Mr. Speaker, we would support a complete airing of any issue, unlike the party opposite.
It is a good and very thoughtful question. It allows me in response to talk about a private member's bill I introduced in the House entitled Bill C-338. The NDP House leader has been quoted—it will show up in Hansard —as saying that it is exciting. It is indeed exciting. I thank the leader of the NDP. It is an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act regarding the process of approval for new drugs. That is one of the things the government has to look at in addition to this bill.
The member for Eglinton—Lawrence, I think it is—I can never get these Toronto ridings right, there are just too many Liberals in Toronto—is right in some of what he says. I do not want to discount that. On a very serious note, some of what he is saying is absolutely right. One of the problems, which I think the government will recognize, is the fact that the drug approval process in Canada is excruciatingly slow and very cumbersome.
The truth is that the delay in the approval of drugs in Canada costs consumers a lot of money. In fact it most likely costs us lives. For example, it will be months before the new cancer fighting drug Gleevec, which I mentioned earlier, will be approved in Canada, at a big cost to the health care system and individual lives. That is what Bill C-338 would do. It outlines a process under which we could move the approval process along a little faster. The bill does not suggest something that has not been proven. It would be modelled after the European Union example. That is very important, because used in conjunction with this drug it would actually accomplish much more than would be possible with this present piece of legislation.
In private conversations with the health minister he agrees with me. The health minister says “Listen, Mr. Thompson”—or Greg or whatever he calls me on that particular day and sometimes he is not quite that polite—“the truth is I think it is a good bill”. However, the money to get this new process going within Health Canada means he would have to take money from one part of the department and put it into another.
The truth is that it is something we have to examine. In this whole process the trick is to move these drugs onto the market as safely and as quickly as we can, but following experiences of other nations. If we are part of that bigger community in terms of trading partners, we should be able to share some of that basic scientific evidence which allows those countries to use these very drugs that are being delayed in Canada under the approval process.