Madam Speaker, to respond to my colleague, I was informed by the member for Calgary East, who is a member of that committee, that the Alliance did agree with this specific recommendation. They dissented from the report for other reasons. I am not a member of that committee, but that is certainly what I have been informed of by my colleague.
I know the NDP has stated that the Alliance was not supportive of this initiative early on, so I think I should emphasize this, because in fact we did take the step of publicly addressing a letter to the Minister of Industry, the minister for whom I am a critic, and the Minister for International Trade, and we stated publicly:
We would like you to know that the Canadian Alliance supports efforts by the Canadian government to facilitate the delivery of drugs to help developing countries deal with public health emergencies, such as the HIV-AIDS crisis in Africa.
That is a pretty clear statement. I think it is a constructive statement made by the official opposition to the government indicating that we would be supportive of this type of initiative. That is why we are supportive of this legislation in general and supportive of it going forward to committee right after second reading. I think it is very clear that the Canadian Alliance has acted very responsibly in its support of this type of initiative.
We have recognized the size of the epidemic. I think Stephen Lewis should be commended for making this well known to us as Canadians. The Canadian Alliance was at the forefront of recognizing this and acting responsibly.