Mr. Speaker, I listened attentively to the comments made by the member for Pickering—Ajax—Uxbridge. I noticed that he confined his comments to the issue of drug costs and generic drugs versus ones that are protected by patent. While I agree it is of very real concern to all Canadians, because of the escalating costs of drugs, there are alternatives and I want to briefly address them.
One thing I believe is inherently wrong with the way the federal government is looking at the health care system right now is that it is not viewing health care with sufficient flexibility. By that I mean we have to take a new look at this in the sense of preventive versus reactive medicine. There is a lot of new technology. However some is old technology which we have not accepted in our culture and country, whether it is naturopathic medicine, acupuncture, chiropractic or things like that. Some would argue that these alternatives would give Canadians greater choice in their health care. In other words, it would be a patient driven system whereby they could make those choices and have money available for those types of alternatives. This would give more choice to Canadians.
While I recognize that the cost of drugs is a huge issue that we must address as a government and as Parliament, would the hon. member for Pickering—Ajax—Uxbridge agree that, as we move through this debate on health care, it is really necessary for us to look at this within the confines of the Canada Health Act and allow as much flexibility as possible, and look at other alternatives which would be more preventive in nature versus reactive in treating disease and pain once they have already occurred in the patient?