Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I want to thank all the witnesses here today for your input on this very important topic. I want you to know as well that quite often we share your frustrations with the way Canada's health care system works. You mentioned internationally the example of New Zealand—I think it was brought up—where they have one national system, so that a lot of things can be input.
But I think that saying where these silos are is just a question of where you want to draw the lines. As far as the delivery of health care in Canada is concerned, the reality is that it is a provincial jurisdiction. The provinces are responsible for delivering this health care.
One thing that I think is important to get on the record is—I think, Madam Attara, you brought it up—about piggy-backing. Health Canada does have a role. What we do is look at the safety and the efficacy of the drugs that are on the market, and we test for these.
Right now, just to give you an update, we've had submissions from other companies—17 recent submissions—and have already approved seven. With the SAP program, there were 61 applications received recently; in the last couple of weeks, 39 have been approved.
In our role, whether the drug is coming from the U.K., whether it's coming from the United States, what we do is approve how safe it is and whether, where it was manufactured, there are good manufacturing practices that are effective. Then we permit the provinces to go shopping with that approval.
That's one of the frustrations, and I want to ask you this. If you were a health minister, or if you were in one of these buying groups, first of all, would you sole-source a drug that is deemed to be medically necessary or essential? Is that the way you would do it?