1968-02-13

[Stage Direction]
Mr. M. L. Klein (Cartier) presented the first report of the special joint committee on immigration, and moved that the report be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.
[Editor's note: Text of the foregoing report appears in today's Votes and Proceedings.]


[Stage Direction]
Mr. Real Caouette (Villeneuve) asked for leave to introduce Bill No. C-200 entitled "An act to amend the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation Act."
Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Mr. Caouette:: Mr. Speaker, the present act stipulates that, in order to be appointed a director of the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, one must be a British subject. The object of this bill is to provide that, in order to be appointed a director of the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, one must be a Canadian citizen.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS


[Stage Direction]
Mr. Real Caouelie (Villeneuve) asked leave to introduce Bill No. C-201 entitled "An act respecting the use of the word "Canada".
Some hon. Members:: Explain.


David Réal Caouette: At the present time, Mr. Speaker, the expressions "Dominion" and "Puissance du Canada" are used in the documents published by the Canadian federal authorities. This bill suggests that the word "Canada" should be used instead.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



VOCATIONAL TRAINING


Mr. A. D. Hales (Wellington South):: Mr. Speaker, I rise at this time to ask Your Honour's leave to move the adjournment of the house under standing order No. 26 in order to discuss a matter of very urgent national importance, namely the right of this government, through the Minister of Manpower and Immigration, to say in writing to the provinces of Canada that the government will not be able to honour a cost sharing agreement for the building of vocational training schools throughout Canada which it made with the provinces last August. I realize, Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Would the hon. member address the Chair on the question of urgency of debate. I take the liberty to remind him that what is under consideration at this point is the matter of urgency of debate only. The hon. member should refrain from discussing the substance of his motion and confine his remarks to the question of urgency.
[DOT] (2:40 p.m.)


Alfred Dryden Hales: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I realize it is my task to convince you that it is urgent that we postpone the business of the house to debate this matter; that is, it must be of national importance and must be urgent.
First of all I should like to point out how important it is from a national point of view. Every province in Canada is affected; every person of school age is affected. This concerns the financial structure not only of every province in Canada but also of this government. I do not think there is any doubt concerning the national scope of this subject; therefore I shall leave that matter at this point.
With regard to the matter of urgency I should like to draw to Your Honour's attention the fact that nothing can be more urgent than a question concerning Canada's credit rating. Second, what could be more urgent than a discussion of a matter which concerns the integrity of an individual or a nation

February 13, 1968
Vocational Training
when that integrity is brought into question because of the very fact that the government has told these provinces it cannot fulfil its commitments and cannot honour the agreements. Third, no indication has been given to this house as to when we might have an opportunity to debate this very point. I realize that the estimates were tabled yesterday, but we have not been told when we might expect to have a debate on those estimates or when a supply motion will be called. Therefore we have not been given assurance that this will be done immediately. This very serious problem should be discussed now.
Another reason for the urgency relates particularly to the province of Ontario. The Ontario legislature opens tomorrow. The provincial government must be prepared to budget its expenditures for the year.
That province was promised some $71 million and now is told it will have to find $34 million, which means that this province will have to make some very fast decisions in order to raise this money. Therefore the matter is very urgent. Indeed it is urgent in respect of all provinces and not just Ontario.	>
This- problem is doubly urgent because it affects all provinces. I realize, as I am sure most members of this house realize, the great domino effect this action will have on all provinces across Canada. Therefore it is most urgent that this action be stopped immediately and that we have an opportunity to debate this financial question which has appeared on the horizon.
The sixth reason I believe it is urgent is that we as members of this house have a right to know now just how serious this whole matter is. We have a right to know whether we are just seeing the top of the iceberg. I believe we are entitled to have a full fledged debate on this matter now.
My final point in stressing that it is urgent is that the unemployment situation in Canada is such that every step must be taken to provide training for the unemployed by means of the vocational training schools. Therefore it is most important that this matter be settled speedily so the Minister of Manpower and Immigration will have an opportunity to reconsider the letter he sent to the provinces stating his inability to pay the amounts agreed upon.
With these remarks I hope I have proven to you, Mr. Speaker, that this is a matter of national importance and one of urgency. If you should grant the motion so there would be a postponement of the business for today I

and many other members of this house would welcome the opportunity to speak on this very serious matter.


Mr. T. C. Douglas (Burnaby-Coquillam):: should like on behalf of the members of this party, Mr. Speaker, to support the motion and urge Your Honour to allow it on the grounds of urgent public importance. In the first place the provinces, who are now in the process of preparing their estimates and their budgets, ought to know exactly what the position is and why this government finds it necessary to curtail the financial commitments it made to the provinces of this country. At the present time in most of the communities I have visited there is a long list of students waiting to get into vocational training schools. The provinces are anxious to meet this problem. They cannot meet it unless they know what the situation is with regard to the financial commitments the federal government is going to keep.
I want to point out also that the matter is important because in this technological age vocational training is becoming increasingly important. If we are to avoid inflation it can only be done by increased productivity, and productivity depends upon training technical staff and workers so they can perform technical functions in industry. This is a matter of great importance all across the country.
I submit to Your Honour that there will be no other opportunity in the immediate future, within the next day or two, to discuss this matter. If we leave it for several days that will be too late. I think the house and the country, particularly the provincial governments, are entitled to a full statement from the government. They are entitled to have that statement made today. We are entitled to know why the government, under the guise of controlling inflation, is seeking to do the very thing that will make inflation worse than it is now. We therefore support this motion.


Hon. George Hees (Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, I rise also to speak to the question of urgency of debate. At this moment, sir, you may be considering that this subject could be discussed under the supplementary estimates which were tabled yesterday. However, on examining these estimates I think you will agree there is no item which would provide the latitude of debate necessary to cover the vitally important subjects which have been mentioned by the hon. member for Wellington South and the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam.
February 13, 1363	COMMONS
Since this is a vitally important matter and must be debated immediately, and since there is no item which the government has indicated under which the debate may be conducted nor has the government given any indication when such an item might be called, I consider the subject must be debated today.


Mr. Speaker:: After having heard the submissions by the hon. member for Wellington South, supported by the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam and the hon. member for Northumberland, I suggest to the house that I am in a position to express an opinion. The hon. member has satisfied me that this is a matter of national importance, a matter of extreme urgency and a matter which is national in scope. However, I must tell him I am not satisfied he has convinced me that there is urgency of debate this afternoon, and that the ordinary business of the house should be set aside for the purpose of discussing the problem raised by the hon. member.
He knows that according to citation 100 paragraph 3 of Beauchesne's fourth edition, urgency means urgency of debate, when the ordinary opportunities provided by the rules of the house do not permit the subject to be brought on early enough. In spite of the suggestion by the hon. member for Northumberland I believe, particularly in view of the fact that the subject is closely linked with the general financial situation in the country, that it could easily be brought within the scope of the financial debate which has been announced for later this week by the Prime Minister. An indication was given by the Prime Minister in the house yesterday that there will be a financial debate when the supplementary estimates are brought down. If it should appear later this week that this is not the program of the government and the supplementary estimates are not brought down, the matter can be reconsidered then, e (2:50 p.m.)
In view of the statement made yesterday I suggest to hon. members that it is not possible for me to accept the motion today.
DEBATES	6663
Inquiries of the Ministry Treasury Board in his seat, so I would ask him to explain to the house why he claims that the estimated expenditures for the next fiscal year are up less than 4 per cent when in fact the estimated expenditures, as I read them, are about 8 per cent higher than the estimates tabled one year ago for the current fiscal year.


Hon. E. J. Benson (President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, I would simply say that our objective was to contain expenditure within the 10.3 billion level for the entire year. We have included in the estimates tabled this year, because of better forecasting, items that were included in supplementary estimates last year. So my hon. friend is comparing "mains" with "mains", and the two things are not comparable.


Mr. Sianfield:: Would the minister say I was incorrect in believing that the estimates tabled yesterday are 8 per cent higher than the estimates tabled a year ago for the current year?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I suggest that when the Leader of the Opposition asks the minister a question in this form, it is debate.


Hon. Michael Starr (Ontario):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the President of the Treasury Board. In view of his answer, would he guarantee to the house that no supplementary estimates will be submitted to parliament next year?


Edgar John Benson: Mr. Speaker, I should like to guarantee to the house that after the supplementary estimates are introduced during the year and the year has ended, with the normal lapses that always occur, we will hit our $10.3 billion ceiling and will balance the budget this year.


Mr. Ricard:: You are whistling in the dark.


Mr. Monieith:: Then is the minister now admitting that he has superfluous figures in the present estimates?


Edgar John Benson: No, Mr. Speaker.



FINANCE

[Stage Direction]
INCREASE IN 1968 ESTIMATES OVER 1967 On the orders of the day:
Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I had a question for the minister in charge of Treasury Board but perhaps I can direct it to the Minister of Finance. I now see the minister in charge of



INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS AND DISPUTES INVESTIGATION ACT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address a question to the Prime Minister. In view of the

February 13, 1988
Inquiries of th& Ministry very strong representations made to the government this morning by the Canadian Labour Congress regarding Bill No. C-186, and in view of the undoubted dissension this legislation will cause, would the Prime Minister give consideration to withdrawing that legislation at this time?


Right Hon. L. B. Pearson (Prime Minister):: No, Mr. Speaker. It is before a parliamentary committee, and it will be considered there.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In view of the fact, as I recall it, that the Prime Minister did not include this legislation in the list of priorities he gave the house the other day, has the government changed its order of priorities and is Bill No. C-186 now a priority item for this session?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, there has been no change, but we are very anxious that this bill be given exhaustive and comprehensive consideration before the committee.


Mr. Roberi Muir (Cape Breton North and Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Prime Minister. May I ask the right hon. gentleman whether the presence of the minister of manpower at last night's meeting of the parliamentary committee studying Bill No. C-186 indicates a lack of confidence in the new Minister without Portfolio, who was also present?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Robert Muir: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, may I put the question in another form?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The difference in form will have to be substantial to make the question acceptable.


Robert Muir: I can assure you that the difference will be substantial. May I ask the right hon. gentleman if the Minister of Manpower and Immigration was there on behalf of the C.N.T.U.?


Mr. Gilles Gregoire (Lapointe):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a supplementary question?
Does the right hon. Prime Minister intend to see to it that Bill No. C-186 shall be considered and passed by the house before the adjournment of the present session?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, that will depend on the progress made in the committee, of course.
[Mr. Douglas.)



OLD AGE SECURITY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Gerard Laprise (Chapleau):: Mr. Speaker, on February 6 last, I put a question to the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of National Health and Welfare with regard to numerous complaints from older citizens who did not receive in January the supplement to the old age security pension to which they are entitled.
Could the parliamentary secretary tell me whether action has been taken to pay that guaranteed income supplement as soon as possible? Could she answer this question today?


Mrs. Margaret Rideout (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, the minister will be in the house later this week, and I know he will be glad to answer this question.



CONSUMER AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Howard Johnston (Okanagan-Revel-stoke):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs; he took it as notice some time ago. Has his department yet decided whether to appeal the fines that were recently levied against certain fruit importing companies which are engaged in the mandarin orange trade in British Columbia?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I am not sure whether the question was accepted when it was first asked. If the matter is urgent perhaps the question might be answered, but it does not seem urgent to me.


Howard Earl Johnston: It was accepted, Mr. Speaker, when it was first asked and the answer is basic to the entire approach of the new department to consumer protection.
Kon. John N. Turner (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs): Mr. Speaker, we have asked for and received advice from counsel. Since this involves an appeal before the courts we have asked for counsel's opinion and are considering it.
February 13, 1968	COMMONS



HEALTH AND WELFARE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. P. B. Rynard (Simcoe East):: My question is for the Prime Minister, Mr. Speaker. Since two provinces have now accepted the national medicare plan does this mean the Prime Minister has now abandoned the principle of portability?
Righl Hon. L. B. Pearson (Prime Minister):
No, Mr. Speaker.


Hon. E. D. Fulton (Kamloops):: I have a question for the Prime Minister, supplementary to the one that was asked by the hon. member for Simcoe East. Is the right hon. gentleman satisfied that a trip confined to a movement from Saskatchewan to one other province and possibly a return comes within the definition of portability in a national context?



LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
George Harris Hees: wish to direct a question to the Minister of Industry. In view of the severe drop in manufacturing production, from a 20-year average annual increase of 5 per cent to 1.1 per cent last year, will the minister take the first opportunity on motions to outline to the house the steps the government intends to take in the near future to stimulate industry and therefore stop the vast growth of unemployment in the country?


Hon. C. M. Drury (Minister of Industry):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the hon. member for Northumberland will be as glad as I was to note that the index of industrial production has turned upward. This undoubtedly is a direct consequence of efforts made in this regard.


George Harris Hees: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Since the figures I quoted were exact figures taken from the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, I ask the minister to answer my question.


Charles Mills (Bud) Drury: Yes, Mr. Speaker. The figures quoted were exact, but I suggest that the hon. gentleman is clearly drawing the wrong conclusions from them.
DEBATES	6665
Inquiries of the Ministry MANPOWER



REPORTED RESIGNATION OF SENIOR DEPARTMENTAL OFFICERS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. David Lewis (York South):: I have a question for the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. Can the minister inform the house whether a senior officer in his department, Mr. Duclos, and other senior officers have resigned their posts? If so, did they resign because of some differences of opinion as to policies being pursued by the department?


Hon. Jean Marchand (Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I have not received the resignation of any of the senior officials referred to by my hon. friend for York South.



INDUSTRY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Lloyd R. Crouse (Queens-Lunenburg):: should like to direct a question to the Minister of Fisheries. The $6J million fish plant of Ross Steers Limited of St. John's, Newfoundland has laid off 125 plant workers and tied up five of its deep sea trawlers. Having regard to the assistance provided to this company by the government, would the hon. gentleman investigate and report on the reason for this shutdown, in the hope that steps may be taken to prevent any further curtailment of fishing operations in the Atlantic provinces?


Hon.   H.-J. Robichaud@Minister of Fisheries: I believe the hon. member is referring to an article which appeared in the Globe and Mail this morning, in which reference is made to a temporary closing of a fish processing plant in Newfoundland. This closing takes place at a time of year when fishing operations are becoming more difficult on account of climatic conditions.
The closing of this plant could have been caused by many factors, such as the operation of a number of outmoded and uneconomic trawlers, which makes such fishing activities at this time of the year unprofitable. It could also have been caused by the over-fishing of certain species such as ocean perch and flounders, causing an over-production which

February 13, 1968
Inquiries of the Ministry has affected the marketing of this particular commodity.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: I thank the minister for his answer. Would he inform the house whether an assessment of the trawlers would indicate that they were not properly designed and are unsafe for further service at the present time?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I doubt whether the supplementary question is acceptable. It does not appear to be urgent.


George Harris Hees: In
view of the fact that one of the reasons given by the company for the cessation of its operations is its inability to sell fish in the United States market, would the hon. gentleman ask his colleague the Minister of Trade and Commerce to try a little harder in this connection?


Mr. H. Russell MacEwan (Piciou):: Since it has been suggested that the trawlers are antiquated, would the minister give consideration, together with his colleague the President of the Treasury Board, to recommending a return to the former system of subsidies in respect of fishing trawlers?


Mr. Robichaud:: There is no indication in the article I have mentioned to the effect that an application by this company for subsidy on the construction of new trawlers has been turned down.



REQUEST FOR PROTECTION AGAINST INFERIOR GENERIC IMITATIONS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Philip Bernard Rynard: I had
intended to address a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare, but in his absence I will address it to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. In view of the serious situation resulting from the use of chloramphenicol which fails to produce therapeutic blood levels, endangering the lives of those taking it, and the fact that the food and drug administration of the United States has banned all but Chloromycetin by Parke, Davis and Company, would the minister tell the house what steps have been taken to protect the Canadian public?


Hon. John N. Turner (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: I shall look into this matter immediately and talk with my good friend the parliamentary secretary to the minister.


Margaret Isabel Rideout: Mr. Speaker, earlier to-day the hon. member for Simcoe East (Mr. Rynard) directed a question to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and I would like to answer that question now if I may. The food and drug directorate has been kept fully informed of investigations carried out in the United States showing differences in blood levels of chloramphenicol in patients receiving various brands of this drug, as well as the in vitro dissolution rates of these products. Samples of all brands of this drug on the Canadian market are currently being examined in the laboratories of the directorate. When the studies are complete action will be taken if evidence is obtained that any products fail to meet appropriate standards.


Philip Bernard Rynard: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a supplementary question. The food and drug directorate of the United States has banned this drug for some time, and it has been proven very definitely that the blood levels have not been adequate with some of the brands that have been used. I would like to know when something will be done about this, and what action is contemplated.



FINANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Marcel Lambert (Edmonton West):: May I ask whether the Minister of Finance has received notice that the Amax Petroleum Corporation and the Southwest Potash Corporation of Canada, subsidiaries of American Metal Climax Incorporated of New York, and both active in western mining and petroleum production, have decided to close their operations following the reallocation of funds in consequence of measures taken by the United States government to curb business spending abroad? If so, has the hon. gentleman received notice that other companies may have the same intention?


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Minister of Finance):: I read about this particular case in the newspapers this morning; I have not received any other direct information. I do know there is some concern with regard to the action of the United States government in curtailing the export of capital from the United States. This is, of course, a matter of concern to the Canadian government because we have said to industry and to the public generally that
February 13, 1968

we shall bring cases of this kind to the attention of the United States government if they threaten to have serious effects upon Canada.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: In that case will the minister consult with his colleague the Minister of Manpower and Immigration and ask him whether he now agrees there should not be government direction of foreign investment?


Mr. E. Nasserden (Rosthern):: I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Finance. Has he received any representations from the province of Saskatchewan in connection with the slowdown of potash development in that province?


Mitchell William Sharp: Yes, I have discussed this matter with the premier and with other ministers of the Saskatchewan government.


Hon. Alvin Hamilton (Qu'Appelle):: My supplementary question has to do with the question raised by my hon. friend from Rosthern. Is the minister aware of a statement by an official of the United States treasury department last week that if any United States subsidiary were to trade with a country such as China, its management would be liable to severe fines or prison sentences for breaking the trading with the enemy act?


Mitchell William Sharp: I am not aware of that particular statement, but of course I am aware of United States policy in this respect.


George Harris Hees: Has
the Minister of Finance pointed out to the United States secretary of the treasury that this country has a trade deficit of more than a billion dollars with the United States every year, so we are assisting them-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, further to the question asked by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle may I ask the Minister of Finance, in view of the statement made by a United States official regarding potash companies in this country and whether or not they can sell potash to certain countries to which its sale is prohibited in the United States, has the minister or any other department of the government made it clear to Canadian subsidiaries of United States corporations, including potash companies, that their responsibility is to the laws of Canada and not to the laws of the United States?
Inquiries of the Ministry


Mitchell William Sharp: Yes, Mr. Speaker. This position has been made very clear both by the Minister of Trade and Commerce and by myself; and if there are any cases of this kind where Canadian companies are not observing Canadian law I hope my hon. friend will bring them to my attention and I will have them investigated immediately.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: As a supplementary question, will the minister make it clear to these companies that the trading with the enemy act which applies in the United States does not apply to Canadian subsidiaries of United States corporations operating in Canada?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman knows that United States laws do not apply to any Canadian companies.



CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Auguste Choqueite (Loibiniere):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the hon. Secretary of State.
In view of the fact that subsection (e) of section 2 of the Broadcasting Act stipulates that all Canadians are entitled to broadcasting services in French and English, will the increase in the budget of the C.B.C. for 196869 be used to finance the extension of the French network of the C.B.C.?


Hon. Judy V. LaMarsh (Secretary of Siaie):: As hon. members will see, a considerable amount is provided in next year's C.B.C. budget for the extension of services in both languages to places not already served, in accordance with requests we receive from every corner of the house almost daily.


Gilles Grégoire: Mr. Speaker, I wish to ask the Minister of Finance a supplementary question about the estimates.
Could he tell us if the increase of $130 million a year in the interest on the national debt is due to an increase in the national debt or in the interest rate paid by the government?


Mr. Speaker:: I do not think that question is in order.

February 13, 1968
Inquiries of tM Ministry



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Michael Starr: I wish to ask the Prime Minister a question based on his statement of intention that an opportunity shall be afforded to parliament to debate the general economic situation in Canada. Is the Prime Minister prepared to say emphatically that this opportunity will be provided in connection with the present supplementary estimates, and that no restrictions will be imposed which would prevent such a debate from taking place?


Lester Bowles Pearson: The only restrictions would, naturally, be those imposed by Mr. Speaker on hon. members who violate the rules of debate. Apart from this, the supplementary estimates provide an opportunity for a debate on this subject to take place, and if this is not sufficient for the hon. member the interim supply resolution certainly affords that opportunity.


