An exemplary system, as my colleague from Halifax has just stated.
However over the period of the life of the Liberal government, we have seen dramatic changes and significant movement with respect to the original solid foundation upon which our health protection system was built.
Time and time again we have seen the government take steps to off-load responsibility for the fundamental authority it has under the Food and Drugs Act to protect, beyond a reasonable doubt, the safety of our food. We have seen the integrity of scientists questioned at every stage when they have raised doubts and concerns about the scientific surveillance of food and drugs on the market today.
We have watched as the government has dismantled every office of oversight that is so vital to the broad requirements to ensure the precautionary principle, which is to ensure that the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breath and the drugs we must take for our health requirements are safe beyond a reasonable doubt. It is not the other way around, which is to allow industry to put products on the market and then for the consumer to prove there is something wrong. However that seems to be the prevailing thinking of the government these days.
This is not something recent. This has been happening on a very insidious basis over many years. I think back to the first day I was elected to this chamber and named the health critic for the New Democratic Party. The very first announcement we had to deal with was a decision by the then minister of health, Allan Rock, to dismantle the drug research laboratory.
In 1997 the Liberals made the decision to shut down the one office in Health Canada that had responsibility for ongoing research into drugs that had been placed on the market, to check the side effects and any kinds of adverse reactions when that drug was taken with food, with another drug or with a natural health product. It was gone in one fell swoop. The bureau was shut down and oversight ended.