I think everyone has a copy of our deck before them...? Fantastic. That's what we'll be going through.
I'll start by thanking you for the invitation today to speak about Canada's access to medicines regime, or CAMR, as it's often called, and to speak about the possible implications of private member's Bill C-393, which proposes to significantly change this regime.
Together, my colleagues and I will be speaking about CAMR and Bill C-393. Our presentation will be divided up according to our various responsibilities, but it will, I hope, highlight the following.
First, there is the complex problem of delivering medicines to the developing world and what the Canadian government is doing about that. An access to medicines regime like CAMR, like Canada's, can't by itself solve the main problems of access to medicines, which are really the result of poverty, not patent laws.
A number of risks are associated with removing the conditions that exist in CAMR to give what would be essentially a blanket licence well beyond what would be needed to deal with some of the humanitarian problems that motivate this private member's bill. In particular, it would allow for export of almost any patented drug made in Canada for an unlimited time and to many countries that are relatively well off, like Poland, Mexico, and Brazil. There would be no policing mechanism to ensure good faith in the shipments, all of which potentially would have--at least we're concerned about it--concerns for Canadians' access to innovative new medicines and research and development jobs.
So while the proposed bill raises these risks, at the same time the government's view is that it's very unlikely to achieve its very laudable goals, which are to increase the exports of much-needed medicines to developing countries.
Following our joint presentation, all of the officials here would be happy to answer your questions.
I'll turn over the beginning of the deck to Louise Clément.