Bill C-28 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act

This enactment would amend the Food and Drugs Act to provide the Minister of Health with the authority to issue interim marketing authorizations for foods that contain certain substances at specified levels, and to exempt the foods from the applicable requirements of that Act and its regulations relating to the sale of those foods.

Business of the House

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, today and tomorrow we will continue third reading of Bill C-29, the Patent Act. This will be followed by second reading of Bill C-31 and Bill C-32, respecting international trade and foreign affairs.

We will then proceed to second reading of Bill C-28, which amends the Food and Drugs Act; report stage of Bill C-8, the public service bill; report stage of Bill C-3, the Coast Guard bill; and report stage of Bill S-17, respecting tax treaties.

On Monday we will begin with report stage and third reading of Bill C-24, the equalization bill. If this is completed, we will then return to the previous list where we left off.

Tuesday and Thursday of next week shall be allotted days.

Next Wednesday we will commence second reading of Bill C-38, the civil marriage bill.

With respect to the question on the Judges Act, that will be forthcoming in due course.

Budget Implementation Act, 2004, No. 2

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we even have friends among the Liberals, who believe that we do serious work, not only in terms of criticism, but also in terms of the suggestions that we make to the government. In fact, the ultimate goal of any opposition party is to make much better governments. I think that, since September, the opposition, whether we are talking about the Conservative Party, the Bloc Québécois or the New Democratic Party, has made this government govern somewhat better than it had over the previous 11 years.

I think that this bill includes measures that are a big step in the right direction, but they fall totally short. There are a lot of missed opportunities that the government could have seized to really improve things. Here is just one example. In Bill C-33, they talk about reducing the air traveller security charge. This is the airport tax that has been imposed since the September 2001 events in the United States.

Right from the start—and the government does not want to admit it—having an airport security tax is an extremely bad idea. Not that security is a bad idea, but funding security by taxing travellers, in various airports in Canada, compromises the competitiveness of this sector. Since this tax was introduced, all the representatives of the airline industry and related sectors, at various levels, have stated that repeatedly. It must be eliminated.

A reduction has been proposed, and this is a good step forward, but the tax must be eliminated. Small regional airports must collect this tax and follow extreme security measures. I think that this tax and security issue has been exaggerated, particularly in small airports in a number of rural regions in Quebec and Canada. This airport tax must be eliminated. I hope that, in the next budget, the Minister of Finance will see that good old common sense must prevail in his decisions, especially with regard to such a tax.

I want to take this opportunity to address another point. We have just finished pre-budgetary consultations. There was a consensus everywhere, be it in Quebec—the Bloc Québécois held its own pre-budgetary consultations across Quebec—or in the Standing Committee on Finance across Canada, where representatives came to see us in Ottawa. There is one tax needs to be reviewed and that is the fee immigrants must pay to enter Canada.

It is not normal for immigrants, who are experiencing socio-economic problems in their country of origin, to have to pay an entry fee that represents a fortune to them. The entry fees should be reduced; keep them but scale them according to the socio-economic situation in the country of origin.

It is not normal for a refugee, who is fleeing a country where civil liberties do not exist and where there is extreme poverty, to arrive in their new country and have to pay this fee. Immigration is essential. It is not a gift we are giving them. Given our declining population, we need immigrants and we need to welcome them. We should not impose a tax on them. I am taking this opportunity to stress this point.

Bill C-33 contains a hypocritical provision. It always looks good when, in the throne speech and the various budgets, persons with disabilities are mentioned. Is the government ever compassionate. It is great how it wears its heart on its sleeve.

There is a problem with how persons with disabilities are treated in Quebec and in Canada. The tax legislation passed in this place is not even enforced. I am talking about the disability tax credit. I notice my colleagues around me, the hon. member for Compton—Stanstead in particular, and all the new members who were sent here following the June 28 election.

My colleagues and I are all aware of the problems persons with disabilities are facing with respect to the disability tax credit they had been receiving for years. The year they visited us, the revenue agency had decided to audit them, asking that they provide pretty incredible proof of their disability. In some cases, these are totally degenerative diseases. They cannot get better, yet these people are asked to provide more documentation from the doctor proving that they still have a disability, when that is obvious.

