It may be that you're not, right now, reducing requirements at the pre-market end. I would argue, in fact, that the department and consecutive governments, not just the present but also the past government, have done all the damage they needed to do to change the pre-market surveillance to a risk management model already.
As soon as I was elected in 1997, the first thing that happened was that the Liberal health minister got rid of the one independent drug research bureau that was left to test for--get it--post-market impact. In other words, implications when a drug and a food reacted in a negative way, or a drug to a drug, or a drug and a natural health product--gone.
Scientists have had to leave the department because they stood firm and said, “We aren't going to be bullied by the government, which has been bullied by corporations, to minimize our standards and our scientific data.” So we're now at a point where all those stringent controls at the pre-market level are basically reduced to industry regulating itself.
Now you're going the next step and giving us this fancy language about either progressive licensing or life cycle stuff. I mean, as far as I can tell, these are just nice, fancy words to in fact allow government to take one more step to get rid of the Food and Drugs Act, which is founded on the precautionary principle and “do no harm”, to bring it in line with regulatory, trade, and WTO standards.
The pressures on the international front, in terms of trade, seem to be driving this. Let me give you the example, and you answer. If we have this precautionary model, how was it that we had a situation with rancid baby food on the market, where no one felt compelled to report that to Health Canada, because they were going to wait to see if someone got sick? Then when someone gets sick, they'll report it to you, and you might do something.
Now, that is a perfect example of what the government over the last 10 years has done and what your department is doing now. I would want to know where, in all of this, is the provision to ensure that we have a much more proactive response when dangerous products hit the market.
First, I don't imagine that with food we can do it all, but with drugs, at least, ensure that you have drugs that are safe before they hit the market. You've moved to self-regulation, or “let the industry regulate itself”. Vioxx is a good example. Let it on the market. It's better for the drug companies to go through all the testing and do the regulatory stuff, but let it on the market, and then pay off when someone dies, because it's cheaper for them.
You need to explain to us how this is going to be better for Canadians.