Dan McTeague

[Health Care System, October 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member provides some constructive points. On that issue, I have heard from this side of the House, short of what we hear in Romanow, that prevention to the extent that we can will have to become an increasingly important part of our discharge of the Canada Health Act, certainly as far as health care is concerned. However we have to recognize that we have an aging population.

We have to ensure that, while there are private companies involved in the delivery of a universal health care system, we do not invite a NAFTA challenge on the question of investment. We do not want to put ourselves in the position where we break away from the five principles, but we have to recognize the real context of what is causing and undermining our health care system. One of the most important ones, which has been identified by virtually every study in Canada over the past year, has been the dramatic and unacceptable rise in prescription drug prices because we have literally given away the farm and in turn received very little investment and a whole lot of debt.

[Health Care System, October 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey for sharing his time with me. Obviously there will be much debate in the process of take note on how we would like to see the evolving health care system transform itself in Canada. Obviously we have plenty to work on and as we speak there are significant changes occurring, and there are different components of our health care system which are leading to a cost-push scenario.

I cannot think of one that is more near and dear to the hearts of Canadians and is one that Canadians readily understand and are facing. However it is also something which is really responsible for the second largest portion of their bills. The Canadian Institute for Health Information pointed out recently that drug retail sales are now the second largest category of spending. Our health care system is spending more on drugs in this nation than we do on doctors.

It is not surprising that this is occurring and therefore I want to confine my remarks strictly to what I believe to be the underlying concern driving the rising cost of pharmaceuticals.

I am not talking about doing away with the 20-year patent protection period. It is already provided to create an environment where we have expensive brand name pharmaceuticals. I am not talking about removing Canada from its international obligations as outlined under the WTO or the TRIPS agreement on intellectual property rights.

I am talking about the spurious use of regulations attached to the Patent Act with respect to patented medicines. The regulations permit brand name companies and manufacturers to use automatic injunctions to keep much cheaper generic drugs off the market, even upon expiration of the 20-year patent protection period to which we have agreed, by simply claiming that their patent is being infringed. I point out that it is simply a claim.

Automatic injunctions are heinous, odious and an affront to our legal system. They are also a major cause behind the high cost of prescription drugs in Canada because by simply claiming infringement an automatic injunction is granted to a brand name manufacturer. The generic company which has the opportunity to bring its product on-line then has to face lengthy and prolonged court battles to clear the infringement case. Even though the courts dismiss well over 80% of the claims, the financial damage has already been done. The case has achieved the target of clearly delaying cheaper drugs from getting onto store shelves and obviously reducing the pocket books of those who need drugs, not because it is a fashionable thing but because they are sick.

Equally important, lengthy court cases virtually guarantee what amounts to an extended patent, an extension that goes well beyond the already provided for 20-year patent protection period. The use of the automatic injunction provision is more than not a deliberate and frivolous misuse of regulations. It provides an extended financial benefit to the brand name pharmaceutical companies and Canadians and Canada's health care system pay dearly for that.

That is why automatic injunctions, in my view and I think the view of a growing number of people in Canada, and certainly in the United States, is that they must be done away with.

What is the cost of delaying the entry onto the market of cheaper generic drugs? What is the cost to an already overburdened provincial and federal health care system? What is the cost to consumers? Most important, what is the cost to those people on low incomes, to those seniors who have paid and have to make the decision as to whether or not they wish to eat, pay the rent or buy expensive prescription drugs so they can simply live?

Not all Canadians have prescription drug coverage. I can assure the House that for too many Canadians it does not come down to having to make any financial decisions as to whether or not they can afford to fill prescriptions. Such incidents are not acceptable. Only Canada and the United States provide for this regime of automatic injunctions.

However, in the past 10 days to 12 days, the U.S. is taking action to limit the use of automatic injunctions. For example, President Bush stated in the last week or so that no multiple 30-month patent infringement claims will be from this point forward be permitted.

The so-called use of evergreening, applying for a new patent just because the shape of the pill has been changed or a new non-medicinal ingredient has been added, will not be allowed to continue in the United States.

As Americans prepare for their mid-term elections on November 5, drug costs and the actions of the multinational drug companies have inundated the political ads on TV, and the need for lower drug costs has become quite clearly a major election issue. With efforts underway in the United States senate and the house of representatives to address automatic injunctions and evergreening, Canada will soon become literally the only country in the world that permits such a disgusting and expensive activity. Given the tobacco issue last year and the Cipro case, it should be clear to everyone now that the multinational pharmaceutical companies only have the proverbial bottom line as their interest and not the health of Canadians.

