Speaking honestly, as we were dealing with this regulatory framework, we kept getting promises that it was going to be submitted, and we kept hearing that the provinces are concerned about it because they're afraid that by having this framework, we're going to increase the number of rare disease drugs that they're going to have to pay for, which was a tragedy.
Part of what we also said was that we want to be able to support having research and development in this country. That's what this framework would have done. We do have drugs for rare diseases that are discovered in Canada and then by the time they get into clinical trials, they've been picked up and gone elsewhere because we do not provide the incentives to nurture that development, as you heard from Cathy and as you'll hear from Tammy.
At the end of the day, we're just net payers. We do not have a research infrastructure, but we also don't have a development infrastructure that says.... When Europe introduced their orphan drug act in 1999-2000, some 15 years after the U.S., they didn't do it just to serve their citizens. They did it because they said all the research and development monies for orphan drugs were going into the U.S. They needed them in Europe, and they developed that framework to make that happen. That was part of our hope. Can we support research and development in Canada as well so we're not just net buyers, so we're net contributors, and if we're developing some of those drugs, some of those profits come back to Canada? We have not put ourselves in that position, so this is a real challenge for us.
Yes, there are lots of challenges. Part of that framework would have supported that. It didn't even go far enough to do that. We thought it was a good starting point, so let's built on it. It was also a signal to the world that Canada is open for business in rare diseases and orphan drugs. Come and develop with us here. Let us support that.
We hear this innovation mandate from this government and we laugh and say that on the one hand, we're talking about it and on the other hand, we slap it away, including what's happened with the regulatory reforms on pricing. On the one hand, we say we want to make Canada first, that we want to encourage the innovation to come here, but on the other hand, we say let's put up big barriers so nobody wants to come here first. Really? You wanted me to speak honestly.
My problem is I think there's schizophrenia here. Can we get it together? Are we going to be number one? Are we going to support innovation? Are we going to encourage research and development in this country? Are we going to encourage drugs coming in and having clinical trials here and making them available to people or are we not? On the one hand, we say we are and we are doing some things to make it happen, and on the other hand, we keep creating more and more barriers and making it more and more challenging for us. At the end of the day, the poor patients are the ones who lose here.