Thanks for your question. We've met with many of you, and you've met with your constituents, and we thank you for that.
We, CF Canada, didn't ask them for an apology, but there was another letter this week that was written to another patient group that was called out. There was a letter written—and I was copied on it—by the board chair of the PMPRB, and I think that's when what I said before.... I'm sorry to keep talking about my feelings, but I felt just really disappointed and sad about the letter and its tenor. On my part, if I had a communications plan after doing something wrong, or whatever, I might have started with this: “I'm sorry you felt that way and here's where we're coming from.” But that was not it. The tenor of the letter was almost like they doubled down. They're very offended by the patient groups. Dr. Batt spoke to some of the language online. They're very offended by that. There's no consideration of where patients are coming from. There's no understanding of that or trying to empathize with them.
On top of that, I found it curious in their note that they stated that they are the experts on this and that's what they advise government on. I found it curious their use those words, because I thought this was a consultation process, whereby we all bring in Dr. Morgan's suggested things and we are all bringing our voices to the PMPRB to make these the best guidelines. I might be a bit naive about that, and I'm not trying to play that card with you right now, but if that was the point, that you were just information gathering from all of us and it wasn't a consultation process, then call it that. But that wasn't what it was called. If you look at their consultation principles, it's about meaningful discussion and debate, and that didn't happen.
I don't expect there to be an apology to us, to be honest. I'm not going to waste my time on that. We were invited here, we've written our letter and that's that.