The Kirby report on health just this last Friday accurately pointed out at least one thing. In recent years the cost of prescription drugs has escalated faster than all the other elements of health care, to support what CIHI had said just a little earlier. Why is this so? Why do we see these increases? Why do we permit this heavy burden to be applied to the provincial drug formularies, to Canadian seniors, to low income Canadians and to those who do not have a prescription drug plan?

There are some people who are turning to the debate on patent protection, and automatic injunctions in particular, into a question of regionalism. They argue that to remove injunctions would pit one region against another, as the brand name companies are primarily headquartered on the island of Montreal, for instance, and generic companies are located in Ontario. Anything that cuts into existing provisions that could extend the patent would damage Quebec's pharmaceutical industry and, yes, they even argue that some of these same companies would leave Quebec and Canada altogether.

For the record, I have three brand name pharmaceuticals in my riding. I have no generics. However I have an interest for the 137,000 constituents I represent.

I can assure the House or for that matter any party that there are people in regions across Canada, whether it be Saskatchewan or Quebec, who are living on low incomes or who are elderly. I am sure most over time will get ill and will require prescription drugs at some point in their lives. This is not therefore and should not be in any way, shape or form a political issue.

Understandably there are some who want to make it that debate. Clearly we do not. Certainly on the industry committee in the last session, it was clear that the committee wanted to tackle the issue of automatic injunctions. At some point it will.

Some parties in the House like to call themselves staunch defenders of democracy and will always stand up for a region's interests. At the same time, as the past indicates, they defend multinational manufacturers by not demanding the end of automatic injunctions. We cannot have it both ways.

Clearly other issues have to be brought into consideration. Losac, which is used for ulcers, is one of the largest drugs used in Canada and the United States. It has now been caught in a legal web in Canada for nearly four years. The price is for this drug is too high, as recognized not only by governments in the United States and Canada, but by manufacturers and unions. Why are we paying it? Simply because we want to protect a regulation under the notice of compliance that was passed in 1992 without the consent of the committee and which slipped through at the last moment by Parliament. If we want to talk about a regulation that is doing much to undermine the credibility of our system, this is one.

We have given the brand name pharmaceuticals 20 years of patent protection. We did this for their efforts and expense to research and create new innovative drugs. There is no doubt that brand name pharmaceutical companies should receive revenue for their work. However I still do not understand how TV ads can be included as part of the research and development costs under our tax act.

Nonetheless the brand companies deserve fair compensation for their investments. Fairness, it would appear, is a two-way street. Nowhere is it acceptable to use a government provided regulatory measure to gain additional revenues, especially when a guaranteed 20 year patent exists.

With the exception of the United States, we understand that every other WTO country does not permit automatic injunctions. Clearly, why should Canada? It is time for us to act to ensure that cheaper prescription drugs are made available on the pharmacy shelves of this nation.

Finally, we cannot talk about the health care system in Canada if we are not talking about the most dramatic impact it is having on health care.

[Patent Act, October 24th, 2002]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-251, an act to amend the Patent Act (patented medicines)

Mr. Speaker, the bill concerns patented medicines and seeks to amend the Patent Act by repealing the power of the governor in council to make regulations preventing the infringement of the patent by any person who makes, uses, constructs or sells the patent invention solely for uses reasonably related to the development of a submission.

For the information of members, the bill addresses, for example, the inequality of regulations currently attached to the Patent Act. This concerns the rather odious practice of permitting automatic injunctions to some brand name pharmaceutical companies that are claiming patent infringement when in reality they are merely seeking a delay of entry on the market of cheaper generic drugs once an existing patent has expired.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Competition Act, October 24th, 2002]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-249, an act to amend the Competition Act.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to reinstate this private member's bill from the last session of parliament. The bill seeks to amend the Competition Act to clarify the competition tribunal's powers to make or not to make an order in the case of a merger when gains in efficiency are expected or when the merger would create or strengthen a dominant market position.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Main Estimates, 2002-2003, June 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, my time this evening was in very short supply. I wish to be recorded as voting with the government.

