Debates of May 7th, 2001

Patent Act

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad for the opportunity to participate in the debate. I have patiently waited for my turn so I could have my say and join with my colleagues in expressing our absolute anger and opposition to Bill S-17.

It has been fascinating listening to the debate. Although I have enormous respect for some of my colleagues in the Conservative Party, including the hon. member for St. John's West who spoke this afternoon, I want to put on record that we are vehemently and fundamentally opposed to the kind of logic and reasoning that has come from the Conservative benches and in fact from all sides in the House.

As I sat and listened to the hon. member for St. John's West and heard some of the heckling from the Liberal benches across the way, I tried to think of what was most disturbing about the debate. What I found most disturbing about the debate was the question of whether or not the public good was being served.

We are talking about the issue that when private gain surpasses the public good then government must act. The responsibility of government is to ensure that Canadians, regardless of their income, where they live or their family circumstances, have access to basic public services. One of those basic services is health care. What is very essential and very key in terms of health services is access to medications that people need when they are sick. We are talking about medicare. We are talking about universally accessible, publicly administered health care and the threats that are causing the system to be eroded and to come undone.

I think about the debates we have had in the House over the last while on the problems facing medicare. I have heard the Alliance and sometimes the Conservatives talk about questioning the wisdom of our public system and that maybe we should look at some private elements. I have also heard them say that perhaps we need to bite the bullet and go to two tier health care. Does anyone know what they did not address in that debate? They refused to address the fastest growing cost of our health care system and the fact that it falls almost entirely within the private sector.

If we were truly concerned about dealing with a health care system that is in a critical state of affairs, then we would look at the root causes of those problems. We would look at what causes the prices to rise beyond our abilities as a government and as citizens to support a universally accessible health care system. A prime example of those problems is our drug system and the control brand name drug companies have over of our health care system. It is these Liberals and the Conservatives before them who have catered time and time again to every whim of those brand name drug companies.

I have sat here and listened to the heckling from the Liberals asking who will pay for all the new drugs, how will new breakthroughs happen, who will make them happen, and that we need the private sector. Yes, we need the private sector. We are not here to say we will stamp out the private sector. We are saying that there needs to be a balance, that the government's role must be to ensure that drugs are available at a reasonable price so that everybody in our society can have access to them.

As all my colleagues have said, drugs constitute the most costly item of our health care system today. This is partly due to the fact that it is dominated by the private sector and where the government has abandoned the field, ignored the public good and dropped the ball. We are paying the price today because the government keeps breaking its promises, flip-flopping and abandoning its commitment to serving the public good.

It is very hard to sit in this place and hear Liberals today speak on this issue when we consider the record, what they have told the Canadian public and what bill of goods they have sold the people of the country.

Let us go back to before the 1993 election when the Liberals regained power after a long time in the wilderness. Let us go back to those debates leading up to the 1993 election when the Brian Mulroney Conservatives brought in Bill C-91. This is again where I have problems with the Conservatives' participation in the House today. The root of our problems today in terms of health care and in terms of trade organizations, unaccountable, unelected bodies having authority over this place, was the decision made by Brian Mulroney and the Conservatives to open up the floodgates and allow world trade organizations and international bodies to set the rules and brand name drug companies to set the price.

Most of my colleagues have pointed to the Liberal rhetoric leading up to the 1993 election. We heard all about how the present Minister of Industry, part of the rat pack back in those days, was champing at the bit to get after the Brian Mulroney Conservatives for daring to bring in patent protection legislation. We heard about some of the words he used and how they managed to fool the public with false promises and fake rhetoric.

Let us go over it one more time. The present Minister of Industry, then the member for Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, said on December 10, 1992:

I want to ask the member and all these members who at some time, when they screw up their backbones and courage to do it, have to go back and face their constituents:—

That was quite forceful and powerful rhetoric. It was a vigorous, vehement statement and a strongly articulated position. It was good before the election. It was good for leading up to 1993 when the Liberals were able to con the public into believing they were on the side of truth, goodness and light and that they would correct all the errors of the past caused by Brian Mulroney and his Conservatives.

I was in the 1993 election. I gave up a good seat in the provincial legislature in Manitoba to run federally and had to face that kind of con job by the Liberals, and of course we know the results. The Liberals swept the polls and got into office. All of us, no matter what side we sat on, looked to the Liberals to keep their promise to uphold their commitment to rescind Bill C-91 and stop the tremendous hold patent protection had over drug prices.

Well, the rest is history. I remember well that the only thing the Liberals did was to set up a committee that would consult with Canadians on Bill C-91. I was part of those hearings in Winnipeg, part of a community that spoke up and said “Keep your promise. Do not back off this very important issue because it is fundamental to our ability as citizens to access quality health care today”.

That charade of a consultation process went on and on. Finally in 1997 the Liberals won another election after pulling off another con job on Canadians by promising a national pharmacare plan. Does any member of the House know where the national pharmacare plan is today? I think that says it all. We returned to the House after the 1997 election to finally get a report from the government about the results of its consultations. I do not need to tell you, Mr. Speaker, how it soon became apparent that there was some discrepancy between the first report of the industry committee and the report that finally was tabled. We raised questions at that time about the evidence suggesting that the minister or the minister's office had in fact seen the draft minutes and had a role to play in ensuring that the recommendations were more in line with this new direction of the Liberal Party.

It did not stop there. The Liberals did not stop at breaking a promise and not rescinding Bill C-91. They went on to make a number of regulatory changes, actually bowed to the international trade organizations and catered to the brand name drug companies, and extended the patent protection and the provisions for brand name drug companies. Each time the government took a step it made it harder and harder for provincial governments to provide drug coverage to their citizens so they could to access the drugs they needed to stay healthy.

We are paying the price now. As my colleagues for Palliser and Winnipeg Centre have said over and over, many of us have had calls and direct contact from constituents, especially seniors, who cannot afford to fill their prescriptions or follow their doctor's orders.

Who pays the price? The senior citizens who end up getting sicker because they cannot afford the medicines they need and, of course, all of us, because the senior citizens will now be in and out of hospitals, in and out of their doctor's office and will need to seek home care and other support. We pay the price because of the shortsighted decision making of the government and its absolute preoccupation with catering to multinational drug companies.

I suppose we should not be surprised at Bill S-17, given the whole history of broken promises, but could the government not have at least put up a fight? Could it not have at least tried to pursue another path instead of catering so quickly to the WTO?

The World Trade Organization made its decision on September 19, 2000. The government leaped to the pump and brought in Bill S-17 on February 20, 2001, only a few months after the WTO decision. We know from the facts of the case that the government has many more months left to pursue its decision. It has time to talk to Canadians and to get support for a different path. It has until December 2001 before it actually has to make a final decision. The government has time to rally Canadians and to pursue some alternatives. It has time to develop a national pharmacare plan based on bulk buying and on the use of generic drugs. It has time for all kinds of options if it is truly committed to serving the public good, as opposed to catering to private gain.

