Health committee  I appear today as an individual, as a physician and cardiologist and not as a member of the governing council of CIHR, nor as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Montreal or as co-chair of the National Committee on the Future of the Teaching Hospitals of Canada.

Health committee  Yes. We are all aware of this potential conflict of interest and hold one another to the highest ethical standards possible, as we will with Dr. Prigent. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to express my views on this subject which I believe important for our society.

Health committee  Well, Arnold Steinberg is a member. A number of members of the business community have been on the GC. We believe they have, as Dr. Prigent demonstrated very nicely at his first GC meeting, an expertise in organizations and in administration. Arnold Steinberg is involved with Inf

Health committee  The GC has felt--

Health committee  The interaction with the pharmaceutical industry is very complex and is done at multiple levels. It's not just commercialization but how we partner with them. I could give you many examples of how we have... I've been involved in doing research with pharmaceutical companies that

Health committee  Jocelyn, we don't micromanage those things. That type of thing wouldn't be discussed by the governing council. We're there for strategic direction, not for micromanaging. That's how it works at governing council, I can tell you. I'm a member of governing council.

Health committee  That is a good question. Firstly, I believe it is important to remember that all GC members have a conflict of interest since we are the ones who get the money from programs that have been developed. Consequently, he is not different in this regard. Furthermore, I can tell you

Health committee  Individually, no GC member has any power because everything gets decided by a majority vote. Therefore, Dr. Prigent will introduce points of view we might not have considered before. In order to develop partnerships with industry, we will need a really good grasp. This is not a p

Health committee  That is not so. One of our major problems is trying to close the gap between discovery and implementation. There is another gap in bringing this to the bedside and bringing this to the community. In many situations, we have common interests with industry. So we can go quite a lon

Health committee  Well...

Health committee  Perhaps I can answer that.

Health committee  Yes. I would say the major interaction I've had with Pfizer is that I've run a large international multi-centre trial looking at the use of quinapril in post-bypass surgery. This was a study initiated by a Dutch investigator and me. It's one of the five largest cardiovascular sur

Health committee  I couldn't tell you, I couldn't tell you.

Health committee  I can continue, if you wish, on—

Health committee  The standing committee on ethics questioned the...or mentioned its concerns regarding the nomination of Dr. Bernard Prigent, and those were presented to us by its chairman--