Finance committee  In fact, relative to the Health Canada decision, it's about two years. However, the impact of that delay leads to delays of up to seven to nine years nationally, simply because manufacturers have no incentive to initiate the switch in Canada because of the inability to do a natio

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, committee members, for this opportunity to take part in the pre-budget consultations. My organization, Consumer Health Products Canada, represents the manufacturers of over-the-counter medicines and natural health products. We are a $5.6-billio

Health committee  It's a really important issue. There are a number of initiatives under way right now in terms of improving product labels, and the need for education. One of the things, I think, that are really interesting about the Canadian market vis-à-vis other markets, particularly the big

Health committee  The main takeaway is that yes, there are things that are lagging right now in the regulatory system for OTCs that would enable the task of creating a pharmacare program.

Health committee  And it's the removal of the red tape that currently....

Health committee  I'll give a bit of a preface, and I'll ask Kristin to jump in with the numbers. The thing about the minor ailments burden on the health care system is that even though we are talking about 2% of minor ailment sufferers, that numerator sits on top of an enormous denominator. Thes

Health committee  That's a pretty big hurdle.

Health committee  Generally not. I think we may be evolving in a direction where that becomes more likely further down the road. We see a lot of jurisdictions in which the kinds of things that are switching to non-prescription status are things that you may want to include on a plan.

Health committee  Even today I think there are examples—and I think smoking-cessation aids are a good example—of how economically it makes a lot of sense to make those accessible. Our focus really is more on ensuring that we have a regulatory system to put these products on the market in a way t

Health committee  I'm sorry if I'm not communicating clearly. No, we're not talking about including these products on the formulary or on the pharmacare plan, at all. People have to—

Health committee  That's a tough question to answer. I mean, generally speaking, where you have two products in the same therapeutic category, one on prescription and one available without a prescription, we know from the standards that Health Canada uses to approve these drugs that the risks are

Health committee  I would have to say, right off the top, that since about the mid-1990s, virtually all major formularies, primarily in the public plans, have cleared out non-prescription medicines from the plans. This was a movement that took hold around 1990-91. I think at this stage there are v

Health committee  No, I can't, because we haven't seen that transition any time recently. The main point I would make is that the fact that we lag behind all those jurisdictions in terms of the switch process may have something to do with the fact that we don't have national pharmacare. In other w

Health committee  For those who prefer to use their drug plan, the question is whether it's economically driven or whether it's a matter of feeling more confident getting a professional opinion. I think it's important to separate those two scenarios. You don't want to discourage people who need th

Health committee  There has been discussion previously about the coverage of consumer health products. I don't think that's a priority for Canadians right now. It's certainly not the message we're hearing, and I don't think that's what the committee has heard thus far in terms of consumer health p