We have heard horror stories. One person who was really disabled in every way, who could not walk, even the length of a short desk, was instructed to go back to her doctor's office to get papers filled again.

They even disputed money that had been paid in past years. It is total nonsense to hassle people whose lives are already difficult enough, often horrendously difficult.

Now we find ourselves with a proposal for a special deduction for products and services for the disabled. I am no different than anyone else here in my desire to improve things for the disabled, but we need to start by properly respecting the credits available under the federal Income Tax Act and properly applying its provisions.

We are still being treated to all the government's flowery speeches about the disabled, as we have been since 1993. When the lack of investment in the social housing sector is being discussed, they always forget that this issue includes the component of adapted housing for the disabled. There has not been one red cent for that since 1993. It is all very fine to talk about this measure or that, but the government's decisions never include what is really essential.

We hope that the government, in the person of the Minister of Finance, will be a bit more attuned to the situation of the disabled when he tables his next budget. A major surplus will be generated during the next fiscal year, regardless of all his creative calculations, all his fancy manoeuvres, up to and including a triple flip if he so desires. I think it would therefore be a good idea to keep the disabled in mind on an ongoing basis.

In connection with the disabled, according to a Finance Department study, for the fiscal year 2002-03, 148,000 of them were unable to benefit from the tax credit because they had no taxable income. It would be a good thing for this credit to be converted into a refundable tax credit for the disabled who have low incomes and therefore cannot benefit from it. SInce it is not refundable, the only way to benefit from this credit is to pay taxes to the federal government.

Another missed opportunity involves a review of personal income tax, especially income tax for low income earners. I am referring to low income families. The federal government has huge surpluses. I think the cumulative surplus over the past eight years is roughly $63 billion. Again this year, the surplus will be $9.1 billion when they estimated it would be $1.9 billion. Is it normal in such a budgetary context that the federal government does not even think about reviewing personal income tax, especially for low income families? Is it normal that among the G-7 nations, Canada most readily taxes the earnings of low income families?

They talk about a zero tax threshold, which seems to be a rather complicated phrase. It is the point at which taxpayers start to pay tax. For the federal government, the zero tax threshold here in Canada is $8,200. Unless I am mistaken, this is far below the poverty line or the low income cutoff. Experts go to great lengths to try to be more politically correct and use gentler terms than “poverty line”. That is too harsh, so they talk about “low income cutoff” instead.

The poverty line is well above the taxable income amount of $8,200, in terms of federal income tax. Among the G-7 nations, the Canadian government is the one that most readily taxes the earnings of personal and family incomes. The last budget—which was the premise for Bill C-33—was a good opportunity for the government to review personal income tax.

If memory serves me correctly, in 1996 the Bloc Québécois had presented a series of measures to make the personal income tax system more equitable. We had done this for businesses as well. I remember that the then Minister of Finance, the current Prime Minister, rose in this House to congratulate the Bloc Québécois for having conducted such a comprehensive study. However, since that time there has not been any true taxation reform in order to include some tax equity in the federal system.

Aberrations like a zero tax threshold of $8,200 for individuals and approximately $10,000 for families still exist. That makes no sense. Do hon. members know who the first victims of such inefficiency are? Single mothers with one or more dependent children. With $9 billion in surplus, possibly up to $10 billion or $12 billion for the current year ending on March 31, 2005, why is it so difficult for the government to see exactly what we are seeing and to take measures accordingly? It always comes up with half measures, producing alarming statistics. For example, since 1993, the number of children living in poverty in Canada has not decreased in real terms. We still have 1.2 million children living in poverty. And children live in poverty because their parents live in poverty. In this respect, taxation can do a lot. Taxation is a major determinant of the relative wealth or poverty of citizens.

Measures can be taken to improve the situation somewhat in terms of the management of the tax conventions signed between Canada and various countries considered by the OECD to be tax havens, that is, countries or regions which provide undue benefits with respect to taxation. In Barbados, for instance, the tax rate on corporate dividends is between 1.5% and 2.5%, while it is around 28% or 29% in Canada. So, we are talking about countries that do not have transparency as a watchword, be it concerning bank accounts, or banking and industrial activities of Canadian or other foreign subsidiaries established in Barbados or elsewhere, in Fiji, for example.