[Petitions, May 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to present a petition with over 900 signatures from residents of Pickering--Ajax--Uxbridge and other places throughout Durham region who are very concerned about domestic violence and the efficiency of our current restraining orders. With tragic events like the murder-suicide in June 2000 in Pickering, which claimed the life of Gillian Hadley, the petitioners request that individuals who have been issued restraining orders be required to wear electronic monitoring devices.

[Patent Act, May 1st, 2002]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-454, an act to amend the Patent Act (patented medicines).

Mr. Speaker,with Canadians being concerned about the high price of drugs, the bill is intended to repeal provisions of the Patent Act, patented medicines, that enable brand name pharmaceutical manufacturers to initiate automatic injunctions against generic drug companies for alleged patent infringement. Of course under the current regulations a brand name pharmaceutical manufacturer can claim there has been infringement on its drug patent without the need for evidence to suggest that it has actually occurred. This is unique not only in terms of most nations around the world but indeed under the Patent Act. The bill is intended to repeal just that.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Supply, April 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has certainly exhibited a very personal commitment. It speaks to the significance of this issue.

It does not create a dilemma for most members of parliament. I do not think there is a single one of us here who would agree with the decision that was rendered in terms of what we have seen as a result of what is now a loophole in law. We also recognize and respect the fact that a motion as written is not etched in stone. It is not in itself a legal parlance subject tomorrow morning to the Supreme Court of Canada's decision, albeit that is somewhat ironic since it would appear that it got it wrong the last time.

A team of members of parliament dedicated themselves at the first initiative to look at this very objectively to find 15 different areas in which we should attack the issue of child pornography. In light of the missteps by the courts and perhaps originally by the poor drafting of the legislation, the last thing we should do is divide ourselves on wording that may or may not serve the ultimate effect of increasing the age of those who consent while at the same time potentially decreasing the age of those in positions of trust. I can only think of people like Mr. Kennedy, a young hockey player who was in that situation.

I do not think for many people in trust or authority, given the controversies that are there, we can allow ourselves to provide flimsy language on a motion. There is an opportunity here and I will propose another one shortly with Mr. Speaker's indulgence.

[Supply, April 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I had a suggested amendment which I think was covered by the hon. member for Pictou--Antigonish--Guysborough. This would come in the form of a friendly amendment, subject to those who have presented the motion. It reads that the government immediately introduce legislation to eliminate the legal loophole of artistic merit and other measures to enhance the protection of children from pedophiles and child pornographers in light of recent court decisions.

[Supply, April 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the motion today.

I feel a little like an expectant father in the sense that much of this debate today, which is certainly long overdue, hopefully will ultimately create an environment whereby members do not fall on a partisan basis on what is being proposed.

The motion itself deals with the more interesting question of consent which is reflected in the actual decision itself. However most Canadians understand this issue from the perspective of the decision by Shaw in Sharpe number two, the most recent one last month, in which the decision was made based on the judge not finding an advocacy or counselling of child pornography or molestation. The second one, which received wider media attention, was on the more limited subject of artistic merit as a defence.

The motion which comes from the Canadian Alliance does not deal contextually with the concerns that have been expressed readily. We have had some debate over Bill C-15. The member for Scarborough Southwest has made some pretty good comments with respect to Internet service providers and the requirements we are making. The government should be lauded for moving in the right direction.

On April 16, a week ago this evening, as is reported in some of the papers today, a meeting did take place. I note that some of the facts and figures that came out of a meeting with experts on the subject of child pornography have found their way into the speeches of hon. colleagues. It is interesting that those speeches were taken to heart because subsequently there was a commitment made by most of those members to deal with the issues as they were raised and there were some 11, and options.

The first option deals with the age of consent being raised from 14 to 16 while maintaining the close in age exemption. The suggestion was that there be an amendment to section 151 to substitute 16 for 14 but with the qualifier to retain the age of 18 as a consent for trust relationships.

A number of other issues were raised, such as eliminate the defence of artistic merit; determine that child pornography, written or otherwise, is a form of hate crime; and require that written child pornography be found to advocate in sin and counsel sexual activity. There would be appropriate changes for that.

Another issue was that private recordings of lawful sexual activity privately held for personal use would be subjected to a constraint. There would be an option to restrict such exceptions to recordings between persons under 18 not engaged in explicit sexual activity, clearly indicating both knowledge and consent that the activity is being recorded, not kept in a manner where it is capable of distribution to others, and possession is for the exclusive personal use or the person's possession.

