Scott Brison

[Patent Act, May 10th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the member has identified an area of public interest and public good that is extraordinarily important. It is the availability of these pharmaceuticals in developing countries where the need is so great.

We have to find ways to balance the profit motivation of research based pharmaceuticals with the public good of having the drugs available to people in more cost effective and timely ways. That is where government can play a role. If we look at the long term cost of treatment with leading edge pharmaceuticals versus not doing anything at all, it is a better investment to treat them. The member, as a physician who has worked in developing countries, is absolutely right in suggesting that CIDA could play a role.

The governments of Canada, provincial and federal, could work together to play a role in ensuring that the profit motivation is not weakened for the research based pharmaceuticals to develop the new technologies. Developing new drugs is a lot like mineral exploration. A lot of holes are dug before hitting a vein of minerals. No pun intended on the vein.

Drug research is expensive and not all research initiatives actually yield results. We should not do anything to reduce the financial incentives that create opportunities in biotechnologies and pharmaceuticals but we should be addressing in a more innovative way the question of what role government has in ensuring the public good and by facilitating the public's access to the drugs in a cost effective and timely manner.

I proposed for consideration the notion of having governments purchase the technologies through an option process once the technologies are developed. This is similar to a proposal published in the Economist about three years ago. There was a study done on it and it is one area of debate that we should consider and be engaged in. It would be a way to balance the profit motivation of private interests to ensure that we continue to develop the leading edge pharmaceuticals that we need.

It would also ensure that governments have a role in delivering new technologies and pharmaceuticals to the public whether they be here or in developing countries where the need, as the hon. member suggested, is absolutely critical. We can make strong arguments in favour of a government role on the second part of the issue. The priority should be, once the drugs are developed, to get the drugs to the people who need them the most whether they are in our country or in the developing world.

[Patent Act, May 10th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the senators in our national caucus have advanced some important ideas on the legislation. Certainly we should be discussing some of them in the industry committee.

I would argue that some of our senators' aversions to stronger patent protection has very little to do with their age. The fact is that once one is in the Senate aging ceases to a considerable extent and the quality of life issues there help preserve mental acuity, health and life for a lot longer. The differences in age between some of our senators and some of the members of our elected caucus really do not play into this in real terms.

[Patent Act, May 10th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure today that I rise to speak to this important legislation.

When applied to drug development and production, the whole notion of intellectual property protection becomes a very divisive issue that in many ways pits the right to patent protection and commercial opportunities for Canadians and Canadian pharmaceutical companies against the need for cost effective access to these technologies.

It is important to recognize that without investment in research and development there would never be a debate on how best to enable important pharmaceutical developments to reach people.

Whatever public policy we put forward regarding intellectual property, patent protection and commercialization, we must be careful not to reduce incentives to the point where we stifle the development of leading edge drugs and treatments that ultimately benefit all Canadians. At some point these technologies and pharmaceuticals become commodities and the generic industry plays a role in that as it occurs.

This piece of legislation, like so many others passed by the Liberals, identifies and in some ways exemplifies the hypocrisy that pervades the government. The government says the WTO ruling has no significant or sustained impact on drug costs. It says the impact of the ruling over the eight year horizon is equivalent to less than 1% of pharmaceutical sales in a single year. It says Canadians will continue to have access to affordable drugs at prices below those of the U.S.

These arguments sound eerily similar to those presented by the Conservative government in the early 1990s, arguments which were rejected by the opposition Liberals. The current Minister of Industry and self-promotion was the Liberal opposition's key spokesperson against using patent and intellectual property protection as a vehicle for promoting a more successful Canadian pharmaceutical industry and greater economic growth.

This is a 180° shift in the position of the Liberals. It is completely consistent with their inconsistency on free trade, the GST and others issues. I will quote the colourful language used at that time by the current Minister of Industry and self-promotion. In the early 1990s he said:

The citizens will need more than generic drugs to recover from the festering wounds which are about to be inflicted on the exposed ankles of Canada's poorest citizens when the Minister sinks his teeth in, past the bone, into the marrow and sucks the lifeblood out of Canada's poorest citizens with Bill C-22.

That was the statement of the then Liberal opposition member who is now the Minister of Industry and self-promotion. Was he referring to the minister at the time or to himself? Could he look into the future and see that he would become a minister and eagerly embrace the policies he vociferously opposed in opposition?

The Minister of Industry has stated on several occasions, and most recently at an economic conference in Davos, that he was wrong about the policies he espoused and opposed while in opposition and that the Conservative Party had been right. Perhaps through action he is now making the same admission.

