Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin.
I am pleased to take part in this emergency debate on Canada's drug shortage. Our official opposition health critic requested this debate, and I thank her for her initiative. In my opinion, this debate is necessary because of the Conservative government's negligence and the fact that a shortage of generic injectable drugs poses a real threat to public health.
Despite the government's reassuring statements, for the past three weeks, hospitals in Quebec and Canada have been dealing with the most severe injectable drug shortage ever. This crisis came about because the entire Canadian system depends on a single supplier, the Sandoz plant in Boucherville, for 90% of its generic injectable drugs. Sandoz manufactures 235 products, including morphine, anticoagulants, antibiotics and cancer drugs. Sandoz products are essential for palliative and intensive care, as well as surgery.
People in Rivière-des-Mille-Îles and residents of the lower Laurentians are worried about the shortage. Many of them depend on services provided by the Hôpital de Saint-Eustache, which is in my riding. Fortunately, facilities in the Laurentians have not yet been affected, but we know that some Quebec hospitals are coping with a shortage of drugs that are essential to critical and intensive care.
The situation is very disturbing. For example, at the Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont, drug reserves have dwindled to a five- to seven-day supply—half of what they should be. Last week, some 80 surgeries were cancelled in the Outaouais. In the GTA, elective surgeries have been postponed or cancelled. In Alberta, some chemotherapy patients now have to go to pharmacies to get their own anti-nausea medication because they cannot get it intravenously at the hospital. Their pills can cost up to $13 each. The shortage of injectable opiates will hit intensive and palliative care patients particularly hard because they cannot take drugs by mouth.
The health care community is very worried. Myriam Sabourin, spokeswoman for the Agence de la santé et des services sociaux des Laurentides, admitted that if this situation continues, it could become a real problem. Ontario's health minister, Deb Matthews, said that patient safety is at significant risk. HealthPRO Canada, Canada's largest group purchasing organization, which is responsible for purchasing drugs for 255 institutions outside Quebec, estimates that the shortage could last for one year.
While this situation is critical, the Conservative government is wasting time trying to lay blame. It has blamed the provinces, which often tend to use a single supplier for their drugs. Clearly, this government has reached the height of hypocrisy. How can it criticize the provinces for trying to save some money using group purchasing, especially since this government just announced its unilateral decision to cap the indexing of health transfers?
Unlike this government, which is dragging its feet, the health ministers of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec are showing leadership and holding weekly conference calls to establish supply priorities.
Not content to blame the provinces alone, the government has also tried to point the finger at Sandoz. The Minister of Health said that she is very concerned about how Sandoz has managed the situation. We are also concerned about how Sandoz has managed it, just as we are concerned about the lack of transparency of other companies in the pharmaceutical industry. But unlike the Conservatives, who want to deregulate everything, we believe that tighter regulations are needed, including a mandatory production reporting system.
The Conservative government has also tried to explain its disorganization by claiming that it could not have anticipated that a fire that took place on March 4 at the Sandoz facilities would stop production for over a week. Yet production problems at Sandoz date back to before the March 4 fire.
On February 16, the pharmaceutical company sent a letter to its clients announcing that it had to stop or temporarily suspend production of a number of its drugs, some of which are considered essential by Quebec hospitals.
This slowdown was the result of a warning from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which noted serious violations in the company's production standards. We should note however, that these violations should not affect products distributed in Canada. However, Sandoz has been working for the past two weeks on making the changes requested by the FDA, which has resulted in a significant slowdown in production. The March 4 fire obviously made things worse.
Nevertheless, our Canadian government has known, at least since February, that Sandoz would have difficulty meeting its commitments. Three weeks later, the Conservative government still has not come up with a credible solution and Sandoz still cannot say when it will be able to resume production.
In order to address the drug shortage, the Conservative government is trying to implement an expedited approval process for a number of drugs manufactured abroad that meet European or American standards. It generally takes at least three months for a drug to be approved by the Public Health Agency of Canada. The government hopes that expediting the approval process will make it possible to import substitutes.
Many observers are skeptical about this solution because the generic drug manufacturers are already working at capacity. Even if the federal government approves new products, the industry will not necessarily be able to manufacture them because they are already working full tilt.
Marc-André Gagnon, a professor of public policy at Carleton University and an expert on pharmaceutical programs, does not believe that this is an effective solution. Let me quote him.
We live in an era of just-in-time production...We must understand that the market for generic drugs is expanding. Thus, production is at full capacity at this time. Drugs cannot be stockpiled abroad in the event that a shortage occurs somewhere.
In short, the situation is precarious and it will take a long time to resolve the crisis because we lack the communication tools and the checks and balances for keeping the industry in line. The Liberal and Conservative governments refused to take action when they needed to. As a result, the provinces have come to realize, once again, that they must be self-reliant.
In closing, I would like to point out some of the solutions proposed by the NDP in recent years, which have been cited recently by the health community.
First, we think it is essential to implement a mandatory manufacturing reporting system so that the risk of stock shortages can be identified in advance. This proposal was reiterated by the Alberta and Ontario health ministers, the Canadian Cancer Society and doctors and administrators in hospitals across Canada.
We are also proposing that a special agency be given the mandate of monitoring the industry on an ongoing basis so that Health Canada can react more quickly when there is a potential drug shortage. I am very pleased to see that this proposal was recently mentioned by Diane Lamarre, president of the Ordre des pharmaciens du Québec.
Moreover, as the provincial ministers of health have proposed, the federal government should also approve certain suppliers, selected by the provinces, in order to address the drug shortage. To do this, the Conservative government must stop blaming others and agree to work with the provinces.
Finally, a longer-term vision must be developed. Drug shortages have become more frequent since 2008.
As doctors, pharmacists and some patient groups have called for, a broader investigation needs to be conducted into drug shortages. This investigation should focus on the transparency and business practices of pharmaceutical companies. It should also make recommendations in order to ensure that public authorities have all the tools they need to protect the common good.
I hope that the government will listen and will co-operate with stakeholders from the health care community and the provinces in order to resolve this recurring problem in the generic drug industry once and for all.
The federal government has a leadership role to play and must act in concert with the provinces to ensure that Canadians have all the drugs they need.
Lastly, I would like to thank all the employees of the House and all the pages who stayed in order to allow us to hold a debate on this very important subject.
I am ready to answer questions from my hon. colleagues.