Okay. The two topics are related.
I just said that we pay 30% more in Canada for our drugs than the average of the OECD countries. In Quebec, it's 8% more compared with the rest of Canada. So this is a real issue that needs to be a priority. Industrial policies that were put in place are partly to blame.
I spoke to you about the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, which is a federal agency responsible for ensuring that the cost of brand name drugs isn't excessive. So we have set benchmarks, meaning that prices had to be set based on the median price in effect in seven comparable countries. Of these countries, there are the four that sell drugs at the highest prices in the world, which artificially inflates the introductory price of drugs we authorize in Canada. But researchers have shown that if we instead based it on 11 countries, including the four countries that sell the drugs at the highest prices, we would reduce the price of our drugs by 11% right away. So there is room there for very concrete actions.
Why was the choice made at the time to artificially inflate the cost of our medications? It was because of agreements that were made with the pharmaceutical industry. In exchange, the pharmaceutical industry agreed to invest 10% of its revenues in research and development. But we saw that this wasn't at all what it did. The investments didn't materialize. I think that the government should review these policies and measure them in terms of the results they gave and the costs they incurred for the Canadian and Quebec population. It's an example. The cost of drugs in Canada and Quebec is a major priority issue for us.