Mr. Speaker, I compliment my friend for his eloquent speech. I would like his response to a very important issue dealing with access to essential medication in developing countries. This was brought up by the NDP and it is an important issue.
We just saw the recent court battle in South Africa over access to anti-HIV medications. HIV is one of a series of diseases plaguing developing countries for which there are very simple, cheap and easily distributed drugs that could have a widespread and positive effect on the lives of these people. The research based pharmaceutical companies have a program that enables developing countries to get access, but much more has to be done.
What can be done to enable Canada, perhaps CIDA, to work in partnership with the research based pharmaceutical companies and the generic companies in order to provide access in developing countries to essential, cheap medications that can have a profound effect on some of the terrible scourges that plague these countries, such as TB, kala azar, river blindness and malaria?