George Harris Hees: Will the Prime Minister designate the item on which a full and unrestricted economic debate may take place? Will he do so before the end of the day?


Lester Bowles Pearson: I will leave that to the hon. gentleman's ingenuity.


George Harris Hees: I have great ingenuity but I cannot figure out the Prime Minister's mind. Will he make a statement tomorrow?



AGRICULTURE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. E. Pascoe (Moose Jaw-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to ask the Minister of Agriculture a question which is of an urgent nature for local fairs and exhibitions preparing for this year's attractions. Are grants or loans available or will they be available shortly for fairs and exhibitions wishing to improve their facilities this year?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I suggest this question should be put on the order paper. If the hon. member disputes my ruling and wishes to have an opportunity to discuss the matter later today I will see that he is given that chance tonight.



INQUIRY OF THE MINISTRY

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. K. H. More (Regina City):: Mr. Speaker,
I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Finance. Is it his intention to present a budget to this house before this session adjourns for an event in April in which he is greatly interested?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I have no such intention.



HIGHWAY SAFETY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Heward Grafftey (Brome-Missisquoi):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. When will the minister be announcing government intentions relating to recommendations of the legal and justice committee, made over a year ago, in the field of automobile deaths and injuries?


Hon. Paul Hellyer (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, my officials who have been given this responsibility are trying to work out a plan for me which is practical and which will involve full participation not only of the federal government but also of the provincial governments which, as you know, have much of the constitutional responsibility in the area. As soon as we have heard from some of the provinces and I have had a chance to review the policy I will try to make a statement to the house at the appropriate time.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Andrew Brewin (Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question I intended to put to the Minister of National Defence, but I think it is of sufficient importance to put it to the right hon. Prime Minister. The United States secretary of defence in a recent report to the United States senate armed services committee stated that the Canadian government has already indicated that it intends to continue its co-operation in the air defence of the continent. This statement was made in the light of a $13 billion new air defence system-
February 13, 1968


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Would the hon. member ask his question?


Francis Andrew Brewin: Yes; I am just coming to the question, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Prime Minister whether the government has in fact indicated the intention stated by Mr. McNamara.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Yes, Mr. Speaker. It has already been announced in the house, I believe, that we intend to continue our co-operation with the United States in the field of continental air defence, but that has nothing to do necessarily with the program referred to by my hon. friend.



NATIONAL PARKS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. W. G. Dinsdale (Brandon-Souris):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Was the minister or any of his departmental officials invited to the meeting held at Banff last night, sponsored by the citizens' committee under the chairmanship of hon. Senator Donald Cameron, protesting national parks policies as they apply to Banff? If so, was the department represented at that meeting?


Hon. Arthur Laing (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, I think we had observers there.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: As a supplementary question, will representatives of the citizens' committee be invited to appear before the northern affairs committee when it reconvenes shortly, so they might be heard?


Arthur Laing: Mr. Speaker, the committee is in charge of its own affairs, and I am not going to interfere or indicate which groups it should call.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. B. Nesbitt (Oxford):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Is the government giving counsel and advice to the governments of North Korea and North Viet Nam, and the
Inquiries of the Ministry Smith government in Rhodesia; and if so what is the nature of this counsel and advice? I ask this question in view of a statement by the Secretary of State for External Affairs on February 8 to a large meeting in Toronto, where he stated that our position as friend and adviser to both sides-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The question is in order, but I think the hon. member will agree that it would not be in order to read the statement to which he is referring.


Some hon. Members:: Answer.



FINANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Finance. It is based on a statement made recently to a public meeting by the Minister of Agriculture, when he said that the ceiling on interest rates of chartered banks should be imposed again. Is it the intention of the government to bring in an amendment based on the policy set out by the Minister of Agriculture?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I have no intention of bringing forward any legislation dealing with the Bank Act, but I always listen very carefully to my colleague the Minister of Agriculture.


Edward Nasserden: Mr. Speaker,
I have a supplementary question for the Prime Minister. How soon can we expect an announcement of government policy, as a result of the study indicated by the Prime Minister a few days ago, in regard to the rising and exorbitant interest rates that have become effective since the government eliminated the ceiling on bank interest rates?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I am not quite sure to which study my hon. friend is referring, and I will have to examine his question very carefully.


Edward Nasserden: A few days ago I asked the Prime Minister if this matter was under consideration and he said the cabinet was studying it. I wonder when we can hope to have an answer saying what the government is going to do.

February 13, 1968
Inquiries of th& Ministry CRIMINAL CODE



SUGGESTED AMENDMENT RESPECTING REPRESENTATION BY COUNSEL

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Justice. In view of the lack of agreement by the provinces at the federal-provincial conference to enactment of the Canadian charter of human rights, which would have guaranteed the right of Canadian citizens to be represented by counsel in courts, is the minister giving consideration to adding a clause to his omnibus bill amending the Criminal Code, which would give such a right to counsel?


Hon.   P.-E. Trudeau@Minister of Justice: No, Mr. Speaker. This question of the right to counsel will be dealt with more properly in a charter of human rights and not in a Criminal Code bill, because this right applies to many aspects of the law, not only the criminal law.



HOUSING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker,
I wish to direct a question to the minister responsible for housing. In view of the recent public statement by the Secretary of State for External Affairs that housing is in an awful mess in Canada, has the minister conferred with the Secretary of State for External Affairs to ask whether he has any suggestions as to the type of amendments that should be brought forward to rectify the situation?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for Kootenay West.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: Thank you for recognizing me, Mr. Speaker. I know the Secretary of State has to leave in a few minutes and has been sitting on the edge for nearly half an hour-


Michael Starr: On the edge of what?


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: In view of the fact that the senate foreign relations committee has been

informed that one reason United States forces did not go to the assistance of the intelligence ship when she was seized by North Korea is that all United States planes in South Korea were equipped only with atomic weapons, has the Secretary of State any comment to make about this unusual admission?


Julia Verlyn (Judy) LaMarsh: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. gentleman is asking the question of me let me say I have not been sitting on the edge of my chair, and I hope he will be careful to indicate whether he is dealing with domestic or external affairs.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I was asking the question of the Secretary of State for External Affairs.



CANADIAN CONSTITUTION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. In view of the ensuing public interest in last week's constitutional conference, is it the government's intention to gather together the main working papers in some form so they may be printed and made available to the public?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I answered a similar question several days ago. At that time I believe I said this was something which should be done, and we are taking steps to see that it is done.



SALT-EFFECT OF TARIFF CHANGES ON CANADIAN INDUSTRY

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. R. E. McKinley (Huron):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. In view of the adverse effect the Kennedy round tariff changes will have on the Canadian salt industry, will the minister consider having the special circumstances clause invoked and applied in order to renegotiate this commitment?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, it has been brought to my attention in a brief submitted by the Canadian salt producers that the changes being made will have an adverse effect on their operations. I should point out that the reductions in question are to be staged in five annual steps ending January 1, 1972. So far as I know
February 13, 1968	COMMONS
there is no suggestion that injury will result from the initial reductions which come into provisional effect on January 1 of this year. I will be glad to keep the situation under review, and if in light of experience it should become apparent that serious injury to the Canadian industry is arising from the reduction, consideration will be given to renegotiating the commitment in question.


Mr, McKinley:: Thank you very much.



UNITED NATIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Martial Asselin (Charlevoix):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs, but due to his absence, I will direct it to the Prime Minister.
Recently, the parliamentary secretary to the Secretary of State for External Affairs seemed to question the government policy concerning its formula on the admission of two Chinas in the United Nations. Is that statement of the parliamentary secretary to the Secretary of State for External Affairs an indication that the Canadian government wishes to alter its position on the matter?
[English\
Righl Hon. L. B. Pearson (Prime Minister):
No, Mr. Speaker. Our policy in this regard is quite clear, and I am sure my colleague the Secretary of State for External Affairs would confirm that if he were not out on the telephone.



REPORTED STATEMENT BY AGRICULTURE MINISTER RESPECTING WHEAT BOARD

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Ed. Schreyer (Springfield):: Mr. Speaker,
I should like to ask the Minister of Agriculture whether he was making a declaration of government policy or merely speculating when he stated publicly a few days ago that the cost of operation of the Canadian Wheat Board should be paid out of public funds.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member knows he cannot ask a minister about a statement made outside the house.


Edward Richard Schreyer: 
Hon. J. J. Greene (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. I suggest that the hon. member read my speeches more carefully before asking questions about them. That is not what I said.



AIR CANADA


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. L. R. Sherman (Winnipeg South):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Transport whether the reduction scheduled for 1968-69 in the spending estimates of the Department of Transport will be reflected in the curtailment of any of Air Canada's operations or services?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: No, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I suggest to the hon. member that his question is not in order.



INDUSTRY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Robert McCleave (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Does the inclusion of $2 million in the supplementary estimates in respect of Sydney steel close the door to further negotiations between the provincial and federal governments?


Lester Bowles Pearson: No, Mr. Speaker. At the moment we are in the process of drafting a reply to the most recent communication from the premier of Nova Scotia.



TRANSPORT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. David MacDonald (Prince):: Mr. Speaker, on Thursday and Friday of last week I brought to the attention of the Prime Minister the lay-offs that have taken place in the last

February 13, 1968
Inquiries of the Ministry week or so by the Northumberland consultants, to the extent of about 50 per cent. I asked whether this would have some further delaying effect on the construction of the Northumberland causeway. The right hon. gentleman indicated that he would find out whether such was the case, and I am wondering whether he now has that information.


Hon. G. J. Mcllrailh (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I could give the information. The staff of the consultants working on the Northumberland causeway has increased since last August from 88 to 94. What apparently is causing concern to my hon. friend is a reduction in the number of supervisory staff working on the three contracts which are now going ahead in Prince Edward Island, and on which work has been shut down for the winter because of weather conditions. That is the only reduction there has been. There has not been a reduction but rather an increase in the total staff working on this project.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, some months ago the minister was good enough to assure the members of the committee on public works that we would have an opportunity to discuss further developments in respect of the causeway when a report was submitted by the special advisor to the minister. How soon may we look forward to such a committee hearing?


George James McIlraith: When the report is received.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: When will that be?


George James McIlraith: I cannot tell.



FINANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Lawrence Watson (Assiniboia):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Finance whether it is the government's intention to revise present legislation in order that banks will be allowed to charge more than the present rate of interest for farm improvement loans?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I have answered similar questions in the past. I think it will be desirable to give some flexibility in respect of interest rates in order that the sort of thing that has arisen recently will not occur again.


Lawrence E. Watson: Mr. Speaker, if there is to be a flexible arrangement are the interest rates likely to go down as well as up?


Mitchell William Sharp: Yes, Mr. Speaker.



AGRICULTURE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. H. Jorgenson (Provencher):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Agriculture whether he has received information from representatives of potato producers in western Canada outlining a further deterioration in the situation since last week; and is the government now prepared to consider the application of value for duty?


John James Greene: Mr. Speaker, I received a telegram alleging a further deterioration of price. This matter is being investigated and a review is being made as to whether the Canadian Horticultural Council, which formerly did not support the application of value for duty, has now had a change of mind. To date and to the best of my knowledge this council does not support the application of the Alberta potato growers.
[DOT] (3:30 p.m.)



PATENT ACT-TRADE MARKS ACT AMENDMENTS RESPECTING IMPORTATION OF PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Monday, February 12, consideration of the motion of Mr. Turner for the second reading of Bill No. C-190, to amend the Patent Act and the Trade Marks Act.
Mr. Richard Cashin (Parliamentary Secretary to Minisier of Fisheries):: Mr. Speaker, in my view the House of Commons was treated last evening to a most unusual and remarkable performance by the junior member for Halifax (Mr. Forrestall). Indeed, after close examination of the text of his speech I have come to the conclusion that he was either poorly informed on the matter before the house or undertook a course of action which in my view can only be called courageous. He advocated a course of action for parliament and the government that flies in the face of 100 years of traditional sentiment and agitation from the area he represents. Surely it takes a courageous man to dissociate himself publicly from the viewpoints and philosophy
February 13, 19G8	COMMONS
of government that have been deeply embedded in the region he represents. The matter before the house, the changing of the Patent Act and the Trade Marks Act, represents in a sense an expression of a particular philosophy of government.
It may be said that the situation in the drug industry is such that the framework of the industry needs to be altered. One of the major changes under this measure would lead to freer trade. The hon. member for Halifax, contrary to what may be the understandable wishes of his constituents, has attacked this legislation. He has used arguments which have been primarily used by the drug industry located in central Canada. Thus for the first time we have seen-and I think this is a good balance-a member from the Atlantic region defending the interests of another region at the expense of his own. The approach of the hon. member for Halifax was also in direct contradiction to the stands taken in this house by the hon. member for Cape Breton North and Victoria (Mr. Muir) and the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Maclnnis) who have attempted to model themselves as particular spokesmen for the interests of their region.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Why don't you crawl out from under that rug and stand up?


Richard Joseph Cashin: I hear the senior hon. member for Halifax (Mr. McCleave) making one of his usual contributions from his seat. Of course, they are most effective then because they are not heard by everybody. If I were the senior member for Halifax I would be very concerned about carrying my running mate with me the next time.
Let me point out what the running mate of the senior member for Halifax has done. He has expressed concern about 2,500 jobs which he claims will be lost in central Canada. The source of his information is the drug industry. Yet an examination of the facts and the evidence presented before a series of inquiries suggests to the contrary. The hon. member has allied himself with the drug industry against the body of evidence. I say that his stand is courageous because if the drug industry is not right, and the evidence suggests it is not, I for one could not tell my constituents in St. John's West, Newfoundland, that they must pay the considerable extra cost to support the protectionist, high-Tory viewpoint enunciated by the junior member for Halifax. If we take the evidence of the industry itself, a conservative estimate of what the present situation costs the people of Canada is $2 a
DEBATES	6673
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act head. For the constituency of Halifax this represents about $500,000 a year, and that is a very conservative estimate. So in effect the junior member for Halifax is asking his constituents to go along with him, to uphold the status quo, not to undertake any changes, and the people of Halifax together with those of the rest of Canada must pay for what I think is this unfortunate and deplorable situation.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: You sound like a pocket "Pick".


Richard Joseph Cashin: I doubt very much that the hon. member for Brandon-Souris (Mr. Dinsdale) would endorse the viewpoint of the junior member for Halifax. If he did he would almost be following the dictum of Burke, that constituents may advise, that they may have their particular interests, but in the final analysis the great principles of traditional Toryism are such that they must be defended at all costs, even at the cost of the sick and the infirm in our respective constituencies.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: The voice of Jack Pickersgill.


Richard Joseph Cashin: I am not faulting the individuals in the drug industry by suggesting that they are sinister in their intentions. I do suggest that the fault lies in the framework of the system and the ground rules have to be changed to lead to a lowering of prices in the drug industry. This is my concern. At the present time the effect of the patent laws is really a form of protectionism for certain vested interests in this country which are foreign owned. This is what the hon. member for Halifax, traditionally a free trade area, is defending. It would seem from the comments of the hon. member for Brandon-Souris that he also is defending it.
It is evident that there have been great changes in the Tory party under the new leadership. They are reverting to the traditional Tory position. It is interesting to note that their leader, notwithstanding the fact that he too comes from a region that would benefit from this freer trade, appears to be of the school of thought of the junior member for Halifax in that he also is terribly concerned about the traditional principles of high-Toryism, protectionism and opposition to changes in the status quo. Indeed, his recent statements on medicare would seem to put him more in line with the junior member for Halifax than with the hon. member for Cape Breton South, who appears to represent the other school of thought in the divided Nova Scotia branch of the Conservative party.
February 13, 1968

Patent Act-Trade Marks Act
The hon. member for Halifax was concerned about the potential loss of jobs to 2,500 people working in central Canada. I am sure that the members of parliament who represent these people will be well able to fight for their interests, bearing in mind that if what the drug companies say is true the amount of subsidy the rest of us pay in the present situation is indeed high. Perhaps the junior member for Halifax is giving a new look to Atlantic provinces politics. For a long time the Atlantic provinces have sort of had their own axe to grind. They have come here and presented their particular interests. But now at long last the Atlantic provinces have produced a spokesman who is able to turn his back on the traditional approaches of those provinces. He may be the first Atlantic provinces' member who is in fact endorsing the principle that it is time the Atlantic provinces paid back the money they have received. I do not know any other member from the Atlantic provinces who could take such a position and hope for re-election. I presume that when he took this position the hon. member had the whole of his political future in mind.


An hon. Member:: Perhaps he is looking for a seat in Ontario.


Richard Joseph Cashin: Yes, perhaps he is looking for a seat in Ontario. Indeed, after his performance yesterday he may have not only jeopardized his own position but that of his esteemed senior colleague from Halifax. The drug industry-


Robert Jardine McCleave: The only thing that has happened is that you have made me ill.


Richard Joseph Cashin: The senior member for Halifax has just left the chamber. It is unfortunate that neither member for Halifax is here at the present time. If I were either of those hon. members I would want to spend a great deal of time in the chamber because I would not be in the house very much longer. But it is refreshing to know that principles still play a major part in politics, and if a man honestly disagrees with the interests of his constituents I think it is courageous of him to say so in the House of Commons. I think it is a noble quality.
As I said, Mr. Speaker, the junior member for Halifax has adopted almost completely the position of the drug industry in this regard. Let us, therefore, examine some of the arguments which have been brought forth. First of all, the hon. member places great reliance upon the safety issue. Of course, safety is like


motherhood. As I said last evening, it is good debating technique, if you are on otherwise weak ground, to attempt to find an emotional argument that will obscure and cloud the facts. This is an understandable tactic which from time to time a great many people in all walks of life find it necessary to adopt. But in actual fact the overwhelming body of evidence in a series of inquiries suggests the quite obvious fact that in patent legislation safety and quality are two different things. Patent legislation in effect gives a monopoly. It is a sort of economic device which gives a monopoly that has had an inflating effect on the cost of drugs. Safety and quality are covered by the Food and Drugs Act.
[DOT] (3:40 p.m.)
It seems to me that if there are problems with regard to safety, quality and control they must relate to the food and drug directorate. In fact, one of the ingredients of the package proposed by the government is an increase in the facilities of the food and drug directorate so that it will be able to deal with the present and future situation. So the hon. member for Halifax, together with the drug industry, has brought the red herring of safety into this debate.
The second argument used by the industry, and again used by the hon. member for Halifax in his defence of the industry, is that research and development naturally lead to higher costs and therefore since it is necessary to conduct research in a research oriented industry this in the end affects the price to the consumer, and in effect the steps the government is proposing to take through this legislation would wipe out research in Canada. It is further argued that it is socially desirable that Canada encourage research. I think everybody agrees with that. It is like motherhood, and we all agree with that. It is said further that the lack of patent protection will lead to secrecy and less courageous investment. These are allegations made by the drug industry and by the junior member for Halifax.
It is understandable that the drug industry would perhaps balk at any changes in the present framework. Under the present system their average profit in the last 12 years has been approximately double that of other manufacturing industries. In taking his courageous stand the hon. member for Halifax has asked his constituents in Halifax to live with this situation. It is understandable that the drug industry would not welcome changes
February 13, 1968

that would affect the balance. This is understandable from their point of view. But it seems to me it is the responsibility of parliament and the government in this matter to lay the framework and ground rules to make this industry more productive.
In their reports the Hall commission and other commissions have pointed out that in fact very little research is actually carried on in Canada. In the evidence before the standing committee which studied this matter and in the evidence given before other bodies it was pointed out that there are other factors which determine the location where research is carried on. The drug industry is a world wide industry. The drug manufacturers are not interested particularly in the markets of one or another country; they are world wide. Therefore there are other economic factors which dictate the location of their major research facilities. In fact, the evidence given before the committee quite clearly pointed out that it is a fallacious argument to link the patent laws with research. This is the second red herring introduced quite understandably by the drug industry but not quite so understandably by the junior member for Halifax who seems to be so afraid of any change that he will support any existing system on the basis that the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know, while in the meantime his constituents in Nova Scotia and all our constituents must pay among the highest prices in the world for drugs.
The evidence which has been collected by means of the various studies shows that approximately 7 per cent of the manufacturers' dollar is spent on research. This is not a very high figure, particularly when one relates it to the fact that they spend 30 per cent of that dollar on selling. When one looks at the ratio of detail men to doctors-I heard it was ten to one and later that it is eight to one-it is quite clear that it is a higher ratio than in any other industry in Canada. This suggests that there are a great many ways in which to lay a framework or ground rules so that we will have a more competitive industry and one which will lead to lower costs. Therefore I do not believe that the argument concerning research is one that carries any weight when we consider the facts. The drug industry and one of its principal spokesmen in the House of Commons, the junior member for Halifax, have used this red herring.
The evidence presented before the special committee on drug costs and prices is to the contrary. It indicates that it is measures such
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act as the government's fiscal policy, the policy of the Department of Industry and the clinical testing required by the regulations of the food and drug directorate which have encouraged the little research we have had in Canada. Therefore the argument does not hold water. I should also like to point out that Canadian patents are overwhelmingly owned by foreigners who in the past have found it more efficient to concentrate their research activities elsewhere. The modest increase in research in Canada has been due to government policy and the clinical testing required by the food and drug directorate. This is the reason, and it should not be confused with the existing patent laws.
It has been mentioned also that research is socially desirable. I believe we all agree with that, but if we bear in mind the evidence given by the industry before the royal commission and before the special committee of the House of Commons we find there are other ways in which to encourage research. Surely in this country we are not to be placed in the position of encouraging a minimum amount of research on the backs of the wage earners. That is not the situation. I disagree that that is the choice. I do not accept the premise that it boils down to the choice of the small amount of research we have justifying the high cost of drugs. I believe that the changes proposed by this legislation and the other steps which the government is taking and will take can lay the ground rules and framework for this industry to achieve the laudable goal of lower prices without affecting the small amount of research which is now carried on. However, if there should be any merit in the argument that the small amount of research we have is dependent upon patents, then I seriously question, certainly in the Atlantic provinces, how one could defend the high cost of drugs that the average wage earner pays to support this small, albeit sophisticated, industry. That is not the dilemma.
The junior member for Halifax had an opportunity to have his cake and eat it but he did not seize it because he is too hidebound, I presume, in the traditional trading concept of opposing change inasmuch as any change at all may be unsettling and therefore undesirable. Ninety five per cent of the Canadian patents are foreign owned. There is no reason to believe that the patent system will result in the disclosure to Canadians of any drug discoveries that would not otherwise occur.
February 13, 1968

