Health committee  We have in some areas. We wrote a consensus statement on the treatment of colorectal cancer. The west coast met and the east coast met, and we independently came up with almost identical documents. It's out there and it's been published. I'm leading a group now in which we are go

Health committee  In my institution or in Quebec?

Health committee  In Quebec. I can only speak to what I've heard. A good colleague of mine, Dr. Jeremy Sturgeon, has moved to Montreal to try to help deal with this problem. What he has said is that this happens. A patient will come into a hospital, and Avastin, for instance, won't be funded, so t

Health committee  Yes, but I think in general they don't, and that's why you see such differences. Quebec gets them. British Columbia gets them. Ontario often doesn't. The Maritimes do worse. That's upsetting.

Health committee  Yes, that is correct.

Health committee  Yes.

Health committee  Yes, they can.

Health committee  British Columbia does. Correct me if I'm wrong, but so far Ontario has decided not to fund Nexavar, based on the CDR recommendation. Is that correct?

Health committee  That's okay. Very quickly, on a much less sophisticated level, Canadians have a publicly funded health care system and they understand that the money is not endless. But I honestly think everybody is saying that if you could involve them in the decision-making and the debate, we

Health committee  I think the point was made that up until very recently, as I said, we were doing very well. It's really just in the last couple of years...and the first really significant drug would be Avastin, which came along and prolonged life in colon cancer. It came at a big price tag, and

Health committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members of the Standing Committee on Health, for letting me come today and talk about my concerns about drug funding. In particular, I'm going to talk about kidney cancer treatments and how recent CDR decisions are really going to get in the