Health committee  I can try. Before answering the question, I have to say that representatives of the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board will appear before the committee on Thursday afternoon. They will surely be able to give you more details. Generally, the workload deriving from conflicts between pharmaceutical companies, which require a more formal procedure, has been quite high in the past few years.

Health committee  Thank you. Just to be clear, the federal genomics initiative is I think what the question refers to, and that is not Genome Canada, which has a responsibility that is under the Industry portfolio. The federal genomics initiative is a horizontal research initiative that includes Health Canada and the public health agencies, as well as several other departments, including the NRC, Fisheries and Oceans, Natural Resources, and Environment Canada.

Health committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. On the latter part of Madam Bennett's question, on the transfer from the agency to CIHR, the purpose of the transfer of $75,000 to CIHR from Assisted Human Reproduction Canada is to support specific research in the areas of assisted human reproduction and reproductive technologies.

Health committee  I can elaborate on that a little bit, just by way of context. As the committee may be aware, the Government of Quebec brought a constitutional challenge, by way of a reference to the Court of Appeal of Quebec, some time ago. The Court of Appeal of Quebec issued its decision in 2008 and found that parts of the Assisted Human Reproduction Act were unconstitutional.

Health committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There are three components to our action: prevention, targeted surveillance and rapid response, and that's for each of the areas of this plan, that is to say consumer products, food and drugs. It is obviously important to have the necessary staff in the field to do the work, and we've received resources to implement the plan.

Health committee  What is very important in the new act is the modernization of our legislative framework. In comparison with that of other countries, Canada's current legislation has significant deficiencies regarding the power to recall products, for example, regarding other powers of inspectors and regarding fines which are currently very low.

Health committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. I can affirm to you that I was informed on December 5, and I believe the department was informed on December 5 that there was this extended shutdown. We sprang into action immediately and started making calls and pulling together the advisory group.

Health committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. Last year, the decision was made to award licences to authorize breast implants. These licences came with various conditions, including the requirement to conduct studies. There has been no change in that regard.

Health committee  I cannot speak about what the manufacturers will do. All I can say is that the current conditions for obtaining a licence will remain in place.

Health committee  In terms of the agency, which started about eight or nine months ago, it's staffing up. It has 18 people on staff between the office in Vancouver and the office in Ottawa. There are some people on contract, and they're continuing to build the team, which takes some time.

Health committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. On the question of backlogs in natural health products, we acknowledge that there have been some challenges with the timely issuance of licences for natural health products. Over the past couple of years, we've been implementing process improvements that have resulted in a threefold increase in productivity.

Health committee  The health policy branch.

Health committee  I'd say we already have a fair bit of information on our website coming out of the conference. The minister was saying that some of the presentations that were made are available.

Health committee  I understand. I think the idea is an interesting one. We're certainly willing to look at it. In the spirit of finding one place to put all this together so that people could have an easier time sharing best practices and new ideas, that would be a really interesting thing to do.

Health committee  Health Canada will look at it.