Patent Act-Trade Marks Act
It is also said by the industry and by the the Canadian market if these patent amend-man who has championed their cause here in ments are put into effect. I feel this sugges-the House of Commons that if this bill passes tion goes against the nature of business. I there would be no reason for a manufacturer believe increased competition can only result to maintain production facilities in Canada in companies demonstrating a willingness to and that all they would need would be distri- maintain such services in order to capture button houses in large Canadian centres from their share of the market. This argument also which to market their drug products manu- suggests a high degree of petulance because factured in low wage areas. On the basis of companies would be saying in effect: If we the studies which have been undertaken I do cannot continue with the present system of not think this is a weighty argument. Espe- making a high rate of profit we will not go cially in view of the high margin which into business with the new ground rules exists, I believe it is reasonable to assume which reduce profits more in line with those that it would still be profitable for them to in other industries; we will do something else, continue manufacturing in this country. This I am quite sure the private enterprise motive is quite obvious particularly in relation to still exists and that there are many people some of the smaller independent producers who will want to survive in the drug industry who would find it easier to import the basic and make money. Therefore, if it is good fine chemicals than to import drugs in dosage business practice to perform these services
form. The changes, therefore, which are permitted may lead to more of this rather than less. There are very few true production facilities existing now and at the moment importation takes the form of basic chemicals so the changes ought not to affect this procedure substantially.
[DOT] (3:50 p.m.)
It is suggested also that if this situation is brought about the people of Canada will be dependent on foreign countries for their sources of drugs. This is said with a certain amount of conviction and force on the part of the opponents of this bill. Immediately there is an emotional appeal and people say, we are going to be dependent upon foreign sources for our drugs; this is terrible. People use the word "foreigner" to suggest that something is wrong. In actual fact this situation exists today. I feel, therefore, there is no merit in this argument. Today we do import basic prime chemicals, so this argument would again seem to be one of the smokescreens employed by the industry and by the junior member for Halifax.
It is suggested also there are many life-saving products that enjoy a limited market which a company makes fully available only because they are part of a total operation. I am referring now to special and rare drugs. It is alleged that without reasonable patent protection a company may well decide it could not afford this kind of treatment of their important drugs and would not introduce new products, especially if they were used only for rare diseases. There is a suggestion here that drugs will be deliberately withheld from

they will be performed.
I do not believe we should expect our private enterprisers to undertake a service for completely altruistic reasons. If they do these things they are obviously attempting to get good will for their companies, to show that they are community-minded. They will, of course, reap benefits from such action.


Mr. Rock:: May I ask the hon. member a question? He has stated that 95 per cent of the ownership of the pharmaceutical industry in Canada is in foreign hands. Of course, these companies are established in Canada. Will this legislation give them the right to import from their home plants rather than service the industry from Canadian plants?


Richard Joseph Cashin: I thank the hon. member for the question. This situation could exist under the present law. A company with a patent can import from its parent company. The only difference will be that instead of one company, the one with a patent, having that option, perhaps two companies will have that option. This suggests to me more competition. I suggest it is a comparison of oranges and apples that the hon. member is making.


Raymond Rock: I have another question if the hon. member will permit. Does he not feel that this privilege should be given to companies which are actually Canadian owned, that is, give them more patent rights rather than give foreign companies the right to import, which might cause unemployment within the drug industry?


Richard Joseph Cashin: The intent of the legislation, as I understand it, is that this will be done,
February 13, 1383

particularly for independent Canadian producers. They will be given an opportunity under the compulsory licence procedure to manufacture some drugs they would not otherwise be able to manufacture. It is certainly arguable, and with a much stronger weight of evidence, that this will happen.
I can well understand the dilemma that some members face in connection with this matter. There are members who understand that a patent creates a monopoly and gives a kind of protection. There are certain individuals, obviously, who support this viewpoint and who think this is a laudable course of action. I do not argue that there are not instances where we should adopt such an approach for the common good. However, I do not believe the drug industry represents one of them. The very strongest the opposition can say about the changes is that they provide equal chances.
If under the present system a company can have a choice of importing or manufacturing, then under the compulsory licence system there will be more than one company involved in the same choice. In these circumstances, one may manufacture in the country and one may import. I do not see, on balance, that this is a strong argument. If it is a strong argument, and I do not concede that it is, I find it unusual that the hon. member for Halifax should support it and ask his constituents to pay such a high cost for these drugs.


Mr. Forreslall:: Why don't you read the evidence presented to the committee?


Richard Joseph Cashin: It is nice to know that in the Atlantic provinces we have people who do not need to worry about these high prices. I find the hon. member for Halifax a refreshing change from the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Maclnnis).


Mr. MacLean (Queens):: I hesitate to interrupt the hon. member, but I suggest that from time to time he has wandered from the subject matter of the bill. He seems overly concerned about the capability of the hon. member for Halifax to represent his own constituents. I am confident the member for Halifax can adequately represent his constituents, as he has done, and the hon. member who has the floor should now get back to the bill.


Richard Joseph Cashin: I am most sorry if I gave that impression to the hon. member for Queens. On the contrary, I have been absolutely amazed that the hon. member could take
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act what I believe to be a position which flies in the face of the traditional position of his region. I do not fault him for that; I congratulate him for it.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Since the point of order has been made and since the hon. member has replied, we might return to a consideration of the bill before us.


Richard Joseph Cashin: During my discussion of the patent I mentioned the fact it is regarded as some kind of economic tool, a form of protectionism, and as long as that is so it is quite legitimate for hon. members to engage in the argument of protection versus free trade. I am sorry the hon. member for Queens (Mr. MacLean) has been so sensitive in regard to his colleague from Halifax that he is afraid to have these ideas exposed to debate in this house. I understood that was what parliament was all about.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I invited the hon. member to return to a consideration of the bill itself.


Richard Joseph Cashin: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I shall attempt to limit my remarks to a discussion of the ideas that have been brought forward on this matter. One of the matters overlooked in the remarks of members of the opposition is that if the ground rules under which the industry operates are to be changed no one single measure will of itself be a panacea. In fact, there are a number of steps which must be taken to achieve the goal of lower drug prices in Canada.
[DOT] (4:00 p.m.)
This bill, Mr. Speaker, is one of these steps. The first step was taken last fall with the removal of the sales tax, the alterations to the dumping laws and the reduction in import duties from 20 per cent to 15 per cent. These steps should have some effect on reducing prices at the manufacturing level.
The second part of this program or package is the proposed amendments now before the house to the Patent and Trade Marks Acts. These are important steps in the removal of some of the barriers that now exist and which create an artificial situation. For example, it has been clearly demonstrated that when patents have expired the cost of drugs has been greatly reduced.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I have to interrupt the hon. member to tell him that his time has expired.
February 13, 1968

Patent Act-Trade Marks Act


Some hon. Members:: Continue.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member may continue only with the unanimous consent of the house.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Richard Joseph Cashin: I thank hon. members, Mr. Speaker, and will conclude my remarks very shortly. I have already said that when patents have been removed we have seen instances of lower drug prices.
The third part of the program is the provision to doctors, through the information services of the Department of National Health and Welfare, of objective material on various competing drugs that are on the market. Understandably, I think, doctors are very cautious in prescribing new drugs. Under the present system it is the drug industry, through its detail men, that does the selling. I believe that the dissemination of this type of information by an impartial agency will be very helpful and will give more leeway to doctors inasmuch as they will have more information on which to act. I think that in part at least this should deal with the very difficult problem of the 30 per cent of the cost of manufacturing drugs that is taken up with sales and marketing. I believe this figure is far too high and is a result of inefficiency. Quite clearly there is a responsibility on parliament to adopt measures to remedy the situation. I feel that the proposal regarding the information services branch of the department is a step in the right direction.
The minister also made reference to a fourth measure, the provision of certain assistance to some of the smaller Canadian manufacturers. The fifth matter was distribution, and the minister has indicated that he will be discussing this question with the provinces.
As I say, I do not think we can look to any one single measure to be entirely effective in solving the problems. However, I urge hon. members to support the legislation before the house. I suggest very strongly that the picture has become confused in the minds of some because research has been related to patents. When the evidence is examined this contention just does not stand up.
The second area of confusion has arisen because patents have been related to safety. The hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) asked a question of the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Forrestall) last night

which I thought was very pertinent. According to the evidence that he had found and which I also found-I do not have it with me right now but I will send it to the hon. member for Halifax-there is strong support for the argument that we should not confuse patents and safety.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, may I say that it seems that the opponents of this bill have no argument on which to base their case. They seem to be fearful of the effect on research, but I think the body of the evidence is against this. As an alternative it is a very costly price to pay. It seems to me there are other measures that stimulate research. The other argument the opposition has raised about safety has been dealt with by the minister and it will undoubtedly be dealt with by others.


Mr. W. M. Howe (Wellingion-Huron):: Mr. Speaker, it has been interesting to listen to the amazing speech of the hon. member for St. John's West (Mr. Cashin). He accused us of using emotional arguments to call attention to some of the deficiencies in this bill. He seemed to think that the question of safety was not important enough to underline the fact that we feel some provisions have been left out of the legislation. The hon. member spoke about red herrings. This government is very good at drawing red herrings across the path. It is said that this legislation will reduce the cost of drugs, Mr. Speaker. But how much more welcome would be measures that would reduce the cost of living right across the board, or measures that would remove the 11 per cent sales tax on building materials.
Last year quite an issue was made of the fact that the sales tax on drugs was removed. However, on January 1 of this year a 5 per cent surcharge on income tax was imposed. And so on it goes, Mr. Speaker. Talk about red herrings. Sometimes I wonder whether this bill is not a red herring that has been brought in by the minister as a sort of sermon on the mount designed to move him ahead in the leadership campaign that is given such prominent publicity in the country today. I expect that the parliamentary secretary who has just spoken hopes to step into the minister's shoes some day and it could be that these speeches were prepared in anticipation of that event.
The effect of this bill as I see it is to allow the commissioner of patents to grant licences permitting the importation of prescription drugs on a more flexible basis than applies at
February 13, 1968	COMMONS
present. Where there is a delay in the granting by the commissioner of the required licence for a period beyond six months, provision is made for the granting of an interim licence under a patent relating to medicine.
On December 15 last, as reported at page 5467 of Hansard, the minister indicated that the objective of this bill was to allow compulsory licences to import prescription drugs, Which would have the effect of injecting more competition at the manufacturers' level in the drug industry and would beneficially affect the prices of drugs. In this connection it is rather interesting to look at the evidence given before the committee. On Tuesday, February 7, 1967, the committee received evidence from Mr. Henry, the director of investigation and research of the combines investigation branch. In connection with the competition that the minister feels is going to be injected into the industry as a result of this legislation the director of the combines investigation branch had this to say, as reported on page 2185 of the minutes of proceedings and evidence:
Price competition during the life of the patent is found only in limited circumstances, notably in sales to institutions and governments. Instead, competition takes the form of product differentiation which requires inordinately large sums to be spent on promotion of a particular firm's product, usually by its brand name, primarily to the physicians who make the selection at the time of prescribing for the patient. Competition is therefore cost increasing rather than price reducing. The more intense the competition, the higher costs are driven. There being no downward pressure on price there is no downward pressure on cost with the result that pressures within the firm for more detail men, more advertising, etc., tend to be inflationary, and resulting high costs are used to justify high prices.
[DOT] (4:10 p.m.)
We were pleased to note the aims that the minister has in connection with this legislation. They were stated in his speech yesterday and were: lower prices for drugs, safe drugs for the Canadian people and a viable Canadian drug industry. From evidence taken before the committee we know that increased competition does not always have the effect of reducing the price of a particular article that is being sold. Nevertheless, anything that can be done to bring about a reduction in the price of prescription drugs will win the wholehearted approval of members of the house and the public at large.
As a result of this legislation we are likely to witness the importation into Canada, under
DEBATES	6679
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act interim licences in many instances, of a whole range of pharmaceutical products bearing brand names that are identical or similar to those of Canadian products which have undergone testing and inspection at the government level. This problem arises. What assurance will Canadians have that these products bearing identification similar to that of Canadian products have passed the same tests as products made in this country? This bill, so far as I can see, provides only that the food and drug directorate shall be notified of any application to bring into Canada a pharmaceutical product from another country. Does the minister feel that mere notification from one department to another is sufficient? Surely drugs imported from other countries and purporting to possess the same qualities as drugs manufactured in Canada should be subjected to exactly the same testing conditions and requirements as drugs which are manufactured in Canada.
The question of safety in the use of drugs is not merely academic. There have been numerous instances in the past few years which have indicated that, despite all possible precautions, horrible consequences can arise unless drugs meet the most rigorous conditions as to manufacturing standards. The other day some children in Ottawa ate some candy which it was thought was injurious. After careful study it was found that the candy was not the cause of the trouble. But how certain are we that the sort of thing exemplified by this candy incident could not arise with regard to drugs? If we are now to open the door to an influx of drugs over whose manufacture Canadian authorities have no control, then surely we must take steps at this end to see to it that reasonable testing procedures are followed.
No doubt the minister will recall the recommendations of the House of Commons special committee on drug costs and prices in this regard. I now wish to refer to two recommendations made by that committee which have not, I am sorry to say, been incorporated into the legislation. Recommendation No. 17 reads as follows:
That subsection 3 of section 41 of the Patent Act be amended to indicate clearly that the granting of a licence by the commissioner of patents is subject to a report by the food and drug directorate of the Department of National Health and Welfare, to the effect that the applicant for the compulsory licence has satisfied the directorate that he has met the regulations under the Food and Drugs Act:
February 13, 1368

Patent Act-Trade Marks Act
Recommendation No. 18 reads as follows:
That subsection 3 of section 41 of the Patent Act be amended to include applications for compulsory licences to import drug products in all forms, subject to inspection of manufacturing facilities by the food and drug directorate and provided such importation is in the public interest as may be determined by the commissioner; and to this end, your committee recommends that the rules under the Patent Act be amended to permit the commissioner to seek and receive outside independent expert advice in the determination of this question;
As I said, these two important recommendations by the committee do not seem to have been incorporated into this legislation. At least, there is nothing in the bill to show that these recommendations have been followed. Surely there is a responsibility on the government and on parliament to see to it that Canadians are granted an adequate level of protection. Drugs are not in the same category as other important materials. In a wide range of cases the assurance of effectiveness can mean that a person will live instead of dying, that a person will recover instead of suffering permanent and irretrievable damage. To put it succinctly, this is not an area to fool around in.
It is interesting to find that in the past there has been evidence of a little fooling around with regard to the question of safety of drugs and importation of drugs from foreign countries. This is substantiated by the evidence which was submitted before the special committee on drug costs and prices. Mr. Chapman, a witness before the committee, was questioned by the hon. member for Verdun (Mr. Mackasey) about a report which appeared in Maclean's review of January 1, 1966. The hon. member for Verdun read a portion of that report to the witness, as found on page 2233 of the committee evidence:
The raw material from abroad is often processed and packaged by Canadian distributers lacking adequate knowhow on quality control.
A little farther on the hon. member for Verdun continued reading from the report as follows:
One example: An F.D.D. inspector found a kitchen table manufacturer putting out a drug which lost its potency within two days compared with the six-month's shelf life of the same drug producted by a reputable company. He just did not know how to stabilize it, the inspector explained. All too often these small operators simply don't know what they are doing.
As I said, the hon. member for Verdun was reading from an article in Maclean's review of January. Farther along in the evidence, 
replying to the hon. member for Verdun Mr. Chapman said:
Well, I might say sir, with regard to the first paragraph at the top of the third column, where it states:-
Then Mr. Chapman reads a few words from the report:
"Italy and Poland were recently removed from the UJK.'s list of suppliers in antibiotics."
Mr. Chapman then continued his own evidence by saying:
We still import pharmaceutical material from both countries. In Italy the laws call for manufacturers to assay their own products, but F.D.D. inspectors often find the test equipment dust-covered and obviously unused.
As I said, Mr. Speaker, safety in drug imports is not an area that should be fooled around in. I ask the minister whether he will entertain an amendment to the bill to ensure that not only will the commissioner of patents forward a copy of any notice of application to the food and drug directorate but that a full clinical and chemical description of the product, along with a sample for testing, will be forwarded at the same time. Needless to say, since I am not a medical man I am subject to correction on this point, but we should not ignore what the hon. member for Simcoe East (Mr. Rynard) said yesterday in this regard. One would certainly like to hear the views of qualified medical men on the importation into Canada of drugs bearing brand names similar to those of Canadian products manufactured under the most rigid controls, since the imported varieties are manufactured under conditions which in some cases are known only to those who produce the drugs.
Most members of the committee-I know I did-received letters and information from people who are, of course, interested in the drug business. One important matter mentioned in that material was drug safety. Canadian drug manufacturers have operated with an enviable record of efficiency, safety and reliability for many years. The Department of National Health and Welfare, through the food and drug directorate, is in close and constant touch with those who manufacture drugs in this country. But what guarantee is there in the case of imported material originating we know not where? Another important point is that the country from which the material is imported may not be the country of origin.
February 13, 1968

[DOT] (4:20 p.m.)
What is to stop the entry into the pharmaceutical stream of dangerous or even toxic products when there is an almost complete absence of controls? This is not to say there will be no controls, but there will be no assurance that the controls are present in every case or even as to the nature or extent of such controls as may exist. I ask the minister to give serious thought to this matter in order to avoid the horrible tragedies to which Canadians and many thousands who live in other countries have been subjected in the past. With new drugs coming on the market every day and with each new discovery bringing a rush of imitators, it is difficult to control the situation in Canada. Once you open the door to unrestricted and unregulated importation, in many cases from unknown sources, there will not be enough civil servants on the government payroll to undertake an inventory of pharmaceutical imports.
I call attention to the evidence given before the committee to the effect that applications submitted to the commissioner had to wait many months before they could be processed. One of the recommendations made by the committee, to which in my view considerable importance attaches, reads as follows:
That the personnel and facilities of the food and drug directorate be expanded to make possible the implementation of the recommendations of the Boyd committee, the Hilliard committee and this committee.
I maintain there is a need to incorporate into this legislation provisions dealing specifically with safety measures. Canadians are entitled to protection and surely the minimum protection to which they are entitled from this or any government is to know that when they buy drugs in Canada some attempt has been made to ensure that in seeking a cure or remedy they will not be doing themselves serious harm or injury. My own feeling is that if a system for testing and inspecting imported products cannot be worked out, then they should not be allowed into Canada. I ask the minister: Would he himself be prepared to take or allow his family to take such a harmless drug as aspirin if brought in from outside Canada and manufactured under conditions of which we knew nothing? I am sure he would have serious reservations. What then of drugs whose effects are more serious and potentially more harmful? Are Canadians not to have the assurance of government protection when it comes to the reliability of such preparations?
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act
This is why I ask the minister to see that a provision is included in the measure before us requiring that with each import application a complete description and a sample for testing must be forwarded to Ottawa, and that no licence be granted until a clean bill of health in the form of a certificate is secured from the Department of National Health and Welfare. I do not think we can be too careful in dealing with considerations of human health. Human beings are not guinea pigs, though I believe the Minister of National Health and Welfare did refer to the people of Canada on one occasion as acting as guinea pigs over a period of time until there had been an opportunity to examine particular products.
I do not know whether the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Turner) has consulted the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. MacEachen) on this point. If he has not, perhaps he will do so. I hope and trust that he has consulted the officials of the Department of National Health and Welfare, particularly those in the food and drug directorate, for the benefit and protection of Canadians. I am sure that if he has obtained the view of his officials the Minister of National Health and Welfare must look askance at a procedure which has the effect of breaking down safeguards laboriously erected over the years for the protection of our people. I appeal to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs to look into the possibility of incorporating into this legislation measures which will ensure to all Canadians the best and the safest drugs possible.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, the problem we are tackling today has concerned the people of Canada for at least ten years. It is almost ten years since the Restrictive Trade Practices Commission was asked to look into the field of prescription drugs and the possibility of monopoly control existing in Canada in this important industry.
The commission reported that the price of drugs was too high. One of the examples given in its report tabled in 1961 was chlor-promazine, perhaps the most commonly used tranquilizer. It had been researched and developed in France and it was selling in Paris in that year for 77 cents while it was being retailed in Toronto for $6.25 for the same amount and the same strength.
We have had a report from the Restrictive Trade Practices Commission. We have had a
February 13, 1968

Patent Act-Trade Marks Act report from the royal commission on health services under Mr. Justice Hall, appointed by the former Conservative government, and we have in our hands a report from a parliamentary committee which has held innumerable meetings on this subject.
I have been amazed at the contributions made by the three speakers so far for the official opposition, the hon. member for Simcoe East (Mr. Rynard), the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Forrestall), and the hon. member for Wellington-Huron (Mr. Howe). If there is one thing which is obvious it is that they have ignored completely the advice given to the government and the committee by the head of the anti-combines branch, Mr. Henry. They have ignored completely the advice given by the head of the food and drug administration, Dr. Chapman. They have ignored completely the advice given by doctors who direct the operations of the largest hospitals in Canada. They have ignored completely the recommendations and the advice of the auditors appointed by the committee who found that the prices charged by Canadian drug manufacturers are too high. What they have told us could have been-I am not saying it was-written by the paid representatives of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Canada. Every word of it.