These are often countries where money is laundered, making them veritable laundry machines, which the OECD denounces every year. But, except for a handful of European countries, no one has really taken any drastic measures to put an end to the tax evasion made possible because tax havens exist.

At present, there are two measures in this bill that affect tax agreements. They are positive measures, but they do not tackle the heart of the problem. The heart of the problem stands on two feet: he was elected Prime Minister on June 28, 2004. We cannot set an example for businesses who invest in tax havens and send their billions every year to tax havens. We cannot set an example here, because our Prime Minister does not set an example.

I have mentioned the tax agreement with Barbados because it is the worst example of tax avoidance and the flight of capital to countries considered tax havens. Businesses are taxed at a ridiculously low level on their profits, and when they return their money here, they are exempt from taxes in Canada. Barbados is one of the worst tax havens identified by the OECD. The Prime Minister, the former finance minister, owns a family business called CSL International. It is an international marine shipping company that has an office—not called a head office or headquarters and I will explain that in a moment—in Barbados. He himself profits from the existence of a tax agreement.

When one looks at the tax agreement itself, it seems fine. But we have been analyzing it for a long time now, and denouncing it, too. It appears proper. There are even clauses stipulating that businesses paying only 1.5% or 2.5% as Barbadian income tax, when they return their profits to Canadian subsidiaries, will be taxed on the difference between normal Canadian tax they would pay if their business were in Canada and what they have paid in Barbados.

But a few years ago the government adopted tax regulations. Regulations do not go through the House of Commons, but are defined by the executive. We analyze the bills that become law, but there are regulations to go with the laws.

However, paragraph 5907(11.2)( c ) of the income tax regulations allows businesses such as CSL International, and the major Canadian banks—nearly two weeks ago, a study was made public by a university professor who said that the banks had benefited from this kind of tax evasion—to proceed in a way that, when they pay tax once in Barbados, they circumvent the provision in the tax treaty with Barbados that states that they still have to pay tax here.

Under a regulation adopted by this government, not this Parliament, an exception is made for companies that pay Barbados an initial tax of 1.5% or 2.5%, depending on the type of business. When these profits are repatriated, the federal regulation adopted by the government, by the governor in council, and not put before parliament, ensures that this company does not pay taxes twice.

So, they are taxed once at 1.5% or 2.5% of profits or dividends. When this money comes back here, it is not subject to the federal Income Tax Act. This is not normal. An exception was created by a regulation voted by the executive, and the Minister of Finance, the current Prime Minister, was there when this regulation was passed.

This is not normal. We must abolish this regulation to ensure that all businesses, be it CSL International, the Prime Minister's family business, or the major Canadian banks, pay their fair share of taxes. Billions of dollars are not going into federal and provincial coffers because of a regulation adopted by the governor in council, meaning the government, because the regulations are not subject to approval by parliament but are determined by the governor in council.

Worse still—members will say I am exaggerating, but I am not, because these are facts—I was here in 1998. The finance minister at the time, the current Prime Minister, introduced omnibus legislation containing various measures, a bit like Bill C-33. There were small and big measures, things that were clear and things that were not, because it was extremely technical at times.

However, there was a small paragraph at the end of the bill that said, “And we are amending the Income Tax Act for international shipping corporations”. This statement was followed by references to all sorts of things. Of course, that got my attention. I began reading this omnibus bill from the end of it and discovered that the Prime Minister had tabled, when he was the Minister of Finance, through Bill C-28, provisions that benefited his own company, which has since become a family business, since he supposedly gave it to his children.

What did Bill C-28 say? It added more things. Not only did we have regulations, so that companies would not have to pay taxes twice, even though tax rates were ridiculously low compared to the North American average and to those that apply to us, but there was also an additional exception that applied strictly to international shipping corporations. There are eight of those in Canada and he is involved in all of them.

What was contained in this somewhat technical provision with the incredible impact? It said that even dormant corporations, that is companies that are not directly involved in international shipping, but that are part of conglomerates, can benefit from the tax provisions found in the regulations to avoid double taxation, even if the first tax rate is very low.

In other words, the then Minister of Finance and current Prime Minister introduced an act that was custom made for his own company to avoid having to pay deferred tax here, and to ensure that his type of corporation could benefit from the tax provision, even though it does not qualify.