Not only is the haste in which the government proceeded to implement the WTO ruling to Bill S-17 disconcerting, but the way in which it did it is also disconcerting. If the government were not embarrassed and ashamed by this deed and by this obvious breach of a commitment to the Canadian people, why did it not bring the bill directly to the House where it could have been debated forthwith? Instead, the government slipped the bill in through the other place, which has now found its way here for debate.

That kind of secrecy and speed, and that kind of failure to be direct with the Canadian people is the obvious result of a government that should hang its head in shame for the kinds of actions it has taken on this fundamental element of our health care system.

There is so much that needs to be said. However, the most important issue today is that what we are really talking about is access, access by the Canadian people to a necessary component of our health care system. It needs to be said over and over again that drug costs are going through the roof, that rising pharmaceutical costs are creating enormous difficulties for our provincial governments and that people are feeling the squeeze day in and day out.

The government had several opportunities to redress the situation and bring balance to this serious matter. It had an opportunity through the last federal-provincial meeting of premiers in September to actually bring to fruition a plan to ensure that the concerns of provincial governments around rising drugs costs were dealt with and that there would be some meaningful plan in place.

The national pharmacare plan did not make it to the final accord. The government was not interested in using that wonderful opportunity to advance the agenda and to pursue its commitment to the Canadian people for a national drug plan that would ensure equitable access for all Canadians and deal with the incredible pressure on medicare today. The government had a wonderful opportunity. It was not mentioned. It was not on the table and it is not being pursued.

It would be very wrong for the government to suggest, as it tried to do in the last election, that it did not have the co-operation of provincial governments to pursue a national drug plan. The fact of the matter is that there was ample willingness on the part of many provincial governments to ensure that collectively we would deal with one of the gravest problems facing our health care system in recent times.

The minister of health in Manitoba was quite direct and blunt with the federal government about the need to have the item pursued. He was actually quoted in the press as saying, tongue in cheek, that he would gladly give up the transfer payments the federal government provides to provincial governments if the federal government would look after the drug bills and take charge in terms of the pharmaceutical pressures on our system today. That was wishful thinking on the part of the Manitoba minister of health, because the federal government not only refused to take up the challenge of a national pharmacare plan, it has not even made an attempt to bring all parties and players together to develop a national pharmacare plan.

There are many options. There are many models with great possibilities. My colleague, the member for Palliser, will probably remember that it was in Saskatoon in 1998 that the Minister of Health brought together all the players in the field, all the experts around drug prices. They pooled their ideas and talents in order to develop the idea of some kind of national pharmacare plan. There were great ideas and all kinds of studies. There is no shortage of proposals that are workable, that would make a difference, but the government refuses to act.

The real question in all of this debate is why. Why did the government have to jump to the pumps when it came to the WTO ruling? Why did it break its promise in 1993 on Bill C-91? Why did it, through the back door and different regulatory procedures, actually augment and improve the situation facing patent drug companies? Why in each and every case did the government put private gain ahead of the public good?

I do not know the answer, other than to say that in every part of the government and in every aspect of its decision making process it caters to the private sector and pursues an agenda of deregulation, privatization and off-loading to minimize the barriers facing our private sector, to create an unfettered marketplace for our multinational corporations, and to buy into this agenda of globalization and corporate control over the welfare and well-being of all our citizens.

That is a shame. We are paying the price today. We would hope that somehow this government would reconsider, pull Bill S-17 off the books and get down to a serious discussion in parliament and with the Canadian public about a national drug plan.

[John Bryden, Liberal, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot, ON]

Mr. Speaker, beneath the rhetoric that you are hearing today lurks a very, very serious issue. The member opposite has asked why members of this party have changed their attitude toward giving patent protection to drugs, why they have changed their position in 10 years.

I can tell her why they have changed their position in 10 years. It is that in 10 years there has been an enormous advance in antibiotic resistant bacteria. The classic case is tuberculosis. We now have a strain of tuberculosis out there that is resistant to every known antibiotic but one. There is a great number of these old diseases that have developed resistance to the drugs that we counted upon in the past. Much of this has occurred in the last 10 years. What is happening is that we have to, as a government, do everything in our power to encourage private industry or anyone else to develop new drugs to resist these diseases that have developed resistance to the antibiotics that we have had to date.

This is a serious problem. It is a deadly problem, Mr. Speaker. It is a problem in the scientific and biological communities. They regard it with great trepidation. If we do not do something very quickly about it, if we do not develop new drugs as fast as possible by encouraging the incentives of the marketplace, we are going to be in a lot of trouble and some people, and I do not want to sound overly dramatic, are going to die. We actually have to develop new drugs and if we have to encourage manufacturers by extending the patent protection law, then we had better do it.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I hear the member's question and I have heard it before in his previous questioning of some of the speakers. Frankly, I do not quite understand the logic. Is the member in fact saying that the only breakthroughs, the only scientific discoveries of importance to humankind developed in our history, are a result of commercial interests?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

The profit motive.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North Centre, MB]

Are they the result of the profit motive, as my colleague, the member for Winnipeg Centre, has said? I do not understand. We could spend hours listing the kinds of improvements that have occurred in our society. I think of the polio vaccine. These breakthroughs occurred because of a commitment on the part of individuals to improve the condition of humankind, not because they were in it for the money or to make a profit.

We are not here to say that no one should ever make any money on developing drugs and other scientific breakthroughs, but we are saying there has to be a balance. My question for the Liberal member is this: how much profit does a company have to make before it is prepared to invest in improving society and operating in the best interests of our community? How much protection do they need in order to contribute to the welfare of our society? That is what this debate is all about. Why do we have to go toward more protection with every step the government takes? How much profit do these multinational brand name drug companies have to make?

There is another question that has to be addressed. There is a lot of emphasis being put on the incredible investment made by these brand name drug companies in our society and on meeting their needs in order for us to have any breakthroughs. I do not know if the member has read all the information on this topic, but the fact of the matter is that the brand name drug industry has benefited enormously from taxpayers and from government subsidies. That industry has not taken the bulk of that investment and used it to ensure that we have drugs on the market available to everyone in our society regardless of where they come from and how much money they make.

In fact, we often see a lot of that public investment going toward the development of me too drugs. We see a great deal of that money going to advertising and promotions. We see a lot of that money going to ensuring better benefits and salaries for executive officers in these drug companies. We see a lot of money going toward the consolidation of an agenda that has a reach around the world.

