Nicole Demers

[Pay Equity, May 9th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, four years ago, the pay equity task force released its report. That was four years ago and the Conservative government has done absolutely nothing. Women are still earning only 71% of what men make.

Is it possible that the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages thinks the same as her leader, who, in 1998, as president of the president of the National Citizens Coalition, said that pay equity is a rip-off and that this ridiculous law should be scrapped?

[Old Age Security Act, May 8th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in this House to discuss the bill introduced by my colleague from Alfred-Pellan.

I listened carefully to what previous speakers had to say. I think it is deplorable that, now that the Conservatives are finally in government, they are deviating from the stance they took two years ago when they were in opposition and insisted that eligible individuals receive the guaranteed income supplement with full retroactivity.

Why is it that, when people move from one side of Parliament to the other, their perspective undergoes a corresponding shift? Is this some kind of disease that affects parties as soon as they come to power, making them change their stance on issues? Suddenly, they no longer have the same convictions, the same desire to give seniors their due. Is that kind of attitude normal?

This government has broken its promises to women, to veterans and to seniors. Now it is once again breaking its promise to seniors. That is a real shame.

Every year, seniors give about $60 billion back to the system in the form of volunteer work. What we are talking about here is a mere $3 billion in retroactive payments. This is serious. Seniors volunteer 5 billion hours of their time. They would have to wake up, band together, and go on strike for a day for this Parliament to realize how much work they do. Unless they do that, the government will never understand how important it is to give them their due.

My time is up, so I will conclude my speech another time.

[Unborn Victims of Crime Act, May 8th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, as we speak, a pro-choice demonstration is being held at the human rights monument on Elgin Street to counterbalance the March for Life, which was organized by pro-life groups and is taking place on Parliament Hill. These pro-life groups do not hesitate to recruit Catholic school children and bring them to the event.

Groups such as the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action and Planned Parenthood of Ottawa invited members of Parliament to participate in the pro-choice demonstration in order to show their support for women's freedom of choice regarding abortion and their opposition to Bill C-484—the bill that would extend rights to the fetus and could set women back 20 years.

The women of Quebec are no fools. They see the Conservatives' ploy, which could re-criminalize abortion instead of tackling the problem of violence against women.

I urge everyone here to show their opposition to Bill C-484 and to sign the Bloc Québécois' petition.

[Status of Women, May 2nd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the executive director of the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, Lise Martin, had to leave her job when her operating budget was cut in half after the government withdrew its support for Status of Women Canada's research and advocacy mandate.

Can the Minister of Status of Women explain why Status of Women Canada does not have a line item in its budget for organizations that do research on women and its researchers?

[Food and Drugs Act, May 1st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for delivering such an eloquent speech on Bill C-51.

She explained very clearly a number of problems that are found in this legislation. I wonder if she could tell us more on the issue of drug advertising which, under the bill, would be authorized to a much greater extent than is currently the case. The fact is that this already creates a problem.

I would also like her to tell us a bit about the fact that the minister would really have a great deal of latitude to decide by himself whether he wants to change the thrust of the bill, or whether he is prepared to keep it as reviewed and probably amended by the Standing Committee on Health,.

I wonder if the hon. member could give us her thoughts on this.

[Food and Drugs Act, May 1st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

In fact, that is a subject I did not address: the subject of confidentiality and everything relating to drugs that are approved, not approved and awaiting approval. There again, there are major roadblocks for ordinary consumers and people who want to know what they are consuming, who want to know how and why they consume it, and most importantly, if it is a drug, a therapeutic device or a surgical device, whether it is harmless or not.

Some day, and I hope that day comes soon, we are going to have to adopt some clear rules. There is a lot of talk about transparency, but we are going to have to get beyond talking and have some actual transparency.

We have been talking about transparency since I first came to this House, but everything is just as opaque everywhere, in all fields, as if no one had ever talked about transparency. People have to know, they have to be aware, they have to be sufficiently educated and informed about all the drugs and products they may take so they can make informed choices.

It is exactly the same thing with GMOs and therapeutic products. I referred earlier to essential oils in relation to Bill C-52. It is the same thing. Consumers have a right to know. Consumers seem to be very wise, because it is letters from consumers that are telling us to be careful and not let a minister do the work by himself and make decisions about a bill by himself.