It is in some ways annoying and upsetting for Conservatives to see Liberals embrace policies they had opposed in opposition and then take credit for the results. However we would prefer that they steal Conservative policies and take credit for the results than implement their own policies, which could in the long term have a far more negative impact on the country.

While it is important to point out their hypocrisy on these issues it is also important to credit them with extraordinary intellectual flexibility. They are at least intelligent enough to swallow themselves whole and recognize that some policies introduced by the previous government have made their lives a heck of a lot easier.

Woody Allen once said that 80% of life is just showing up. For seven years the government has done just that but for probably closer to 90%. For the Prime Minister it is probably 95%. I am not talking about golf; I am talking about governing.

We must walk a fine line. We must provide enough patent protection to allow the pharmaceutical industry and the emerging biotech industry to grow and prosper and develop new technologies which have such potential for the future of humankind. However we must also ensure that new medicines and pharmaceuticals reach the public in the most cost effective and timely way. It is a difficult balance to maintain.

Our current patent protection in Canada by and large strikes a reasonable balance. Our policy is not working badly and has created economic growth in the leading edge, knowledge based industries of pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. That being the case, we should be looking at ways to create a more effective balance between the two policy priorities.

The Economist magazine about three years ago published a study conducted in the U.K. about a policy which could balance the need for patent protection with the importance of getting pharmaceuticals into the hands of those who need them in the most cost effective way.

It involved an auctioning process whereby when pharmaceutical companies announced new drugs or medical treatments governments would have an opportunity to bid on them. Governments would of course pay a significant price for the privilege by recognizing the public good of making pharmaceuticals more widely available. They would then make them available to the generics in order to provide lower cost access to the consumer.

We should at least consider doing it that way or investigate the matter as part of the debate in order to balance patent protection and economic opportunities for pharmaceutical companies and biotech companies while making these new pharmaceuticals available more expeditiously to the public. We should be engaging in a debate that would find ways to bring these two divergent interests together in a more realistic way.

The other aspect we have to consider is the emergence of Canada's biotechnology sector. Around the world biotechnology is one of the key components of information technology within the knowledge based industries, which are becoming so important to our global competitiveness.

Canada has demonstrated some significant strengths on the biotech side which capitalizes on our post-secondary university infrastructure. In Nova Scotia we have 11 degree granting institutions. Those universities, which were at one point seen as a cost, are now in a knowledge based economy and seen as an asset.

If members looked at the symbiotic relationship between the small biotech companies and the big pharmaceutical companies, they would recognize that this is not simply an argument about big business and big pharmaceutical companies versus consumers. The notion that only the big pharmaceutical companies benefit from patent protection is a specious argument.

If we were to reduce patent protection and take an aggressive approach that would reduce the incentives for pharmaceutical companies to develop new drugs and treatments, we would be significantly hurting the biotech companies. They are, by and large, small companies and involve our post-secondary institutions across the country. We must be very careful not to do something from a political perspective that would have a negative impact on Canada's competitiveness in biotechnology.

We must also consider a second argument. How do we get new drugs or pharmaceuticals into the hands of Canadians faster? If we cannot ensure an environment within which those new technologies can be developed in the first place, the second discussion is a moot one. It would be a terrible step backward for the government to reduce, in any way, shape or form, the incentives we have in place to encourage the leading edge development of new pharmaceuticals and new advancements in biotechnology.

Some provinces have been more successful than others in terms of creating a critical mass of activities in these areas. This is one of the areas where significant growth can be achieved in the future both on the biotech side and in pharmaceuticals. We must focus on our medical schools and our undergraduate programs in terms of science and research.

I am pleased to see that the government has in fact recognized the error of its ways in the past. It has embraced and continues to support and foster Progressive Conservative policies with the introduction of this legislation.

I hope we will have an opportunity in the future to discuss some of the other alternatives that could balance more effectively the needs of consumers and patients. It is important to create a greater level of commercialization, intellectual property protection and opportunities in Canada.

The government has not been as creative as it might have been in studying more carefully some of the alternatives that are available in terms of moving forward in a more innovative way in that regard.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1997, May 9th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, we are supportive of the amendment. In no way, shape or form would it impede the operational efficiency or flexibility of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

It would improve the accountability from a financial perspective and it would provide the auditor general with the power to oversee at least part of the operations of this board, which would have immense responsibilities in terms of the amount of capital that it would oversee.