What we are asking for today and what I think Canadians want is some balance in this issue. We want to see the government take some action to ensure that public investment goes toward the public good.

[Dick Proctor, NDP, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up on the question that was asked a minute ago by the Liberal member and I would like a comment from the member for Winnipeg North Centre.

I was astounded in doing research on this issue to learn that more than $350 billion U.S. in brand name pharmaceuticals is sold around the world annually. As an aside, HIV and AIDS drugs account for approximately $4 billion of that, a very small percentage. I am assuming, and I know that the member who is our health critic will undoubtedly know the answer, that there must be a vast majority of pharmaceutical companies around the world that would be realizing that combined total of $350 billion in brand name pharmaceuticals.

I ask the hon. member to comment as well because in her speech she did talk about this having been snuck in through the Senate. Maybe it is just a coincidence, but this is the second bill that we have had today in the House that has come in via the Senate. I wonder if the member sees a pattern in this.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the questions from my colleague. He raises several important points.

The first point is about the amount of business that a number of multinational brand name drug companies control and the kind of power they exert, obviously over this government and over citizens globally. We only have to look at the battle as referenced by my colleague from Burnaby, the battle of the citizens of South Africa to get access to generic drugs to deal with the spread of HIV and AIDS and the kind of opposition they encountered from the brand name drug companies. That kind of power has to be stopped. That is why we have government: to bring some balance into this whole area.

The other issue pertaining to the Senate is certainly an important one. It surprised us on February 20 to learn that this issue was being dealt with through the other House, the other place, through the back door. We have a lot of questions for the government. Why did it choose that route? Why was it not at least direct with the Canadian people and with parliament? The situation speaks for itself. The government must be embarrassed by this kowtowing to the these corporate brand name drug companies and international bodies.

Finally, it is very important to point out again how many voices are on the other side of the issue. I want to refer very briefly to a letter from the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, which expresses anger over the Canadian government's capitulation to the demands of transnational corporations and international trade agreements instead of defending Canadian citizens.

In a letter to the Minister of Industry on March 9, the union says:

Who would deny a pharmaceutical manufacturer a healthy profit for an effective drug? But is that the reason legislation has been introduced in the Senate...to extend patents from 17 to 20 years? No.

Clearly this is not about drug company bottom lines: the pharmaceutical manufacturers are extremely profitable.

It went on to say:

Contrast this with the plight of many other older Canadians or the working poor who must spend what little money they have on prescription drugs. As you know, some seniors face the nightmare of choosing between heating, eating or prescription drugs. Not all seniors face this kind of crisis, but most report that prescription drugs take a huge bite out of their budget at a time in their lives when few can afford it. In fact, though many are covered by provincial pharmacare programs, they don't cover the first hundred or more dollars in drug purchases. Even these seniors will be affected.

The government should listen to some of the organizations like the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, the Canadian Teachers' Federation, the Manitoba Society of Seniors, the Canadian Association of Retired Persons and other groups that know what it is like to deal with the pressures on their members and citizens they encounter on a day to day basis. It is time for the government to act for the public good.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start my speech on Bill S-17 by following up on some comments from the member for Winnipeg North Centre in answer to questions from the member for Palliser. The member asked why we were dealing with this bill which originated from the Senate and why did we think the bill originated in the Senate?

There is no secret there. It is obvious why the government chose to introduce this bill through the back door, through the unelected Senate. It was put forward by the hon. leader of the government in the Senate, a member from Winnipeg. It is to her great shame and discredit that she is doing the government's dirty work.

The government did not want to introduce this bill in the House for fear of reprisals from Canadians and from seniors' organizations. There is a growing and mounting movement against this regressive step that this was the path of least resistance for the government. It was an expedient move to introduce this bill through the Senate so it would come up for debate without the usual public announcement from the minister.

The Minister of Industry spoke at length on this bill earlier today. He was quoted extensively, when he represented the opposition, as speaking against any such move to extend patent protection. He is now the champion for international pharmaceutical companies to increase their profits yet again.

I would like to address another point which was very well made by the member for Winnipeg Centre. Just how much profit is enough profit to keep drug North companies doing the important research work they do?

Speaker after speaker has said that the NDP does not understand how necessary it is for drug companies to do research and should they not be compensated for doing that research. There is no disagreement on this side. We value the scientists who work hard to find new cures to many ailments. We are balking because we have never really tested the water. We have never had a debate as to what a reasonable profit would be for these companies. How many years of patent protection do they really need to not only pay for their research costs, but to appreciate a reasonable profit?

Notwithstanding the whole debate, some of us believe that this sort of scientific pursuit should be above and beyond the realm of the free market altogether. Perhaps we should start with that basic premise. Some of us still believe that some things are too important to leave up to the profit motive and to the free hand of the marketplace. That it is somehow the be all and end all and the only thing that would motivate people to do something as humanitarian as finding cures for illnesses and getting necessary drugs into the hands of people that need them most.

I believe there are a significant number of Canadians, scientists and business people who would agree that the single most important thing we could do for moral and ethical reasons would be to find a way to get drugs into the hands of people who need them without bankrupting our health care system and our seniors who find it difficult to meet the costs of the medications they so desperately need.

This bill further accentuates the problem of the high cost of drugs. It makes us wonder whose side the government is on. Whose side is it championing here?

We find this inexorable link between the Liberal party and the pharmaceutical international drug companies. It makes one wonder whose interests it is bound to represent in the House of Commons.

Canadians hoped that they would have a champion in their government and that someone would be there advocating on their behalf to represent their interests in this very serious problem that faces the nation. Yet what do we find? Rather than legislation being introduced that might provide some relief or some plan to reduce the cost of drugs, we are once again fighting this decade long battle of trying to hold back the length of the patent protection on intellectual property, so that the generic drug companies can start to replicate these necessary drugs and make them cheaper and more affordable so our health care system is not crippled or hog-tied by this.

Bill S-17 builds off of Bill C-91. Bill C-91 was called the greatest corporate giveaway in Canadian history. I remember the challenge and the demonstrations in the streets. Canadians came out en masse to voice their disappointment with the then Mulroney government when it introduced Bill C-91. They were furious and outraged. The Mulroney Tories were crazy enough to take on senior citizens again. They did it once when they wanted to de-index the pension and they got their wrists slapped pretty quickly and they withdrew.

Yet, just like a kid who puts his hand on the hot element of a stove, they chose to do it again and infuriated citizens all across the country. They introduced another bill that would cost them more in direct out of pocket expense than even the dastardly plan to deindex the pension. When Bill C-91 came along, it mobilized a whole cross generation protest movement to fight against this thing.

