Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the opportunity to present to the standing committee today. The Canadian Pharmacists Association is the national voice of Canada's 29,000 pharmacists. The focus of our submission today is patient safety and the need for federal inves

Finance committee  Yes. We described it as post-market surveillance in the submission. We talked about it in supporting the progressive drug licensing framework.

Finance committee  When a new drug gets onto the market, it's perhaps been used in 3,000 to 4,000 people during the clinical trial phase. If you are dealing with an adverse drug reaction that occurs, say, in one in 10,000 patients, then you're not going to know about that. What we're saying is th

Finance committee  My association is a large publisher of drug information in Canada, and we received a significant grant from the primary health care transition fund to create a new web portal we call e-Therapeutics. It integrates information about drugs and the treatment of diseases. We've just s

Finance committee  Well, I think you're absolutely right; we would agree with that. I think there's probably too much expectation laid at the door of the pharmaceutical industry in terms of solving these problems. I would agree with you entirely that government really has to step up to the plate.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you very much. We'll see how we do. Perhaps there should be a prize for the one who gets closest to ten minutes. Good afternoon. The Canadian Pharmacists Association, or CPhA, welcomes this opportunity to present to you today during your review of PIPEDA. My name is Jeff P

Information & Ethics committee  I don't think we've had much difficulty. About four pharmacy issues have gone before the federal Privacy Commissioner, which is a relatively small number when we see about a million prescriptions filled daily. I think at the beginning there was a lot of concern, but the PARTs gui

Information & Ethics committee  If I could just add, the general issue of administrative burden for health care practitioners is a significant one, particularly in the pharmacy sector, where we have to deal with significant administrative loads around both public and private drug plans. Certainly at the time th

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, that's correct, as I understand it. I have a legal colleague here who can perhaps answer that.

Information & Ethics committee  I just want to clarify. Concerning the harmonization of legislation across Canada, I think the most important piece of work we've seen on that particular area, which we did participate in, was the development of this pan-Canadian framework that I referred to in our presentation.

Information & Ethics committee  First of all, the drug utilization prescribing data has been collected and used in many different ways for many years. The practice of collecting prescribing data from community pharmacies in Canada has probably gone on for 30 or 40 years. I think it's a very good example—and you

Information & Ethics committee  I would further add from pharmacy that there are strong sanctions such as codes of ethics and professional standards of practice that require that in law. Certainly colleges of pharmacy are extremely strict in terms of enforcement. There's an added important piece to be conside

Information & Ethics committee  We would certainly support plain language in consent forms. There are a number of areas of pharmacy practice where patients are required to provide consent. Obviously, we have a lot of experience particularly relating to the development of clinical trials relating to new drugs. T

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, that's it.

Information & Ethics committee  With pharmacy, the guidelines and codes of practice and posters and brochures that we produce may be used nationally. But all of the provinces have provincial licensing bodies. So the provincial l’Ordre des pharmaciens du Québec will be the regulatory body in Quebec that will oft