Mr. Speaker, I always enjoy listening to the hon. member. She has some interesting ideas and of course some of them I have heard many times before having been raised in Saskatchewan which is true CCF and now NDP country.
I would like to pose a problem to her. If I build a house, whether I build it with my own hands or hire some workers to help me, it is mine. I and my family can live in it for as long as we wish. There is no time limitation on the ownership of that house. Similarly, if I build an apartment, I can rent out the suites in it and I can collect the rent. There is not a 17 or a 20 year time period after which she can come in with her socialist friends and start collecting the rent on half of the suites.
I happened to be a computer programmer in a previous life. I am now incompetent in that area so no one should call me. Over the last eight years I have fallen way behind. However I used to write computer programs which are now intellectual property. I would like to know from the hon. member how many years I should have the ownership of a program and be able to sell it before she can sell it and keep the money from the program that I have produced.
The simple point I am making is that R and D for these drugs companies costs millions of dollars. The legislation says that after a certain time, even though a company spent the money and did it, it is no longer theirs and somebody else can take that result and use it to produce money for themselves. How does she reconcile that?