The difficulty with it is the suggestion that there's a secure constitutional footing. I'm not sure what Professor Marchildon was referring to. I read his testimony with interest and was wondering exactly what he meant by that. The existing secure constitutional footing is, of course, the Canada Health Act, the spending power; the criminal law power, which supports the Food and Drugs Act and regulation that's designed to ensure the safety of drugs and protect consumers from deception—those are valid criminal law purposes—and, of course, as I mentioned earlier, the federal patents power, which supports the Patent Act and the regulation of patented pharmaceutical products.
Those are the secure constitutional footings. What he's suggesting, it seems to me, goes beyond them. That's why we get into this debate that we've had today. Where's the home for that “beyond”? It's actually a new constitutional footing, and I don't think it's entirely secure, with all due respect for Professor Marchildon, because in my view it means, as I've suggested, testing the limits of the national concern branch of the peace, order and good government power.