I would differ slightly with Dr. Kilby about the perhaps overly rosy picture regarding access here to medicines being perfect. In the U.S. there are barriers to access, but not necessarily the patent barriers.
I did want to specifically speak to the legal aspect of preventing this kind of diversion from happening. And while most of our brief is focused on this question of compliance with WTO rules, there's actually a section toward the end that talks about this misconception, that somehow Bill C-393 is going to remove all the safeguards against this sort of diversion of medicines. It actually preserves safeguards that would require different labelling, different packaging, colour, shape, and so on of medicines that are being exported. And if that's not clear to you in the bill now, then let's work on making that clear, because we want those safeguards to be in place.
The other thing I want to say is that under Bill C-393, provisions that are in the current law are preserved that require generic manufacturers to disclose the quantities of medicines that they're shipping and to which countries. That information has to be disclosed to the patent holders; it has to be posted on a publicly available website. You have to disclose that not only to prevent the diversion of medicines but also so you can calculate the royalties that you have to pay to the brand-name companies.
So those things are all in there as important parts of the mechanism. They're preserved.