Worse still—and some might think I am exaggerating, but I am not—in order to benefit from a tax convention, a Canadian corporation that has a subsidiary abroad, such as in Barbados for example, must be a business whose mind and management are located in that country. In other words, all the managerial and administrative decisions must be made in that country.

A CBC broadcast aired several months ago indicated that a reporter had tried to get answers about CSL International in Barbados, but was referred to CSL in Montreal. This means that the management and planning of CSL International is not even located in Barbados, but in Montreal.

So, the first condition is not met to be able to benefit from such a tax treatment, according to the federal income legislation for corporations. This is serious. These are missed opportunities, but now we know why.

Food and Drugs Act

[Gurmant Grewal, Conservative, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on behalf of the constituents of Newton—North Delta and the official opposition of Canada to participate in the debate on Bill C-28, an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act.

This enactment would amend the Food and Drugs Act to provide the Minister of Health with the authority to issue interim marketing authorization for foods that contain substances at specified levels, and to exempt those foods from the applicable requirement of the act and its regulation relating to their sale.

The proposed amendments are in response to concerns raised by the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations regarding an administrative process put in place by Health Canada under the regulations of the Food and Drugs Act to allow Canadians faster access to food products under specific circumstances. All members of the House want our food supply to be safe, efficient and effective.

The bill proposes to amend the Food and Drugs Act to achieve two purposes. First, to provide the Minister of Health with the authority to issue an interim marketing authorization for the early sale of safe food and safe food products that contain certain substances; and second, exempt any food that contains an agricultural chemical, at or below the maximum residue limit specified by the minister under the new Pest Control Products Act, from the prohibition in the Food and Drugs Act of the sale of foods containing these residues because the sale of these foods would not pose harm to consumers. We are talking about safety.

The bill would give the minister authority to issue interim marketing authorization for food products wishing to enter the market earlier or that have previously entered the market and have added or modified contents since initially approved by Health Canada.

Currently, the deputy minister of health responsible for health products has the authority to issue interim marketing authorization, IMA. The minister is arguing that the authority to issue the IMA is a power of Parliament granted by the Crown and therefore the responsibility for the IMA should rest with the minister.

The bill would also allow for food products which contain pesticides, veterinary pharmaceuticals or added vitamins, minerals or amino acids at or below the maximum residue limit to be exempt from the FDA regulations while in the approval process.

Briefing material provided by Health Canada argues that Canadian companies are currently at a great disadvantage because of the lengthy approval time for new or modified food products. Canadian companies are not on a level playing field with their trading partners, particularly in the American market. This is because the U.S. government allows food products in the approval stage to be marketed, given that they are not harmful and not restricted by any other law or legislation.

The amendment that we are debating would put Canada on a par with the United States and give our food producers a level playing field when it comes to new products entering the market.

We would not be here today were it not for the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations. Bill C-28 is a direct consequence of concerns first raised by that committee in April 1999. At that time, over five years ago, the committee identified the regulations of the Food and Drugs Act permitting interim marketing authorization as illegal. In other words, it was not supported by legislation.

Much of the law that affects Canadians is not found in the statutes of Canada, but in the thousands of regulations made pursuant to powers granted by acts of Parliament. Each year the federal government introduces about 1,200 new regulations. Since 1975 the federal government introduced over 28,000 regulations. That is 122,000 pages of regulations. About 20% of the laws in the country stem from legislation debated and passed in this legislature. The remaining 80% of the laws that we see are made up of regulations; just 20% is what we passionately debate in the House.

After a debate, we vote yea or nay, depending on the merit of the proposed law. The media and the general public focus on the 20% component. However, the 80%, which is coming through the back door by way of regulations, is not debated nor are other parliamentary democracy principles applied to those regulations.

Regulations on the other hand, receive virtually no debate in the House or even the other place, no public policy input, no studies or media scrutiny. This is an affront to democracy. Under parliamentary reform, this is the one the main issues at which we must look.

