Thank you for your question, Mr. Dufour.
Allow me to answer in English.
The question of the release of confidential business information is a key one for an industry that is proprietary information-based, such as the consumer health products industry.
We are in a bit of an awkward spot before this committee, however, because we don't anticipate that the provisions contained in this bill will apply to our industry. We expect that the discussion will be unique to health products, once the anticipated amendments to the Food and Drugs Act come along.
Certainly we recognize that there is a public health need at times that will require proprietary information to be released; we don't contest that. We also understand that there will not be a requirement for consent from industry when that information, as an issue of public safety, needs to be released. However, we have a broader concern around the issue of notification, so that manufacturers are in a position to at least deal with the consequences of their information going into, at some level or other, the public domain. It may require business decisions that are very important, when proprietary information is one of the key assets that these companies hold.
In the broader sense of your questions, I expect that the dialogue, when we get to the amendments to the Food and Drugs Act, will be a very detailed one. But in terms of the issues around Bill C-6 they could be different. I think the health products industry has some unique dimensions to it, around intellectual property protection and so forth, that make up how products are approved so that Health Canada is in the possession of key proprietary information, which may not be the case with other consumer products.
In that sense, I'm afraid there are limits to the input we can offer the committee.