Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the hon. member make statements about what he saw as the federal role and what the federal jurisdiction was about. The member says that it is obviously the provinces that are at fault for sole sourcing. He said that Sandoz was at fault for not telling everybody on time.
The hon. member has pointed out why a voluntary system does not work, if the government does not get the warning on time. However, the hon. member also took responsibility as a federal government for the manufacturing, the quality control, the contamination, and all that occurs in the manufacturing plant.
I keep asking this question and I would really like to hear an answer. Given that the Food and Drug Administration in the United States pointed out the problem in 2009 and given that the Minister of Health passed the inspection of Sandoz just prior to the second letter from the FDA in 2011, why does the government continue to say that it did not know? If it did know, and it knew the provinces were sole sourcing, then why did it not warn the provinces back in November 2011?