Madam Speaker, first I wish to congratulate the member for Windsor West for bringing the bill forward. It is an important element for the House to discuss. I would urge all members to consider voting in favour of the bill and getting it to a committee where we can have a transparent and open discussion about the impact of the current legislation.
A number of people have spoken about the government proposals. We have a number of difficulties with them. In part, the discussion on many of the proposals that have come forward has occurred behind the scenes. There has not been an open and very public dialogue about the impact of these particular regulations.
There are some fear that these regulations are stop gap at the very best and that they would not address some of the current abuses that are in place. It took seven years to get these changes into place but there is no mandatory review and no real guarantee that they will work this time. The government thought the regulations were going to work last time and they clearly have not.
The CGPA has done some very quick estimates of the cost of increased data protection. Had these current proposals been in place over the last five years, it would have added a further $600 million to prescription costs in Canada. That is just at a minimum. Those kinds of numbers contribute to what we are talking about in terms of the spiralling drug costs in this country.
Who is hurt the most by these drug costs? We are in a climate where we are putting profits before people. Drug therapy costs are second only to hospital expenditures and they are slightly larger than expenditures on doctors. There is no indication that these drug costs will change any time soon.
Provincial governments are demanding changes as their drug benefit plan costs increase at about 14% annually. With an aging population it is very difficult to see how these drug costs would go down substantially over the foreseeable future.
Canadian taxpayers are paying twice in our current system. They not only pay for our public, universal health care system, but they are also paying again at the pharmacy counter. These kinds of doubling up of costs for Canadians cannot go on.
The current regulations have multiple impacts. One impact that they have is on the drug benefit plans. Green Shield Canada's analysis of drug claim costs from 1997 to 2001 indicated that maximizing generic use was important in controlling costs.
Green Shield also indicated before the industry committee in 2003 that because of the rising cost of drugs they were being forced to change their standards of coverage and by doing so they were having to delist eligible drugs, increase co-payments and increase deductibles, which were having a direct impact on its patients.
It also impacts on employers and employees. Unions negotiate health benefits to fill gaps left by our health care system. Many unions have vocally asked for a public pharmacare as there is increasing conflict at the bargaining table over the costs of health plans, particularly drug plans.