I believe it was one of the key issues in the 1993 election, on October 25, 1993, when Canadians kicked the Tories out in the most humiliating defeat in Canadian history and reduced them to two seats. They did this partly to voice their strong objection to the changes proposed under Bill C-91.

When the Liberals took over in 1993, rather than do what they promised to do and bring in a national pharmacare plan that would relieve people from the crippling costs and spiralling out of control drug costs, they embarked on a cross-country national tour, a task force, and the best way to buy time. We They did not do away with Bill C-91 or reverse its terrible impact.

The findings of the task force were the most disappointing flip-flop in recent memory. The Liberals were elected on the promise that they would champion the interests of Canadian people in terms of high drug costs. What did they do? They came back, shrugged their shoulders and said that they had studied the issue to death. They said they had investigated it thoroughly and heard from Canadians, but there is nothing we can do. Therefore, the 20 year patent protection stood. In other words, there was no relief is in site.

This was in spite of predictions from people in their own party. Prominent Liberals of the opposition, some who are now cabinet ministers in the Liberal government, issued dire warnings. They said that if they went ahead with Bill C-91 and the 20 year drug patent protection, it would cause an enormous compounding escalation in drugs costs to ordinary Canadians. That did not deter them one minute. That did not hold them back one iota.

I guess that is the beauty of being a Liberal. They do not see any contradiction in that kind of flip-flop whatsoever. They seem to hold their heads high, take a 180° turn and say the opposite to what they were elected on in the fall of 1993.

We have quotes of prominent Liberals of what they said in the House of Commons. Dramatic speeches were made on this issue. Some of my favourites came from the current House leader of the Liberal party who was absolutely passionate about this issue. He was making the case that this kind of a drug patent protection would be devastating to our health care system. Even then many of us who were monitoring these things knew that the single biggest cost to our health care system was soon to be drugs, and that is the case now.

On a chart on the wall we can see the costs of hospitals and doctors are going up. Drug costs are skyrocketing through the ceiling. Our worst fears have been realized. In fact the worst fears of the hon. House leader for the government were realized.

In 1992 he said “I turn the argument right around on the members across”, meaning the government side members. “Doing something that will damage our health care system in Canada is not going to make us more competitive”. That is a given. “It is perhaps one of those things that in the long run and perhaps even in the short run are going to make us less competitive as a nation because it is removing from us one of those useful tools that we have now”, meaning affordable health care and affordable access to pharmaceutical drugs.

I appreciate those remarks and can associate them. I would have been proud to know that individual when he that thought that way. I am not so crazy about the point of view that seems to be adopted by those same people across the way today.

We have a situation now where the Liberal Party and the government of the day are being the champions and advocates for the multinational drug companies or chief apologists for the multinational drug companies. Whose side are they on? Canadians are desperate for somebody to advocate on their behalf. They are desperate to have somebody speak out loudly for them, to stand on hind legs and if necessary oppose the WTO or at least put up a good fight instead of kowtowing.

Every time we send one of our representatives to one of these meetings, whether it is in Davos, Switzerland or wherever the ministers are meeting to deal with the WTO, they always come back the bearers of bad news. They say they thought they might be able to do a little something or a little horse trading, but in actual fact they could do nothing.

We as a parliament are being rendered more and more irrelevant, because we have lost our ability to put in place a domestic drug policy that would act on behalf of the people of Canada. We are being told that we have traded that ability away. It is shameless. Whoever traded away that ability, frankly has not done a service to Canada. If our chief negotiators cannot do anything better than that, if they cannot come back with a better package than that, we better start looking for better negotiators. They are clearly not representing the interests and the points of view of Canadians very adequately.

There are certainly other prominent Liberals who spoke out over and over again on this back in the days when Liberal members stood up in defence of Canadians who needed relief on drug prices.

The current solicitor general pointed out that the average cost of a prescription claim had risen at a rate in excess of 11% compounded annually for the period of 1987 through 1991, well above the CPR rate. That was a good observation. I have bad news for the current solicitor general. Even though he was concerned back in 1991-92 about the escalating costs of drugs, he would be surprised to learn that cumulatively from 1987 to today the cost of drugs increased 340%. That is the single highest and fastest growing cost in our health care system. It is out of control. He was worried about 11% annually.

Again, rather than some plan from the Liberals on how they might cope with this and help us deal with the crisis, all we have is another bill, which came in through the back door through the unelected Senate, that will compound the issue and make it even worse. It will extend the 20 year patent protection to the remaining 30 products which are still at 17 years.

The NDP caucus argues that even if we do accept that the private sector has to be involved in research and development of new drugs and that they deserve to recoup their costs and make a reasonable profit, we argue that 10 years is more than adequate. I challenge them to make the case as to why they need more than 10 years. I do not think the debate has been put to legislatures. We have not debated here.

We know that prior to the free trade agreement having imposed 20 year patent protection, the pharmaceutical drug companies were the most profitable industry sector in our economy. If people owned shares in those companies they did well. We found it necessary to buy into their line, and they always wanted more.

There is an old adage where I come from that says capital has no conscience. These guys have an insatiable appetite for profit. They have an obligation to their shareholders to show the best possible rate of return. If they can increase their profits just by coming to government and saying they deserve and need 20 year patent protection, and if we blindly tell them to take their 20 years and let them compound their profits yet again, we are not doing our job in representing the interests of Canadian people. We are yielding far too readily. We are not putting up a good fight. We are not even putting up a good debate or a good argument.

The 11 or 12 lonely NDP speakers in the House of Commons are the only people we have heard today advocating on behalf of the Canadian people. All the other parties are advocating on behalf of multinational drug companies. Not even our domestic generic drug industry is being represented here today. We are hearing speaker after speaker on the government side say the poor international drug companies do not make enough money or have the tools they need to find cures to the illnesses we have.

Is anyone speaking for Canadians here, for senior citizens who must cut prescriptions in half to make them stretch for the whole month? Does anyone even care about that any more? In listening to the speakers one would not think so. They are not advocating on behalf of Canadians. They are advocating on behalf of drug companies that do quite well around the world, frankly, without gouging Canada.

Bill S-17 would go even further. It would tie our hands further by limiting the ability of generic drug companies to ready themselves for the day they are allowed to sell their product. It prohibits them from producing and stockpiling new drugs so that on day one after the 20 year patent expires they would be ready to release them into the community and into the hands of the people who need them.

Under Bill S-17 that would be limited and restricted, and I know why. Although pharmaceutical companies enjoy a 20 year patent protection a bit of a charade goes on. When the companies get close to the 20 year deadline they modify their drug a bit and ask for an extension. They explain that it is not the same drug it was 19 years ago when they first developed it. They say it is now a new and improved drug. They negotiate and are often given another five to seven more years of holiday, of exclusive monopoly.

