Public Accounts committee  I appreciate the sentiment very much, and we will give you the sense of where we are. In some cases, we are still in the process of having our legal people work through those, so when we put the language there, it's not because we have identified the precise nature in all cases.

Public Accounts committee  Certainly.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, thank you very much. We share the desire of the committee for greater transparency. In fact, as we've gone forward with our strategic thinking in terms of how we tackle this with the new resources that I've mentioned.... We have to focus first on timeliness, because we know

Public Accounts committee  I'll maybe ask my colleagues to speak to the specifics, but I would say that, in fact, we have ongoing and regular connections with our international regulatory partners. While there are some examples that are listed where we were behind the U.S. in doing something, there are tim

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for the question. My understanding is that in 2004 there was a recommendation from the committee, and in fact, the department took a number of steps at that time. It had some expert witnesses, I understand. It looked into the question of what was feasible, and what was

Public Accounts committee  Thank you. There is an important point I would like to share with the committee. There are two sides to the word "label", and it's a bit confusing. I myself was confused occasionally in the beginning. The word “label” we often think of as the label on the bottle, which is the i

Public Accounts committee  Yes, it is very important that this entire multi-step process is applied as part of the work of our investigators. The work they do in compliance and enforcement is very important as part of this. I think it is very helpful to appreciate, as the member has noted, that it is simp

Public Accounts committee  Again, thank you very much for the question. We agree, and I share the committee's interest in seeing concrete actions because it is an enormously complex area and we actually want to see steps. Beneath this action plan, I can assure the committee that there are many substeps.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, again, for the question. It is quite important. The Auditor General's recommendations are very helpful to us. We have accepted all of them. In fact some of them that were short term are already completed, and a number more are in the medium or long term. We have long

Public Accounts committee  This is a very important question for the committee to consider. We have a very safe and rigorous regulatory system. As was mentioned in the Auditor General's report and in the member's question, this is done in a variety of ways. It's done before the drugs ever come to market by

Public Accounts committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and good morning to you and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee to discuss chapter 4 of the Auditor General's report dealing with the regulation of pharmaceutical drugs in Canada. I am joined here

Health committee  Thank you very much for the question. As I mentioned earlier, I think the issue of support for first nations clients in terms of mental health services and healing is very important. I should clarify that the Aboriginal Healing Foundation funding was not transferred to Health C

Health committee  This is also a very important program within Health Canada, so I'm very pleased to bring the committee up to date on the progress. As the member mentioned, we hear a number of concerns as well. I would say they fall into two categories. In one case, individuals are often concerne

Health committee  I do not have those recommendations with me, Madam Chair, but we work very closely with the commission. We are going to study the recommendations and do everything we can to help and support people who need those services.

Health committee  It is very important for you to know that we are focused on primary health care for aboriginal communities. It is one of the most important aspects of our mandate in remote communities situated far from locations where provincial services are dispensed, for instance. There are co