This may not relate directly to the bill itself, but rather to the direction taken in the bill. If the minister can change the direction taken by a bill once it has been agreed to and passed, what point is there in sitting in this House, doing the essential work and drafting a bill like this to ensure that our fellow citizens, and consumers, have access to quality drugs and that their health is not in danger?

What point is there in doing all these studies and all this research, in bringing thousands of witnesses here, if the Minister of Health can ultimately get up one fine morning and say he no longer agrees with the direction taken in the bill and decide to change it? I think my colleague is right to be worried.

[Food and Drugs Act, May 1st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, as I was saying earlier, we absolutely must make sure there is as little advertising as possible about drugs and their derivatives.

Again, young girls have acquired a certain drug, a birth control pill, because they saw reports and ads on a product, Diane-35, which is extremely harmful and has contributed to the death of a number of people in Europe. This product has been banned in Europe and is no longer sold there. However, it is not banned here and is still available for sale. Despite all the precautions we should be taking, it is still available here.

This product is advertised in bus shelters, at bus stops and in all the magazines. They are reminder ads, since that is allowed, as is advertising the price, the quantity and the name of the product. Nonetheless, when both types of ads are put together a few days apart—or weeks in the case of magazines—people are smart enough to make the connection quite quickly and easily.

It has been proven that the drugs advertised the most on television are the most requested at the doctor's office. Doctors prescribe more of those drugs. There is an immediate cause and effect relationship that is very easy to see. Our government must not allow this indulgent and negligent approach. Rules absolutely must be established to stop this from happening.

[Food and Drugs Act, May 1st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise again in this House to discuss another health bill. Health is a very important subject to me. I am particularly interested in it because I know just how important and necessary health is to living with dignity.

Although Bill C-51 is very important and long overdue, although we have been calling on the government to review the whole issue of medicines, drugs and therapeutic devices for a long time, and although we have called on the government to do so a number of times, we will vote to send this bill to committee to be thoroughly examined. As my colleague said earlier, and as our other colleague who worked on the health file a long time said, this is much too important to let a few people decide the fate of thousands of human beings, Canadians and Quebeckers, who will rely on our decisions to keep them in good health.

A few things in this bill, or at least the draft we received, worry me. I am almost positive that some things worry a number of my colleagues as well. For example, the bill states that the Minister of Health would have the authority to pre-approve health products that have not yet received final approval. That worries me. It gives a lot of power to a minister, to one individual.

Bill C-28, which was passed a few years ago, had the same provisions for other products, such as pesticides. I do not know what became of that act, if the Minister of Health has had the opportunity to grant special permission to companies to put pesticides on the market before they should be. However, recently, pesticides have been found to be very hazardous to our health, to the health of our children and young people, whom we thought were safe playing outside during the summer. We thought that Health Canada had taken all the precautions to ensure the products were healthy, safe, and harmless.

If we are going to give the Minister of Health that much power, we have to make sure that we provide a strong framework for exercising that power in this bill. We have been hearing about amending the terms. These days, with so many advances in biotechnology and life sciences, we agree that we need to ensure that our health and health products legislation reflects these new realities. People with specific needs, such as those with HIV, might benefit from new experimental drugs. These drugs should be made available to them as quickly as possible, because in many cases, it is a matter of life or death.

Although we recognize the importance of reviewing the entire Food and Drugs Act, we want to be absolutely sure that the act contains provisions to ensure that the health of our fellow citizens will be taken into account responsibly.

There are some other things about this bill that bother me, and once again, I am sure that my colleagues from Québec and Verchères—Les Patriotes will see to it that these things are considered and debated by the Standing Committee on Health and that the people who have something to say about it will be invited to testify before the committee.

There is more to this than inviting experts in pharmaceuticals, doctors, parliamentarians, and departmental officials to debate this bill. The people this will affect—groups representing patients, hospitals and pharmacists—must be involved and consulted to develop the most comprehensive bill possible for health and therapeutic products.

There is something else in this bill that I am worried about. As my colleague said earlier, “therapeutic product” means

(a) a drug,

(b) a device,

(c) cells, tissues or organs that are distributed or represented for use in

(i) the diagnosis, treatment, mitigation or prevention of a disease, disorder or abnormal physical state, or its symptoms, in human beings or animals, or

(ii) restoring, correcting or modifying the body structure of human beings or animals or the functioning of parts of the bodies of human beings or animals, or

(d) a combination of two or more of the things referred to in paragraphs (a) to (c);

A few years ago, there was an epic battle over breast implants. At the time, breast implants fell into the category of specialized medical devices. Now they are in with therapeutic products. It was already very complicated and we did not have much information on the ingredients and the safety of breast implants. Now they are being put in with all therapeutic products or devices.