Philip Bernard Rynard: Pretty low.


David Orlikow: The hon. member for Simcoe East (Mr. Rynard) indicates that is not so and I take his word for it. I did not say they were; I said they could have been written. The hon. member for Simcoe East says it is "pretty low" to suggest this. I want to deal with some of the things which have been said by spokemen for the official opposition. Here is what the junior member for Halifax said yesterday, and hon. members can find it reported on page 6655 of Hansard. I shall quote just a line or two.
It is not good enough lor us on this side of the house or for the Canadian people to save a few pennies, without measuring value and the safety of the users of the drug. Surely, that is poor business sense.
It is not a matter of pennies, Mr. Speaker. Take the example I just gave of chlorproma-zine. It is costing Canadian consumers tens of millions of dollars.
What about safety? We have heard what Mr. Chapman is alleged to have said and what Mr. Henry is alleged to have said. Let me quote precisely what Dr. Chapman, the


chief executive officer in the federal drug administration, the man responsible for the safety of drugs, had to say in this connection. What members of the official opposition are saying is that if we pass the legislation before us it will result in a flood of imported drugs which will be sold under generic names, and that drugs sold under generic names are not as safe as those sold under the brand names of the large drug manufacturing companies. In a moment I will deal with the question of how safe the drug companies are. Here is what Dr. Chapman said, and I quote only briefly from his testimony:
[DOT] (4:30 p.m.)
There does not appear to be any significant difference between drugs sold under a generic name and those sold under a brand name. Similarly, imported drugs appeared to be of the same general quality as domestic production.
That is what Dr. Chapman said, but the junior member for Halifax and the hon. member for Wellington-Huron do not want to pay any attention to him. They would rather listen to Dr. Wigle and the other representatives of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Canada. I believe in the people who work for the government of Canada, who have no special interest, who are not going to make money out of their activities, and who gave the parliamentary committee their honest opinions based on the facts.
I want to deal with another point, generic drugs. From what has been said one would think there would be great danger if the people of Canada were permitted to purchase prescription drugs under their generic names. I am not a doctor, like the hon. member for Simcoe East, but the facts are very plain. We heard the evidence again and again before the committee. I am sure the hon. member for Simcoe East cannot and would not dispute what I am going to say.
There is not a hospital in Canada, whether it be the Royal Victoria in Montreal, the Winnipeg General or the Toronto Sick Children's, which, when it fills prescriptions for people who are really sick-I think it is fair to assume that people in hospital are sicker than people who visit doctors in their offices and take prescriptions to their local druggists -uses brand name drugs. There is not a doubt that the vast bulk of prescriptions filled in Canadian hospitals are filled under the supervision and direction of the best doctors in Canada. So far as I know it is the doctors on the teaching staffs of medical schools who usually staff the big teaching hospitals. They
February 13, 1968
use generic name drugs, some of which are manufactured and some of which are imported into Canada.
I do not think the hon. member for Simcoe East would want this house and the people of Canada to believe for one moment that the doctors directing Canadian hospitals would order prescription drugs under generic names if they were not certain those drugs were adequate, up to a high standard and safe to use. When people talk about the use of generic drugs and warn the public that they are dangerous, I say they are creating a red herring. Consciously or unconsciously they are trying to protect the profit position of the large drug companies in this country.
This bill, when passed, will give legislative effect to some of the large number of recommendations made by the special committee of the House of Commons which dealt with drug costs and prices. It is true that not all its recommendations are being implemented. All during the committee hearings I for one agreed that the food and drug directorate must be given sufficient manpower and money so that every drug which is sold in Canada can be certified safe by the government. I do not care whether a drug is cheap or expensive. If it is not safe it ought not to be used in Canada, it ought not to be prescribed in Canada, it ought not to be sold in Canada. I do not think the government is doing enough in this respect and when we reach the departmental estimates I certainly intend to urge that the drug inspection service be expanded. But that has nothing to do with the bill which we are discussing today. This bill has nothing to do with generic drugs.
The most important change that the bill will make, if passed, is covered in that part of it which deals with trade marks. The bill will permit the importation of brand name drugs, trade mark drugs, if this is thought worth while from a price point of view. What would this mean? I suggest to the hon. member for Simcoe East that he look at the committee's report. He was a member of the committee, but I refer him to the details of its report. I refer the hon. member to page 80 which gives actual examples of the prices of drugs in this country and their prices in other countries. Here I am not talking about generic name drugs but about brand name drugs. Chloromecytin, produced by the Parke, Davis Company, the very drug which the hon. member for Simcoe East was asking questions

Patent Act-Trade Marks Act about during question period today, sells in Canada for $23.64 per 100 tablets. In London, England, the price is $11.18. Under this bill, if a drug wholesaler wants to import Parke, Davis Chloromycetin from Great Britain he will be able to buy it there, pay the duty on it, pay the freight, and bring it into Canada more cheaply than he could buy it from Parke, Davis in Canada, with the result that he will be able to offer it to retail druggists at a lower price and that lower price will be passed on to the consumer. That is what the hon. member for Simcoe East wants to oppose.


Philip Bernard Rynard: You put a Canadian out of a job.


David Orlikow: Let us take achromycin. In London it sells for $9.83 but in Canada the price is $17.62. Librium, which the hon. member for Simcoe East knows is a drug that if it is needed is not needed for a day, a week or a month but may be needed for years, sells in Great Britain for $3.02 per 100 tablets but the price in Canada is $7.20. This bill will permit the Canadian consumer to save money. The hon. member for Simcoe East says, what about the Canadian worker? I do not believe that this bill will do anything to the Canadian worker.


Philip Bernard Rynard: You don't know.


David Orlikow: It will do something for some Canadian workers and I will tell you what We have evidence before the committee that of every dollar which a drug manufacturer spends 30 cents goes for the expenses of its detail men. For every doctor in Canada the drug companies are churning out $5,000 worth of publicity a year. They inundate the poor doctor with material which usually winds up m a wastepaper basket, trying to convince him that a Parke, Davis antibiotic is better than an Eli, Lilly antibiotic. It is the consumer who pays for that. If this bill is passed and a company like National Drugs wants to reduce the price to the consumer we will not see the Canadian drug companies go out of business. I do not believe for a minute that they will go out of business, and I will deal with the question of their profits shortly.
Listening to the hon. member for Simcoe East yesterday weeping about the poor inventor and the poor researcher and how they were going to have the bread taken out of their mouths, one would have thought we were dealing with poor people, but all of the

Patent Act-Trade Marks Act evidence cited in the committee report shows that drug manufacturing is one of the most profitable industries in Canada. The hon. member for Simcoe East wants to give them a licence to continue stealing from the people of Canada. That is what he is saying, Mr. Speaker.


Philip Bernard Rynard: But they are providing
research.


David Orlikow: They can operate their businesses very efficiently. They can do research, but they have been doing very little research.
They do not have to lay off workers but that is what they will do if this bill and certain other measures which have been proposed by the committee and others are put into effect.
These measures will force them to operate at a legitimate rate of profit and bring down the price of prescription drugs, which are basically necessary to tens of thousands of people in this country, to a reasonable level.
[DOT] (4:40 p.m.)
Before I refer to some of the evidence given before the committee, which has been so eagerly and easily ignored by spokesmen for the official opposition, I should like to deal with the responsibilities of so-called ethical or large drug companies. One would think, to listen to the hon. member for Simcoe East (Mr. Rynard) and the junior member for Halifax (Mr. Forres tall), that these companies are paragons of virtue, never make mistakes and never produce any products which hurt the public. Let me refer those hon. members to an article which appeared in the Toronto Globe and Mail on April 7, 1966. This is a report on a speech made by Dr. James Goddard, the commissioner of the food and drug administration in the United States. I should like to read the following two sentences:
The commissioner cited examples of misleading labelling and said that during the past year a staff studying drug advertising has brought complamts involving nearly one-third of the membership of the pharmaceutical association.
''Those of us in government who are responsible for protecting the lives of American citizens cannot look away, cannot ignore, cannot put aside any acts of irresponsibility that may occur in the market place."
Those are United States companies which are also operating in Canada. Let me read a portion of a story which appeared in the Toronto Globe and Mail on March 1, 1966:
The U.S. government seized 68 bottles of a heart drug called Peritrate SA yesterday and said claims made for it by the manufacturer, Warner-Lambert Pharmaceutical Co., are false.

February 13, 1968
Warner-Lambert is not some fly by night company; it is one of the giants of the United States pharmaceutical industry. I refer to another story which appeared in a labour union publication on June 4, 1966. This is what the article had to say:
More than a third of the nation's drug makers are violating U.S. rules on false and misleading advertising. That startling disclosure came from the head of the food and drug administration, Dr. James L. Goddard. He told a house subcommittee hearing, that these violations include distortion of claims for usefulnesses, misinforming the doctor on the size of the drug test, claims of no side effects despite test evidence to the contrary and failure to modify old ads when new research indicated their message was invalid.
I am sorry the hon. member for Simcoe East has left the chamber because I wanted to indicate that one of the most flagrant violations in respect of failure to give the real information to doctors was perpetrated by the very company in respect of the very drug to which he referred, namely, Parke, Davis and Chloromycetin. The New York Times of March 12 of last year made reference to another report by Dr. Goddard and stated: Among the commissioner's public moves have been seizure of the heart drug Peritrate SA because the manufacturer, Warner-Chilcott Laboratories, at Morris Plains, N.J., had published false and misleading" advertising; withdrawal from the market of Elipten, an anticonvulsant drug made by the CIBA Pharmaceutical Co., Summit, N.J., because CIBA allegedly withheld unfavourable test results, and, most recently, banning the manufacture of antibiotic throat lozenges on the grounds that they are ineffective.
I have put these quotations on the record for two reasons, first, because I want the record to show very clearly that the large drug manufacturers and members of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association do not have a completely clean bill of health and, second, because they demonstrate conclusively the contention of some of us, including members of the official opposition on the committee, that we ought not leave the health and welfare of Canadians to the tender mercies of individual drug companies which have their own axes to grind and are interested -I am not critical in this regard because this is how the free enterprise system works-in making a profit. We ought to assure that the food and drug administration of Canada is given the responsibility and takes on the job of making certain that the people of Canada get safe drugs. On that basis I can agree with the hon. member for Halifax. However, that is not the issue here today. The issue is
February 13, 1968

whether this bill will help bring down the price of prescription drugs to Canadian consumers.
The hon. member for Halifax was correct when he said that this bill does not do all the things the committee said it should do. Of course it does not. One of the things the committee said should be done was the removal of the 12 per cent sales tax on prescription drugs. That was accomplished months ago. There are other things which will be done, as I mentioned earlier, by various branches of government, including the food and drug directorate. The bill is a direct result of recommendation No. 21 of the special committee to be found at page 54 of the committee's report. I commend it to the hon. member for Halifax for examination. This is what it says:
That section 20 of the Trade Marks Act be amended to make clear that no infringement can be claimed where imported drugs are manufactured by a "related" company;-
We have heard a great deal from hon. members about the dangers of unrestricted importation as a result of products being brought in from Great Britain, for example, which might not be the same as those sold in Canada under the same brand name. I find it hard to believe that the hon. member for Halifax and the hon. member for Simcoe East really believed what they were saying. If they did they must believe that there is a difference between the brand name products or prescription drugs made by Parke, Davis, Warner-Chilcott, Eli, Lilly, Lederle or American Cyanamid in Great Britain and those made by the same companies in Canada. I have too much respect for these international drug companies to believe for one minute that achromycin, Chloromycetin, gantrisin, equanil and enovid made in Great Britain are different from the same products made in Canada or different from the same drugs produced in various other countries of the world under the same brand name. I am sure these drugs meet the same standards whether they are made in Great Britain, France, Italy, Canada or the United States. Yet that was the implication of what those hon. members were saying. I suggest that it is nonsense.
We have heard a great deal about selective choices. I think I should very briefly put on the record what the witnesses did say about drugs and drug practices. I refer hon. members to the second and final report of the special committee of the House of Commons
27053-421J
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act on drug costs and prices. Let me quote a few sentences from page 12:
The committee believes that the profits of pharmaceutical companies in Canada appear about twice as high as the level of profits of the manufacturing industry as a whole.
These are the poor defenceless people the hon. member for Simcoe East attempted to defend last evening. He said this bill would take the bread from their mouths; they were going to be cast into perdition and would have to go out of business. This is what the committee said:
The committee is not concerned primarily with reducing profit below a reasonable level but it is concerned with reducing costs of drugs to the consumer. The committee is convinced that this can be done within the framework of the free enterprise system.
[DOT] (4:50 p.m.)
Arising out of this paragraph we have the recommendation to which I have referred and the legislation we are debating today. On page 15 of the report the committee said': Secondly, a thorough and comprehensive comparison between Canadian drug prices and those in other countries was undertaken by the Director of Investigation and Research under the Combines Investigation Act, which study resulted in the Green Book earlier referred to, and which comparison showed clearly the evidence that Canadian drug prices appeared to be surprisingly high. In fact, one of the conclusions reached by the director was that "prices of drugs in Canada are among the highest in the world."
I commend that sentence to the junior member for Halifax who suggested that we were talking about saving only pennies for the Canadian consumer. The report goes on to say:
Thirdly, more up to date figures on the comparison of prices of drugs in Canada with those in other countries having relatively advanced economies were presented to the committee by the Consumers' Association of Canada. These figures likewise substantiated the conclusions of the Green Book.
Farther on in the report the committee said:
Your committee confirms the previous findings now on public record; and it has come to the inescapable conclusion that drug prices in Canada are in fact high and that every fair and reasonable step should be taken to reduce these prices.
The junior member for Halifax was a member of the committee and I presume he endorsed this report when it was prepared. Lord knows, some of us wanted a strong report and the chairman of the committee, the hon. member for Halton (Mr. Harley), will confirm that we spent many hours twice
February 13, 1968

Patent Act-Trade Marks Act a week over a period of weeks reaching agreement with members like the junior member for Halifax and the hon. member for Saskatoon (Mr. Brand), who wanted to be 200 per cent certain that the committee report did not say anything which might hurt anybody unfairly. Some members of the committee- this certainly applied to me-consented to things that we would not normally have agreed to in order to get the hon. member for Halifax, the hon. member for Saskatoon and the hon. member for Simcoe East to agree to the wording of the report. Yet here we have the first piece of legislation arising out of the unanimous report of the committee and we have members of the official opposition saying in effect: Let us not pass this legislation; let us send it back to some committee.
They do not ask that this matter be sent back to the committee that studied it. Lord no, because that committee understands the situation. They ask that it be sent to the committee on industry, to a committee oriented to industry because industry wants to make as much profit as possible. They make this suggestion because they know such a step would kill this bill, and that is what they want.


J. Michael Forrestall: I was talking about safety.


David Orlikow: Let us not draw that red herring across the trail today. I said earlier, and I say it again, that if somebody in the family of the junior member for Halifax was sick enough to be admitted to hospital in Halifax I can assure the hon. member and he knows
it_if he does not he should ask his doctor
-that the doctor would not write a prescription calling for the drugs of Parke, Davis, Eli, Lilly or any other drug manufacturer. He would prescribe a generic product because that is the way the hospital saves money. Therefore the junior member for Halifax should not draw that kind of red herring across the trail today.
Why are we discussing this question? What are the profits of drug companies? Are we being unreasonable? Are we being unfair? Are they a group of companies that is just getting by or are they in fact, as some of us have said for years, making exorbitantly high profits? The Kefauver committee in the United States proved conclusively, I think, that they are large, wealthy companies which are doing very well and are in fact making an exorbitant profit.
I Mr. Orlikow.]
I would not expect the hon. member for Halifax, the hon. member for Simcoe East or the hon. member for Wellington-Huron to believe me in this respect. After all, I am not really a very great supporter of the free enterprise system. But I wish those hon. members would look at appendix E of the report. This appendix was prepared by W. J. Blakely, the committee's chartered accountant. I do not know Mr. Blakely's politics but I am sure that if he was appointed on the recommendation of the government and if he is like 99 per cent of the chartered accountants whom I know, he is a pretty strong supporter of the free enterprise system. Let us look at his report. I shall quote a couple of sections from it. This is what Mr. Blakely said:
It is apparent from Table 1-
In the report.
-that the operating results for 1961-1964 do not indicate any material change in trend from that shown for the period 1953-1960, dealt with by the Restrictive Trade Practices Commission. Although the average rate of return on sales of pharmaceuticals decreased noticeably in 1961 and 1962, there was a significant recovery in 1963 to a rate of 10.05 per cent, the fourth highest rate in the 12-year period 1953-1964. The average rate of return for this entire period was 9.55 per cent for pharmaceuticals and 5.82 per cent for all manufacturing, the former being approximately 64 per cent higher than the latter.
This is one of the highest profit industries in the country, an industry to whose defence the hon. member for Halifax and other members of the official opposition spring. Let me refer again to the report of the committee's accountant. If you look at page 73 you will see the rate of return on capital invested compared with all other manufacturers. The table shows that for the years 1953 to 1963, a ten year period and a pretty good period to consider, the percentage return on capital investment in the pharmaceutical industry was 19.71 compared with just 10.40 for all manufacturing companies. In other words, their profit margin is almost twice as high as that of all manufacturing companies.
These figures were calculated by the accountant in another way. He showed the rate of return on resources employed. For pharmaceutical companies, for the years 1958 to 1963 the average return was 13.77 per cent while for all manufacturing it was just 7.42 per cent. Again, drug manufacturers are making almost twice as much money as other companies.
February 13, 1968

I want to repeat what I said earlier, Mr. Speaker, and I shall close on this note. I showed, as did the hon. member for Hamilton South (Mr. Howe) yesterday and on several other occasions, from the records compiled by the experts employed by the committee the tremendous difference in the prices charged in various countries for prescription drugs. I did not deal just with the difference in price between brand name drugs and generic drugs because this is not the time or place to discuss that question. I dealt with the difference in the prices of brand name drugs as between Canada and other countries. One can look at the prices charged in London, Paris, Bern, Switzerland; Rome, Italy; Bonn, Germany and the United States and one will see that the only country in which the prices of prescription drugs are as high or higher than in Canada is the United States. I demonstrated earlier that in Great Britain brand name drugs are sold for half the price they are in this country, or even less. Who is paying these exorbitantly high prices? As the hon. member for St. John's (Mr. Cashin) said, it is the consumer who pays them; it is the poor working man, whether he lives in Halifax, Simcoe East, Winnipeg, Toronto or Vancouver.
[DOT] (5:00 p.m.)
Some persons find it necessary to take a drug such as equanil three times a day over a period of weeks or months. If a doctor prescribes equanil the patient may have to pay as much as ten cents for a tablet. When we speak of a person earning $50, $60 or $70 a week having to pay 30 cents a day for a prescription drug we are not talking about a luxury; we are talking about the kind of circumstances where a family would have to make do with one less quart of milk per day.
This is the reason that I, like the hon. member for St. John's West (Mr. Cashin), was so surprised at the contribution of the junior member for Halifax. There are hundreds of thousands of Canadians who must have prescriptions filled every week, whether they be for tranquilizers, sedatives or antibiotics, and what is involved is an expenditure which frequently amounts to $5 or $10 per prescription.
I am sure that every member of parliament over the years has received many letters from his constituents asking him to do something about this situation. They say they simply cannot afford to pay these high prices. These people are particularly disturbed when they read the profit figures published occasionally
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act by the drug companies because these figures show the fantastic profits of these companies. They write to their members and probably to the minister asking that something be done. Finally the government has acted. Finally we have one part of the package that was suggested by the committee.
I am not suggesting for a moment that the report of the committee contained every recommendation it should have. Like my colleague, the hon. member for Waterloo South (Mr. Saltsman), I believe the best way in which to do something about the price of prescription drugs would be for the government to establish a crown corporation which would manufacture and distribute certain important and basic prescription drugs. It is the doctors of Canada who decide what prescriptions will be written which the pharmacists in the hospitals and in the drug stores across Canada will fill. As a group they write hundreds of thousands of prescriptions a day. Therefore, if we had such a crown corporation we could save the people of Canada tens of millions of dollars a year.
Unfortunately the government has not made such a proposal. I do not expect the minister will ever make such a proposal even if he and I are here for the next 30 years, because I do not think he would consider that kind of solution. However, the legislation before us today is a step in the right direction. It contains one of a whole battery of proposals made by the committee in an effort to bring down the prices of prescription drugs. I hope this legislation will be passed and go into effect very quickly. Although I suppose I am hoping for the impossible I hope that the members of the official opposition will reconsider the impossible position they have taken during the past couple of days. I do not wish to be unfair but I say they are taking a position which can bring comfort only to a very small group of Canadians, namely, the members of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Canada. I hope that we can complete the discussion of this bill in all stages in the next couple of days, pass it unanimously, and get on with the overdue task of seeing that drug prescriptions are filled at a reasonable cost.


