Through you, Mr. Chair, to the honourable member.
It is true that adverse events happen with medication. One of the things we pointed out, and which we believe could be improved in the bill, is that when adverse events occur, we would like to see not only a notification to Health Canada—and I'm glad that the sanctions for institutions and prescribers are higher now to report those adverse events—but also would suggest that they simultaneously be reported to the global manufacturer. Then we can update the global adverse event databases that our own members keep to ensure that the labels or contraindications, which you've talked about very knowledgeably at this committee, can also be changed.
That's why we also pointed out that we'd like to see the product label and monograph that Health Canada approves to ensure that when a patient goes to their local pharmacy and gets their prescription and perhaps an information sheet, it mirrors in plain language the Health Canada approved product label and monograph. We need that to happen more consistently.
The other thing we're doing, and we're quite proud of, is that with British Columbia's and other governments, we're participating in a personalized medicine initiative to reduce those adverse events, especially in seniors' populations. We know they may be on multiple medications, and by using biomarkers or pharmacogenomic markers, we ensure that a senior—my mother or somebody else's mother who is on five or six medicines and is prescribed the new ones—has a better profile so that we can reduce those adverse events.