Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good afternoon Minister, ladies and gentlemen; thank you for being here.
Minister, I would like to begin by thanking you for having extended Insite’s license until December 2007.
Minister, you are investing an additional $18 million in a training program for medical doctors. However, we all know that access to good health care is not only a question of professionals being available but also of sufficient and adequate equipment. Given that you have recently given a license to Mentor Corporation and Inamed Corporation for silicone gel breast implants, we can expect that a large number of women will need magnetic resonance imaging at least every other year. Even Inamed Corporation has said so in its documentation.
Have you planned to transfer funds to the provinces so they can purchase the necessary equipment to respond to these needs?
Mentor and Inamed in the U.S. have agreed to pay for a large part of the costs of operations should women require to have the silicone breast implants removed in case of rupture. Has Canada had the wisdom to require the same conditions from Mentor and Inamed?
I have another question, Mr. Chairman. Last week, Ms. Sharma told us that our request for documentation would cost $53 million for 65,000 sheets. I checked with 20 agencies who do technical and scientific translation and none asked for more than $6 million. Can you explain how things work at Health Canada for translation to cost so much?
Thank you very much.