Health committee  I'll invite Dr. Turner to respond with regard to the definition of post-market surveillance.

Health committee  Yes.

Health committee  Maybe I'll tell you how I look at it in terms of post-market surveillance. Basically, when a drug or health product is out on the market, we use a variety of means to collect information on that drug's use out in the market. Through MedEffect, through our Canadian adverse drug reaction newsletter, through any of the information we get through our compliance and enforcement activities, we gather the information, we assess it to look for signal checks in terms of what the data is telling us, and we liaise with our international counterparts as well as with our provincial and territorial counterparts within Canada.

Health committee  We have a variety of partnerships in this country, with health care professionals; with provincial and territorial governments; with our partners such as the Canadian Institute for Health Information and the health technology body CADAS; and with international regulatory agencies as well, such as the USFDA, the EMEA, the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration, and others.

Health committee  I will begin my answer in French, but with your permission—

Health committee  All right. It is because I would like to give you an accurate answer. We are presently looking at our resource base, further to the AG's report and further to the investments that have been made in the past. We're considering what resources we need to carry out our regulatory responsibilities in an effective and modernized way.

Health committee  I'll invite my colleague Mr. Lee to respond to that.

Health committee  No, I think we're fine. We'll just respond to the questions. Thank you.

Health committee  I would like to emphasize, Dr. Bennett, that you're absolutely right that we are increasing our efforts, making concerted efforts to get communications out to the public using a variety of sources. We have put into place mechanisms such as the MedEffect website that I talked about, and a lot of other risk communications that we target through the CMA, for example, to all the doctors in this country, and through direct mailings to all the doctors and pharmacists as well.

Health committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll start with the introductions. We have Diana Dowthwaite, who's our director general of the health products and food branch inspectorate; Dr. Chris Turner, who's the director general of marketed health products; Mr. David Lee, who is the director of the office of patented medicines and liaison in the therapeutic products directorate of the health products and food branch; and Mr.

Health committee  Thank you very much, Madam Chair. It's a pleasure to be here today before this committee to provide an overview of Canada's post-market activities for pharmaceuticals. In my opening remarks I will provide an overview of the main components of our program, the measures the department has recently implemented to enhance it, and the new strategies being considered to strengthen our safety system.