Mr. Gaston Isabelle (Gatineau):: First of all, Mr. Speaker, you will permit me to thank the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orli-kow) for having congratulated the minister who has proposed the discussion on this bill.
ggg3	COMMONS
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act
I must remind the hon. member that it is a Liberal government that introduced Bill No. C-190 which will certainly bring about a reduction of drug prices in Canada. This measure had been anticipated for 40 years, and I am very glad that the hon. member was thoughtful enough to thank the government for having at last introduced it.
I hope I will be permitted to take a few very precious minutes to make my humble contribution to consideration of Bill No. C-190, which will bring about, as I have just mentioned, with the legislation already passed, a substantial reduction of drug prices to consumers.
As an answer to the eloquent testimony of my colleagues in opposition and to the arguments which have been put forward, I wish to quote the following Japanese proverb: If you understand everything, you are badly informed. It is impossible to understand everything.
First of all, it is essential to understand that the drug industry cannot be considered in the same way as all the other industries in 1968. It is an industry which belongs to a public service called health, a blessing unequalled by any other on earth. As I said, this service belongs in part to the public sector, and therefore it is up to the government to take the steps necessary to normalize the excessive profits of this important-and I would even say privileged-industry by modifying the Patent Act in such a way as to allow competition in order to bring about a considerable reduction in drug prices. I think that is the whole essence of the bill.
Dealing with the normalization of profits, I find it shameful and scandalous that drug companies realize up to 27.25 per cent profit from their investments, while all the other manufacturing enterprises get an average of 13.25 per cent, according to 1959 figures. It is also scandalous to see that certain companies have spent up to 50 per cent of their annual budget on publicity and that, in 1964, for instance, 34 companies have spent $35 million in this field. On the other hand, it is hypocritically advocated that the Canadian drug industry-to be more exact, I should say 35 drug companies-has spent $9,551,000 in 1960 on research, namely 8.3 per cent of the total amount of their sales. However, what the drug industry is not saying is that it has, in fact, spent only a third of this sum, in Canada that is, $3,349,000, leaving to the headquarters of the drug companies the huge sum of 
DEBATES	February 13, 1968
$6,202,000, subscribed to their research fund although research work was done outside Canada.
Mr. Speaker, this borders on legal fraud, and I hope that the Department of National Revenue, in conjunction with the Departments of Industry and Defence Production, will take the necessary steps to check the drain of Canadian dollars or recover the sums spent by our sick when buying very expensive drugs. The money thus spent could contribute to national production or be considered as taxable capital. Since the Canadian drug companies spend an insignificant amount on research, they should, in my opinion, be made to spend the money received by their headquarters for research, in order to find a way to reduce the cost of drugs.
[DOT] (5:10 p.m.)
The drug industry in Canada makes a lot of its research through false devices which are only a publicity screen to increase its profits.
I do not need to add that the drug industry in Canada is only a subsidiary of the American drug industry which owns nine tenths of our so-called Canadian industry.
We have often heard in Canada about rackets or combines in the drug industry. It has even been implied that every Canadian physician was getting up to $5,000 of advertising literature. In fact, most medical magazines are subsidized by the drug companies and they are often filled, from cover to cover, with colour photographs representing everything that the fertile imagination of publicity agents can think of to praise this or that drug. But what has that to do with the quality, the therapeutic effect of those drugs? It is false representations for a magazine to show a beautiful smiling woman, hardly dressed, merely wrapped in a wonderful oriental-coloured piece of material.
Doctors are deluged with samples. There is systematic brain-washing, always in terms of a given article. That is why the Harley committee recommended that a national formulary should be published to enable doctors to choose themselves the drug to be prescribed.
It has been claimed with great fuss that the Food and Drug Directorate was not up to the task, that, after the passage of this new legislation, its staff and the number of inspections-would have to be increased.
I think that the government has done its best since it has increased the number of inspectors in that department from 93 in 1962
February 13, 1968	COMMONS
to approximately 200 at the present time, that is a percentage of 50 per cent. Canadians will certainly be protected, since the government has undertaken to improve its Food and Drug Directorate which is, by the way, recognized as one of the best in the world, according to Professor Blanc, a world authority in pharmacology, a professor at Geneva University and a member of the World Health Organization.
Now, nobody should try to make us believe that our Food and Drug Directorate is not working properly. I maintain that it is the best in the world, as stated by a competent member of the World Health Organization in Geneva.
For the information of those who are still not convinced, I will say that the number of inspections made by the Food and Drug Directorate gradually increased from 242 in 1963 to 551 in 1966. On November 8, 1967 the Canadian Medical Association sent to the minister a resolution it had adopted and which said:

This committee recommends that the Canadian Medical Association make known its views to the Registrar General that we are in favour of measures which will reduce drug costs to the patient but that these reduced costs must not be at the expense or safety of drugs or at the expense of retarding the continuing growth of the Canadian drug industry.

In this resolution signed by its executive secretary, the association states clearly that it favours measures likely to lower drug prices but is against certain measures that will lower the quality and safety of drugs. The Minister of Health and Welfare (Mr. Mac-Eachen) answered as follows:

It would be wrong to suggest that there is any degree of uncertainty concerning safety of imported drugs.

I must add that a patent has nothing to do with the quality of a drug. Quality control depends exclusively, first, on the Food and Drug Directorate, a branch of the Department of National Health and Welfare, and secondly, on the manufacturer's integrity. There has never been any evidence that the quality of a drug was lessened at the expiration of a patent. This brings me to deal briefly with generic drugs.
Even though the Department of National Defence and a very great number of Canadian
DEBATES	6689
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act hospitals have been buying, for a long time, huge quantities of generic drugs, and always with a view to reducing the price of those drugs, their use has never given rise to serious difficulties. As I said, it is quite definite that the government will increase the number of its inspectors in order to guarantee that all drugs coming from Europe or elsewhere will satisfy the standards prescribed by the Food and drug Directorate. This is quite a small price to pay if one considers the great benefit which will derive from this for those who must take drugs but cannot because of the high price of drugs in 1968. I must add here that the officials of the Food and Drug Directorate have been very clear in their evidence and that, according to their views, based on an analysis made by inspectors, the generic drug and the brand name drug provide the same guarantees as to their quality and security. This can be found on page 12 of the Harley report.
[DOT] (5:20 p.m.)
Having said this, I should like to make a small digression to philosophize a bit on drugs and to demonstrate that the policy adopted by our government is the best with regard to lower prices, since it takes into account the underprivileged class, the sick and the handicapped, and this is beyond value. Since 1900, and I now refer to an article from the Women's Medical News which appeared in the Montreal La Presse last August, the life expectancy of the American woman has been extended by 25 years. She can hope to live to be 73 while the average man will not reach 70 years of age.
From 1920 to this day, woman's life expectancy has increased by 19 years. Since 1920, thanks to drugs discovered in recent years, humanity benefits from what I shall call "a living bonus". Those "living bonus" years are more than added pages to one's calendar. They are productive, pleasant to live, and not only do they spare human lives but they also spare human beings from handicaps or reduced physical activity.
The invalid's bed and the wheelchair are becoming increasingly rare, which led a research specialist to say: We do not only add years to life expectancy, we add life to each year lived. Ten years ago, 80 per cent of the drugs prescribed today did not exist. As you know, the new drugs relieve arthritis, schizophrenia, pain, and allergies; perhaps that is why members can make speeches. These new drugs cure pneumonia, rheumatic fever, tuberculosis and venereal disease.
6690	COMMONS
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act
New vaccines can inoculate little girls against infantile paralysis and measles. In a few months, we will have a vaccine against the mumps. And we can expect to have a vaccine against German measles within two to five years. Yet about a decade ago, these illnesses seemed to be the common lot of all children, threatening them with possible blindness, disability and deafness. All that goes to show that we must, at all costs, find the means, as I said earlier, to lower drug prices, for when we get to a certain age, which I will call a "living bonus", that is to say years added to our life span by medical science, we can no longer afford to stay in good health, often because we do not have the financial means, or because of limited financial means, and mostly because of the high price of drugs.
It is well known that, when we get beyond a certain age, the number of prescriptions we use undergoes a noticeable yearly increase, due to the fact that we must often maintain our physical health by the use of new and efficient drugs. We must therefore protect this group of people to whom we have given this "living bonus" through our modern medical discoveries, our social security and preventive medicine programs. Through this legislation, we could add a supplement to this "living bonus".
It must be noted that this bill is practically a statement of principles to create fair competition which will lead to an administrative program designed to set the price of drugs at a level everyone can afford. It is to be hoped that the Canadian drug industry will recognize that this legislation is justified and that it will take this opportunity to reduce the price of drugs in the near future. If they are intelligent-and they have proved it in their brief-the drug people will recognize that the best competition is still the one that can be avoided.


James Ernest Pascoe: Mr. Speaker, I agree with earlier speakers that this is a very complicated and important piece of legislation. This much was indicated by the minister sponsoring Bill No. C-190, because he required almost an hour and a half to explain all its ramifications. He made a well prepared presentation on behalf of his department in defence of his proposed action to allow easier entrance of foreign produced drugs into Canada.

DEBATES	February 13. 1968
To make my position clear, Mr. Speaker, I want to state at the outset, and state emphatically, that I support the intended effect of the bill, which is to make drug prices in Canada as reasonable as possible. I emphasize the words "intended effect of the bill", because what might be considered short term benefits might not in turn produce long term benefits to drug purchasers, drug manufacturers or to the economy of Canada as a whole. Proper legislative enactments to provide drugs at reasonable prices for all Canadians, particularly the elderly and low income groups, will certainly receive my support and I am sure will receive the support of my colleagues on this side of the house. I have received letters from constituents in connection with the present prices of drugs and I have assured the writers that we on this side of the house will do all in our power to see that prices are set at reasonable levels. I should like to repeat the statement I just made. We want to make sure that proper pricing methods are followed and that proper legislative enactments are passed to achieve the desired results. Again I emphasize the word "proper". Perhaps we might make some improvements to the bill before it finally passes.
I was a part time member only of the special committee on drug costs and prices. I had to yield my place on that committee owing to the demands of the standing committee on transport and communications. Being on the committee for only a short time I therefore cannot speak with the authority of the hon. member for Simcoe East (Mr. Rynard), the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Forrestall), or the hon. member for Wellington-Huron (Mr. Howe) on all the testimony given before the committee. They have put their comments on the record and have made it clear that there are serious doubts that Bill No. C-190 will give definite assurance of long term benefits in the public interest. The hon. member for Wellington-Huron particularly emphasized the absolute necessity to ensure complete safety of all drugs that are made available to the public, especially those drugs that are imported. I will not take up the time of the house to repeat his warnings but I certainly want to bring this matter to the attention of those who will be voting on this bill later in the week.
[DOT] (5:30 p.m.)
I am mainly concerned about the words on the front page of the bill, "An Act to amend the Patent Act and the Trade Marks Act." In
February 13, 1988

this connection I wish to read a short paragraph from a letter I received from the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Canada.
Bill C-190 essentially would abolish normal patent and some trade mark rights as they relate to prescription medicines made in Canada. It has far-reaching implications in that it represents a serious attack on the patent system, a fundamental facet of any competitive society and a matter of significance to the Canadian economy. We believe it might set an unfortunate precedent.
That paragraph emphasizes my concern about what appears to be a dangerous tampering with patent rights in Canada. I am not an expert on patents so I consulted Webster's international dictionary, third edition, and under "patent" I found the following definition:
A government grant of a monopoly right that gives one who invents or discovers a new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or a new and useful improvement thereof the exclusive right for a specific term of 17 years with certain rights of extension to make, use or sell his invention or discovery.
The bill refers to compulsory licensing, and in this regard I consulted the 1965 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Though the paragraph refers to Great Britain, what it says has application in this country.
Since the original object of the patent laws was the establishment of new industries, the main grounds for a grant of a compulsory license are that the patented invention is not being worked within the country-
I underline the words "within the country", -to the fullest practicable extent, or that the demand is not being met on reasonable terms, or is being met by importation in place of home manufacture.
To be fair I must also read the following paragraph that appears in the Encyclopaedia Britannica:
Applications for compulsory licenses relating to food or medicine may be made at any time and without alleging abuse of monopoly. Such compulsory licenses are to be granted unless there is good reason for refusal, and are to be on such terms as will secure that the patented article shall be available to the public on the lowest terms consistent with fair remuneration to the patentee.
I cannot say too much about fair remuneration with regard to patents but, according to certain testimony presented to the committee by the controller of patents, I understand that in these cases the payment of royalties would amount to a mere pittance. From what I have heard and read and received by way of comment in letters and briefs, it seems to me that 27053-422
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act patent rights are an essential incentive to adequate pharmaceutical research in Canada. I hold no brief for the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Canada, and I stress that. Some speakers have suggested that perhaps we are speaking on its behalf. I hold no brief for the association but it is not difficult to share its concern about the effect that Bill C-190, if passed in its present form, will have on future drug research and development in Canada. In its brief the association says:
Bill C-190, which would have the effect of abolishing patents, could never be considered conducive to "continued and increased scientific research in Canada."
The brief goes on to say:
Patents are generally recognized as having a twofold value. They provide an incentive to discovery and encourage the disclosure of scientific information from which other researchers benefit.
In this connection it is fitting to put on record the 1967-68 statement of policy of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. No doubt each member of the house received a copy of that document. In one of its pronouncements on policy the chamber of commerce said, as noted in the P.M.A.C. brief:
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, in its 196768 statement of policy, has urged that the government "implement a review of the Patent Act with respect to its being strengthened so as to encourage research and invention in Canada."
The legislation now before us is based on the idea that Canada can get along without its pharmaceutical industry. I am concerned about that. If Canada becomes dependent on other countries for vital drug supplies as may happen if this bill passes, her national health could be impaired in times of emergency.
I shall put on the record the extent of the pharmaceutical industry in Canada as outlined in the brief from the association: Canada's pharmaceutical industry makes an appreciable and growing contribution to the national economy. It employs over 10,000 Canadians-of whom 2,500 are university graduates-and helps to create jobs for an estimated 25,000 more in firms providing supplies and services for the industry. The member companies of our Association have a total capital investment of nearly $100 million.
The brief goes on to say:
Their exports in 1966, as shown in a recent survey conducted jointly by the Department of Industry and the Association, amounted to some $20 million, a figure which these companies are continually striving to increase. The proposed legislation not only would put an end to any hopes of this export development, but would also further upset Canada's negative balance of payments.
February 13, 1968

Patent Act-Trade Marks Act
I thought I should read those paragraphs into the record because they indicate the extent of the pharmaceutical industry in Canada.
With regard to research, I have just received a copy of the first edition of a pamphlet put out by the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Health Sciences. The pamphlet refers to medical research and health sciences, and I think the latter aspect also includes research in drugs. In one part the pamphlet says:
The publication of this bulletin for the benefit of those involved in medical research or interested in the improvement of the research environment in Canada is in response to a growing public and professional awareness of the importance of the health sciences which has been building up in recent years.
A few paragraphs farther on it says:
Unless a more favourable environment for medical research-
I include pharmaceutical research under this heading.
-is provided as a matter of urgency, the skilled manpower on which medical education and health care depend will be inadequate both in quantity and quality.
[DOT] (5:40 p.m.)
In this connection, perhaps I might refer briefly to something which appears in a booklet issued in January by the Department of National Health and Welfare. It contains an article entitled "Measuring Medication Costs" which includes a whole series of price indices, founded on 1949 as the base year. The writer states:
The drugs on the market in 1949 represented the standard of health care of that period. The price of these particular drugs over the years changed only slightly as shown by the consumer price index. Changes have occurred, however, in the drugs actually prescribed by physicians. Instead of using the same drugs as in 1949, physicians are now using many new "wonder drugs" which usually cost more than the older, more established products.
We are then given a list showing how prices have changed. The article goes on:
If physicians did not use any new drugs but continued to prescribe the same medication as in 1949 the average prescription price would have changed very little. Now we can ask the question, why do physicians prescribe new drugs?
The answer is that either the new products are better than the previously existing products or they control or they cure a disease for which there previously was no effective drug treatment. Within the last decade, for example, we have for the first time developed effective drugs to treat glaucoma, fungus infections, mental depression and high blood pressure. The treatment of other diseases has also improved through the introduction of new antibiotics, tranquilizers, vaccines and anti-cancer drugs.
[Mr. Pascoe.l

I quote from this article because I believe it is germane to the problem we are now facing. We are bound to be concerned about the new drugs which are becoming available and the cost of research necessary to produce them.
Perhaps I might return to the question of patents. Any abolition of a patent right tends in my opinion to create a perilous precedent which might make it easier to abrogate other rights. I have had some experience in connection with copyright and I believe these two fields are to a certain extent related. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica "copyright" is a term currently used to designate the rights secured by the laws of civilized countries to authors of literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works to protect them against unauthorized copying of those works. To bring the situation closer to us, I suggest that tampering with patent rights could open up other areas such as copyright and make them liable to infringement. We have all heard statements at the end of National Hockey League, World Series baseball and Grey Cup games that they cannot be rebroadcast without authorization because there is a copyright protecting the original broadcast. I suggest that copyright and patent laws are in the same category and that changes made in one of these fields could over the years become the thin end of a wedge making it possible to introduce changes in the other.
Perhaps I should offer some suggestions to the minister for his consideration following these remarks on patents. I am sure this matter will be the subject of discussion during the clause by clause study in committee. It has been claimed that drug manufacturers are spending too much on the promotion and distribution of their products. The figure often quoted is 30 cents on the operating dollar. I certainly agree that this is a high figure and that it does add to the cost of drugs to the consumer.
I would remind hon. members that the committee which went into this subject recommended that the food and drug directorate issue a monthly publication to medical doctors outlining the effectiveness of all drugs available at that particular time and commenting on their safety and efficacy. I believe such a publication would be of great value. It would be official and authoritative and it would list all those drugs which the directorate considered to be most effective in particular cases. It would command the attention of
February 13, 1968

all doctors who prescribe medication for their patients. In my view the availability of such a publication would undoubtedly reduce the cost of promotion to pharmaceutical manufacturers. They would not have to use 30 cents of every dollar to advertise the new drugs which they have created through research. I suppose it would still be necessary to employ what they call detail men to call on doctors and talk to them. However, I believe a monthly publication outlining all these drugs would be of great assistance and would cut down the cost of drugs to the public.
I took down one quotation from the minister in the course of the hour and a half during which we listened to him yesterday. He said that during any given interval of time the incidence of disease was far from uniform and those who incurred the highest drug bills because of their disabilities were likely to have incomes substantially below the average.
I agree with this statement. I myself have been contacted by people who have had the greatest difficulty in paying for the drugs they need. In this connection I have a suggestion to make which the minister might well consider. Instead of taking action which would certainly curtail the operations of the pharmaceutical industry in Canada, I suggest that people with incomes substantially below the average should be given special consideration by the government. I am not proposing any form of means test in this connection. The government has taken the position that the plan they introduced for the payment of supplementary pensions to people with low incomes does not involve any form of means test or needs test.
My suggestion is that the minister propose to his colleagues in the government that those receiving supplementary pensions be provided with necessary drugs at minimum cost. Such a course would cost the government far less, in my opinion, than the revenue which would be lost in taxation if the pharmaceutical industry in Canada were curtailed or lost. Perhaps this proposal could be considered in more detail during the committee stage. In the meantime I leave it with the minister to ponder.
[DOT] (5:50 p.m.)


