Evidence of meeting #40 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was drugs.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Anthony Rota Liberal Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON
I have 30 seconds but my question takes longer than 30 seconds.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
Thank you very much, Mr. Rota.
Now to Mr. Braid for five minutes.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Perhaps I can start with some questions for Mr. Dearden.
Thanks to all of you very much for appearing this morning and for your important testimony.
Mr. Dearden, we appear to have two different lawyers with two different opinions this morning. I know that's not a shocking revelation. Could you speak to that very quickly?
Then I have a second question for you. You spoke about compulsory licence obligations. I want to ask if you could clarify exactly what those are, and we'll proceed from there.
Partner, Gowlings, As an Individual
I'll go in reverse.
The compulsory licence obligations are set out in article 31 of the TRIPS agreement. That goes from paragraph (a) to paragraph (l) in terms of conditions that must be met for a member such as Canada to authorize compulsory licences. One of those that I mentioned in my opening remarks was that you were allowed to issue a compulsory licence under TRIPS only if it was predominantly for domestic use, so that made it useless in terms of the solution we're talking about today, which is to export.
So then the WTO--and this is crucial, I think--had to come up with a solution to getting around that compulsory licence obligation that it could be issued predominantly for domestic supply only. Mr. Abbott knows full well, because he was there during the negotiations, that one of the options on the table was to use article 30, the limited exceptions. That was rejected by the WTO membership, presumably, as was stated by the 2007 statutory review, because it wasn't seen as a way to do this. So they had to have a waiver, and the waiver is what we see in the council decision. There are mandatory obligations, among other places in paragraph 2, and they all start with notification by the importing country, the country that wants it. Then the compulsory licence has to have conditions in it that deal with necessary amounts, quantities, duration. All of that's in there. It has to be there. Then Canada, sir, is obligated to notify of products, quantities, and duration of licence as part of its international obligations.
What I think you're really hearing here is that the root of the problem is not CAMR; the root of the problem is what was negotiated with all those stakeholders that Mr. Abbott mentioned to us, because they were all in play. The root of the problem was that decision. But this is not the forum for solving that problem by implementing legislation that Professor Abbott is so boldly saying no one will dare challenge. That's his opinion. The solution is in Geneva, and indeed they're working on it now. They're reviewing whether or not the decision is doing what it's supposed to do, and there's an all-day meeting tomorrow over in Geneva to review how the decision is working.
Could I use your time, Mr. Braid, to get on the record the one and only time it has worked in the world? That was Apotex, in the Rwanda situation.
I would like to put this on the record, Mr. Chair, if I could.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
You could do that, and then I have one quick question I still want to ask you.
Partner, Gowlings, As an Individual
I will.
I told the committee that Apotex had the authorization on September 17, 2007, to export 15.6 million tablets to Rwanda, because that's what the authorization let them do. It took them a total of two years to ship that. CAMR worked, committee members. They got their licence within two weeks. They got their renewal in six days. It worked.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Thank you, Mr. Dearden.
If WTO and/or NAFTA agreements are violated by Canada, what does that mean for Canadians? What does it mean for Canada as a country? What does it mean for Canadian citizens and/or consumers? What are the consequences?
Partner, Gowlings, As an Individual
I think Professor Abbott was fair in saying that there is no fine. That's true. But does Canada respect its international treaty obligations? It just signed up to make the waiver a permanent amendment to TRIPS. In my opinion, it matters that Canada would comply with its international trade obligations. There is no fine, as Professor Abbott rightly said, but then you have a strategy whereby you say let's violate the law and we'll rag the puck for five years in litigation and then when we're told to fix it we'll fix it then, but in the meantime we'll have five years of illegal exports, or exports that don't comply with the decision.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Mr. Chair, could I just very quickly mention something? There was a reference earlier to Canadians not being able to play basketball. Steve Nash, a Canadian, was NBA MVP of the year twice in a row.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
Thank you, Mr. Braid. I'm glad everybody was brought up to speed on that.