When they talk about cells, are they talking about stem cells? What are they talking about? When they talk about tissue, are they talking about the new grafts that can be made with one’s own tissue? There clearly need to be a lot of very apposite, very transparent rules on this.

I think that the health minister would have far too much power. The bill says that the health minister would have the power to modify the regulations. That is saying a lot because all the definitions in this bill are basically regulations. The health minister would have the ability, therefore, to change the regulations without coming before Parliament. That is very serious and we should be very worried about it.

There are also things that the minister could change not just in the regulations but also in regard to product labelling, purity standards, the way in which clinical trials are conducted, and the exemption of various products from the legislation.

I think that this means giving a tremendous amount of power to the man or woman holding the position of health minister. It means giving an awful lot of power to someone when we know we do not presently have a health minister who is very far to the left or very suited to making such decisions. After all, what is at stake here are the lives of our fellow citizens.

I am very concerned when I see a Minister of Health rise to vote against a motion asking Canada to recognize and abide by its commitment, as it has always done, to people sentenced to death in other countries. I am still very concerned about that. I thought that health ministers were supposed to be worried about the health of people and their survival.

It makes me wonder when I see that and then see a bill giving these people so much power. As a citizen, first of all, and as a user of medications and therapeutic products, I have a right and duty to wonder about these things. Do we really want to give one person the authority to approve a medication that has not been proven so that it can be marketed more quickly because it supposedly has more benefits than adverse side effects?

We saw this with Celebrex. It is still on the market because it supposedly has a greater upside than downside. However, people died of it before we knew why. We often see that. We did not use to see any advertising for drugs in Quebec and Canada. Under this legislation, though, there are some grey areas, some aspects that are incredibly hazy, and we could see more and more advertising. I am also very concerned about that.

To relax, we probably all watch television in the evening when we get home. In the course of the evening—in the space of maybe two hours—we will see at least two or three ads for Viagra or Cialis. That is what we see. To my way of thinking, these are drugs. Why is it that we see these ads when they are supposed to be prohibited? Various television stations agree to run them because Health Canada does not do any monitoring to determine whether various companies' and pharmaceutical firms' ads meet the criteria, which are, or were, clearly set out.

Now, with this new bill, the criteria would be much less clear. Pharmaceutical firms would have much more freedom and latitude to promote their products. This worries me. Many people are influenced by advertising messages. Our Conservative friends keep telling us that we are wrong, we are crazy, we are not listening, we do not understand, we will never accomplish anything, we are impotent. They know that repeating a message drives it home. In the same way, people who watch television are influenced by repeated messages: “Cialis will make you happy”, “Alesse will make you happy”, “This will make you happy”. We come to believe these statements and we ask our doctor for a prescription, even if we do not need the drug. We ask for the drug because it looks so wonderful to be able to skip down the street singing and arrive home to be greeted by our smiling wife. We want the same treatment.

We will have to be very careful about the decisions we make regarding this bill. While we agree that it should be referred to committee, I can assure the House that we will do our duty responsibly and make every effort to amend the clauses that could result in harm to the health of Quebeckers and Canadians.

[Canada Consumer Product Safety Act, May 1st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciated my colleague's speech. I would like to ask him a question.

We know that in Canada alone there are approximately 5 million people who smoke cigarettes. We also know that 35,000 deaths a year are caused by cigarettes or by the indirect effects of cigarette smoke, and that these deaths could be prevented if we imposed more restrictions on tobacco producers. We know that tobacco is banned in a number of provinces and in many public places.

However, contrary to all of the other restricted products that are covered by regulation, Bill C-52 would make tobacco the only product exempted by a section of the act itself. All other exemptions are by regulation.

Does the member not find it a bit odd that in Bill C-52, the Conservative government thought to add a clause exempting tobacco, thus allowing manufacturers of tobacco products to continue to produce those products without worry, even though the government knows that health care costs will continue to mount if we do not pay more attention to these products? Think about the new cigarillos that are on the market and that will carry no health warning for another six years.

[Canada Consumer Product Safety Act, May 1st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am certain that my colleagues for Québec and for Verchères—Les Patriotes will ensure that those two points will be given careful consideration when the bill is reviewed in committee.