Howard Earl Johnston: Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to speak at great length this evening but I do wish to make some statement on Bill C-190. I think it very important that we as members of the House of Commons try to satisfy the insistent
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act demand that something be done about the high cost of drugs, but I have found the public to be singularly sceptical about our ability to affect drug prices. Members of the public point to the failure of the elimination of the sales tax on drugs to reduce their price to any degree.
There is a problem and it is important that we tackle it squarely and give the public the assurance that we have their best interests at heart. The discussions in the special committee have been referred to at length. One of the most interesting things in that committee was the story, repeated over and over again, of how Canadian drug companies had become wholly owned American subsidiaries owing to the tax policies of successive federal governments, particularly inheritance and death duty taxes. I expect that later this week we will be presented with a report on United States investment in Canada, but I am sure that report will not contain one chapter showing how the tax policies of Canadian governments provided the incentive and rationale for United States investment in Canada.
Those who weep now about the effect which this bill may have on the Canadian drug industry have not paid full attention to the testimony given to the standing committee. I draw the attention of hon. members specifically to the submission of the government of Alberta to that committee. I have no intention of reading it all but I am sure the chairman and the members of the standing committee recall it well. Indeed, one member of the committee remarked that it could well have a cover slapped on it and be handed in as the committee's report. I believe the Alberta submission was influential in the drafting of the committee's final report and influenced the minister's opening statement yesterday. I suggest that if the bill is passed and the minister is given a boost by it he will on occasion, on his travels across the country, give some credit to the submission of the government of Alberta.
Chapter 3 of the Alberta government's submission specifically relates to the bill we are considering. It deals with the influence of the legal and regulatory framework on Canadian drug prices and asks why the level of Canadian drug prices is the highest in the world. It lists several of the factors that influence drug prices, whether the drugs are manufactured
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act in Canada or imported into the country, and I quote some of these factors:
-presence or absence of process and product patents in the foreign country; tariffs, quotas, or other impediments to free foreign trade; presence or absence of price controls on drugs; the status of the existing drug industry in a given country, and similar factors.
I believe that by far the most important is patent policy, and it is not surprising that this bill deals with that aspect in an effort to provide some relief from the high cost of drugs. The Alberta submission goes on to say:
In Canada there are five major elements in the legal framework which influence the level of drug prices directly and indirectly.
It lists these as the patent and trade mark laws, tariffs and anti-dumping laws, the federal sales tax, the food and drug laws, and legal sanction for the practice of brand name prescribing. It goes on to say that the adoption of compulsory licensing in the United States would be of very great benefit to Canada but points out that this is not likely to happen. It adds:
The best solution would then seem to lie in the area of enabling those presently price competitive elements of the Canadian drug market-chiefly the small, Canadian-owned firms-to be able to compete more effectively with the major foreign patentholding firms. Measures should also be taken to induce new entry by price competitors. If about 90 per cent of the Canadian drug industry is presently controlled by firms which do not choose to take advantage of compulsory licensing, then steps should be taken to increase the viability of the existing competitive segment of the market, and to introduce new competition, if necessary from abroad, in the interest of lowering Canadian drug prices.
To that end the submission presented a variety of recommendations. It discussed the possibility of the complete abolition of drug patents but felt this would not be the wisest course for the government to take. Some of its recommendations were:
1.	Compulsory licences to import should be granted, subject to the payment of reasonable royalties.
Royalties still remain.
3.	Every effort should be made to further expedite the process of acting on compulsory licence applications-
4.	Section 19 of the Patent Act should be amended to allow provincial governments and their agencies as well as the government of Canada to use any patented drug, subject to the payment of reasonable compensation-
5.	The schedule of tariffs on drugs should be reviewed by the Tariff Board with a view toward:
(a) Limiting the liability of drugs to tariff duties to those drugs of a class or kind actually made in Canada-

February 13, 1968
It goes on to add:
7. Liability for anti-dumping duty should be limited to drugs of a kind actually made in Canada, where ''kind'' is defined in terms of the active ingredient.
It ends with this recommendation:
14. If the above reforms do not succeed in reducing drug prices to competitive levels in a reasonable period of time, drug patents in Canada should be completely abolished.
We who sat on the committee know that its report was considerably watered down. Some of us who attended all the committee hearings, and were particularly impressed with submissions such as the one from the Alberta government, had cause to wonder just how much we could give away, how much we could concede and still have a report left that would produce any noticeable affect on the price of drugs. I trust that the report was not watered down so as to be without effect. I trust that this legislation, in spite of what is being said by the official opposition, will prove of benefit to the public.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


Mr. Speaker:: It being six o'clock it is my duty, pursuant to provisional standing order 3 9A, to inform the house that the question to be raised at ten o'clock this day is as follows: The hon. member for Springfield (Mr. Sehrey-er), Air Canada-Winnipeg-transfer of employees from base.
It being six o'clock I do now leave the chair.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at 8 p.m.

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Turner for the second reading of Bill No. C-190, to amend the Patent Act and the Trade Marks Act.
Mr. H. R. Ballard (Calgary Soulh):: Mr. Speaker, I rise with a certain amount of trepidation to say a few words in connection

February 13, 19S8

with Bill C-190, which is before the house tonight, because on occasions during this debate hon. members of this party, when putting forward what I consider entirely reasonable points of view, have been harangued by hon. members opposite. I have in mind particularly the unwarranted and ungentlemanly outburst by the hon. member for St. John's West (Mr. Cashin). I am sorry he is not in the house at this moment.
The speech made by that hon. member did not do him credit, nor was it a credit to the decorum usually present in this house. I should like hon. members to contrast that speech with the speech of the eminent and hon. member for Gatineau (Mr. Isabelle), who this afternoon delivered a speech worthy of a man of his profession which contained a great deal of invaluable information for the consideration of hon. members during their consideration of this bill. I appreciated his speech and I have told him so personally. I think it should be placed on record that many of us consider his speech as a real contribution to the debate.
On the other hand, the hon. member for St. John's West displayed his own political philosophy, when he suggested the art of politics was to arouse public sympathy in order to obscure the merit in the arguments of one's opponents. I suggest that is exactly what he did. He tried to arouse hon. members of the house in respect of an emotional point in order to obscure the arguments put forward by the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Forrestall).
No one on this side of the house has made any pretence that the cost of drugs in this country is anything but high. No one has pretended that we would like to see anything but lower cost. We are all aware of the fact that drugs represent a very expensive commodity in this country. This is an item of cost that is felt particularly by those who can least afford to pay for them out of their budgets. I refer, of course, to the elderly and the sick. During my experience I have become aware of individuals on old age pensions who are faced almost continuously with drug bills amounting to $60 or $70 per month. Naturally these people cannot afford to meet this expense at present pension levels.
When members of the committee were considering the cost of drugs as the background of this legislation they were informed on many occasions of the high costs in this country. I remember reading a newspaper article
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act in connection with one of the submissions to that committee. Although I do not know where it may be found in the committee proceedings, I have read a newspaper report based on it.
At this time I should like to refer to a pamphlet entitled "Sugar Coated Pill" by William Stephenson. This article appeared as an insert at about the middle of this publication and it stated:
During the latest House of Commons committee investigation into drug costs and prices, it was revealed (on December 13, 1966) that Smith, Kline and French, a staunch P.M.A.C. member, sold 2.2 pounds of stelazine to druggists for about $57,000, aespite the fact that this amount can be imported into Canada, all taxes and duties paid, for as little as $200. This would represent a profit to SK & F of a cool 28,000 per cent!
o (8:10 p.m.)
I wanted to put that passage on the record, Mr. Speaker, to indicate to the house that we in this party are not blind to the fact that drug prices in this country are high, too high. But we want to put forward at the same time a warning that price alone cannot enter into the consideration of this bill.
The Department of National Health and Welfare distributes a monthly publication called "Canada's Health and Welfare". The January issue deals with the question of the cost of drugs in this country. I found this article very interesting. It indicates that the drugs that were common in 1949 are being sold today at about the same price as they were in 1949. The new drugs that have been developed in the intervening years account for the large increase in the cost of prescription drugs. As a matter of fact there is in this article a chart covering the consumer price index, which indicates that in the year 1949, which is taken as the base year, prescriptions were at 100 and in 1966 they were at 100.4. As I indicated earlier, this covers the drugs that were in existence in 1949 but does not include the "wonder" drugs that have been added since. This article then says:
The drugs on the market in 1949 represented the standard of health care of that period. The price of these particular drugs over the years changed only slightly as shown by the consumer price index. Changes have occurred, however, in the drugs actually prescribed by physicians. Instead of using the same drugs as in 1949, physicians are now using many new "wonder" drugs which usually cost more than the older, more established products.
The article includes a chart indicating the average price of a prescription. In 1952 the average price was $1.82; in 1964, 12 years
6696	COMMONS
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act later, the average price was $3.31. The new drugs which have been discovered and placed on the market in the intervening years are to a greater extent being prescribed by physicians than the drugs that were in common use in 1949.
Another chart indicates that family expenditures on prescription drugs in 1955 amounted to $23.80 per year, whereas in 1964 they amounted to $39. In other words, families are using more costly drugs to cure diseases than they did in 1955. Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that we are aware of the high cost of drugs in Canada today. I think it is a fallacy for the government to throw back at us the suggestion that we are not mindful of the problems of people in this country when they are faced with drug prices such as are in effect today.
We are not entirely sure, though, that this bill as it stands will have any effect on the cost of drugs. There is no assurance that the cost of drugs to the average Canadian citizen will drop as a result of the passage of this bill. The government says that theoretically, the cost will drop but there is no way of knowing for sure that this will actually happen.
I have here a copy of a letter that appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press. This letter was written by Dr. George F. Wright, professor of chemistry at the Univeristy of Toronto, and says in part:
There is no assurance that John Turner's Bill C-190 will lower drug prices on any but a temporary basis. His gambit, that compulsory licences to sell dosage forms (pills, capsules, etc.) imported from abroad will increase competition, and thus low'er prices, is a fantasy in which the major drug companies of Canada are somehow to be held in chains that will compel them to produce regardless of profit.
We should pay attention to what is said by an impartial observer from the University of Toronto who has no connection with politics or the drug industry, and who is probably involved in research at that university. I would say that he has no political interest in putting forward this point. He has made a responsible statement and we should accept it as such.
The basis of my argument, Mr. Speaker, is that it is absolutely essential for the future health of the people of this country that the government assure that the quality of drugs supplied is kept at a very high standard. This is not something new that was dreamed up by the committee, nor is it something that was

DEBATES	February 13, 1968
brought out as a red herring by the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Forrestall). It is a matter that has been considered for a considerable length of time. As a matter of fact, going back as far as the royal commission on health services under Judge Emmett Hall, this question was very much in the forefront of people's minds.
I should like to quote from the report of the Hall commission at page 369 of Volume I as follows:
The Canadian Pharmaceutical Association told us that "the degree of quality control of drug products that is mandatory under present regulations of the Food and Drugs Act is not such as to give sufficient assurance to the pharmacist that any given batch of the products of all manufacturers will meet the required specifications".
In other words, even several years ago it was recognized that the food and drugs administration could not guarantee the purity and quality of drugs being supplied to people in this country. Further down on the same page of the report we find these words:
Dr. Morrell further expressed the opinion that in order to adequately test and check drugs in Canada the food and drug directorate would have to triple its staff of inspectors and laboratory personnel.
This brings us to the present moment when we are considering a bill that will change the Patent Act, ostensibly following the recommendations of the Harley report, the final report of the special committee of the House of Commons on drug costs and prices. But I submit that the Harley report contained 23 recommendations, and practically all of them have been ignored. It appears that the minister has picked out one and has dealt with it in isolation without giving consideration to the other recommendations contained in the report.
e (8:20 p.m.)
The members of the committee certainly were concerned about the quality of drugs in this country. Perhaps I might pick out at random a few of their recommendations. In recommendation No. 3 they felt that the food and drug directorate should publish not less than once a month an informative bulletin to the medical profession giving complete details on drugs and their actions, and reviewing major drug uses in Canada. Several recommendations were passed over entirely. In No. 16 they recommended that the Canadian Pharmaceutical Association and all provincial
February 13, 1968

pharmaceutical associations, faculties of pharmacies and the provincial governments should meet to discuss the practice of pharmacy in Canada, bearing in mind the following matters:
1.	Ethics of the profession particularly concerning advertising and merchandising, and the role of discount and mail order houses;
2.	Qualifications and training necessary for dispensing pharmacists;
3.	Promotion of competition within the profession, in the public interest;
4.	Distribution of pharmacies, both in heavily populated urban areas and less developed rural areas;
5.	Ownership of pharmacies by non-pharmacists;
The minister has picked out one recommendation in isolation and has dealt with it. As I said before, members of the committee were quite aware of the necessity to maintain the quality of drugs. At page 39 of the report of the special committee we find this:
Your committee believes that in no circumstances should the general policy of permitting compulsory licensing applications for patents relating to foods and medicines be eliminated.
I think it is important to pause here to say that the present unamended Patent Act does allow for compulsory licensing. This procedure under the act has not been used widely by the drug industry, a privilege which has existed since about 1923. Very few applications have been made and practically all applications which have been received have been approved. The federal government seeks to amend subsection 3 of section 41 so as to make the issuance of this compulsory licence automatic.
The quotation continues:
Indeed, your committee has four recommendations regarding compulsory licensing
(1)	Applicant for compulsory licence to have food and drug directorate approval;
In the suggested new act the approval is not necessary. It specifies that the commissioner of patents shall advise the food and drug directorate that a compulsory licence has been issued. The committee also recommended the following:
(2)	Extension of compulsory licensing to imports;
(3)	Payment of food and drug directorate inspection services outside Canada; and
(4)	Licences by right in cases of undue delay;
However, the members of the committee also felt that the patentees had some rights. The following appears at page 38 of the committee's report:
There is no doubt whatsoever that the manufacturer who introduces a new drug should be
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act
allowed certain time to promote the drug and establish his position in the market following appropriate clinical testing and satisfying the requirements of the food and drug directorate, so that for a period of time at least he retains his monopoly position.
If I might come back to the question of quality control, I should like to say that 1 believe that it has been overlooked in this legislation. I am supported in this view by a chemist, Dr. D. J. Marshall of Hampstead, Quebec. Dr. Marshall is employed as a chemist by one of the drug producing firms, and says in part:
One wonders, also, whether the government has given adequate consideration to the matter of quality control of drugs. I doubt if the layman has any conception of the effort invested by reputable pharmaceutical manufacturers in devising analytical procedures which can be used to verify the quality of each batch of finished product. There are no generally applicable procedures for doing this; each new drug presents its own special problems, often requiring a fairly major research effort before quality and uniformity can be assured.
Should we be concerned about quality? Here is another letter. This is from the Chemical Institute of Canada and is signed by Dr. R. L. Salvador. I shall quote part of this letter:
As a professional group composed of scientists involved in all aspects of drug research, manufacturing and quality control, we have a special responsibility to express our grave concern at the unfavourable and undesirable impact that the provisions of this bill will have on drug research, drug manufacturing, and drug safety in Canada.
The impact will be to reduce the safety of drugs, to reduce the amount of drug manufacturing in Canada, and to threaten the very existence of drug research in Canada.
I have quoted from several sources to indicate that we are not alone when we express concern about the continuation of quality drug manufacturing and importation in this country. I am now looking at a page from Hansard for October 20 when the bill to set up the department of consumer affairs was being discussed on second reading. The newest member of the administration, the hon. member for Verdun (Mr. Mackasey), was good enough to put his thoughts on the record at that time. I think one must respect the point of view put forward by a person who has just recently been appointed to the cabinet. At page 3342 of Hansard the hon. member for Verdun said this:
I think that before making important changes, for instance in the field of patents, copyrights and trade marks, he-
6698	COMMONS
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act
The hon. member is referring to the minister:
-should discuss them with the other ministers involved, because he may find these desirable changes are not practicable and cannot be effective unless another minister brings forward necessary legislation.
In that same report it was proposed that the recommendations of the Heller report-
I believe he means the Hilliard report.
-be implemented and that before the minister decides to adopt certain recommendations of the Harley committee to alter the Patent Act, the Copyright Act or the Trade Marks Act he should make certain that the food and drug directorate is enlarged and given the proper funds to ensure that the drugs flowing into this country as a result of these changes are subjected to the most rigid scrutiny.
So, there you have it, Mr. Speaker. People from various parts of our society are concerned about the maintenance of quality in the drug industry. Who is responsible for the maintenance of quality? Is it the food and drug directorate? I am not too sure about this. I found a very interesting article in the Medical Services Journal for March, 1967, which left me in a quandry as to who is responsible for the quality of drugs. I should like to quote from this article, which was prepared by Mr. N. G. Allmark, assistant director general, food and drug directorate:
It is not, however, a proper function of the food and drug laboratories to act as a control laboratory for the industry. The first responsibility for safety and potency is put squarely on the manufacturer.
[DOT] (8:30 p.m.)
Here we are, Mr. Speaker, asking the food and drug directorate to police an industry over which the directorate claims no control in so far as quality is concerned. To whom do we look for control of quality in drugs? It is not good enough to say we are going to be able to import drugs from every country in the world, countries in which we have no right of inspection, countries that do not have the sanitary standards or supervision of manufacturing procedures as we have in Canada and the United States.
In the past we have, to a large extent, relied on the integrity of the manufacturer to maintain quality control of drugs. Surely the legislation that is proposed now should be matched with some other type of legislation in order to maintain that control. As Mr. Allmark has said, the first responsibility for safety and potency is put squarely on the manufacturer.
In the same publication another food and drug officer, Mr. J. R. Smyth points out the