In a parliament where we increasingly speak about the importance of parliamentary reform and the accountability of members of parliament, it is completely inconsistent with the stated message of the government, which is that it will refuse to recognize the importance of auditor general oversight on this issue by supporting the constructive motion introduced by the member for St. Albert. Our party does support the amendment.

If the government wants to act consistently with the stated objectives of the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and others on that side of the House to improve parliament and to improve accountability, then this amendment would be an easy and simple step to take. The government has consistently not provided the auditor general's office with the appropriate level of respect.

[Income Tax Act, May 2nd, 2001]

The hon. member opposite just said that it is an all party committee. All of our committees are all party, but the fact is that one party has the majority on those committees. Quite frequently it is difficult, if not impossible, for an opposition member to effect change in the committee process. It is unfortunate that case exists. It discourages forward thinking members of parliament who sit on the opposition benches. It discourages principled decisions from having an impact on the future of Canada.

If we are to see some changes in our ability to effect change and to make a difference in the lives of Canadians, it has to start through significant parliamentary reform and not just through tinkering.

We are supportive of the legislation and hope to see it come back in the future to a parliament that respects the views of private members enough to ensure that this type of legislation comes to the House in a votable form. That would enable every member of the House, whether on the government side or on the opposition benches, to vote on issues of importance. I know there is a significant level of support for this initiative on the government benches that will not be quantified by a vote. That is highly unfortunate.

[Income Tax Act, May 2nd, 2001]

Madam Speaker, it is with pleasure today that I rise to speak on Bill C-272, a private member's bill from my colleague from Prince George—Peace River.

The bill addresses a very important issue and a very personal issue, that of adoption, and the inordinately high costs associated with it for Canadian families and parents who choose to adopt children. A tax deduction of up to $7,000 for expenses would go a long way in helping Canadians to deal with costs that can run as high as or even greater than $20,000 per child in the adoption process.

Clearly in an egalitarian society and a society where we speak of the importance of equality of opportunity, the choice for families to adopt children should not be available only to the rich. Effectively under the current system the only people who can make this decision are higher income individuals or those Canadians who can make the tremendous financial sacrifice to make this important choice.

It is not just a choice on behalf of their own families, on behalf of these couples. There is a societal benefit to augmenting the ability of Canadian families and parents to adopt children. Society benefits by children living in supportive environments, whether they be their biological families or adoptive families. It should not make a difference.

The comments of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, which obviously represent the views of the government, clearly miss the point being made in this bill by the hon. member for Prince George—Peace River. The fact is that all society would benefit if we were to somehow ease the lives of families that choose to adopt children, in this case through financial means through the tax system.

Ironically the Liberals have no difficulty in using the tax system for all kinds of Pavlovian policies to encourage one sort of behaviour and to discourage another kind of behaviour.

Typically I am opposed to measures that complicate the tax code further in order to encourage one type of behaviour or discourage another. However, I believe that in this case the fundamental benefit to society outweighs the negative of complicating the tax code a little bit to implement this measure.

We in our party are supportive of this measure. It is terribly unfortunate that this has not been deemed votable. If Liberal members opposite had the opportunity to vote individually on this measure, I think we would find that there would be a strong level of support among private members opposite for this forward thinking and important piece of legislation.

It is unfortunate, as the hon. member for Prince George—Peace River said earlier, that this piece of legislation was not deemed votable. In fact the process by which private member's legislation in the House becomes votable or non-votable is Byzantine and circuitous and certainly not constructive or encouraging to private members who are trying to make a difference.

We should be encouraging private members' business as a legitimate vehicle through which members of the House can express not only the views of their constituents but also the types of forward thinking public policy measures that can change the lives of Canadians.

It is unfortunate that the government has not been more open to the rights of private members in this regard. As parliamentary reform gains some steam we are still optimistic we will see some significant changes in the future. One of those very important changes is to make mechanisms available to private members to present legislation and have it deemed votable without having to jump through the hoops and go through the current discouraging process in that it does not provide private members with the ability to have their legislation deemed votable.

I think the hon. member for Prince George—Peace River mentioned that this was his second piece of legislation recently that was not deemed votable. That is discouraging for private members who are trying to advance important issues and policies.

In closing, we are supportive of the legislation. We wish we could express our support quantitatively through a vote. However we have once again been denied that opportunity through the government's closed door process. It is not an open door process.

[Business Development Bank Of Canada, May 1st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, my question pertains to an unanswered letter dated April 26 from the leader of my party to the industry minister.

