Mr. Speaker, I too have had residents of my riding come forward with horrifying stories of seemingly arbitrary increases in drug prices. The stories pertain to standard drugs that are commonly prescribed and have been around a long time. Out of the blue the cost often goes from $30 to $50 for a bottle of pills.
As the member for Winnipeg North Centre pointed out, if competition is to keep prices down, who will regulate the industry to make sure a monopolizing force does not gobble up other companies for the sole purpose of taking out the competition? When a larger firm gobbles up its only competition in the manufacture of a certain drug, what is to stop it from arbitrarily increasing the price of that drug?
It hearkens back to some of the points made earlier. Without intervention or regulatory review the free market does not serve Canadians well in terms of the provision of health care. Some things, frankly, are too critical and too important to be subject to the free hands of the market.
I would like to quote the member for Ottawa West when she spoke to Bill C-91 while sitting in opposition to the Tory government. She was trying to make the same point and maybe did it better than I did when she was aggressively arguing against the implementation of a 20 year drug patent period. She said:
Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to rise to speak against the bill. It is about completely eliminating, for the entire 20 year patent period, the right of any generic manufacturer to produce a drug that is under patent and to compete with that drug in the open marketplace.
In other words the government was granting an absolute monopoly to a certain company, ostensibly to help it make up its research and development costs. Our party would argue far beyond that. She went on to say:
What is the impact going to be? The impact for Canadians is going to be higher drug costs.
The hon. member for Ottawa West must have had a crystal ball because she was right. From 1987 to today there has been a 344% increase in drug costs, far beyond the cost of expanded research and development and far beyond any increase in the cost of living. It is wild gluttony in terms of gouging Canadians and the health care system for as much profit as it can possibly get.
The New Democratic Party would like to ask a question. Is there not a moral and ethical argument that we in the House should be searching for ways to get those necessary drugs into the hands of Canadians who need them, and not finding ways to further pad the pockets of the brand name drug companies that are now seeking 20 year patent protection, even on the 30 products that were left behind 17 years before?