DEBATES	February 13, 1968
lack of investigation by our own officers of manufactured drugs outside our country. On page 276 of this journal, I find this:
At the present time, many of the imported products are tested outside of Canada and we have had some difficulty in obtaining satisfactory certificates of analysis which clearly indicate that the products have been sufficiently well tested.
This is my main argument, and with this I will close: It is all well and good to propose legislation to change certain facets of the laws of this country but you cannot change an act such as the Patent Act without at the same time putting forward satisfactory measures to ensure that the control of quality will be retained in the drug industry of this country. There are other ways of combating the price of drugs. One very novel way, and I thought very sensible, was put forward this afternoon by the hon. member for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre (Mr. Pascoe). This would be a far more practical solution than amending the Patent Act as this bill purports to do. I should like to see the minister give serious consideration to the proposal put forward this afternoon, rather than go ahead with Bill No. C-190. The Canadian public health should not be jeopardized from the importation of drugs of a lower standard.
Mr. Raymond Rock	(Jacques-Cartier-
Lasalle): First of all, Mr. Speaker, I should like to congratulate the minister upon the interesting remarks he made concerning Bill No. C-190 as well as his explanation of the five main steps that were being taken to achieve the government's objective. One of these was the removal of the federal sales tax, and another was the introduction of Bill No. C-190. I am not too happy about this part of it. This minister also tabled an international price comparison. As Pat Burns, a radio commentator with CKGM in Montreal would say, I hope this is not another snow job.
After listening to the hon. member for St. John's West (Mr. Cashin) this afternoon, I must say it sounded like a snow job, definitely an emotional snow job. I wonder if the hon. member for St. John's West would play the same tune if we were introducing legislation today which would permit the importation of cheaper fish from Russia or Portugal? I wonder if he would feel the same if we were introducing legislation which would stop the useless, cruel slaughter or, as many of us might say, murder, of helpless white baby seals? I believe his emotions would be different from what they were today. In fact, I believe
February 13, 1968

he would play a different tune on his fiddle if he had a few pharmaceutical companies in St. John's, Newfoundland.
There are many pharmaceutical companies in Montreal, and 21 of them are in the western district of that city. These companies have employed thousands of people from this district and many graduates from the universities of McGill and Montreal. I am concerned about their future if Bill No. C-190 is adopted.
The old Canadian Patent Act, in so far as drugs are concerned, allowed one to protect the process by which the drug was made. This was called a process patent. The act did not allow the patenting of the actual product, which is called a product patent, and is something which the United States permits. This process patent is weaker protection than a product patent. In addition, under section 41 of the old Patent Act, the government had the added safeguard, in case they felt there was a monopoly on the drug, of issuing a compulsory licence to another manufacturer who applied for it. In the past, when a compulsory licence was granted the drug had to be manufactured in Canada, a provision which was felt to be reasonable since it provided jobs for Canadians in manufacturing, packing, research and quality control. Many of these people were university graduates. The inventing company usually manufactured in Canada, so the situation was stable.
The new amendments to the Patent Act would change the situation to the extent of granting a compulsory licence for imported drugs, that is drugs made in other countries, such as Hong Kong, Japan, Czechoslovakia, Mexico or Italy where labour costs are definitely lower. Perhaps these amendments will lead to a reduction in costs, but only by jeopardizing Canadian jobs, the future of many university graduates and the pharmaceutical industry established in Canada. At the moment, the industry employs 10,000 people and helps to create jobs for an estimated 25,000 more in firms providing supplies and services.
[DOT] (8:40 p.m.)
Also jeopardized by Bill No. C-190 is the development of research in Canada. The weakening of patent protection will discourage research endeavours, as well as investment and expansion. In 1967 there were 40 pharmaceutical manufacturers that spent $12 million in research, and I understand that there is a projected increase of 50 per cent by 1970.
If this bill passes, I feel that this projected
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act increase may become a decrease and that many graduates will have to look elsewhere in the future. The expansion of this industry will cease. In some instances it is possible that operations will be phased out, because as a result of this bill parliament will give the international companies the opportunity to supply Canada with drugs from their home bases.
The tenor of the amendments to the Patent Act also destroys, in effect, inventors' property rights. This, in turn, destroys incentive. What I feel is particularly unfair is that the patent changes are restricted only to drugs. In effect, Mr. Speaker, this means that a relatively minor industry is fighting for survival against regulations that are to the detriment of the established drug industry in Canada. Once the principle of interference with patent rights is accepted-and this is interference-I feel that the incentives provided by our own society will gradually be destroyed.
I do not believe any minister in this house would suggest that we should import wheat from South America because it may be cheaper than the price of wheat in Canada, and that therefore our daily bread would be cheaper. This of course would be to the detriment of our farmers. Neither do I believe that the minister would dare suggest that we should import milk, butter or fish from a country where labour costs were cheaper than ours. Yet he is bringing in legislation that I believe will jeopardize the pharmaceutical industry in Canada. This is an industry that employs 10,000 people and supports another 25,000, but this bill will kill that industry while it is still in its infancy.
This legislation has left the rational and entered the emotional field. The latest amendments are extreme and potentially destroy initiative and incentive. I feel strongly, Mr. Speaker, that this bill may be unnecessary and that if it is allowed to go through on emotional grounds it will destroy the property rights that are inherent in our society.
We all want to see drugs sold at the lowest possible price. I think that government inquiries and surveys of this field are good if they point out weaknesses within Canada that can be corrected. However, there is a difference between constructive legislation and legislation that is punitive, and I feel that Bill C-190 as it stands falls into the latter category unless this is proven to the contrary.
I understand, Mr. Speaker, that Dr. Malcolm Brown, chairman of the Medical Research Council of Canada, is preparing or has
February 13, 1968

Patent Act-Trade Marks Act prepared a report on research in the pharmaceutical industry, which may have an important bearing on this bill. In addition, I understand that the Canadian Institute of Patents and Trade Marks, the chairman of which is Mr. H. Grey, is preparing a brief on Bill No. C-190, as is the Canadian Manufacturers Association. The Chemical Institute of Canada has sent an important brief concerning this bill to the government and has also sent telegrams to members requesting that the institute be heard in the committee. Also the faculties of pharmacy of the Universities of Montreal, Toronto and British Columbia have protested Bill No. C-190.
I have received many telegrams and letters from people connected with the pharmaceutical industry and I should like to put on record some of the short ones. I have before me a telegram addressed to me and reading as follows:
Seriously concerned with actual Bill C-190 f?r its negative effect on pharmaceutical research in Canada. Please withhold support. ^ Klupfel
Another one addressed to me reads:
Please see that Bill C-190 is returned to committee for study. Unfair to Canadian medical research, my livelihood.	^ a y	ph D
Another telegram to me reads:
Bill C-190 highly detrimental to pharmaceutical-medical research in Canada. Usefulness in reducing drug prices questionable. Writing arguments in a letter which follows. Please hold support of Bill c-190 during second reading.	^	^
Another one sent to me reads:
The Chemical Institute of Canada, medicinal chemistry group has submitted an important brief to Mr. John Turner on February 6 concerning C-190.
A copy is now in the mail for your attention. We believe this legislation deserves committee study by trade, finance and economic affairs, and by the industry, research and energy development committee.
Sent to Messrs. Drury, Winters, Sharp, MacEachen, Harley, Tennier.
That telegram was sent by L. G. Humber, Ph.D., the vice chairman of the medicinal chemistry group, Chemical Institute of Canada, Montreal.
I should also like to refer to a short letter received from Mr. Arnold Davis, a Ph.D. from Montreal, who writes:
Dear Mr. Rock:
The enclosed copy of letter to the Hon. John N. Turner represents both my own and many of my colleagues' opinions regarding the serious limitations of Bill C-190.


As an M.P. having a Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Canada member in your constituency, you might wish to give this matter your consideration before further action is taken on this bill.
I also received a special delivery letter from a Dr. Carl von Seemann. The letter is three pages long, but he too requests that this bill be sent to a committee for further study.
The next letter was written by Mr. Morris L. Givner and is addressed to the Prime Minister (Mr. Pearson). This letter also requests that the bill be sent to a committee. Another letter from Mr. D. J. Marshall, Ph.D., addressed to the minister requests that the bill be sent to committee. Another letter signed S. N. Sehgal from Dollard des Or-meaux makes the same request.
Lastly I received a letter from Mr. L. G. Humber, the vice chairman of the Chemical Institute of Canada, who writes as follows:
The Chemical Institute of Canada feels very strongly that the provisions of Bill C-190 will be detrimental to pharmaceutical research in Canada. We have stated our feelings to Mr. Turner, and we enclose copy of this correspondence for your information.
We trust that you will take these views into account and that this bill will not be allowed to pass.
The fourth paragraph of his letter to the minister is very important, I feel, and reads:
We feel that our government should instead take steps to maintain the safety of drugs, to develop an independent Canadian capability to manufacture our own drugs, and to encourage the development of scientific research directed towards the discovery of new drugs.
[DOT] (8:50 p.m.)
Now that the bill's contents are known, Mr. Speaker, I think that all people who will be affected should have the opportunity to come before a committee, such as the committee on trade, finance and economic affairs, to air their grievances, present briefs, ask questions, etc. I believe therefore that Bill C-190 should be sent to a standing committee, since it is too important to be rushed through without giving those who are interested the opportunity to be heard.
There are some pharmaceutical companies in the Montreal area which intended to spend millions of dollars for expansion purposes. They have held back the execution of these works pending the decision on this bill. If Bill C-190 is rushed through without giving these people the opportunity to appear before a committee, I believe these works will be cancelled.
February 13, 1968	COMMONS


Mrs. Jean Wadds (Grenville-Dundas):: Mr. Speaker, my contribution to this discussion on Bill No. C-190 necessarily will be brief when compared with the contribution of the hon. member for Simcoe East (Mr. Rynard), who has had many years of practice and experience in the medical profession, and when compared with the contribution of all those who have sat long and diligently on the committee on drug costs and prices.
I have no great knowledge of the vast, complicated field of drugs and their uses; I am participating nevertheless because I have strong feelings about the effects of drugs and their possible dangers. This feeling is common to all responsible adults, especially to those who from time to time recommend drugs in their own homes and to children. No matter whether the indisposition is minor, we have learned from our general education and [DOT]our education in medical matters to realize the danger of an impetuous diagnosis.
Responsible people must always realize that they carry a burden when they give any drug. This natural reaction was heightened for me by a personal experience in this house some five years ago, when one of the great tragedies connected with drugs struck Canada and the world. It was with horror that is not often experienced in our protected society that we heard about the frightening effects of the drug, thalidomide. It is when such serious difficulties arise that responsible people show their worth.
I remember distinctly the various attitudes which were displayed to the government at that time. I am pleased here to have an [DOT]opportunity to express something publicly, and to put on the record an observation which I have made privately many, many times. I am referring to the highly honourable and commendable attitude of the hon. member for York Centre (Mr. Walker). Happily, he is still sitting in this house and the high opinion that many members formed of him at that time has in no way been diminished. He realized that members of all parties were [DOT]equally heartsick over the thalidomide tragedies and he refused to allow any blame to be placed for political advantage.
Remembering this occasion, it was with regret that I heard the member for St. John's West (Mr. Cashin) this afternoon accusing those in the official opposition of using drug safety as a red herring. The hon. member for St. John's West took particular delight in repeating over and over again his criticism of
DEBATES	6701
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act the junior member for Halifax (Mr. Forrestall).
I cannot accept the insult to the official opposition, and particularly to the junior member for Halifax and the hon. member for Simcoe East, which is inherent in the suggestion safety is being used as a political excuse, and that we in this party are not as concerned about the cost of drugs, the cost of medical protection and the cost of living, as any other Canadians are concerned. It is silly, to the point of stupidity, to imply that we care less for our families, loved ones and our fellow Canadians than those in other parts of this house care.
I did not hear the speech of the junior member for Halifax; yet on reading his speech carefully I saw nothing in it which should so incense the hon. member for St. John's West. The junior member for Halifax showed the house, clearly, that we on this side of the house agree with the intent of any measure which will lower the price of prescription drugs to consumers. As a good committee member the hon. member for Halifax asked the minister merely if some of the committee's recommendations had been carried out. The minister admitted that one of the recommendations had not been implemented, the recommendation reading:
That the food and drug directorate publish not less than once a month an informative bulletin to the medical profession giving complete details on drugs and their actions and reviewing major drug uses in Canada.
Surely there is nothing wrong when the hon. member for Halifax brings to the minister's attention committee recommendations and reminds him that most of these recommendations have not been implemented.
The hon. member for St. John's West tried to depict the junior member for Halifax as the great exponent of high drug costs, as the protector of the drug industry. That accusation is in no way related to what the hon. member said last night in this house, and is entirely unfair and unjustified. The member for Halifax was stating what cannot be stated too often, that there is absolutely no guarantee about safety and that there is no reference to safety in this bill.
It is not only the official opposition that is insisting on high quality, safe and effective drugs. All Canadians give priority to such drugs, and the official opposition is here to make sure that the weaknesses in any bill are demonstrated. The hon. member for Winnipeg
6702	COMMONS
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act North (Mr. Orlikow) did less than justice to the entire subject this afternoon when he accused the official opposition of trying to protect the drug industry and when he accused the hon. member for Simcoe East of wanting for the drug companies a licence to steal from the people of Canada. The reputation of the hon. member for Simcoe East is such that no one can take seriously such an accusation. This parliament would be improved if we had more members with his experience, his qualifications and his specific knowledge.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Jean Casselman Wadds: The hon. member spoke
because he has great respect for the medical research that has been done in this country in the past, and because there is a continued need for research to be done in the future. It is a pity that such superficial criticisms are made of such a knowledgeable speaker. The hon. member for Simcoe East knows whereof he speaks when he questions the minister about ways and means of making drug inspections. For the young member for St. John's West this afternoon to ridicule his opinions was ill-placed arrogance.


Wallace Bickford (Wally) Nesbitt: It was a dirty speech.


Jean Casselman Wadds: The entire question of drug uses is enormously complicated. I was interested to hear the high praise given to Parke, Davis in regard to the manufacture of Chloromycetin. One of that firm's Canadian plants located in Leeds county is a highly respected and well managed unit of eastern Ontario industry.
I think it is only sensible for us to give consideration to those who possess the most qualified voices in this specialized area of consumer affairs. The minister has received a resolution from the Canadian Medical Association's committee on pharmacy. That resolution favours methods which will reduce drug costs to patients but, said the resolution, these reduced costs must not be implemented at the expense of safety of drugs or at the expense of the continuing growth of the Canadian drug industry.
On February 3 the Canadian Medical Association Journal carried an editorial about Bill C-190 and, in part, it said this:
If there is doubt about the effects of the proposed legislation on the cost of drugs to the consumer, there is no doubt that the Canadian consumer would not have the same assurance of quality of imported drugs as he does of drugs manufactured in Canada.

DEBATES	February 13, 1968
[DOT] (9:00 p.m.)
We have heard a great deal about the possible savings that can be made by using generic as against brand name drugs. An independent company, International Surveys Limited produced a report dated November 27, 1967 on its investigation of the relative cost of prescriptions written under brand names compared with those under generic names. The basis for the selection of drugs to be studied was as follows: they had to be well established, they had to cover as wide a range as possible in different therapeutic fields. Controlled drugs and drugs restricted by the Narcotics Act were excluded from the inquiry. Major cities across Canada were chosen for use in the survey and pharmacies were selected at random from the yellow pages of telephone directories. Purchases were made between October 26 and November 8, 1967.
In the 11 categories of drugs studied, the differences in cost between brand and generic prescriptions were found to be negligible in nine of the categories. In one category the price of generic drugs was significantly higher and in one other the brand name prescriptions were significantly higher in price. The differences in price as between one outlet and another were found to be considerable.
Mr. Speaker, I join with members of all parties in wanting to see lower prices charged for drugs in Canada. As has been stated by a number of previous speakers, however, there are many factors involved in the price of Canadian drugs. There is little guarantee that the bill as it now stands will produce cheaper drugs and no guarantee at all that they will be as safe.


Mr. G. D. Clancy (Yorklon):: Mr. Speaker, I have listened to a lot of experts talk about the cost of drugs. I happen to come from a province where there is a social welfare scheme in operation. I am allowed $1.25 an hour yet the man who sweeps the streets in front of me gets $1.75.
People talk about generic drugs. How many can tell me what they are? It is not we who write the prescriptions. This is done by members of the medical profession. All we do is what they tell us to do. I will tell you a story. I come from a little village. Every morning I went down to the town pump, and from it I used to carry two pails of water. Some of my good friends said: "What are you doing with that, Clancy?" I said: "That is profit".
I have listened to this debate and I think a great deal of nonsense has been talked by
February 13, 1968

people who do not know what they are talking about. An hon. member on the other side says we are going to lose this argument. Well, if a man can make more money driving a bus why should he take responsibility for the health of other people?
Let us get down to reality. If you want a corner laundry to fill your prescriptions, then try to get it done there. But if you want somebody to take responsibility for your health and see that you get what a particular doctor sent you in to get, that is another matter. I cannot tell you whether you need penicillin or another drug. I can tell you something else, though. Some of the women could stay home and look after the children. This would save a lot of money now being spent on drugs.
I realize it is a popular issue. I know it has aroused interest across the country; the women are yelling and all the families are concerned about the cost of living. Why pick on drugs? Go to the supermarket. I can tell you where the cost of living is increasing- and I do not set myself up as a processor. At least l can compare prices. The pure food and drug legislation provides that the net weight shall be stated for comparison with a certain price.
I am tired of this being made a popular issue. Everyone in the house thinks it will add to his or her popularity, to get up and speak on it. All right: If you want to sell it, go out and harvest. Find a scandal.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Speaker, yesterday we listened with interest to the hon. minister introduce the first bill emanating from his new department.
I will say at the outset that it seemed to me that the minister wanted to justify the creation of his department.
When this department was set up, I think I read some comments showing that the basic philosophy of this department was simply to create a strong and powerful bureaucracy in order to watch over the interests of the Canadian people. On the other hand, one wondered who was going to keep an eye on the minister and his officials.
It was most interesting this evening to listen to the remarks of the hon. member for Jacques-Cartier-Lasalle (Mr. Rock), a member on the government side of the house whose riding is next to that of the minister.
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act He criticized the minister severely saying that certain people, especially in the city of Montreal, did not support the first bill of the minister.
I should like, in my opening remarks, to support the representations made by the member for Jacques-Cartier-Lasalle, to the effect that the contents of this bill should be referred to the committee on health and welfare so that it might study its implications, because they exceed by far the scope of the remarks the hon. minister made yesterday and which were supported this afternoon by some on the treasury benches and other leftist members.

Mr. Speaker, I shall not say that I felt the remarks of the minister were conveniently bilingual yesterday. There is a time and a place, and this, as we know, is a rather interesting time for the minister to indicate his bilingual capabilities.

On the other hand, Mr. Speaker, I think he tried to show us, in his opening remarks, that he was mod and that this was the philosophy these days. In fact, his remarks can be called demagoguery, since they appeal to the little people who could not afford the price of drugs and medication, especially the low-wage earners.
One would think, in the light of the introduction of such a bill, that most Canadians live in huts, that they lack worldly goods, that they dress in tatters and that they are the poorest in the world. Now, we know full well that this is not the case at all. Yet there are some who like to appeal to these people.

On the other hand I found the remarks of the young and brash member for St. John's West (Mr. Cashin) to be most repugnant. He seemed to imply that anyone who appeared to question anything the minister had to say or what this bill says-and this applies also to the comments made by some of his hon. friends in the house who have criticized this legislation-were mouthpieces of vested interests, motivated only by a desire for profit. The suggestion was that my hon. friend from Simcoe East (Mr. Rynard) had debased himself by taking a professional interest in criticizing this bill.
6704	COMMONS
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act e (9:10 p.m.)
I will crave the indulgence of the house, Mr. Speaker, for being a little personal, but if the hon. member for St. John's West (Mr. Cashin) is so much against the profit motive and the well established motive of business concerns in this country, I would say to him that he should turn around and point at the ancestry of his own family who spent many years acquiring the fortune the benefits of which the hon. gentleman is now enjoying, when they were dealing in the economy of N e wf oundland.


Some hon. Members:: Shame.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: 
Mr. Howe (Hamilton South):: May I ask the
hon. member a question?


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Yes, certainly.
[Mr. Lambert.!
DEBATES	February 13, 1S68


William Dean Howe: On the basis of this reverse reasoning that the hon. member is making, does this mean that he could go to India or one of the other less developed countries and buy a new Ford car for $400?


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: No, for the simple reason that the Ford car is not made in those countries, and also they have other types of controls plus their costs of transportation and so forth. The hon. member for Hamilton South (Mr. Howe) should know better. I am talking about drugs produced under pretty well the same circumstances in Canada as against the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany. When comparisons of prices to retailers are based on a mere exchange rate without any explanation, that is deluding the reader. If the minister wanted to make some adjustment or some allowance for this spread I would not be criticizing him as I am now. The differentials are not as wide as indicated by the minister.
As recorded at page 6616 of Hansard the minister said that a number of constructive suggestions were made by the standing committee which studied drugs, under the chairmanship of the hon. member for Hal ton (Mr. Harley). In that committee members got an instructive examination of certain of the factors that go into the determination of prices and the marketing of drugs. But the point is that this bill seizes upon only one suggestion by the committee. As the minister himself said yesterday afternoon, this bill is no guarantee that prices will come down, unless he is prepared to impose price controls at the retail level.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker-


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: If you will allow me to make
my speech-


John Napier Turner: On a question of order-*


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: May I ask what is the question of order? If the minister is going to dispute what I say, that is not a point of order. The minister has a right of reply.


John Napier Turner: If the hon. member would be good enough-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Tardif):: Order. If
we take a little time to listen to the minister we will find out if he is in order or not.


