Mr. Chair, I will start with the question regarding the north and then go on to arbitrage.
The supply and quality of medicine have to be guaranteed. The last thing we need in this country is a shortage. Once we have a shortage, we cannot supply our own people with medication.
There is one thing I would like to make clear. Some of the opposition members on the other side make it sound like this is the end of Internet pharmacies. This is not the end of Internet pharmacies. This is merely the end of transporting our drugs to the United States or any other country that would undercut our prices.
One of the things to remember as well is that someone in a northern community can still order drugs through the Internet.
On the issue of arbitrage, I will cover it quickly. Arbitrage is a trading term used in the stock market and many markets. It is about finding a lower price somewhere and then selling somewhere else at a higher price. Unfortunately, it is all based on grabbing a supply and exhausting it. As soon as we exhaust it, then we are back up to normal. Otherwise, we see something average out.
What ends up happening with arbitrage is that once the supply ends, we end up with all the prices going to the higher price. In this case, we are looking at the United States, which is about 10 times our size. If we took our one-tenth of our size, and put it up against the U.S., which is 10 times our size, and we average it out, we know the prices are coming down. What will happen in fact is that our prices will rise to the price that the Americans are charging.
Not only would something like that be detrimental to Canadians' health, I think it would also be detrimental to our health care system and what it costs us to supply it.