Health committee  I'm going to speak in English. I haven't changed my channel.

Health committee  It's been fine until now.

Health committee  There are many elements to your question. We already lag behind our international peers in terms of the numbers of new products launched. This would be my first point. It's critical that the PMPRB does not further erode Canada's status in that global market. At the moment, Canadians only have access to 48% of all new medicines launched globally.

Health committee  Through the chair, thank you very much for that question. It's not about delay for delay's sake. It never has been. It is about reaching a better outcome than we feel is possible through the current regulations that are being proposed. Without taking up time on this call, I have a pile of correspondence that has gone to ministers and the Prime Minister from us at the association, from our global CEOs, requesting that dialogue.

Health committee  I'd love to quote some data back to you from PMPRB reports, because I think there's a bit of a discrepancy between some of the sound bites that you might hear versus the data from the actual reports. There are three comments I could make. The first point is that only three of the countries in the current basket of countries have prices below Canada's.

Health committee  Mr. Chair and honourable members, thank you for the opportunity to present today. I'm joined, as you've just heard, by Declan Hamill, our vice-president for policy, regulatory and legal affairs. We are here on behalf of Innovative Medicines Canada, which represents 47 member companies from the innovative medicines and life sciences sectors.

International Trade committee  A simple answer is yes. Certainly, it is a signal among many that shows that the life sciences sector writ large has not been embraced as a strong industry with potential to help Canada's economy and health.

International Trade committee  I will jump in, and perhaps my colleague or Professor Everett would like to. I don't have the global comparison, but I have been stating this all along, that investments in and in support of the life sciences sector and the innovative medicines industry have not been strong in Canada.

International Trade committee  We've made comments about that. My colleague Mr. Hamill mentioned that, as you and most of your committee members would know, any business needs as much predictability as possible. If the lay of the land is changing on the spur of the moment, there is no incentive to invest or to continue along that path.

International Trade committee  The industry has been open, and in fact, suggesting these sorts of solutions from day one when this pandemic started. From it being, as I said earlier, a founding member of the accelerating access to COVID tools, the COVAX facility is part of that. It's very clear that they are negotiating, and it is a business.

International Trade committee  Thank you for the question. I will respond in English, just to keep it straight.

International Trade committee  Thank you very much. You have captured the situation well, I think. If I could raise it one level, in general, governments of all stripes in all countries do not put the emphasis on prevention and early warning systems. Speaking specifically to Canada, we have not done a good job of using the knowledge that we have, whether it's from SARS or H1N1, or of looking at some of the work maybe outside of Canada, like that by Bill Gates.

International Trade committee  There are a great number of things we could have done differently. I will be happy to have that conversation with you perhaps off-line to share some extra thoughts.

International Trade committee  Thank you. I will invite my colleague to jump in on this one because I would be repeating a few things that I said earlier. I do believe that there's a history of a less-than-ideal relationship between this industry and government, which has led to a very unattractive business environment for the industry to be present here in Canada.

International Trade committee  Thank you so much for raising that issue. It's such a good discussion point. I will turn to my colleague, Mr. Hamill, in a moment, but I wanted to make one quick comment. We actually do believe there could be harm. I mentioned this in my comments, but we'd be pleased to go into that in a little bit more detail.