The demands made by the European Union for changes to our intellectual property rights protections, particularly in the area of drugs, would have very serious consequences for Canadian health care costs. The specific figure I cited and you repeated was in a study by Toronto- and Calgary-based experts, Hollis and Grootendorst, which I believe was published last year.
It is absolutely critical that Canadians and Canadian governments control health care costs. If these European demands were agreed to, Canada would have the strongest system of structural protection for brand-name pharmaceuticals in the world. We would be combining elements of the American system and the European system in a unique combination that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. For example, the Europeans don't have a patent linkage system like ours, copied from the United States.
So I think this is a critical area. It's absolutely essential that we control health care costs. I don't think this should be seen simply as a contest or a difference between the generic industry and the brand-name industry. You certainly heard that testimony. This is a public health care issue. Certain provincial governments have expressed very strong views on this because of their absolute imperative that they get control of drug costs in the health care system.