Thank you, Madam Chair.
Before I start, I'd like to make a point of order. I'm finding this meeting rather surprising, because while I'm aware that the committee decided to do a study on prescription drugs, and I'm aware that the common drug review is a piece of that rather large puzzle, I'm very surprised that, before starting a study, we have not had a document presented to us, as committee members, called “Terms of Reference for the Study on Prescription Drugs”.
In addition to the terms of reference for a study, which is the normal procedure at this committee, we are also, usually, provided with a work plan that tells us what the first meeting will be about, what the second meeting will be about, and so on. None of those things has happened. I don't know why, Madam Chair, but perhaps you could make some inquiries for us.
When one considers that we did a study of prescription drugs a few years ago, one might assume that the health committee could move directly into some of the nitty gritty problems concerning prescription drugs this country faces. However, when you also consider that of the 12 members on this committee, at least six were not present for that rather large study we did, one would realize that we should be following a more formalized structure. We should have Health Canada come and tell us about its responsibilities for prescription drugs. If the CDR is part of our study, as approved in a work plan—a work plan we haven't seen yet—then the people from the CDR should come, and so on.
So it seems to me that we are starting today with a rather thorny issue. Nothing that has been said here so far has surprised me, Madam Chair. Many of us are going to be jumping into this without sufficient background information—the history of the thing, how this came about, and so on—to really understand what's being said. It's obvious that this study has been launched at about stage 7 of a normal study. So I would ask, Madam Chair, that—