Will the minister make immediate arrangements to ensure that BDC officials appear before the industry committee to answer questions on recent unusual practices and, more specific, on why they sought a court order to seize and destroy the documents allegedly in the possession of François Beaudoin? Why are officials in the BDC taking these extreme and unusual measures?

[Income Tax Act, April 3rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise today to speak on Bill C-222, which would actually address what is a significant inequity in our tax treatment, in this case, of mechanics in Canada.

There are 115,000 mechanics across the country, on average investing between $15,000 and $40,000 each in tools and equipment. The average wage for these mechanics is not as high as what I have heard some Liberal members opposite claim it to be. In fact, the average income is $29,000.

I heard one of those members opposite, and I believe it was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, say that the average mechanic's wage is $60,000 or something to that effect. I do not know what kind of car he is driving, but I am driving a 10 year old Volvo station wagon and I cannot not afford to pay mechanics who cost that kind of money. Obviously the parliamentary secretary is investing an awful lot more in cars than some of the members here in the opposition.

The fact is that the average income is $29,000 and the investment just to get through the door to become a mechanic and have those tools required averages between $15,000 and $40,000. It is little wonder that we are faced with a critical shortfall of mechanics across the country. This is becoming a real issue. This is a real issue that is going to wreak havoc in the long term and affect every one of us in our own situations as we need the services of mechanics.

It is clear that this piece of legislation is fair. It makes a great deal of sense. It would extend the same treatment to mechanics that we see extended to professionals who, in many cases, have the ability under the tax code to write off professional expenses that are required for participation in their particular job or profession. It is very sensible.

In fact, the House of Commons finance committee in 1996 and 1997 made this recommendation to the Minister of Finance in its prebudget consultation report. It would go a long way toward improving the fairness of our tax treatment, in this case, of mechanics. If we improve the tax treatment or the fairness of our tax system for any segment or group of people within society, we all stand to benefit.

This proposal represents one idea, in this case from one member of parliament, on things we can do with our tax system to make it better, to make it fairer and to make it more effective in creating greater opportunities for Canadians.

I would like to take the opportunity to segue into a related topic, and that is a speech given by Jack Mintz, the president of the C.D. Howe Institute. In the past he chaired a report to the Minister of Finance on tax reform in Canada. Recently he gave a speech where he, not as a parliamentarian but as an individual with a great deal of depth on public policy issues in Canada, provided a four point plan on ways in which he sees Canada becoming a stronger, more prosperous country in the 21st century.

In the same way that the hon. member presented his piece of legislation, this private member's legislation, on a specific means by which to have a better, fairer tax system, I would like to present some other ideas, in this case from Jack Mintz, the president of the C.D. Howe Institute. What he describes is his four point plan.

That four point plan sounds like going to a mechanic or someone servicing a car, again in a related segue. The first point he makes is to reward success, not failure, to judge public programs based on what they accomplish. Successful ones are funded and continue to be funded. Failing programs are not funded. Clearly HRDC or some of the aid programs which have fallen under the purview of the minister of HRDC might find it difficult to achieve funding under this sort of scrutiny.

Public sector workers need to be paid and rewarded in monetary and in non-pecuniary ways according to their success in meeting objectives. This would include civil servants, teachers, professors, medical workers and anyone who is paid from public money. He suggests that we need competition in providing public services and that in fact there has to be a greater ability for market forces to pervade the delivery of public services.

He also suggests as the second point in his plan that of tackling the public debt in Canada. We have a huge debt in Canada that has built up over the years. The total government debt in Canada is $850 billion. Unfunded liabilities for public pensions and public health care, if we add those in, take us to about the $2 trillion mark for the total public debt in Canada. That does not include many of the other contingent liabilities. If the problem is left untouched, we will have to levy taxes equal to eight per cent of our GDP just to service these liabilities by 2015.

Mr. Mintz is suggesting that we take a very aggressive approach to our federal debt. To reduce tax burden in the future, he suggests that we tackle our federal debt and use the returns from tackling the federal debt and those returns coming from the reduced interest payments that we see as an expense every year, paid by the taxpayers of Canada.

If we were to take a more aggressive approach to public debt now, as a result we would engage in what would become a virtuous circle of using that reduced level of expense from paying the reduced level of interest on the principal of our debt to actually fund tax reduction, which would of course benefit Canadians and create greater levels of economic growth.

That would reduce the debt not just in real terms but also as a percentage of GDP, by reducing the debt of course in real terms but also by increasing the GDP through aggressive tax measures which would fuel greater levels of economic growth.