Is that competition? Is that what the champions of free competition support? I hear the Canadian Alliance Party and people like it advocate giving one company an exclusive monopoly for 20 years in spite of all reason and logic, in spite of all the moral and ethical arguments associated with getting drugs into the hands of people who need them. They are willing to turn their backs.

They are almost as chameleon-like as the Liberals in this regard. They are willing to change their colour all of a sudden and say competition is good and healthy, but in this case these companies should be given an absolute monopoly for 20 years. Let them really rake in the dough and then maybe they will find a cure for cancer. If their only motivation is to make money they will not do the type of research we need them to do.

There are a lot of medical conditions for which it is not economically viable to do research. Let us imagine an obscure condition which is probably curable but which perhaps only afflicts 5,000 people across the country. If profit, not the well-being of humanity, is the sole motive no one will bother doing the research to find a cure for that condition.

I point that out to illustrate what is fundamentally wrong with accepting that drug companies can, will and should be driven only by profit. That is the only interest here. There is a broader public interest to be served than just enhancing the profits of international drug companies.

I pointed out the inexorable link between the Liberal Party and the international drug cartel, arguably the single most effective and powerful lobby group in Ottawa. That is probably why we are seeing this rammed through by the parties which benefit so greatly from the largesse of the drug companies.

Prominent Liberals like Judy Erola did not even miss a step when she went from being a member of parliament to being the chief lobbyist for international drug companies. It seems that any Liberal hack who runs out of gas in his or her political life can find a job in the offices of the drug companies. There is a connection there. There is a link that borders on conflict because we are not looking after the best interests of Canadians. We are being coerced more and more, through powerful people, their powerful contacts and their powerful cheque books, to look after the interests of drug companies before we look after the interests of senior citizens and Canadians.

I find it harder and harder to sit here, and frankly I find myself more and more disappointed that nobody in the House of Commons has the courage to stand and advocate on behalf of Canadians instead of the drug companies, except those in the NDP caucus today. There will be a record of this debate. I hope Canadians are well aware of what is going on here today as we put the final stake through the heart of any notion of a comprehensive plan to make drugs affordable for the Canadian people.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's comments on Bill S-17. We have similar constituencies. Our constituencies are predominantly made up of people on modest or fixed incomes who have a hard time keeping up with the rising drug costs they are experiencing on a day to day basis.

I have one example and I wonder if my colleague could indicate whether his constituents have had similar experiences. Not long ago a woman wrote to me and indicated that the price of a heart drug, digoxin or lanoxin, had gone from $18.30 for 120 tablets in May 2000 to $30.67 for 120 tablets in August 2000.

That is an incredible jump for a drug that has been on the market a long time. In this case it appears to be the result of one pharmaceutical company being taken over by another. It illustrates the point we have been trying to make today that this is not about breakthrough drugs or about more public support for scientific discoveries. It is about brand name drug companies trying to make every penny they can off drugs that were invented a long time ago.

I have two questions for my colleague, the member for Winnipeg Centre. Is this the kind of experience he is hearing about in his own constituency? What other impact is patent protection having on the ability of ordinary citizens in our constituencies to get access to necessary medications?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

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?

[Svend Robinson, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up on the very eloquent comments of my colleague from Winnipeg Centre and to note that earlier in the debate one Liberal member suggested that the only way we could develop quality pharmaceutical drugs was if a healthy profit went to the private sector to develop those drugs.

I remind the House of the pioneering work of Jonas Salk who refused to patent the polio vaccine. He said that it would be like patenting the sun.

When the Liberals prattle on about how we have to make sure that the profit levels are high enough for the pharmaceutical companies, I say that there are dedicated women and men, scientists working in this field, who would be quite prepared to ensure that the product of their deliberation and research goes into the common good and does not go to contribute to corporate profits.

My colleague from Winnipeg Centre referred to the member for Ottawa West. I have a speech here that the member for Ottawa West made on December 9, 1992, an eloquent and passionate denunciation of Bill C-91. She went on about the obscene profit levels of the pharmaceutical companies and said:

I think we have to ask who pays for these great gains? As I said, there are billions of dollars of revenue to be gained by the drug companies. Seniors will pay. Taxpayers will pay through medicare. Anybody who is too poor to have a drug plan or who works for a company that does not have a drug plan will pay.

That was the member for Ottawa West then. Where is the member for Ottawa West today?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad we have a written record of all the great speeches made in the old days and that they are so easily accessible. We can remind people of what they said those few short years ago.

I could not agree more with the member for Burnaby—Douglas. He asked what is a healthy profit, how much was enough of a profit for drug companies.

Members could put forward their arguments, even if we accepted the fact that there would be private sector involvement in the research and development of drugs. However we have never debated what is a reasonable markup. Yes, people should be able to recoup their research and development costs. Yes, they should be able to make a reasonable profit, but how much is reasonable? That debate has taken away our ability to even review it in the House of Commons.

I would argue that we have lost or have voluntarily forfeited our ability to implement a domestic strategy that might put drugs into the hands of Canadians a little more readily and in an accessible way. Through the free trade agreements that were cited back in the Bill C-91 debate, we have sent negotiators to the table that bargained and traded away our ability to dictate our own domestic wishes.

I feel that most Canadians are of the view expressed by the NDP today. Most people see the common sense in doing everything we can to be the champions and advocates of Canadians. We should take the courageous steps necessary to make sure we can get drugs into the hands of people who need them at an affordable price. However, if we voluntarily go into these trade agreements with blinders on and without any ability to dictate our own domestic control, it is not progress. It is retrogressive.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak to Bill S-17, an act to amend the Patent Act.

It is a pleasure for me to talk about the bill but I find it quite unfortunate that the current government, the Liberal government, cannot solve the problem with patent drugs here in Canada.

It is well known that there is a problem with the health system everywhere in the country and not only in New Brunswick. I am sure that it is not limited to Quebec or to Ontario. It is a problem everywhere. However, there is another problem related to that one and it is the issue of patent drugs.

We could tell all sorts of stories about this. Usually it is the people from poor families who are the greatest consumers of patent drugs. Poor families do not have enough money to feed their children properly and they often end up in the hospital. They are the ones who consume a lot of patent drugs. Moreover, they do not have enough money to take care of their children's well-being, and not only their children's.

I will tell a little story. It deals with patent drugs. The story even made me cry, and the member for Acadie—Bathurst usually does not weep easily.

One day I received in my office a tape that was sent to me by a man from Val Doucet, in New Brunswick. The man could neither read nor write and he had sent me a tape on which he told me a sad story. I took the tape and brought it home. I sat in the living room and listened to it.

It was a sad story. It made me cry. It had to do with the document I have here.

