Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here.
I want to read some excerpts from an article that was written in the National Post just last October, about 11 months ago. It's an article titled, “Health Canada gives 'kiss of death' to planned policy for rare-disease drugs”. It says:
Health Canada has quietly deleted from its website all references to a planned framework for rare-disease drugs that dates back to 2012 and was intended to improve the availability of such drugs in Canada. Canada is one of the only developed countries without a regulatory framework for rare-disease drugs, also known as orphan drugs.... Until Oct. 6, a Health Canada webpage claimed the department was “developing an orphan drug regulatory framework that seeks to encourage the development of orphan drugs and increase the availability of these products on the Canadian market.” It also promised consultations that were “expected to take place before the end of 2017.” The webpage has since been removed.
What happened?