Very quickly I'd like to make a distinction between drug prices and drug costs. Drug prices won't necessarily go up; drug costs will go up. When you have to buy a product at 100% of the cost of a brand-name product instead of 18¢ or 25¢ for a generic, for an extra two years, that drives up costs. I think we should be clear on the terminology. Clearly costs are going up. R and D by research-based companies is at a historical low in Canada despite many increases in intellectual property over the last two decades.
The third thing is that I'm very pleased to hear that CETA and the TPP have the same provisions indicated by Innovative Medicines Canada. We've seen, however, pressure on other countries that are trying to do what Canada is trying to do. For example, New Zealand has said it wants a two-year patent extension. The brand-name pharmaceutical industry internationally is saying that's not good enough under the TPP and they expected much more than that.
I think we should all remember that in Canada, the two-year patent extension under CETA meets our TPP commitments as well.