In Canada our governments command well over 40% of the economy. That is higher than Australia, Iceland, Ireland, Switzerland and others countries, which operate on a third or less of the national economies. The U.S. is at about 30%. Clearly we have to reduce the percentage of government participation overall as a per cent of our GDP.

We need to address Canada's dysfunctional tax system. We have a tax system that needs significant reform. The hon. member has presented in this case a specific initiative that would improve the fairness as it relates to mechanics. I would suggest that we need to move much further and actually provide a comprehensive, holistic approach to tax reform and in fact start using tax policy and tax reform measures as vehicles to create greater levels of economic growth and opportunity for Canadians.

Mr. Mintz is now president of the C.D. Howe Institute. In a previous incarnation, he was the author of the Mintz report, commissioned by the Minister of Finance but subsequently shelved by the Minister of Finance because it did not contain purely politically palatable recommendations. As he had the courage to address some of the long term competitiveness issues facing Canadians, he has a great deal to offer in this regard.

From a tax perspective he goes further to suggest we need to significantly reduce areas of taxation in Canada that are most out of line with those of our competitors. They include corporate and capital taxes which deny business the necessary capital to achieve greater levels of productivity and competitiveness in the hypercompetitive global economy.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1997, April 2nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is quite right. Our dollar is doing well compared to the ruble. However there are other currencies that are probably equally important. Given that about 80% of our trade is with the U.S. and that we depend on American consumption and imports for our standard of living, the member would be better off to focus on how our dollar is doing relative to the U.S.

The fact is, under his government, the Liberal government, there has been a 12 cent drop in the dollar. That precipitous drop has represented a significant drop in the standard of living of Canadians. He was asking what we could do.

First, he said that I probably would agree with him that a low dollar is good for exports. I do not agree. That is a very short term approach. One cannot, in the long term, devalue one's wage and prosperity. That is a very flawed economic argument.

Canadian companies can do fairly well in exports in the short term. They can do so, not by investing in productivity or taking steps to be more productive in the long term but by simply enjoying the benefits of a lower dollar in the short term.

In two ways the low dollar has a perverse and negative impact on Canadian productivity over the long term. First, some of the productivity enhancement equipment, software or technology, comes from other countries, particularly the U.S. Canadian companies will not invest in productivity enhancement if they do not need to, and certainly not if the cost is elevated by a sinking Canadian dollar and a commensurately valuable U.S. dollar.

Second, because of the dollar Canadian companies do not need to make those kinds of investments. In the short term it makes it a little easier but in the long term it can have a very negative impact, which is what we are seeing. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I would urge the member to revisit that notion. Upon further study he would see that we would be better off lowering debt and taxes, strengthening the dollar over the long term and not just blaming it on monetary policy. There is a fiscal responsibility that we in this place should address over the long term.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1997, April 2nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the member has an earned credibility on issues of higher education in this place. He has defended the interests of higher education quite consistently, if sometimes wearing partisan rose coloured glasses. He speaks from behind those specs today.

I was pleased to hear his empathy relative to the situation of smaller universities and those in Nova Scotia, specifically Acadia. There is a real and not just perceived anti-smaller university bias with CFI. I hope the hon. member's words of encouragement would indicate a pressure on that side of the House for changes in this regard with the CFI.

He and I differ on the effectiveness of the millennium scholarship programs. Only 5% of students seeking higher education have benefited from those programs. A more effective way to adequately fund higher education would be a full restoration of transfers to the provinces, transfers his government played a significant role in slashing and cutting in the mid-1990s.

Transfers will not reach 1995 levels until April 2002. A full and immediate restoration of transfers to 1995 levels would make a big difference in terms of allowing provinces to fund universities and post-secondary education. We often debate post-secondary education in this place but we do not talk about other areas of education. In general we need to invest more in education. The best way to do that is to restore transfers to the provinces.

One of the biggest casualties of the health care crisis has been education. The immediate focus has been on ameliorating the problems of the health care system because of the crisis mode it is in. However there has been a neglect of education issues in a general sense which will cost us dearly in the future. I am talking about primary and secondary education, not just post-secondary. The greatest societal return on investment would be in preschool, head start, early intervention and some of those areas.

In a general sense we agree that some of the issues relative to CFI as a delivery vehicle must be addressed. However we may disagree as to the degree of culpability his government has had in creating a crisis in education through its Draconian cuts to transfers in the mid-1990s.