Yes, Mr. Speaker, I believe it is. It gives the tools to the Department of Health. It gives the department the potential to ensure the safety of a product as its use evolves. Currently, all we can do is look at whether the product is safe for the use for which the application was made. With time, the use might become completely different than what was considered when that product was developed and when clinical trials were happening.
As I mentioned in my speaking notes, if we want to make the initial licensing so restrictive and so strict as to ensure our safety on all uses in the future, no therapies would ever come to market. No new drugs and no new therapies would ever become commercialized and Canadians would not have access to them.
I think this is a logical way to do it. It is a smart regulation. I do not know why we would ever have accepted stupid regulation, but this is an intelligent way of having regulation and ensuring safety.
It is important to have the necessary tools and the will at the Department of Health to impose those further clinical trials after the drug has been on the market for a certain amount of time. Again, that is going to require some cooperation from pharmaceutical producers.