Mr. Speaker, the experts that I am talking about are the independent public servants who have testified time and again and have said that the bill does do the things that the hon. member says it does not do.
Bill C-398 would not have increased the export of Canadian-made generic drugs to the developing world. The bill ignored the fact that countries are accessing generic medicines from other low-cost producers like Brazil or India. The bill, if implemented, would have been inconsistent with Canada's international obligations and would have weakened Canada's intellectual property regime. That is what the independent experts said.
Our government will continue to focus on what works, and what has been proven to work is the government's comprehensive approach to helping those in the developing world. This includes maintaining Canada's access to medicines regime and providing financial support to global public health initiatives. We will continue to be a leading contributor to funds like the global fund, the Africa health systems initiative and the global drug facility.
These initiatives, and others like them, have achieved significant results. Globally more than eight million people living with HIV in low- and middle-income countries were receiving HIV antiretroviral therapy at the end of 2011. This represents a 25-fold increase from 2002. Progress has also been made for other diseases. Four times as many people are receiving treatments for TB than were in 2000.
We will not stop there. We will continue to lead by example in the global community to increase the availability of treatment to the world's most vulnerable.