Madam Speaker, I wish to respond to my colleagues who made some comments with respect to Bill C-248. The parliamentary secretary read that speech exactly like Judy Erola and the Ministry of Industry wrote it. So congratulations. There is nothing new in that speech. The people of Canada know that and they will make their judgments come the next election.
With respect to my Bloc colleague, I am absolutely shocked at what the Bloc member said with regard to the pharmaceutical industry. This member said: “They don't care about the poor and the sick. It is a matter of the welfare of the wealthy and the other corporations that produce those pharmaceuticals in Quebec”. This is going to be a real surprise and wake-up call for all those poor and sick Quebeckers come the next referendum. If the Bloc and the PQ do not want to support them on an issue like this, why should they support Quebec on a referendum issue? We will see what happens when that comes along. I thank them for that comment.
With respect to the member for Haldimand—Norfolk—Brant, I am glad he stood in this House and indicated there are some concerns about it, but he did not catch the words I said earlier with respect to the World Trade Organization.
During the review in the industry committee, witness after witness, including international economists and lawyers, came before us and said there is a public interest clause in the WTO that if the government deems it in the public interest to contravene one of the WTO regulations because it is abusing that country, it can make amendments with respect to Bill C-91 or drug patents.
I ask the member to please consider those representations by the lawyers and economists, who are internationally renowned and who all share the same view that the WTO in the public interest can be changed in respect to issues pertinent to their country.
I thank my colleague from Souris—Moose Mountain for his constructive comments. He did say he would like to have some binding commitments with respect to Bill C-91.
I like my colleague's recommendation and I do support it, but I remind him that we did have commitments from the industry under Bill C-22 in 1997 and under Bill C-91. They were going to increase the number of jobs. Wrong. There are fewer jobs. They were going lower prices on prescription drugs. Wrong. Drug prices are higher. They made a commitment to increase R and D. Guess what? They are increasing a lot of their expenses in terms of marketing, going to doctors and hospitals, giving them computers and trips to Barbados and all these places for using their prescription drugs and they call that R and D, research and development.
I guess they research the doctor and develop him or her into selling their prescription drugs and in return they spend R and D money by giving them new computers, trips to the Bahamas or trips to Australia or wherever they want to go. That is not R and D, that is marketing. That should not be in any kind of regulations, whether it is under the Bill C-91 regulations or any other commitments.
I admire and thank the member for his constructive criticism. I will pursue that.
I want to make one other comment with respect to what happened in Argentina and Chile. I had a visit from an Argentinian politician who came here because of the work I was doing on Bill C-91. His name was Ernesto Algaba.
He told me that the people in Argentina were very concerned. They are all fanning out around the various countries of the world that are WTO co-signatories on Bill C-91. They are being forced by the American ambassador who is being told by the American Pharmaceutical Association to get the 20 year patent monopoly pricing in Argentina or else they would do something economic like maybe even pull out their ambassador from Argentina.
Ernesto Algaba told me he went to Chile, which had the same commitments that we had in Canada. After Chile passed the 20 year patent protection it lost jobs, closed plants, drug prices skyrocketed and health care costs skyrocketed.
We have international examples. There may have been a misunderstanding when the member for St. Catharines said we need this because of competitive pricing requirements. Bill C-91 is not competitive. It is a monopoly to charge whatever they want for prescription drugs for 20 years. That is not competition.