have a slightly different status.

As you know, Bill C-393 in clause 15 sort of eliminated those, so we're left with one schedule at the back, which is a schedule of countries only. My aim, with a couple of these amendments, is to reintroduce the schedule 1 that is in the Patent Act and that lists eligible drugs under CAMR as approved by the Minister of Health.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm glad Mr. Malo led off with a discussion about compromise and willingness to work and make this bill better, because we still have an opportunity to do so.

So towards that common good, I have several suggestions today in support of this Liberal amendment. Although I don't believe it is necessary under WTO and TRIPS in the agreement, it has caused some concern for some members, and I certainly value their input and suggestion on that. This also, then, provides for CAMR to reach its current footprint, although restricted to some degree. At the same time, it would still be of benefit if we passed further amendments to the bill.

I'll suggest as well that I'll be dropping issues, such as the changes to the food and drugs safety act, as a compromise to make sure that we can actually get a bill passed in this chamber to report back to the House of Commons that will improve CAMR.

I'm hoping that the Bloc and the Liberals will be open to those amendments that are certainly going to strengthen the bill but also will serve the purpose at the end of the day. There are certain ones that will create some difficulty ,but there are other ones like this one, where I'm certainly willing to live with the consequences. Unfortunately, the drugs won't reach as many people in different nations, but at the same time, with all due respect, it still creates the environment we currently have.... There are other things we can do in Bill C-393 that will actually improve the bill. So in that spirit I will support this amendment and its consequential amendments.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Malo.

Certainly the committee might want to comment on what would be an additional report on the evidence we heard, on top of the issue we're seized with right now, which is the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-393.

But I have acknowledged that Mr. Masse wanted the floor, so go ahead, please, Mr. Masse.