I'm very disturbed that the Conservative government would have taken the position of actually not even informing the industry affected after so many years of hard-fought battles to correct this problem. Even the President of the United States, when reviewing this back in 2002, referred to it as absurd and beyond reality that the patenting of even...I think he referred to it as the pill bottle in which a drug was found was used strategically to keep generics off-line.
If it were the other way around, if a regulation were being proposed that would affect the brand names, would we not expect the kind of response we're seeing here today? I am flabbergasted that we would allow this to happen.
Mr. Carrie, you take back to your minister the need for further consultation and for really looking at this hard and long, because I think, frankly, that it's going to damage a lot of the provincial formularies that are anticipating these changes. And of course, it is a question of equity.
I want to ask something that is specific to this committee, and that is about the level of R and D. We can talk about the percentages, but I want to know what truly is research and development.
I'm wondering, Mr. Livingston, Mr. Laberge, and Mr. Keon, what you consider R and D. Do you consider advertising to be R and D? The Income Tax Act actually says that it is. Do you consider marketing to be R and D? The Income Tax Act says in fact that it is. Mr. Livingston and Mr. Laberge, are we giving a false impression of what in fact is a declining amount of R and D being done by your industry?