International Trade committee  Yes. That's a good point. I wholeheartedly agree with that.

International Trade committee  I do work quite closely with them. I have been doing a study on wildfires. We had a terrible wildfire season up here in 2014, which meant that we were basically fogged in by smoke for almost two and a half months. That study was in association with our territorial epidemiologist

International Trade committee  I'll again quote from Labonté and Ruckert, who had stats in their study—I don't have them in my notes—basically showing that most analyses of the TPP show that it will only improve the GDP by a tiny, tiny percentage in most countries. I think there was one exception, and that mig

International Trade committee  Well, fracking is an issue up there. We had some test wells drilled two or three years ago. At the time there was no public health input whatsoever. About 80% of the studies that have ever been done on fracking have been done since 2013, so they are now in the peer-reviewed liter

International Trade committee  Yes, absolutely. I've also worked with Doctors Without Borders and I believe they have spoken to the panel on this same issue. This is forecast to increase drug prices in Canada. It may pose a problem if we ever try to bring pharmacare through. Globally, we're already seeing

International Trade committee  The public health doctors who have written the most about this ask why the exclusion given to tobacco wasn't given to other public health measures. I will quote one of the papers by Labonté and Ruckert: “Why was this exclusion [the tobacco exclusion] not extended to all non-discr

International Trade committee  You know, I really found her to be very receptive and I feel that she's really listening and probably understands the health impact of climate change better than most of the doctors in Canada right now. I feel she understands that a lot of the things that will improve climate cha

International Trade committee  Are you asking me or Craig?

International Trade committee  I think that there are so many variables that it would be very difficult for us to answer that question adequately. When Minister McKenna came up here, she said that in the south, climate change is an inconvenience; up here, it's impacting our whole life. She said that after meet

International Trade committee  The patent term adjustments and the loosening of terms for the repatenting of existing drugs are also a concern to us because the public health burden is going to get bigger. The fact that lawyers are the people who are going to be adjudicating any dispute is a huge problem. Do

International Trade committee  Sure.

International Trade committee  Thank you for having us speak. My name is Dr. Courtney Howard. I am the climate-health board lead for the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, otherwise know as CAPE. CAPE is Canada's only physicians' education and advocacy organization that is committed to p