Posted on March 5, 2010
SO31 Members Statement on the Paralympics (05MAR10)
Mr. Speaker,
Vancouver is a community transformed by the electricity of the 2010 winter Olympic Games. We embraced the athletes, the crowds, the foreign languages heard on the streets. We celebrated our Host First Nations with pride. With the rest Canada we waved our flags, and sometimes wept; riveted by the spectacle of human bravery, of hopes dashed and triumphs seized.
And now Vancouver’s glow of good cheer is re-ignited by the Paralympic Torch flame’s westward odyssey. Now its radiance falls on the disabled and Paralympians, illuminating their extraordinary courage and achievements.
Vancouver will offer these remarkable competitors the same warmth we showed Olympians and will cheer them on just as loudly.
Sadly, the Prime Minister has moved to eliminate the break-week scheduled during the Paralympics.
But I know my colleagues will strive to equally honour our Paralympians, so they do feel recognized as first-class athletes – and the source of inspiration – that they truly are.
Posted on December 2, 2009
“It is with great pleasure that I announce that Bill C-393 (Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime) has passed second reading in the House of Commons. This legislation, if passed, will give developing countries greater access to affordable generic drugs in order to combat diseases such as: HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and other epidemic diseases.”
Congratulations to the Canada’s Grandmother to Grandmother Campaign (www.grandmotherscampaign.org) that worked so tirelessly advocating for this Bill.
Please read the statement I recently made in the House of Commons in support of the Bill.
40:2 Hansard – 119 (2009/11/27)
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Ms. Joyce Murray (Vancouver Quadra, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak in support of Bill C-393 today. The bill would amend a bill passed in 2004, which was known at the time as the “Jean Chrétien pledge to Africa act”. I would like the listeners to keep in mind that objective.
The original bill created what is now known as Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime. The stated purpose of this law was to help get more affordable generic medicines to patients in developing countries for public health needs, including HIV-AIDS, tuberculosis and other epidemic diseases, a very worthy objective, indeed.
This legislation was brought in by a Liberal government and, as the member opposite has just noted, was passed with unanimous support from all political parties in May, 2004, reflecting Canadians’ beliefs and the empathy that Canadians feel for those who are in need.
I want to get on record as saying that this is a humanitarian, non-partisan issue that relates to the health and safety of those less fortunate in developing countries.
A country as lucky as Canada has the responsibility to do everything in its power to facilitate the access and distribution of medicines to those countries that are suffering from the devastating effects of diseases such as HIV.
On a personal level, I immigrated to Canada from South Africa at a young age. I went back in the 2000s and met people who were struggling with this terrible affliction. I am very concerned about compassionate assistance to help the AIDS epidemic.
The amendments in Bill C-393 are supported by a wide variety of organizations, including the Canadian Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign, which is an organization of women working to support the courageous South African grannies who are looking after those children who have been orphaned by the AIDS scourge.
Another point of context is that these amendments to the Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime come at a time when the Conservative Government of the day has reduced by half the number of the poorest African countries that are being supported by CIDA on its priority list. With these cuts, alternative means of support for these countries is badly needed.
There are problems with the current Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime. Despite the fact that the member opposite just celebrated CAMR, and I appreciate his positive statements about this Liberal initiative, it is not a successful regime. It is not working. In fact, in more than four years, only one country, Rwanda, and one Canadian generic manufacturer has used the regime for a single shipment of a single AIDS drug. That is not my definition of success.
Issuing one licence to export only one drug to only one country in almost five years since the law has passed tells us that there is something missing and something else is needed. It is not the expeditious solution for which parliamentarians and WTO members were looking.
The fact is no developing countries, other than Rwanda, have come forward or shown any interest to utilize CAMR in order to get much needed medicines for their citizens. Nor has any country sought to use laws comparable to this that have been passed in other countries. Therefore, this tells us that this law needs to be fixed.
A comprehensive access to medicines regime is needed more than ever. According to a joint UN program on HIV, more than 2.3 million children under the age of 15 are infected with AIDS, most of whom are living in developing countries. Without treatment, an estimated one-third of infants infected with HIV will die before reaching the age of one and half will die before reaching the age of two.
If the need for medicines is so critical, which clearly it is, what is preventing these developing countries from coming forward to utilize the Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime? Simply put, the regime puts up unnecessary barriers and red tape.
