Mr. Speaker, I had the pleasure of working with the member on the health committee in the past and I always appreciate her comments.
My question deals with the beginning of the member's speech where there was a demand for increased free market surveillance. This bill, in the case of natural health products, looks at the risk profile of a natural health product. A product that has been used for thousands of years or is of low risk would be approved very quickly. This is very important to those who have natural health products because everyone in this industry is aware that there is a huge backlog in natural health products.
If we actually do what the member is insisting on doing, that will make it more difficult for natural health products to enter the market and therefore will deny people the opportunity to have the maximum choice of natural health products.
I wonder if the member would reconsider that position and accept the life cycle approach where products are viewed on a risk profile and low risk products are approved quickly and high risk products receive lots of scrutiny and are monitored for the entire time the product is in the market after being released into the market.