Kill Bill 398 - A Red Riding Hood Story

A few of these MP's have generic drug manufacturing facilities close to or in their respective ridings. Coincidence? Expect more in the days to come.

The bill has been sponsored by Hélène Laverdière - NDP - Laurier-Sainte-Marie (Québec).

It's a rehash, uh, improvement of Bill C-393, sponsored in the previous session by Paul Dewar (NDP). That bill died when an election was called. That bill was a rehash of another failed Senate bill, S-232, sponsored Senator Yoine Goldstein, that died when Harper prorogued parliament.

All of these bills have focused on one thing -- to relax current regulations regarding the compulsory licensing of patented pharmaceutical medicines for humanitarian purposes. This was first made possible by the The Jean Chretien Pledge to Africa Act, an unfortunate name that adds no credibility to its lofty intentions. It has since been rebranded as the Canada's Access to Medicine Regime (CAMR).

You will be forgiven if you have to ask "What is compulsory licensing anyway?" or "How does this have anything to do with helping Africa, fighting AIDS and raging grannies running around the country gathering signatures for petitions to Parliament?"

That is where GRAN comes in. They have the answers to your questions. They have a petition ready for you to sign.

The Grandmothers Advocacy Network is a break away group from the Grandmothers-to-Grandmothers Campaign, a very real charitable group that has collaborated with the Stephen Lewis Foundation to deliver meaningful aid to Africa.

You don't say?

The CGPA are a particularly good lobby association judging by the excellent job they have done convincing politicians, unions, the media and many left leaning organizations that patented drugs are an evil that cost Canadians BILLIONS of $ per year.

The CGPA argues that if the Canadian government succumbs to international pressure to adopt world (EU) standards on Intellectual Property it will cost Canadians dearly. Is this cost really worth a couple of free trade agreements?

The CGPA boasts that generic drugs cost much less. They hire academics to create bogus economic studies that project the additional costs if Canadian patent laws are upgraded to international standards. They argue free trade agreements will compromise the cost of Canada's health system!

What they don't say

What the CGPA never mentions is that some generic drugs in Canada can cost up to 36 times more in Canada than in New Zealand. Or why generic sumatriptan (a popular migraine medicine) costs almost 7 times as much in Calgary as is does in the Netherlands.

It has been compared to paying $60 for a Tim Horton's cup of coffee or shelling out $500,000 for a Toyota Corolla.

And the CGPA never mentions why Canada has some of the highest priced generic drugs in the world.

For that information, you have to read the 2007 report from the Competition Bureau of Canada on the Generic Drug Sector.

There is a handful of guys-in-ties that can explain how this all works they have actually saved Canada billions of dollars in drug costs; but they are busy executives, so they have the CGPA, the uniquely Canadian Big Pharma lobby group, do it for them. If you want more info on the guys-in-ties, start with a list of the richest Canadians. They are all near the top.

While the feds have known for years that Canada's generic drug sector was overcharging their customers, they have done nothing to stop it. Instead those customers, the provinces, are now passing piecemeal legislation to stop the blatant market manipulation.

Canada has had a Patented Medicine Review Board for 25 years. Their job is to monitor international prices for patented medicines. That is why Canadians pay significantly less than what Americans pay for the same patented medicine.

What is really needed is a Generic Medicine Review Board to ask why Canadian companies are charging 10, 20 or 30 times as much for generics as in other developed countries.

In the US and Britain, companies and individuals guilty of price fixing and fraud are sued by the government. The US has recovered over $30 billion from these efforts.

But Canada does things a little differently. They prefer to punish their rogue traders by building them sports arenas and subsidizing their hockey teams.

It's amazing what a little $430,000 illegal political donation can buy.

But first the Canadian government must relax the patent regulations again - otherwise this business humanitarian model just won't work.

But Grandma, what big teeth you have!

Just a hunch here; no definitive proof; just my opinion.

The GRAN website was NOT created by volunteers as they claim. It's a slick PR proxy campaign financed by business interests with one aim in mind -- to get Bill C-398 passed; and weaken the current regulations regarding the legitimate compulsory licensing and regulation of patented medicines for humanitarian purposes.

The Grandmothers Advocacy Network is NOT about helping Africa or grandmothers helping orphans or fighting AIDS or anything resembling humanitarian aid.

Bill C-398 is really a cynical ploy by Canada's Big Pharma to rig the laws of Canada (again) so they can profit handsomely from an emerging world market for cheap, high quality, copycat drugs. Made in Canada and made legally, right?

If that market happens to include a black market, it should not matter. After all, this will still save lives.

In my opinion, and in the spirit of fair comment, the Grandmothers Advocacy Network and Bill C-398 are nothing but lawyers and lobbyists dressed up in granny's nightie.

Bill C-398 must be defeated, and delegated to the dustbin of private members bills that never become law.

KILL BILL 398!