Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am somewhat in a conflict of interests when it comes to talking about the system, because my son is a beneficiary of it. However, there is a technical detail that frustrates me. In the span of one month, my son won two scholarships. The first scholarship was not awarded by the government, and was deductible, but the second one was not. I find this a bit odd; does the government believe that he earned the first scholarship, but not the second one? I will not question you on that, but this system bothers me.
What you say is true. My son spent the summer in Washington, and it is possible he will go to the United States because of this sort of thing. In fact, he would now be treated much better there than here in Canada.
Mr. Williams, you talked about intellectual property. As you are most certainly aware, there is an issue that prevails throughout the world, that of counterfeit medicines. In Europe, the problem has become extremely dangerous, practically catastrophic. I don't believe that Canada is immune to this problem.
Since this is a matter of intellectual property, I wish to know if the current system as it stands, would allow the government to intervene with sufficient force to prevent the problem of counterfeit medicines from affecting Canada to the extent that it has affected Germany or France.