The man was telling me that he drew $404 a month from the Canada pension plan and had a card to get free prescription drugs through welfare. When his pension was increased by a few cents, he fell into a new bracket and lost his drug card.

In the tape that he sent me, he told me that now, when he went to bed at night, he cried in pain because he could not afford to buy drugs. The patent drugs he needed were too expensive. He also needed to go to the dentist but because he could not afford that either he had blood on his pillow when he woke up in the morning.

It is sad when people in Canada have to go through that because they cannot afford to buy patent drugs.

I met families last week who were saying the same thing, that drugs were too expensive and that they did not have a drug card and could not get one.

As reported in Hansard on December 8, 1992, the government House leader said this:

Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to take part in today's debate and speak to the first motion, the first amendment to the bill. I congratulate the hon. member for Dartmouth who so ably defended the interests of Canadian consumers and all Canadians who will suffer the disastrous effects of this Tory policy.

The hon. members across the floor are engaged in the process of passing a bill from the other place that they did not have the gumption to introduce themselves. They brought it in by the back door from over there.

In 1992, the present Liberal leader said the following, which I shall quote because it is worthwhile:

Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to take part in today's debate and speak to the first amendment to the bill. I congratulate the hon. member for Dartmouth—

That person had to be a Liberal.

—who so ably defended the interests of Canadian consumers and all Canadians who will suffer the disastrous effects of this Tory policy.

Today, Liberals are standing up to say “We are doing this to save the world”. Where were they in 1992? This is shameful. They are working along with the drug companies on drug patents in the same way they operated with the GST.

They said that if they were in power they would do away with the GST. Once in power, they continued it. They said that if they were in power there would be no free trade. They now are and we did get free trade. They said that if they were in power they would remove the patents so the sick and the poor could buy drugs at affordable prices. That is what they should have done. Well, they changed their mind and now, because they are the government, they do not have a choice.

We have lots of stories to tell about the Liberals. We could talk about the $35 billion they took from workers who lost their jobs. We could talk about that too.

We could tell stories that are rather funny. We know, for example, that one company gave $100,000 to the Liberal Party, including $33,000 from Glaxo Wellcome, $25,000 from Merck Frosst and $10,000 from Dupont in the same year. I understand why they are saying today that the drug regulations should not be changed.

This reminds us of the U.S. health care system. Why is the U.S. health care system private? For the same reasons. It is because corporations pay politicians to keep it private and in turn get money from them. This is what is happening here.

The Liberals do not care about people who are sick. The Liberals do not care about people who suffer from liver disease or other ailments. The Liberals could not care less. It is a disgrace.

Yesterday I spent a whole day at the Bathurst hospital. There were people, women and children, on stretchers while on the third floor some departments were closed and beds were empty. The situation is that bad in this country. It is a disgrace to see such a thing in Canada, the most beautiful country in the world. We should be ashamed to go around claiming we have the most beautiful country in the world when sick children spend three or four hours crying in the emergency department. They cannot get service.

When people enter hospitals, nurses tell them “I am exhausted”. They also told me “Sir, I am exhausted, I cannot cope with the situation any more”. Doctors say the same thing “I worked all weekend, all week and I am exhausted”. I have a nephew who is in hospital in Quebec City. As soon as he came back from the United States he was hospitalized in Quebec City. This was the third hospital he had gone to. Overnight, we found ourselves without any services. That is what the health care system is like in Canada.

When the Liberals were in the opposition they boasted. They shouted out “Vote for us, we will change everything”. They gave us back the GST. How very kind of them.

This week, I spoke to some employers. One of them told me “The only thing Liberals did is that they gave me their work; I collect GST from people and every three months I have to do the books for them. After that, they put us into debt”. Thanks a lot.

The only thing Liberals did for us is that they privatized everything around us, even Petro-Canada last week. Liberals were supposed to be on the left, in the centre or wherever. However, I know where they are. They are in the Pacific and in the Atlantic but they have forgotten to come to Canada.

This is where the Liberals are because they do not care about Canadians. They make promises but in fact they are lies. Mr. Speaker, excuse me for using those words, but this is the truth. This is what is really happening. This is what people in my region and all over are saying. You are smiling for a good reason, Mr. Speaker, you know I am right.

This is no joke. I talked earlier about all the money the government stole from the EI fund. I also mentioned that more than 800,000 workers are not eligible for EI benefits and that 1.4 million children go hungry. Can the members imagine how destitute these people are?

During the weekend, as I toured my riding, some people asked me “Where are we going as a country? What are politicians thinking about? Are they not supposed to stand up for us?”

The only thing we hear from right wing governments is: how can this large company make a profit, how can this big insurance company manage, how can we protect this business here and that business there? But then in the throne speech the government tells us that it wants to take care of children.

In 1989, the House passed a motion calling on the government to eradicate child poverty in Canada by 1999. Children would no longer go to school on an empty stomach. Nowadays, not only are these children still hungry but they also cannot afford whatever medication they need.

We could be considering a bill to set the price of drugs and make them more affordable but no, we need to take care of the large companies, those that make $100,000 donations to the government party. Those are the people we need to protect.

I went to the United States and talked with some people who have a private drug plan. Life can be tough for workers with a private drug plan who end up sick in hospital. If they do not have hospital insurance and have to sell their house and their car and declare bankruptcy, it is no joke. Is that what we want as Canadians? The government is doing nothing to stop this situation.

I am afraid of free trade and I am afraid of NAFTA. I am still afraid of the free trade area of the Americas as in the negotiations we had in Quebec City and the way those peacefully demonstrating were treated. Not everyone went over the perimeter fence. People were sitting there peacefully demonstrating and the RCMP shot them with plastic bullets.

They used tear gas on people who were fighting against the big machine. The big machine was inside. I was proud to be in Quebec City, to be outside the security perimeter fence with the people who elected me. I much prefer to be with those who elected me than to be inside the fence with the Bush gang and all the others, with the American helicopters flying overhead. We felt like we were not in Canada any more. This is the way we will be run by a country called the United States.

It would be unfortunate if the government passed the bill. I am sure that if the government took just a half an hour, not much more, and looked back over its years in opposition in 1989, 1991 and 1992, it would say “We were pretty smart then”. We all complained about what the Progressive Conservatives were doing. The only problem is that the day after the election the Liberals had a shot and it was just as if the Conservatives were there.

Let us look after the big corporations.

This is what it looks like. You know what? I pray God that I never become a government member because some magical thing happens as soon as one is in office. It would seem that one instantly forgets everything he or she said before and everything that Canadians wanted.

I do not deny the fact that during the election campaign the NDP talked a lot about health care. According to the polls, Canadians felt that health was the number one priority in Canada. Canadians did not want to go to the hospital and find their grandfather or grandmother in a corridor. Nor did they want to find their children in the corridors. They wanted to find them in a hospital bed and they wanted them to be cared for.