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The major concern I have heard in regard to the existing legislation is that the processes and requirements in place may be unnecessarily complex. As a result, they are dissuading the developing countries and generic pharmaceutical companies from stepping forward, utilizing the legislation and bringing forward the solutions for which everyone is looking.
There are many other difficulties to overcome following the delivery of medication to a developing country. We know that at times there are inadequately developed infrastructure, untrained medical staff, unregulated distribution of the drug and disorganized administration. These are all legitimate challenges on the ground.
However, in terms of this legislation, the question in Canada is actually simply. How can we make Canada’s Access to Medicine Regime as simple, straightforward and risk-free as possible for the developing countries, for the generic pharmaceutical companies to use, while maintaining fairness for brand name drug providers? This amendment does that.
I will just speak a bit more about the barriers the existing legislation presents.
Under the current regime, the process for a generic drug manufacturer in Canada to get a compulsory licence to supply developing countries does not reflect the very procedures the developing countries typically go through when procuring medicines.
As the regime stands now, the law contains over 100 clauses that are required to be met. Clearly, that is shown to be a barrier. There are simply too many hurdles that developing countries have to jump over before they can place and receive an order. In thinking about the bill, it is important that we remember that in these developing countries the doctors, nurses and volunteers, and not the lawyers, are ordering these drugs.
Criticism levied against these proposed reforms mainly focus on how they will negatively impact the patented pharmaceutical industry, but the fact is their drugs are simply too expensive to be purchased at their current price and they have not taken the action necessary to get affordable medicines to developing countries.
Nothing in these amendments nor in CAMR itself prevents brand name pharmaceutical companies from competing to supply their patented products to developing countries and under these amendments, royalties would still be based on the sales of the generic product and would flow to the pharmaceutical company.
What is being proposed in Bill C-393? I will take a moment to read into the record parts of a letter I received from a group in my riding of Vancouver Quadra. It is from the UBC Medical Undergraduate Society, signed by Mattias Berg, the president. He speaks about Bill C-393, proposing a simplified one-licence solution. He says:
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This approach, widely recommended by multiple humanitarian organizations including Médecins Sans Frontières…would cut through most of the red tape that prevents CAMR from being used to its full potential. |
He goes on to add:
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As concerned Canadians and future physicians, we are asking you to please support this bill and help save the lives of millions of children and patients in the developing world. |
A compulsory licence will require that the generic manufacturer pay a royalty to the company that holds that patent and royalties would still be based on the sales of the generic product to the developing country, as in the existing CAMR formula. If the legislation is reformed, Canada’s largest generic pharmaceutical company has committed publicly that it will make a desperately needed three-in-one AIDS drug that is suited for children in developing countries. This is all about that.
As we know, very few children in these countries have access to medicines to combat HIV, and they suffer unnecessarily. This is a human tragedy which we are trying to address. By streamlining the access to medicines regime, we would not create any additional costs to Canadian taxpayers. In fact, it requires the government to spend no additional funds.
Nobody claims that Canada’s access to medicine regime, either in its existing form or in an amended version, would provide a complete solution. Barriers to accessing medicines in the developing world will continue. However, Canadians right across the country want to say that they are doing our part to help fight sickness and poverty around the world. It is part of our humanness to want to help.
This amended legislation is a policy tool that has the potential to put into action the desire of Canadians to help those less fortunate and help facilitate developing countries to gain access to affordable and timely treatment. For both compassionate and pragmatic reasons, the bill deserves Parliament’s support and I hope the members will provide it.
Posted on November 25, 2009
November 25, 2009, House of Commons:
Ms. Joyce Murray (Vancouver Quadra, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, Canada will be on the world stage shortly and billions of people from nations large and small will have their eyes on our country.
No, I am not talking about the Vancouver Olympics. I am talking about the climate change conference in Copenhagen.
Canadians have consistently asked their government to take action on climate change for four long years. As the Conservative government has already demonstrated in Nairobi, Bali and Bangkok, it is not willing to address Canadians concerns but rather want to block action on climate change.
International headlines this week acknowledge Quebec’s decision to deflect from Canada’s current road to nowhere climate policy and come up with its own. The international embarrassment continues.
With Copenhagen only weeks away will the Conservatives choose to work with international leaders and address this urgent crisis or will they maintain due course and drive Canada into a future of failure economically, environmentally and on the world stage?
