Mr. Chair, it is a privilege to stand and address the people in the House and the people of Canada with regard to this debate.
First, we have to understand what has happened, what the problem is and why it is there before we can solve a problem. In reality, we do not have a debate here because all sides agree on one direction, one thing that should be done. It then becomes a matter of why it has not been done which is what the debate should be about this evening.
The problem is that we have a pricing regime in Canada for brand name pharmaceuticals and it sets the price for Canadians, not for Americans. The only reason the Internet pharmacy industry is alive and doing well today is because it is using that pricing regime to pump those pharmaceuticals into a foreign market that does not have a pricing regime and whose pharmaceuticals are sometimes 50% to 80% higher for some of the brand name pharmaceuticals.
However, before we think that our pricing regime is so good, we have to understand that it is only for the brand name pharmaceuticals that it is actually working because our pricing regime for generic drugs is actually quite a bit higher than that of the United States and, therefore, we are not seeing the exploitation of Internet pharmacies with regard to generic pharmaceuticals. The problem has to do with whether we can afford to allow the pharmaceuticals to go into the United States and compromise our pricing regime.
We have always, in our party, said that if it ever compromises either the availability of product or the pricing of our product, it has to be curtailed. The decision tonight is either to curtail the Internet pharmacy or to destroy it. The present government is the one that actually encouraged it at one time and said that it was all right and it started.
I for one believe that we should curtail it. I do not believe that we should destroy it. In Manitoba we are talking about the jobs of a significant number of individuals who are working in this industry. I think it is fine as long as it is contained and it does not compromise two fundamental things, which is price of the product or the availability of it.
First, let us deal with the availability of it. There is no fear of the availability of any product except Tamiflu, and I will talk about that a little later. When it comes to the availability of brand name pharmaceuticals, it is the pharmaceutical corporation that must decide whether it wants to play this game. It can decide to live with containing it, but containing it would mean shutting down the bulk sales of it.
What has the health minister done? The minister came forward a year ago this November and said that this was his number one issue. I wonder how many times we have heard the government talk about something being its number one issue, but this was the number one issue in the speech the minister gave a year ago at Harvard.
However all winter last year the minister would throw another balloon in the air almost every week saying that it should be stopped because of this or it should be stopped because of that. For a little while he had a different reason almost on a weekly basis, which made it difficult to understand where he was. It was obvious that he wanted to do something but absolutely nothing was done. Here we are a year later and this was his number one priority.
He sent this to the health committee and we looked at it but we got bogged down on it to some degree. However we did come forward with a solution to the problem to help the minister out. The reason we came forward with a solution before we had completed our study was because of what was happening in the United States, where a bill was being pushed through Congress that looked like it would pass perhaps in the summertime. Before we broke for spring we felt that something had to be done to kick the minister in the backside to make something happen.
We pushed a motion through committee and on June 6 we moved for concurrence in the House on the committee report. However the Liberals, who had agreed to the motion in committee, limited the debate on the report and we were not able to vote on it on June 6.
The motion put forward by myself asked that the bulk sales of pharmaceuticals be shut down. It was all right to go individual to individual but to shut down bulk sales, the two fundamental problems that we were afraid of was either the price or the availability of the product.
Now, not only do the brand name pharmaceuticals want us to shut down the bulk sales but the Internet pharmacy businesses also say that we should do that. They see it as a positive move. They are very content with the business they have at the present time, which is actually diminishing because of the difference in the Canada and U.S. dollars.
We pushed the minister into action but what did he do? On June 29 he came out with an announcement. We thought something would actually happen but nothing happened. He announced that something had to be studied a little further and that perhaps he would do something with regard to dealing with this, which would be to shut down the bulk exports by way of the Food and Drugs Act. That is what should have been done and we expected that to happen. It should have been done long before now.
Here we are this evening debating and we should be debating on which way we should go on this. We also drove that debate into the House where we actually had a vote in the House on October 6, less than a month ago. The vote was 288 to 0, which means that every member of the House representing every Canadian in the country voted to shut down the bulk exportation of brand name pharmaceuticals in this country. We still have a minister who has not acted even though it was his number one priority a year ago.
That is the situation we have seen not only with the Internet pharmacy but with other high priority issues like crystal methamphetamine, an issue that we have long been waiting for. I had gone to the minister with a private member's bill asking for the precursors of methamphetamine to be prosecuted and to change the Food and Drugs Act to make that happen. The minister agreed with me and told me that he would see what he could do. He made an announcement in mid-summer that had to go into the chronicles for 75 days, which is long past, and we still have seen no action on the precursors for crystal methamphetamine. I took the minister at his word when he said that he would do something but he has not done it.
It gets worse than that. Hepatitis C is another issue where the House spoke loud and clear. A motion was moved in the House which was a directive given by the House to the minister to be able to compensate those who were victimized with hepatitis C outside the 1988 to 1990 window and absolutely not one cheque has been given. There was $1.2 billion set up in a fund and $1.1 billion left in it and the minister is still saying that we should study it. He said that we had to study it in June to find out whether we had enough money to pay out. He found out there was enough money but there still has not been one cheque.
That is the kind of contempt that the government is showing to Canadians and to the House. That is not democracy.
If we are here debating something tonight, it is not whether there should be a decision to ban exports of pharmaceuticals. We should be debating whether the House means anything, whether a vote in the House carries any weight and why the government is still in power when it can treat this place, and Canadians in an extension of this place, with such contempt. That is the real debate that should be taking place in the House tonight, especially on a day like we have had today when we see the kind of situations that the government has got into over the last number of years. It is a disgrace and it is frustrating.
Let us talk about something that is really relevant and very current with regard to brand name pharmaceuticals, Tamiflu. We have right now another few birds that have contracted avian flu. We are not sure exactly what strain it is. It is not only in Manitoba and in Ontario but it was discovered this afternoon in British Columbia. We are seeing, almost on a daily basis, a potentially very serious problem happening in our country.
When we see why we should have had bulk sales of pharmaceuticals banned it is because of the Tamiflu. Yesterday, not the brand name pharmaceuticals, but the Internet pharmaceutical corporations said that they will stop all sales of Tamiflu to the United States.They are the ones who have shown the leadership, more leadership than we have seen from the government and the minister.
It is absolutely amazing, when we are sitting with a potential crisis and when we have seen that it was the number one issue on the mind of the minister a year ago, and we have still seen no action. No wonder we are excited and upset about what we are not seeing in so far as leadership from the government.
Should it happen? Should we be banning bulk sales? Yes, but not now; it should have been long before now. What this debate is really about is the lack of leadership from a government that has shown none in this regard.