If we go to a veterinarian there are no dogs or cats in the corridor because they are being treated. Humans, however, are left in the corridors.

I spent the whole day in the hospital yesterday. I saw a woman with a child wrapped in a blanket and everybody was just walking by. It is shameful to have this kind of health care in Canada. Then the government tells us that it has nothing to do with money if we do not have a good health care system, that we should be doing things differently.

Maybe we could do things differently. We see people take to the hospital someone who is scheduled for surgery in three weeks, and that person is kept in the hospital for three weeks just to ensure he or she does not lose his or her place. Maybe it would be less expensive to send that person home. That would be doing things differently.

The government cannot come here and say that we must protect companies by allowing them to sell their pills and make profits for 20 years while another company could sell the same pills for less.

Where is the free market the Liberals used to talk about so much? Now they no longer support the free market because they know they have to protect a couple of companies that will give over $100,000 to the government for the next election. That is what is happening.

If we look at the health care situation in Canada, hospitals are in pretty bad shape, as are long term care facilities. Governments send people from the hospital to a long term care facility and there is nobody to take care of them there.

A few weeks ago I visited a long term care facility. It reminded me of an assembly line. An elderly man and an elderly woman were sitting there and somebody had a plate and was feeding them as if they were animals. That is how it is now in Canada. It is a disgrace. This is what is happening in the country. I am not here this evening to make things up. This is what is happening in the country and it is a real disgrace.

Who are the people we are talking about? Us. We will perhaps be the next ones who will need to go into a nursing home. We will be the next ones sitting in a hospital waiting for care. We will be the ones asking where the nurse is. The poor nurse is pretty tired. She works a 12 hour shift five or six days in a row. The doctor is pretty tired too. The one I met yesterday sure was. He said “There are people to hand out pills to them from time to time but they have to come to the hospital”. After that, they are on their own.

As I said, the way things are going in our country we can have a great old time here. It is not hard for us. If we are ill, we go to the pharmacy, get a prescription filled, send it in to the government and it is paid for. Decisions such as these are all very fine and well.

But the poor father who works as a logger, for instance, who has no drug plan or who does not receive welfare will have to pay $50 or $60 dollars for pills for his child who comes home sick after a day at school. There is also the 64 year old woman who came to my office and said “The pills for me and my husband cost $200 a month”. Do people think I am kidding? Do they think this is how these people want to die? Do they think they want to die suffering like this?

The Liberals should do some soul searching. They may be boasting that there is no problem but we are still in this predicament. The Prime Minister is bragging that he has been here for 38 years and that he will stay until it is 40. We will soon have a celebration. It is going to be a lot of fun.

In the meantime, Canadians suffer, people have a hard time and the government is not doing what it should be doing. It is not keeping its election promises. During a campaign it makes a lot of promises but as soon as the election is over, it does not give a hoot. It is laughing at people. This is unacceptable. As human beings, Canadians deserve more than that.

Nowadays, if someone is seen hitting a dog that person is picked up and locked up. The same thing can happen to those who do not feed or care for their pet.

However, those who do not feed their child because they have no money, if the government says the word, will have to pay. There will be nothing on this point in the legislation. That is the law in Canada. It is possible to make people suffer.

I say there should be a law against this. We should not be allowed to make people, youngsters suffer. The elderly, those who retire should be able to pay for their drugs without skimping on food.

If the Liberals had a place in their hearts for Canadians, they would take the appropriate measures. They would change the law and pass a real bill that would please Canadians.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst for what is once again a very passionate presentation. He put across the views of many Canadians in the way they would expect a member of the House of Commons to do on their behalf.

It strikes me as we wind down to the final moments of the debate today on Bill S-17 that there has only been one party, one collective voice in the House of Commons that is advocating on behalf of ordinary Canadians.

We have heard from party after party, from the ruling Liberal Party to the Alliance Party, to the Bloc, to the Conservatives. All of them seem to see nothing wrong in the bill. It would in fact further augment and further enhance unreasonable profits for brand name drug companies. It is a bill which says nothing about the urgent situation in which Canadians find themselves in terms of affordable drug costs.

I put it to the hon. member that we are sent here by Canadians to advocate on their behalf, not to be corporate shills to advocate on behalf of multinational pharmaceutical drug companies that are frankly quite capable of taking care of their own interests.

We were sent here with a message. The message I get from the people in my riding, and I would like the hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst to concur, is that they are asking me to go to Ottawa and do something about the spiralling, out of control, escalating costs of drugs. Then we could put drugs into the hands of people who need them most at an affordable price.

Would the hon. member agree that throughout the debate today there has only been one collective voice, the voice of reason on behalf of Canadian people, and that is the voice of the NDP caucus?

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Winnipeg Centre for the comments he made. I am proud of what the NDP has said today.

During the election campaign the Liberals asked me why I did not switch to the Liberal Party. I said that the reason I would not switch to the Liberal Party is that it has no values. The only values it has is 35 days before an election. After the election it loses all its values.

Canadians have said very clearly that they do not want to pay the price they pay for medication. If we had a referendum in the country today about whether or not Canadians want the bill to go through, they would say no very loudly.

That is not what the Liberals will do. They have to answer to the big corporations, the ones that lobby them, the ones with the big wallets that are nice to them. They give a lot of money. That is what they do.

The NDP is another thing. On the issues of health care and pharmacare, we are the ones who have pushed those issues for Canadians. I am very proud of that.

[Svend Robinson, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst for his eloquent speech. He spoke with a lot of passion about this very important issue.

The member has always spoken out on behalf of the elderly, the poor and the less fortunate, not only in his riding but anywhere in Canada. As New Democrats, we know very well that this bill will cost the elderly and taxpayers who pay for provincial drug programs an extra $200 million.

It is frankly unbelievable that we are now the only political party in parliament that stands up for the consumers, for the poor and for sick people, as the member for Acadie—Bathurst has already done.

For example, I am sorry that the Bloc Quebecois is voting in favour of the bill. As far as the Canadian Alliance is concerned, it is understandable since that party has always supported the large corporations. As for the Liberals, we heard what they said in 1987. I was here. My colleague from Winnipeg—Transcona was here. It was in 1987. I remember. The Minister of Industry said “We will do all we can to stop this bill.”

It was the same thing in 1992 with Bill C-91. I am sure the member for Winnipeg—Transcona remembers it very well. The Liberals were there. They said that they were against the bill because it was a gift to the large pharmaceuticals.

Now that they are in office, what are they doing? They are handing out gifts like this one they are bestowing on the large pharmaceutical companies.