There was concern about expressive material in issue number five, which was a clarification or writing of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Concern was raised on another issue and an option that was given about the necessity for police to provide copies of every image seized. It is a little like a drug bust, where one would have to haul in the entire containership as opposed to bringing in a sample. This makes the jobs or resources for police unnecessary and depletes the resources in combating child pornography.

There were other sections that dealt with DNA and other sections that dealt with the issue of a primary designated offence. We were also talking about minimum mandatory penalties for those who commit these kinds of activities.

There was the idea of a national child protection strategy and the concern about, as we saw in the Bernardo case, the re-victimization of certain individuals as a result of permitting the defence an opportunity to see the tapes and having to go through legal gymnastics in order to get the tapes destroyed.

There was also a concern about the retention of information by Internet service providers which I alluded to in my debate last week.

It is pretty hard to argue against a motion in which, as poorly worded as it may or may not be, the intent is correct, that there must be action by this parliament. I said so in a letter to the Prime Minister 45 minutes after the final decision of Justice Shaw.

I was involved with the contemplation of the use of the notwithstanding clause back in 1999-2000 at the first round. I have made a number of interventions on this in a number of different forums. There is a way for parliament to work out the entire issue of child protection in an environment where we can ensure that the maximum degree of protection is afforded our children and yes, not be afraid of using the criminal code to do that.

Before we get to the notwithstanding clause and before we put awkwardly worded questions into law, we must first understand the importance of the issue that the public expects us to address. Very clearly, the artistic merit defence as qualified by the Supreme Court of Canada, as qualified by saying artistic merit however small, should never be used as a sop to ignore the real purposeful risk that exists to children as a result of written information.

Why is that critical? It is critical for one simple reason. The people who look at, purvey and create these images do it so they can suppress the cognitive distortions or use as a distortion but suppress what would otherwise be an affront to most people. It normalizes the degradation, the torture, the raping of children. It allows them an opportunity to fulfill the belief that what they are doing can be vindicated and can be acceptable.

Of course, normal people in society cannot deal with this because the question of the community harm standard was removed. We also know on this issue that short of the community not having a role to play, we were also told that any simple, tiny, minute form of artistic merit would be enough to outdistance and outclass the importance of protecting children.

It is clear to me, and I say so respectfully to the judges, that the Supreme Court of Canada got it wrong. Justice Shaw went even further in a couple of areas alluded to by me and the justice critic for the Bloc Quebecois, as to how there were a number of errors committed in law.

Ultimately, an action plan could contemplate the direction to the B.C. supreme court to at least review and appeal the issue as we did in the case of Marshall and in the case of Askov. We said that the supreme court made a decision and the lower courts got it wrong so we are going to refer it back to the supreme court to give a decision. We could look at that as an option. However, for this parliament not to delve into it and deliberately set itself upon the notion of having to tackle this issue head on, in my view is an abdication of our responsibility regardless of what party or what corner of a province or part of the country we come from.

It is for this reason I have often felt it was important. It was good enough for the premier of Manitoba 24 hours after the decision to ask the federal government to consider protecting the interests of children and not perverts. It was good enough for the province of Alberta and for other others to make the comments. It was good enough for 85% of Canadians to say on the question of written information, they do not believe that the question of expression and the freedom to express it should be boundless.

There is a line that has been crossed here not just on who calls the shots in terms of the laws of this country, but also a determination of the rights of individuals. If we are so willing to give the benefit of the doubt in the most minute form to people to express themselves while completely ignoring the life, liberty and security of the person which are also guaranteed in the charter, then who will speak for the children?

I cannot be more forceful on that point. I do not think there is any relevance in this parliament going forward with other ideas, debates and issues if in the first instance we cannot protect the next generation.

What is some 750,000 images of 10,000 different children, some as young as six months of age in my community in Toronto? That is significant. There are things we cannot correct because they deal with social mores but we can at least take the time to consider options here and now that restore not only the integrity and the confidence the public has in this place and the other place, but also the confidence in the next generation.

It would be helpful if opposition members who proposed the motion would at the very least consider the annoying part that has caused some difficulty over the question of consent. If they could qualify that, as we did in issue number one which was referred to a little earlier, it would be extremely helpful. I think we would find that a lot more members would support the resolution.