Thank you, Madam Chairperson, and thanks to all of you for your excellent presentations.
Patrick, you are right. The government has just tabled two new pieces of legislation that clearly impact on our deliberations today. One is An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. The second is An Act respecting the safety of consumer products. It will be important for us to hear your reactions to these bills, because that clearly has an impact on anything to do with post-market surveillance. I'm wondering if I can maybe ask all of you, for the benefit of our study on post-market surveillance, if you would be willing to give us a written critique of these two bills from the point of view of this committee's study so that it might enhance our work and our final report. Would all of you be willing to do that?
I have a couple of copies of each of them with me now, so at the end I could leave them with you.
I am concerned that under the guise of modernization we are actually witnessing a legislative approach that might weaken the capacity of government to ensure drugs, foods, and consumer products are put on the market after all precaution has been taken. I'm worried about that because of the focus on progressive licensing. There are pros and cons, but I'd like to ask you what we should look for in terms of this bill to ensure that any focus on progressive licensing doesn't mean we are lowering the bar—as you, Steve and Patrick, said—in terms of what is acceptable, what can be allowed on the market. What should we look for in that regard?
Second, could you tell me just what this might mean? There is a huge set of “whereases” in this bill:
Whereas the Parliament of Canada recognizes that a lack of full scientific certainty is not to be used as a reason for postponing measures that prevent adverse effects on human health if those affects could be serious or irreversible
I am wondering if all three of you could give me a bit of a perspective on that end of the question of progressive licensing in this whole context of what we know has been happening in the department.
Does anybody want to start?