As the member for Acadie—Bathurst pointed out, we were in Quebec City. All our members, including our leader, the member for Halifax, were in Quebec City, because we say no. We say no to this agenda, which would change our hemisphere forever by using the rules governing intellectual property to protect the rights of private businesses throughout the Americas, the FTAA.

We are very familiar with what is happening at the WTO and under NAFTA. We have seen what is happening, for instance, with the price of patent drugs.

I wonder if my hon. colleague could explain why we were in Quebec City to protest against these deals that would bestow more gifts on large pharmaceutical companies.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the reason we went to Quebec City is that we believe in the people. Our place was there in Quebec City with the people who voted for us.

When the Conservatives were in power, the Liberals were against free trade. Then, when they formed the government, they started promoting free trade.

We are not against free trade. We are, however, in favour of fair trade. We are not willing to bargain away our country, our environment, our water and our drugs as this government is doing, and go the American way as it is proposing to do.

We are not willing to do that. We are not willing to accept that. We like our country and we want to keep it. We have no links to the big corporations such as Bronfman or Irving in New Brunswick. We are not their puppets. We do not get up in the morning asking “What should I be doing, Mr. Irving? What is my agenda for today?”

We do not have to do that. I was happy to be in Quebec City to speak up for ordinary Canadians. I believe that today Canadians are happy that we were there so that today we can ask more questions.

Maybe I could add that the current government House leader had continued his speech in 1992. As I have a couple of minutes left, I will continue quoting what he said:

The Canadian Medical Association told us that the amount now spent on drugs exceeds the amount spent on physician care in this country. It is a large component of our healthcare costs. The CMA should know something about it. It appeared before our committee and said that unless the bill—it was a Conservative bill—was amended, it could not support it.

The Liberal House leader said “I challenge any member across to say otherwise”. That is what he said to the Conservatives. Because of that, there is no doubt about it, the people across the way are two-faced.

It is the government House leader who said that and he is now sitting across the way. He should be ashamed of himself for changing his tune like that. This is how the Liberals lose the people's confidence. The Prime Minister of Canada may have been in the House for 40 years but one day he will be kicked out, perhaps for a long time, along with the rest of the members who support him because they do not care about Canadians. I am convinced that Canadians will see the light one of these days.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Canadian Alliance, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, in the House on February 12 the Minister of Justice and the Deputy Prime Minister denied that the government was privatizing the gun registry.

Then in a media scrum outside the House the minister said she was outsourcing, not privatizing the gun registry. Since that time she has been unable to successfully describe to anyone's satisfaction the difference between privatizing and outsourcing.

On March 3 the Moncton Times and Transcript reported that a crowd of 700 demonstrators protested in Miramichi because they were upset over reports that the Canadian Firearms Centre would be privatized.

In the same newspaper on April 24 it was reported that 70 employees were to be laid off on May 6. The article stated:

However the union believes the federal government plans to privatize the entire licensing and registration system, taking all the workers off the federal payroll and with no guarantees a private company would hire any of them.

On February 27 the Edmonton Sun reported that the RCMP were laying off 130 civilians working the national gun registry. Lynn Ray, president of the Union of Solicitor General Employees, said the layoffs and transfer of another 130 employees from the RCMP to the Department of Justice was the first step toward privatizing the registry.

The National Post ran a front page story on March 1 which stated:

In a document that seems to contradict assurances by...the Minister of Justice, that only parts of the registry and licensing functions would be outsourced, Public Works Canada has assured 12 prospective bidders that the successful contractor would conduct “all transactions with clients except certain investigations”

“More specifically, we mean that the vendor will own and operate the business process delivery component as identified in the letter of interest”—

On March 1 the Edmonton Sun printed comments by Edmonton city police Staff Sergeant Al Bohachyk. Bohachyk called the privatized gun registry a frightening prospect because:

—no private company could guarantee personal information in gun licence and registration databases won't get out to the wrong people, organized crime figures, for instance.

On February 16 I received a letter from Mr. George Radwanski, the privacy commissioner of Canada. The privacy commissioner confirmed that the justice department did not even consult with his office about its privatization initiative. In his letter he stated that he was deeply concerned that justice may privatize or outsource the Canadian firearms program. He intends to pursue the matter with the department. This is very serious.

On April 4 the Library of Parliament discovered that there were already seven private firearms officers working for the gun registry in New Brunswick. One of these privatized firearms officers even has his own private investigation firm in Fredericton. His appointment letter gives him the power to conduct investigations by reviewing police files and by conducting interviews with applicants, spouses, relatives, neighbours and employers.

This firearms officer, a private eye, told my office that he told a newspaper reporter he was doing firearms background checks because he thought it would be good for his business. How could he possibly keep the information he gathers as a private firearms officer separate from the information he uses to advance the interest of his own private investigation firm and his private clients? The privacy commissioner is investigating.

An April 20 headline in the Moncton Times and Transcript read “Gun registry privatization nears reality”. Union leaders call what the government is doing with the gun registry privatization. Every newspaper story written on the issue calls it privatization. Robert Klassen, professor of operations management at the University of Western Ontario, told the National Post that it sounded like privatization.

The documents provided by the Department of Justice to the private companies bidding on the job say the successful bidder will own and operate the business process and will conduct all transactions except certain investigations.

Why does the minister insist on calling it outsourcing? Why will the minister not admit in public that which everyone else knows and what she privately tells the private companies she is negotiating with?

[John Maloney, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, the question of outsourcing for some services and products to support the firearms program has become an issue before the House. This is in no way privatization of the program, as some opposition members would have us believe.

The Minister of Justice has made it clear to the House that she will remain fully accountable for the firearms program. However, if there are private sector companies that can provide off the shelf technology, then it makes sense to outsource as opposed to recreating such products.

The Canadian Firearms Centre is simply looking at ways to ensure that the program is delivered efficiently and cost effectively without compromising public safety. The centre has solicited for ideas on how the objectives of the program could be met while lowering costs and improving client services. This an exploratory exercise to determine what services and products are available that could help reduce costs and do the job effectively and efficiently, while adhering to our high public safety standards.

Outsourcing is not new to the firearms program. For example, an Ottawa firm has been providing assistance in processing licence application forms. Another firm provided expertise in developing the automated registry system. We know the private sector can be a partner in support of the program by providing cost effective and efficient services.

Public safety is paramount and it guides all changes made to the administration of the program. Public safety and the security of personal and other information remains the cornerstone of the firearms program. Security and privacy protection will remain as stringent as the current system and improved if possible.

As the Canadian firearms program evolves toward a steady state, it is important to consider all options aimed at lowering costs and increasing efficiency while maintaining the safety and security of information.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24.

(The House adjourned at 6.37 p.m.)