Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to wrap up debate on Bill C-378, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act and the Food and Drug Regulations (drug export restrictions).
It is a bit surprising to hear my Conservative colleagues use words like “unlikely” and “not emergent” when the bill is about prevention and giving the minister the tools he needs in the event of a problem, particularly as we are in flu season right now.
Members will recall how two years ago, when one of the batches of American flu vaccines did not work, we ended up with all of our supplies here in Canada at risk. Particularly, our neighbouring states, the governors and the public health agencies there would have been able, without these tools, to wholesale import vaccines to their states.
I ask my colleagues here in the House to support Bill C-378. This bill is merely aimed at giving the Minister of Health an ability to control the cross-border trade in prescription drugs and vaccines. As has been said, this is only one small step in terms of being able to control some of the Internet and walking trade, in terms of individuals, that the former minister of health pointed out.
The bill would make it an offence under the Food and Drugs Act to export prescription drugs in prohibited circumstances. By amending the Food and Drugs Act, the legislation will protect Canadians.
Canada, as we have said many times, cannot be America's discount drug store. Canada needs to protect itself from the dramatic expansion of importation by the U.S. of drugs intended for our patients.
The prospect of the U.S. legalizing large-scale purchases from our domestic supply is real. The threat to Canada's drug supply increased on January 10, 2007, when the bipartisan group of U.S. senate and house members introduced the critical drug importation legislation. U.S. Senators Dorgan and Snowe, and Representatives Emerson and Emanuel indicated the new pharmaceutical market access and drug safety act had support from more than 30 groups, including AARP, Families USA and unfortunately, the support of most of the presidential candidates.
The group's news release added that the legislation would allow individuals to directly order medications from outside the U.S., including from Canadian pharmacies.
On January 10, U.S. Senator David Vitter, with the former minister of health, pointed out that his main objective was to undermine and destroy the drug pricing regime here in Canada. He reintroduced his comprehensive prescription drug reimportation legislation, the pharmaceutical market access act, which is similar to the legislation introduced in the house of representatives on the same day.
On October 31, 2007, the U.S. senate adopted Senator Vitter's drug reimportation amendment to the U.S. senate labour, health and human services and education department appropriations bill. In addition to foot traffic, Vitter's amendment would also allow mail order and Internet importation from Canada. The language was stripped from the conference report, but the conference report was vetoed. Next steps and timing remain uncertain.
In July of this year Senator Vitter introduced similar amendments to the homeland security appropriations bill that would allow personal importation for Canada. In December, conferees will meet to discuss the different house, with no amendment, and senate, with amendment proposals.
When I was in Washington, it was very clear they are not going to let this go away. These members of Congress and the senate are very keen to do the job of allowing cheap drugs from Canada.
These legislative proposals pose an imminent and serious threat to the security and integrity of Canada's drug supply and a genuine threat to the health of Canadians. Of equal importance, this legislation represents a threat to American patients by allowing relinquishment of necessary community based medication monitoring and management, and increasing risks from the potential of counterfeit drugs that the WHO is very worried about.
Allowing bulk prescription drug imports would not significantly reduce U.S. prescription prices for very long. A recent University of Texas study concluded, based on the worse case scenario, that Canada's stocks of prescription drugs would amount to a 38 day supply for the United States assuming all U.S. medications were Canadian sourced.
Once U.S. demand depletes, Canadian stock prices will almost certainly rise, narrowing or possibly even eliminating the difference between U.S. and Canadian prices. The issue of bulk exports--