Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that when the large centres cannot get drugs, the trickle down effect of small centres not getting them at all is going to be a big problem. We need to be worried about that.
This is why we are calling for the federal government to take a leadership role, to set up a drug shortage program and to start looking at how it can work with provinces and territories, anticipating the need for supplies, helping provinces, many of which cannot afford to buy drugs and are looking for cheaper generic drugs, which are the ones that tend to be in short supply. The government needs to look at how it can help anticipate this and help provinces to fast forward other drugs and bring in imported drugs if it needs to do so before the problem actually occurs.