Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to participate in the debate on M-207.
At the outset, I want to acknowledge the work of the member for Kings—Hants in bringing the motion before the House and to thank him for the work that he has done on a very important matter. Contrary to my colleagues in the Reform Party, I do see a purpose and a point to the debate from the point of view of accountability and open, transparent government.
It should not be a surprise for us to hear Reform members talk in such strong terms against the motion because what this party is really interested in is no government. The least government is the best government from the point of view of Reform members. Anything that comes in the way of that is certainly a negative from their perspective.
I certainly support the spirit of the motion before us. What the member for Kings—Hants is trying to do is to acknowledge the fact that today we have a government by stealth, a government that has basically found a secretive, underhanded way of advancing public policy without the full benefit of parliamentary debate and public scrutiny. I certainly acknowledge the root cause of the motion and appreciate his attempts to address that.
We support the spirit of the motion. We also support that aspect of the motion that deals with the principle of ensuring financial impact assessments on regulations. I support that proposition because it does give us one way to ensure scrutiny and accountability here in this place of elected representatives.
We do, however, have some problems with the member's suggestion for a regulatory budget. We are concerned about that particular aspect of the motion because we know those words have become a flag waving idea by extreme right-wing elements in the United States. If we cut through all the rhetoric of the Reform Party, we will find that it supports that concept as well because it allows it to advance the agenda of reducing government and the whole role and responsibility of government for ensuring a society that is more equitable and based on fairness and justice.
We know that the idea of a regulatory budget has been advanced by some pretty extreme characters in the United States. We think back to Pat Buchanan who, in the 1960s, was advocating such an idea and did so in very open terms. He felt that this kind of idea would create the optimal situation for reducing the role of government. His objective would in fact be zero regulations and a zero budget situation. We are very leery of giving any credence to this kind of idea. We will speak consistently against that approach.
Coming back to what I think is the spirit of the motion before us and the real intentions of the member for Kings—Hants is accountability with respect to regulations. It ensures that we are able to measure the effectiveness of regulations and hold the government accountable for any endeavours or initiatives that exceed its obligations under existing laws and statutes.
There are many examples where the government has advanced its own agenda and ideas in ways that appear quite contrary to the legislation that has been approved without it being held accountable to parliament. We certainly think that the financial impact assessments of regulations would allow for all of us to have a more open public debate and better scrutiny of public policy. Having financial impact assessments on regulations would be an important tool for all of us.
The member for Kings—Hants mentioned that it will not always be possible to make decisions strictly in terms of a cost benefit analysis. There will be times, if we have all the facts before us, where we will recognize that the costs of enforcing and implementing regulations may far outweigh the cost to our budget and the mechanisms required to enforce those regulations.
We, in the House, would appreciate opportunities to assess the compliance costs of environmental regulations. We on this side of the House would like to see a way to assess the GST compliance costs on small business. We would like to find a way to assess the financial impact of regulations pursued by the government when it comes to patent medicine. We would like to fully understand how a government can proceed with decisions made behind closed doors without the benefit of public scrutiny. We would like to understand how it justifies those decisions in terms of the entire health care system and the Canadian taxpayer as a whole.
I think specifically of the issue we have dealt with in the last few months with respect to the Minister of Industry. In the dead of this summer, he brought forward regulations without warning, without any kind of heads up to the generic drug industry, about the government's plans to make further changes to the notice of compliance regulations which make it harder for generic drug companies to have a foothold in the country and get their products to market. At that time, we raised concerns about the whole process.
I will quote from a letter I wrote to the Minister of Industry on September 9:
Through recently announced amendments, your government has surreptitiously introduced changes that will certainly add to the drug costs faced by Canadians. These changes further entrench the virtual monopoly guaranteed to the international pharmaceutical cartel through the ill-advised Canada Patent Act at the expense of the generic drug industry and the Canadian health system. I am particularly concerned about the arbitrary and undemocratic way in which you have chosen to proceed with these latest amendments to the Patented Medicines Regulations.
I go on to call for the minister to slow down the process to allow for all players in the field to scrutinize the proposed regulations and to bring them to parliament to be accountable to this body of elected representatives in terms of cost benefit analysis, in terms of consistency with existing legislation and in terms of consistency with the public's interest in ensuring a more cost effective system where people have access to drugs when they need them.
The government chose to ignore these concerns. It chose to ignore the strong positions presented to it from the Canadian Drug Manufacturers Association. I can cite reams and reams of documents where that organization appealed to the government to slow the process down, hear its input and to truly look at the financial impact for all Canadians and our entire health care system if this was allowed to go through.
The Minister of Industry and the entire cabinet ignored those concerns. They proceeded to ratify those regulations at the beginning of October. It is now a done deal. That is a perfect example of government by stealth and a government that advances its agenda which is tied to the big pharmaceutical corporations and other big industry interests in order to pursue its objectives. That is precisely what needs to be addressed.
This motion provides us with a way to debate and discuss these concerns. In part it goes a long way toward addressing a very serious situation.
Again, I would like to congratulate and thank the member for Kings—Hants for his motion. We support the spirit of it. We support that part of it which deals with financial impact assessments on regulations. We regret that we cannot support the regulatory budget approach. However, given the sentiments in the House for more government accountability to parliament, I believe that this would provide the basis for future motions and legislative work that we can pursue as members in the House of Commons.