John Napier Turner: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I have a right to challenge the hon. member if he misquotes me or misinterprets my remarks. What I said was that by itself
February 13, 19G8

there was no guarantee this bill would affect prices. I said it was part of a cumulative program, and the program was set out quite clearly.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Tardif):: Actually this is not a point of order. It is more like a medium sized debate.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: I think that only reinforces my remarks. The minister convicts himself out of his own mouth. I did not say the minister said this bill was the only means-not at all. I am suggesting the minister would have to resort to many other things, many other devices to guarantee a reduction of prices. I merely said that the minister admitted yesterday afternoon that this bill would not guarantee a reduction of prices, and he has admitted that again now. The mere importation of drugs under licence-and I will explain this later-by a group of importers who will be going along for a free ride, with no guarantee as to the level of their mark-up, and the mark-up through jobbers and through retailers, is no guarantee of a reduction in price. Unless the minister is prepared to impose price controls all the way along the line he cannot guarantee that there will be price reductions.
From an economic point of view, and again I will develop this argument, whether the country will be further ahead is another question. I revert to what the minister said yesterday as recorded at page 6622 of Hansard:
On the supply side of the market, the framework in which industry operates in such that there are high barriers to the entry of newcomers who might inject new and more vigorous competition by importing the basic drugs for processing and packaging in Canada or by importing dosage forms. The most important of these barriers arise as a result of the interaction of the Patent Act, the Trade Marks Act, the Customs Tariff, the very intensive and costly program of marketing and promotion undertaken by the established firms, and the requirements of the Food and Drugs Act.
If this philosophy applies all along the line will the minister argue that the prices of all commodities in Canada which come into the market, either under domestic production or from foreign sources, are higher than they need be, because many other commodities are produced in Canada under patents?
[DOT] (9:20 p.m.)
There are many other products produced in Canada that are protected by certain tariffs and the Trade Marks Act. There are also many programs for marketing and promotion.
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act I do not know how the requirements of the Food and Drug Act relate to this, but perhaps there is also protection in respect of food. The minister has singled out drugs as part of this program. Is this a forecast of what the minister or the government intend for the future in respect of other products? Does he intend, from here on in, that patent rights will not be applicable to any type of commodity that may be manufactured in Canada, and that the Trade Marks Act shall not apply to them? Are we to see the elimination entirely of customs tariffs and prohibitions in respect of marketing promotion?
Some of this new philosophy is expressed at the very same page, and this seems to be in line with the basic principle the minister followed in his bill. Let me read from the bottom of column two on page 6622 of Hansard for February 12 where the minister is reported as having said this:
Since the demand and supply characteristics of the market tend to rule out price competition in the Canadian drug industry, except in sales to institutions, rivalry between drug firms takes the form of concentration on the development of minor differences in product and of sales promotion. Competition is, therefore, cost increasing. The more intense the competition, the higher costs are driven.
In spite of this the minister says that by doing away with competition and by importing under licence, set at an arbitrary level by the commissioner of patents, competition will increase, and therefore drug prices shall go down. Will the minister guarantee that there will not be his kind of competition as a result of even minor differences even under licence? According to his own principle, competition shall be cost-increasing and there shall be greater promotion. How does he think that under this new utopia some of the characteristics about which he complained will not prevail?
Let me suggest to the minister that by the provisions of this bill he will be giving certain importers of drugs a free ride, in that they will not have to do one penny worth of research; also there will be no price controls. All these importers will have to do is pay a mere licence fee in the form of a royalty set by the commissioner of patents. This decision will be beyond negotiation by the parties concerned-the exporter and importer. In other words, "big brother government" will come down to the market place and determine what shall be paid as a licence fee. This again is an example of that "do goodism" about which I spoke. This is implicit in the proposal
6706	COMMONS
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act of the minister, that there shall be this type of enforcement by the commissioner. However, there is nothing indicated in the bill or in what the minister has said on which one can base any conclusion as to how the commissioner of patents will use this authority. There is no criteria for the commissioner to follow in setting the level of licence fees. I find this a little difficult to accept in this day and age, unless the minister is disclosing a new philosophy of this government.
I am not going to go through all the details of possibilities for reduction in manufacturing by drug manufacturers in Canada. This has been more than adequately covered by my colleagues. Neither do I intend to go into the question relating to the potential elimination of almost all meaningful drug research in this country. This also has been covered by my colleagues, the hon. members for Simcoe East (Mr. Rynard) and Halifax (Mr. Forrestall). The hon. member for Jacques-Cartier-Lasalle (Mr. Rock) has indicated his concern in respect of this implication. I am sure all members of this house have received representations from individuals and firms, including the Chemical Institute of Canada, particularly its medicinal chemistry group. Are these people so suspect, merely because they are protesting the minister's bill, that their representations are to be dismissed as mere efforts to protect mere money grubbing instincts? Some of the statements in this house today and yesterday have been based on sensational penny dreadfuls, most of them ill-founded, regarding drug prices and drug quality.
It is very distressing when one has to rely entirely upon drug manufacturers for the safety and quality of drugs, to find, that some of them are defective or of less than adequate quality. The minister might do a greater service by proposing a measure to jack up quality control on the part of drug manufacturers. Surely this would be a step forward, although on the whole the drug and medicinal producing industries in this and other countries are efficient. Of course humans are fallible, and production cannot be guaranteed 100 per cent. Such quality control measures would be a step in the right direction toward the elimination of as much error as possible. Let us not approach this subject only from the aspect of cost.
There are many other parts of the minister's speech to which I could refer, which contain flaws in reasoning. As the hon. member for Grenville-Dundas (Mrs. Wadds) said,

DEBATES	February 13, 1363
although we criticize this bill we must not be deemed to have no concern for the level of drug prices. No one in this house has any monopoly or concern for people who are ill and have to spend money on drugs. I do not fault the minister or the government for their concern for these people, or for their efforts to decrease drug prices.
This bill that the government advances gives us no such guarantee. We have to weigh the pros and cons of the bill. On the basis of what has been said and the criticisms that have been advanced, I have very grave doubts that Canada in the net result will benefit from the passage of this bill.
[DOT] (9:30 p.m.)


John Angus MacLean: Mr. Speaker, Bill No. C-190 purports to have as its objective a beneficial effect on the cost of drugs for Canadians. We on this side of the house agree that any measure which will have the effect of lowering the price of drugs to the consumer, and prescription drugs especially, is advantageous to the people of this country, provided any saving in price is not outweighed by other resulting disadvantages.
Two years ago a special committee of the house was set up to consider this question and make recommendations respecting a comprehensive and effective program to reduce the price of drugs. The terms of reference under which the committee was established spoke only of the price of drugs. It seems so obvious that when we as Canadians speak of drugs we mean drugs that are of a high quality and will perform as effectively as possible the function which they are prescribed to perform. Therefore we assume that these are the kind of drugs the house had in mind when it referred this problem to the committee. The committee, in its report at page 6, chapter II entitled "Background to the Report", has this to say:
The committee's conclusions must be such that any of its recommendations, if adopted, should continue to maintain a proper balance between industry and consumer and take into consideration the importance of continued and increased scientific research in Canada. No recommendations could be considered, which, although designed to lower drug prices in Canada, might produce drugs of questionable safety or have a detrimental effect upon other aspects of the Canadian economy.
This is what the committee reasoned was its duty with regard to the responsibility placed upon it. We have heard unfortunately, a great deal of propaganda, I would say, to
February 13, 19G8	COMMONS
the effect that Canadians pay exorbitant prices for pharmaceutical preparations, and some would have us believe that the Canadian pharmaceutical industry is a grasping, evil, bloated extortionist industry which feasts on the miseries of the ill. They want to create this myth and then, like knights on white chargers, go charging against this fictitious myth, having the people believe that they are the sole protectors of the interests of the Canadian consumer.
The myth that the pharmaceutical industry of Canada is any worse than any other segment of our industry, or indeed any better than any other segment of our industry, has yet to be proven. I consider that the pharmaceutical industry of Canada has done a great deal for Canadians. We have benefited from their research. Any of us, if we think about it at all, will realize the tremendous benefits to mankind generally, and not only to Canadians, which have resulted from medical research in pharmaceuticals.
We think of the "wonder" drugs that have come into general use in the last few years, with their resulting beneficial reduction, and in some cases the wiping out, of diseases causing premature death and the elimination of prolonged illnesses because of treatment which may result in a rapid and complete recovery from many diseases which only a few years ago were often fatal.
Benefits resulting from these drugs far outweigh the total cost of all the drug research that has ever been carried out. It is true that some of these drugs have been discovered as the result of research in universities or in institutions supported by the taxpayers; but the industry, too, has made very worth-while contributions. We will always be indebted to the industry for the benefits to mankind which have resulted from this research. This type of research, of course, takes place in many parts of the world. All mankind benefits when some great, new breakthrough is made in pharmaceutical research.
Since all mankind benefits from these advances, it creates a very complicated problem as to how the discoverers of a new drug shall be adequately compensated for their contribution to mankind. The drug industry cannot be thought of as being in isolation in any one country, or indeed in any one group of countries, because when it produces a new advance in the treatment of disease our moral conscience requires that the new drug be available to everyone as quickly as possible.
DEBATES	6707
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act This of course complicates the process of adequately recompensing the discoverers of a new drug, because the sale of the drug cannot be confined to a limited market. Drug companies cannot cater, generally speaking, to the needs of just one country as far as their research is concerned.
We in Canada are a relative newcomer in the fine chemical industry. Countries such as Switzerland and Germany, because of discoveries in the past, have become world leaders in the fine chemical industry. As a result they are in a better position than Canada to make advances in research in pharmaceuticals. Take, for example, the discovery of coal tar dyes in Germany. This gave the German chemical industry a tremendous advance and they profited from the discovery to a great extent. This discovery put them in a preferred position for a long time as far as advances in this field were concerned. Incidentally, it also put them in a preferred position as far as pharmaceutical research was concerned.
[DOT] (9:40 p.m.)
Nevertheless, we should not underestimate or downgrade the importance of Canadian achievements in this field. I should like to quote from a statement by the medicinal chemistry group of the Chemical Institute of Canada, which reads as follows:
In Canada the drug industry spent $12 million in 1967 on research and provided employment for 700 scientifically and technically trained people. Canadian scientists over the years have made outstanding contributions in drug research. These include processes for the production of insulin, for the production of steroid hormones from bile acids, and innovations in estrogen therapy. In the past decade Canadian scientists in industry have published in international scientific journals, over 200 accounts of the results of their studies. Ten drug companies maintain research laboratories in Canada, half of them having been opened in the last decade. Drug research is international in its scope. The research that is done in Canada contributes to and benefits from world knowledge. There is in Canada the necessary cadre of scientists and technicians to do research. There is the necessary scientific climate created by the presence of excellent universities, hospitals and other institutions. Canada must not become a parasite-it is proper and to be expected that Canada will make the contribution to drug research of which we are capable. Bill C-190 apart from reducing the funds available for drug research, will not help to foster the economic and political climate needed if industry is to continue to invest in Canadian drug research.
When we talk about the cost of research, I should like to remind members of the house that the pharmaceutical companies carry on research from day to day often at great cost, because they pursue what appear to be likely
6708	COMMONS
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act paths to advancement. We are told, however, that only about one of every three thousand research projects results in a marketable advantageous pharmaceutical. So it stands to reason that when a successful pharmaceutical is evolved the cost attached to it is not only the direct cost of that particular drug but also the cost involved in the research which produced the other 2,999 examples which proved to be unsuccessful. Therefore, we have a very difficult problem in determining what is a reasonable benefit under the patent rights. Then too there is the question of proving that a new drug is a safe drug. When a new drug has the status of a new drug the law requires that continuous testing of a very expensive nature be carried on in order to determine as conclusively as possible that the drug has no detrimental side effects, or that there are no other dangers attached to it when used.
The copier who comes into the picture at a later date, who is given a licence to manufacture the drug does not have to become involved in this prolonged and expensive procedure. He should be able to market his drug with less expense than it was marketed originally. In this connection I believe it is essential-and the members of the committee felt that it was essential-that the royalties paid under the Patent Act by licensees should be made more rewarding so that the innovator of the drug would be recompensed in some measure for the service he has provided to mankind in bringing this new drug into use.
There are many factors involved in the cost of drugs to the consumer. The members of the committee immediately recognized this. In addition to the cost of manufacturing there are many other factors. There is the cost of distribution, the professional cost of dispensing the drug, and the taxation involved at every stage in respect of the drug and the concerns which carry on the business of manufacturing, distributing or selling pharmaceuticals. All these factors, of course, are built into the cost of the drug, the same as in the case of other products. These costs have been increasing in recent years. This is part of the entire picture of the increased cost of living with which we are all so familiar. The federal government has jurisdiction with regard to some of these factors. Some of them, however, are under the control of other levels of government while others are under the control of the profession itself and are affected by other considerations.

DEBATES	February 13, 1968
The committee recognized this fact and made a large number of recommendations, 23 in fact, some of which fall under the responsibility of the federal government and others under other jurisdictions. For example, one recommendation of the committee was that pharmacists use the cost price plus professional fee method to determine drug prices to the consumer. I believe that in some provinces the profession has already adopted this recommendation. The result of that recommendation will be that the cost of a low priced drug will be increased slightly, while in the case of the very expensive drug there will in some cases be a tremendously reduced cost. Low cost drugs are obtainable at a price which usually is bearable by the patient, but some high cost drugs can be a very great burden, especially if they must be taken over a long period of time. So I believe some progress has been made in that direction.
Then there is the question of the federal sales tax. An advance has been made in this regard, provided the savings are passed on to the consumers. Recommendation No. 16 concerns the profession and the industry. The committee made several recommendations, some of which are being put into practice. Among the recommendations there are approximately seven which seem to fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government, and I shall read them:
[DOT] (9:50 p.m.)
2. That the personnel and facilities of the food and drug directorate be expanded to make possible the implementation of the recommendations of the Boyd committee, the Hilliard committee and this committee;
11. That the patent commissioner, on assessing royalties on the granting of a compulsory licence, shall consider that the patentee who discovers and initially develops the drug in Canada should have higher royalties than the drug manufacturer who discovers new drugs outside of Canada;
17.	That subsection 3 of section 41 of the Patent Act be amended to indicate clearly that the granting of a licence by the commissioner of patents is subject to a report by the food and drug directorate of the Department of National Health and Welfare, to the effect that the applicant for the compulsory licence has satisfied the directorate that he has met the regulations under the Food and Drugs Act;
18.	That subsection 3 of section 41 of the Patent Act be amended to include applications for compulsory licences to import drug products in all forms, subject to inspection of manufacturing facilities by the food and drug directorate and provided such importation is in the public interest as may be determined by the commissioner; and to this end, your committee recommends that the rules under the Patent Act be amended to permit the commissioner to seek and receive outside independent expert advice in the determination of this question;
February 13, 1968	COMMONS
19.	That the importer ot drugs under compulsory licence pay the cost of food and drug directorate services outside of Canada;
20.	That subsection 3 of section 41 be amended so that if the granting of a compulsory licence takes longer than 12 months, the commissioner, if in his opinion the delay is unwarranted, may be empowered to issue the licence subject to revocation if any appeal against such a compulsory licence is upheld, providing however that such licensee provide sufficient evidence to satisfy standards of the food and drug directorate;
21.	That section 20 of the Trade Marks Act be amended to make clear that no infringement can be claimed where imported drugs are manufactured by a "related" company;
Out of all these inter-related recommendations, the drafters of this bill have selected one and taken ideas from a couple of others. The requirement that before a licensee can import drugs the food and drug directorate must be satisfied in advance that the circumstances under which these drugs are being manufactured meet Canadian standards, does not appear in this bill. Such a requirement was recommended by the committee. This is a very important point, Mr. Speaker, because the standards drug manufacturers must meet vary from one country to another. The standards required of a manufacturer of drugs in Italy, for instance, or any other country, may be lower than those imposed in Canada. The exporting country has no responsibility to ensure that the drugs meet the requirement of the food and drug directorate of the country to which they are being exported. This condition applies even in Canada. We have no responsibility to ensure that drugs exported meet the requirements of the countries to which they go.
We have heard a great deal, Mr. Speaker, about the myth-I think that is not too strong a word to use-that drugs are just drugs, that an analysis of a generic drug in a laboratory gives a certain result and all those drugs are the same. This is a fallacy. In some cases however it may be true, but when we are dealing with the question of the safety of drugs we cannot assume that it is true. It is a known fact that of themselves, laboratory tests do not prove conclusively that a drug is safe, or as safe as any other drug that gives the same analysis. It may not be as effective as another drug that gives the same analysis.
The suggestion has been made that this myth was created by a segment of the Canadian pharmaceutical industry, and therefore should be disregarded; that it is suspect or bias. In this connection, I should like to
DEBATES	6709
Patent Act-Trade Marks Act quote as a witness a United States congressman giving evidence recently before a committee in the United States. I see that it is almost ten o'clock, so I will desist from that at the moment. I do want to say to the minister, however, that although we congratulate him on his objective of lowering the price of drugs to Canadian consumers, where that can be done safely and where it can be demonstrated that prices are too high, we are genuinely concerned that the high safety standards of Canadian drugs as we have known them will be endangered if this bill becomes law in its present form. I should like an assurance from the minister, therefore, that he would consider sympathetically and favourably the amendments which we might make in committee of the whole. We would prefer of course that the bill be referred back to the special committee which studied the cost of drugs in the first place, or some other appropriate committee, in order to bring the bill more in line with the recommendations of the committee. We feel the bill does not carry out the recommendations made by this hard working committee, recommendations which the committee felt were in the interests of the Canadian public. If the minister could give that assurance, I am sure that the second reading of this bill will not take much longer, so far as the official opposition is concerned.
May I call it ten o'clock.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Michael Starr: I should like to ask the acting house leader if he would tell us the business for tomorrow and possibly Thursday?


John Napier Turner: I am in a position to give the business for tomorrow. We will continue with item 51, the second reading of Bill No. C-190, which we have been debating, to be followed, if that is possible, by item 55, house in committee of the whole on Bill No. C-193, an act to amend the Income Tax Act.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the house under provisional standing order 39A deemed to have been moved.
a (10:00 p.m.)

Edward Richard Schreyer: Mr. Speaker, when the Minister of Transport (Mr. 6710	COMMONS
Proceedings on Adjournment Motion Hellyer) took on the portfolio of the Department of Transport he gave, I suppose one can say he reiterated, the solemn assurance of the government that the Air Canada overhaul base would not be moved from Winnipeg, at least not until 1973. When the minister went to western Canada recently he stopped over in Winnipeg a matter of ten days or so ago, at which time he repeated the intention and determination of this government that there would be no change in this undertaking.
Meanwhile, Mr. Speaker, the course of events has been such as to throw some considerable doubt upon whether or not the government is in fact determined enough to stand by this commitment. I say this because the management of Air Canada has all the time been transferring certain of its employees from Winnipeg.
The minister was questioned about this in the house last week. My colleague the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) and I tried to get some indication from the minister as to how he would proceed in persuading the management of Air Canada to agree to his intended course of action. The rules of the house did not permit us to engage in any exchange with the minister, and this prompted the debate at the present time.
The minister gives us to understand that he feels somewhat frustrated because he himself is circumscribed by the collective agreement that exists between the management of Air Canada and the employees. This is precisely the point on which I should like some clarification from him.
Air Canada maintains that it has an agreement with the employees that provides for it to continue to transfer certain of its employees, and this it has been doing. As I have already said, the minister also points to the agreement as a factor that impinges upon his freedom to take charge of this situation. I should like to put before him if he is not already aware of it, a statement that was made by an official of the employees union. I do not have the exact words before me but I have copied in longhand the essence of what he said, which was that if the employees were to take the position of not agreeing to further transfers of employees, they would have to have a definite indication from the federal government.
This is very logical, Mr. Speaker. I am unable to understand how the minister can point to the labour-management collective

DEBATES	February 13, 1968
bargaining agreement as a factor that somehow prevents him from persuading the management of Air Canada to go along with the undertaking that he and his colleagues have given, both to this house and to the people of Winnipeg. I believe that a delegation from that city discussed this matter with the minister a week or two ago, and I am sure he has given it a great deal of thought. Nevertheless I put this request specifically to him: Would he please clarify what he has in mind when he says that the collective agreement impinges upon his ability to take action in this connection?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. gentleman is paraphrasing what I actually said. The commitment that I gave in Winnipeg was that the Prime Minister's undertaking would be honoured. There has been no change in the government's position since that time. The Prime Minister undertook, as I understand, that the Air Canada base would remain open, or that an alternative solution would be found which would provide approximately equal employment opportunities in the aircraft maintenance industry. As my hon. friend undoubtedly is aware, we have made a special effort to try to reach a solution which will be satisfactory to everyone involved. A committee was formed with members of the provincial government and federal government, and they have been meeting and considering some of the suggestions which have been made. They are aware that there are at least several alternative possibilities, so far as the means which might be adopted to fulfil the commitment are concerned.
At the present time I cannot tell my hon. friend with certainty, though I should very much like to do so, which of the options that are being studied will be ultimately adopted. It is for this reason that the employees of Air Canada face a dilemma, the dilemma being whether to negotiate additional transfers under the contracts which now exist, and take advantage of the seniority rights which have been guaranteed, or whether to take their chances and remain at Winnipeg, in the hope that the ultimate solution will meet with their approval and provide satisfactory employment for them.
As I explained to the union officials, when I met them, I regret very much that this dilemma for the employees exists, but unfortunately I cannot do much about it right at this
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moment. I hope that we shall be in a position to announce, in the not too distant future, what the ultimate solution will be. Unfortunately I am not in a position to do that now. Negotiations between the union and the company will be going on in the meantime. It is this aspect of the situation which is beyond my control. I wish it were within my control, but it is not and I am afraid that the union
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Proceedings on Adjournment Motion and the company will have to resolve it in a manner which meets with their own general approval, notwithstanding some of the factors that will not be decided at the time.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. minister's time has expired.
Motion agreed to and the house adjourned at 10.10 p.m.

Wednesday, February 14, 1968