My colleague from London—Fanshawe says, “Nor will we”. That is why I bring to this debate my concerns.
However, that is not to say that there are not some good provisions in this bill. I do recognize that the government has moved a significant distance from the days of the Liberals. Ironically, this legislation is more proactive than the Liberals ever presented to this House. However, it still has lots of problems and it still does not mean we will be supporting it but it is a step forward.
I would like to point to a couple of those initiatives. The bill has provisions for the recall of drugs and food products that have contaminants. The bill sets out hefty fines for corporations that do not reveal problems or side effects with drugs. There is new emphasis in this bill around ensuring that government has the tools to protect Canadians. I commend the government for those initiatives and I support those aspects of the bill that take us forward toward what I consider fundamental to this whole debate and that is a do no harm approach when it comes to food and drugs.
However, beneath those specific clauses and the fine words of the press release that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health presented to Canadians about safety first, there are enough concerns to make me and others suspicious of what the government is all about and where it is trying to lead us.
We only need to look at a couple of the areas that we have heard about to date. I hear some of my colleagues on the Conservative benches chuckling. I do not think they would chuckle if they were to listen to the words of Dr. Barbara Mintzes, who has brought to the attention of the House a clause in the bill that appears to move the government closer to direct to consumer advertising. That is so well documented that some of the officials have already said that they acknowledge that is a problem and maybe it needs to be addressed.
Why is that important? Do we want to see another $6.3 billion added to our pharmacare bill? Do we want to see big pharma pushing their drugs on Canadians without scientific basis? Do we want to see full-blown advertising in this country, as is the case in the United States?
Is it not enough that we have this grey area where drug companies can find a loophole and advertise all they want the lifestyle and create the appearance of something helping this person without naming the drug. We need only to look at the Viagra ads. They are pretty clear and impressive and they have led to all kinds of people demanding prescriptions for certain drugs from their doctors without necessarily a basis in terms of either their condition or the science available.
Direct to consumer advertising is just one of the problems in the bill that will make us very cautious about supporting it. Unless this loophole is closed and there is a firm commitment from the government to absolutely close the door to direct to consumer advertising, which not only means where we are today but going back and closing the door in terms of the loophole, there is no way in the world we should support the bill because of the ramifications it would have for our entire health care system, a system where costs for pharmaceuticals are now outstripping all other aspects of the system.
I will give another example. We have heard mentioned in the Chamber today the words “lifecycle approach” to drug surveillance or “progressive licensing”. It all sounds great, innovative and progressive but we need to realize that underneath it all there could very well be an agenda to speed up the approval of drugs at the front end and create the illusion of safety or the reality of safety at the other end.
However, what does it matter when we have already digested a drug that is not safe and has produced serious health consequences? Can it be that the government has listened to the drug companies when they say that they would rather deal with expensive lawsuits and pay out big money after being sued than to put in the money that is needed at the front end to ensure that the drugs are safe in the first place?
The real question we have to ask today is the one Alan Cassels and others asked in the media when the bill was released. Would this bill prevent another Vioxx? Would it stop a situation where hundreds of thousands of people are dying because they took a drug without realizing there were serious side effects unrelated to the condition for which they were taking it? What in this bill would stop that? Where is the inspection force? Where is the apparatus? Where is the infrastructure to make that happen? Where is the commitment from the government to deal with contaminated drugs coming into this country? How will the government handle another heparin, a contaminated drug from China? Is it prepared to send inspection officers to manufacturers in China? Is it prepared to put surveillance officers at the border? Is it prepared to take seriously the side effects that Canadians talk about? Is it prepared to act the minute there are serious reactions to drugs?
I hope that is the case. I do not know if that is the case. I do not know if this bill would do that. I want to keep an open mind about that. When we get to committee, I want to ask those questions. Witnesses will testify. We are going to seriously study that aspect. The fundamental bottom line when it comes to this bill is, is it going to stop another Vioxx? That is the question. How will it do it? Will it do it in time? Will it really make drug companies provide the information that they may have held in secret which may reveal something? Would it have been able to get out of Merck Frosst the information around Vioxx that it kept secret that would have prevented hundreds of thousands of deaths?
Those are two areas of concern. There are others.
We have received hundreds of letters from people concerned about natural health products. We have been inundated with letters and communications expressing concern about this bill and whether or not there is a hidden agenda to bring natural health products under the rubric of drugs, after the huge battle we have had in this House for a decade to have a separate category for natural health products. This is something that the Conservatives took up with a vengeance some 10 years ago, which led to a health committee discussion and a report, which led to the establishment of a third category, which led to some reasonable approach to dealing with natural health products. Unfortunately, both the Liberals and the Conservatives since then have botched the whole plan. We now have hundreds of thousands of natural health products waiting in line to be assessed and licensed.
The question here is, is this a way to get around that? Is this an attempt to deal with the backlog like we have seen with immigration? Perhaps it is similar to the budget implementation bill and slipping immigration into that bill. We do not know.
Needless to say, when it comes to this area, there is nothing more important than how we protect people in terms of the drugs and the medications they have to take and the food they have to eat. It is the job of government to put safety first, to ensure that products on the market are as safe as possible. That means a proactive government, tough regulations, adequate resources, a government with the will to make safety fundamental and to put people before drug profits.