Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to the speech by the member opposite. He gave us the quite the background on Health Canada's regulations from the 1960s to today. I would like to provide some clarification on that background.
Thalidomide is a German sedative that was marketed in Canada in 1959 by the U.S. company William S. Merrell, which had the rights to distribute the drug. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA, rejected this drug because they deemed that evidence supporting the safety of this drug was inadequate. Nevertheless, this product was marketed here in Canada.
Does my colleague think that drug safety is the federal government's responsibility?