Industry committee  Mr. Geralde.

Industry committee  Just one other quick one. How do reliable distributors or consumers protect themselves against this type of activity?

Industry committee  Is it too complex to deal with?

Industry committee  If it is tougher legislation, should we use that as a guideline for our legislation?

Industry committee  Thank you very much. I appreciate your coming today. As we listened to witnesses over the last couple of days, I think some of the stuff is a little more frightening than most of us, as lay people, would have recognized when we walk into the store and see the CSA, a recognized name stamped on it, and then we find out that it may or may not be.

Industry committee  Obviously, the numbers in lost revenues, lost jobs...the criminal aspect of it alone would make you think we would not want to condone this type of activity. I don't think many of the counterfeiters are mom and pop. I think this is criminal activity. I think most would agree with that.

Industry committee  Are they single-production criminals?

Industry committee  Industry groups have come together. You're talking about a working group that is meeting. We're listening to dialogue and information that's coming to us. To follow up a little on Mr. Byrne's perspective, we're going to be looking for some direction. Where do we as a committee fit in to help the Canadian consumer—our families?

Industry committee  Thank you very much. This has actually been a bit of a startling investigation--or at least it has been for me anyway--learning the extent and the breadth and the number of products that we're actually dealing with. I know we focused on some of the ones that are available--the CDs and those types of things, which are important in the industry.

Industry committee  I'm looking at that breaker. It has Westinghouse and CSA labels and everything on it. A major construction company has purchased that for a hospital. You would think that a reputable electrical company doing that, knowing that it is going into a hospital in this particular case, in intensive care...so the conscience is not there.

Industry committee  On a point of order, I'm wondering if we could have Brian's request again, just so that everybody understands it.

Industry committee  Yes. I just wanted to be sure of what it was.

Industry committee  It's likely from other generics in other countries.

Industry committee  Okay. I can show you that. One of the things you mentioned...it was kind of weird. We seem to focus a lot on AIDS, but when I was looking at the reports, malaria and other diseases are killing huge numbers of people, and the same issues came up. Mr. Kay, you said something to the effect that you don't produce a product for malaria.

Industry committee  So I think your answer is that we can get those from other countries. Some of the NGOs that came to us the other day said we need to be concerned because India and some of these other countries will not be able to continue to produce the quantity of pills we need. As they progress, though, they will start to bring in patents and get stricter.