Chair, I have just a few things. You started by asking a question about how big a problem this is, and as I mentioned in my opening remarks, we don't know. So you will hear of many stock horror stories about the problems associated with counterfeiting, but there has not been in this country any independent data from someone who is truly reliable in this area to give us a sense of how much it actually does affect us.
That said, we do know that even if it's only one incident, let's say from fake pharmaceuticals, it's an issue that we ought to find some way to address. I believe before your committee you had someone from Health Canada talk about regulations that are 50 years out of date. Surely that's an ideal place to start in terms of trying to address this issue, dealing with that health and safety side, because from my perspective that is certainly an enormous problem.
With regard to stronger penalties, it's as if it's this magic elixir, that if only we had stronger penalties, suddenly people would stop because of the deterrent. Yet from Mr. Erdle's own remarks, it's pretty clear that that's ineffective as well, because his story indicated that after you've gone through the whole process with someone, they end up by saying they have a shell company with no assets whatsoever.
So I'm less convinced that strong penalties are effective. Indeed, in other countries where they have penalties that in some instances may be stronger than we're seeing, their counterfeiting problems are greater than ours.