Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague brings up an issue that I never had an opportunity to address in my dialogue. That is the Patented Medicines Prices Review Board deals with patented medicines. The non-patented medicines side is not regulated at all in Canada.
If we ask Internet pharmacies how much of these unregulated pharmaceuticals are being utilized through the Internet, they would say just a fraction. In fact, the only reason they are there is because of convenience. When people from the United States need products, they are there for availability. It is not there because the products are cheaper product.
If we were to do a study between the price of generics in the United States and the prices of generic pharmaceuticals in Canada, we would find that ours are higher. That is of some debate, but we have looked at that as well.
Those are the facts as I see them. The reason we are not seeing the generics being purchased through the Internet validates my findings. If there was a differential in price, Americans would capitalizing on that difference.
One also has to understand that the difference between the Canadian dollar and U.S. dollar also gives an edge. Even if they were on par, we would see pharmaceuticals being exporting. However, they are not on par. We pay more for generics and less for brand name, but the bulk of the pharmaceuticals we use are brand name.
We have to do whatever we can to ensure that we stand on guard for Canadians and for cheaper pharmaceuticals. If it compromises price or availability, we have to step in. That is why this motion is so important
Even with those lower prices, we see that pharmaceuticals are the number one driver of costs in our health care system and will be for the foreseeable future. That is the urgency and that is why the debate is taking place. I look forward to my colleagues' speeches on this throughout the day.