Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question. I am glad for the member's support of our position to the extent that he has stated. It was also curious to hear that he, like the member for Eglinton—Lawrence, has suggested that there is an avenue of action not yet taken. That is the elimination of the injunction in the notice of compliance regulations, which actually tack on more years to the present 20 year protection.
I come back to the fact that the government had an opportunity to address that situation, chose not to and in fact in 1998 made it worse. How does any Liberal member stand in the House and raise this issue knowing full well that his own government and the Minister of Industry have taken action that flies directly in the face of that very reasonable suggestion?
Of course I support the elimination of the provision that gives brand name drug companies another two years to fight for their rights, adding another couple of years onto an already lengthy and overly generous patent protection provision. I also believe that there are many other courses of action we can pursue.
The member talked about some of the provisions and a review of the policies of the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board. We absolutely support the kinds of suggestions he is making. I wish we could have received support for the suggestions we have made over the last number of years.
I think the member is fully aware of an Industry Canada draft report that came out prior to 1997 and made very strong recommendations, one being that the government should ask the World Trade Organization to re-evaluate 20 year patents on drugs and should take all steps to foster international co-operation on the problems of drug costs and utilization.
I think that makes the point very well that the government could have done something other than cave in to the WTO. There is another viewpoint and there were other avenues available to the minister. It obviously chose not to take them.
The fact of the matter is that the draft report by Industry Canada suddenly was revised, amended and changed. Different recommendations came forward in the post-1997 election period because some considerable political work was done behind the scenes to make sure that the amendments were compatible with the dictates of the minister at the time and the overall agenda of the government, which was not to operate in the best interests of fair prices and policies that protect consumers but to cater to brand name drug companies, to deny opportunities for generic companies to compete in the marketplace and to condone ever increasing prices that harm our health care system and deny necessary drugs to consumers.
My question for the Liberal member who just spoke, and to others, is this: when will they convince their own government to actually take action on the recommendations that were made in the past in the consultations leading up to 1997? When will the member and others join with us in trying to force policy changes that will bring into play a more competitive marketplace and fairer prices for all?