Mr. Speaker, my colleague from the Conservative Party is right. This is the only one of its kind in the world. Canada's access to medicine regime, CAMR, was an innovative, pioneering move five years ago. It still is today, but it is not working and it needs to be overhauled. It needs to be fixed. We need to keep our commitment to the world to ensure drugs get to people who need them in developing nations.
For all of the arguments we have heard in opposition today and in the past, there are strong rebuttals. There are all kinds of arguments that have been made in this House and the other place. I am here to urge members to let this bill go to committee so that we can spend the time rebutting those arguments or hearing concerns and making any necessary amendments.
I am not saying this bill is perfect. I am saying it is absolutely essential. We cannot miss this opportunity. We owe it to too many people here in this country and around the world to fail at this point.
Two years ago we had an opportunity to fix CAMR and we did not. We failed at that point. We dare not fail today. We dare not let the world be disappointed by our inaction because we did not have the courage at least to hear the arguments at committee, make the case and improve this legislation. We owe it to those who need our medicines. We owe it to those whose lives have to be saved.
I owe so much to the grandmothers across this nation for the work they have done on this issue. I want to acknowledge their work. I want to thank Sharon Swanson from the Lanark County Grannies who is with us today. I want to thank Peggy Edwards, Kathleen Wallace-Deering, Gillian Sandeman, Elizabeth Rennie, Andrea Beal and Marilyn Coolen from the Ottawa group. I want to thank from Winnipeg the group Grans 'N' More, especially Linda Watson, Enid Butler, Charlotte Caron, Barb Fletcher, Shelley Coombes, Nancy Cosway, Jean Sorko, Jean Altemeyer and many others.
Finally, I want to say that we are doing this for people who need our support. In the last minute of debate, I want to quote Stephen Lewis, who is a pioneer in this area and who helped form the Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign. I want to quote from an article in the Globe and Mail of Saturday, October 22, 2005:
The 40 million people infected worldwide--26 million in Africa. The millions, mainly young women, without access to treatment because the world won't pay for it....
His voice drops again to a whisper: “And they're all young women, they're all in the 20s and 30s. You go into a hospice, 25 beds, 23 of them filled by women in their 20s. You can't get the drugs to them in time. You know they're going to die in a matter of months”.
In talking about the children, he said:
You go into a little community centre for kids...and I remember this...you have a whole group of kids sitting in a little room. They look as though they're 4 or 5, they're all stunted, and they're really 8, 9, 10 years old, all HIV-positive, and there are no drugs. And you know these kids are measuring their lives in minutes. And you just wonder...why is this? How long can it happen? How long does it have to go on incrementally?
It's just so bad. It's so awful.
Let us not fail these children, these women, the people in other parts of the world who need our help. Let this bill go to committee.
The vote on the bill will be on Wednesday. We do not have enough support for it. All of the Bloc and all of the NDP members are committed to supporting it. We only have a third of the Liberals and a handful of Conservatives. That is not enough to move this bill forward. We need each and every member to think about this and at least allow for a positive vote on Wednesday so we can study this matter further. We must ensure that this country stands up to its promise in the world and is true to the commitment it has made to people everywhere.