Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for the question because it is a very valid one and something we really need to look at.
He is right in that other countries such as Italy, France and Sweden have the mandatory reporting. We also have to understand that they are rated one, two and three as far as health care systems in the world. There is no question that if we go down this road, it will give us the comfort zone of being a much better health care system.
Why are they not reporting numbers? We have to realize that in Canada we do have mandatory reporting for the pharmaceutical companies, but not for those on the frontlines who actually see it happen.
I should elaborate a little on some of the testimony we heard as we went across Canada. Those individuals who came forward with some of the numbers on adverse reactions said that our practitioners, our doctors and nurses, were not trained well enough to diagnose an adverse reaction when they saw it. We have to work on this in a multifaceted way. It is not that I think mandatory reporting will be the panacea and be the perfect solution. It is just one of the building blocks that we have to work on to get us to where we need to go so we can deal with this problem in a comprehensive way.
Part of the problem is that technology, the medical records following the patient and what that will allow us to do in this whole area of reporting has got to be exercised. We have to take a serious look at that. When we do, we have to engage the professional people, our pharmacists, nurses and doctors, and ask them how they can make this work in mandatory reporting.
This is not an attack. It is there to give them the tools to be better professionals. That is what this is all about. That is where we need to go. We should not do this in isolation with a big stick. We should do it in collaboration with the provinces and with the professionals to make it work. That is what Canadians expect and that is the way we should go.