Now we go to Monsieur Bouchard, pour cinq minutes.
Bloc
Robert Bouchard Bloc Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your testimonies.
I have two short questions for Mr. Attaran. My colleague Mr. Cardin will ask a third question.
You said that here, in Canada, generic medicines are more expensive than elsewhere. There's less competition in the production of generic medicines here. Is that the main reason behind higher prices in Canada?
Canada Research Chair, Law, Population Health, and Global Development Policy, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Probably not. Where economic matters are concerned, there are always several factors, several reasons that we can point to and, in this case, one of those reasons is certainly the lack of competition. In addition, perhaps Canadian manufacturers are used to being more profitable than foreign companies. I don't know.
Bloc
Robert Bouchard Bloc Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you said earlier that we should forget about Bill C-393, CAMR, because it doesn't work. We should, instead, direct our energies toward other kinds of reforms.
What do you suggest Canada do to help the cause?
Canada Research Chair, Law, Population Health, and Global Development Policy, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
May I answer in English?
Canada Research Chair, Law, Population Health, and Global Development Policy, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Merci.
We have to be pragmatic about what CAMR can and cannot do. A bit of a strange argument occurred to me while sitting here, but I'll make it, really out of intellectual curiosity more than anything else.
You could make the argument that the CAMR is the most successful law of its kind in the world and that it shouldn't be messed with, because it has been used once, whereas the other 30 countries together have used theirs zero times. Now, I know it's a very strange argument to make that it's “successful”, but you could look at that reasoning as saying “Do nothing, because if it ain't broke, don't fix it”.
I think fixing it, as it were, or changing the law, is not likely to make this law more or less effective. It's going to be barely effective. You therefore are better off—and this is why I so appreciate your question, sir—looking at the other things you can do for global health. It is completely sick that there are billions of people at risk of very minor diseases, millions of people a year dying of AIDS and malaria. This is just completely unacceptable. But if we're going to be intelligent about it and not be bleeding hearts, we're going to ask ourselves, where is our specialty? What is it that we excel at that we can best do to help—while admitting there are another 30 countries with laws that are, in some respect, superior to CAMR and who are helping in this area? I think that's the wise way to go about it.
Where we can help is certainly in funding, and certainly in training. We're one of the few places where you can go to university in English or French. We can train scientists, technicians, and physicians from developing countries to work in health systems there. We can provide assistance to stop problems like the counterfeit generics. And, Mr. Masse, you very much misrepresented me in saying that I was advocating for these medicines. I'm not. I condemn them.
Canada Research Chair, Law, Population Health, and Global Development Policy, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I'm sorry that you do.
Canada Research Chair, Law, Population Health, and Global Development Policy, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
But the reality is that there are other things that can be done and must be done. We excel in the technical field. So let us train. Let us provide laboratory assistance. Let us provide greater foreign aid funding. The government has recently increased contribution to the global fund. Bravo. Let's increase it some more. Those are things that we can and should do.
But please, all of you, recognize that this law has not worked. CAMR has not worked. Do not throw more good time after bad, and let's shift to the things that will make a greater difference. Let's not be ideological; let's simply be pragmatic.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
I know that Madam Kiddell-Monroe has a quick comment.
Could you do that quickly, because Monsieur Cardin has one more question.
Chair, Universities Allied for Essential Medicines
I have a very quick comment to make, Mr. Bouchard. I don't think that there's only one possible solution. There are many initiatives Canada could undertake. Bill C-393 is one of them; it can help. There are certainly other initiatives that could be undertaken. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is very important. The funding Mr. Lake talked about earlier is a very important Canadian contribution.
Canada can also help without Canadians incurring costs. It can do that by simply letting our pharmaceutical companies, our generic medicine manufacturers, do their work properly. Those companies have developed very specific products that could really have a major impact on the global health scene.
October 26th, 2010 / 9:55 a.m.
Conservative