My private member's Bill C-205 passed in the House. I thank all members for their support. What will the bill do? We all know the government rules, but does not govern through the complete parliamentary democracy and practice. Some 80% of the regulations, which comprise the law, are made under the authority of Parliament. Various agencies, bodies or quasi-government organizations are delegated the authority to make regulations. However, when they make regulations, Parliament does not have the authority to scrutinize or review those regulations.

Therefore, a big chunk of our laws have been completely ignored. There is a big black hole in accountability and democracy which has been ignored for so long until Bill C-205 passed. With the passing of the bill, Parliament now has the authority to review regulations of those agencies through the Standing Joint Committee for Scrutiny of Regulations. They will now be scrutinized and if need be, disallowed.

My bill restored some of that democracy. It was a huge step in parliamentary reform. We talk a lot about reform, but little action is taken.

The Standing Joint Committee for Scrutiny of Regulations does the only scrutiny. Very limited scrutiny of regulations is done in Parliament. Our new regulations are permanently referred to the committee pursuant to the provisions of section 26 of the Statutory Instruments Act. Members of Parliament and Senators are on the committee. Legal counsel and staff work diligently, scouring through thousands of papers on dry, technical, legal subject matter as part of their thankless task of reviewing regulations.

This committee is generally misunderstood and ignored. This committee is considered to be not a very high profile committee, despite the hard work it does. In fact, talking about parliamentary democracy, this committee should be considered a very important one. It is an essential watchdog, protecting democracy, controlling bureaucracy and holding the government to account.

The standing joint committee does not judge regulations on the basis of policy measures, general merit, or necessity. Its study of regulations is instead limited to the questions of validity and legality. Members follow uniform and clearly defined criteria in their examinations. Compared to most committees, this committee is non-partisan and we build consensus in the committee.

The committee judges whether or not an statutory instrument: is not authorized by the enbabling legislation or is not in compliance with the conditions set forth in the legislation; does not conform with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the Canadian Bill of Rights; purports to have retroactive effect without express authority being provided by the enabling legislation; imposes a charge on public revenues, imposes a fine or imprisonment without express authority; excludes the jurisdiction of courts; has not complied with the Statutory Instruments Act with respect to transmission, registration or publication; appears to infringe on the rule of law, trespasses unduly on rights and liberties, make rights and liberties unduly dependent on legislative discretion, makes some unusual or unexpected use of powers conferred by the enabling legislation; amounts to the exercise of power that should properly be the subject of parliamentary enactment; and is defective in its drafting, including the translation.

These criteria deal with matters of legality and procedural aspects of regulation, not the merits of the regulations or policy.

The committee works meticulously, and with the complex nature of its undertaking, work proceeds at a slow pace. The long delays in dealing with particular items are largely related to the large number of regulations which the committee has to review relative to the number of meetings it can hold each year. All this considered, the committee, with the able assistance of its long-time legal counsel, Mr. Francois Bernier, is remarkably productive. Consider that over the period from November 7, 1997 to December 6, 2001, the committee dealt with 1,133 pieces of subordinate legislation in the course of 45 meetings.

I am a seven term co-chair of the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations, representing all members of the House and I speak from personal experience. The work of the committee members can be extremely frustrating. We in effect hold ministers accountable for the legality of subordinate legislation, primarily regulations, sponsored by their departments.

However, this task is at times almost impossible. When the scrutiny of regulations committee finds a regulation that it deems in conflict with the legislation, our first step is to inform the respective department in writing. It should be a simple process. We identify a problem regulation, inform the department and then it fixes it. Instead, what we usually encounter is foot-dragging that can carry on for years or even decades.

The Food and Drugs Act regulations are an example of this foot-dragging. For five years, the department argued that there was nothing wrong with the regulations concerning the notice for interim marketing authorization. We are debating this today. Finally, after so many years, the department abruptly informed the committee last April that it was proceeding with the legislation before the House today. For over five years, the department has been using illegal regulations. Those are the regulations we are trying to correct today.

In a democracy that prides itself in the rule of law, this is unpardonable, but it is not the least bit unusual. Recently, my committee finally closed another file that had been opened for 27 years, more than a quarter of a century.

The committee's usual practice is to deal with a problem regulations informally by letter to the relevant officials. This allows the minister involved to amend the regulation with minimum fuss. The committee can also prepare and issue a disallowance report, but this is usually done only after the department has failed to address our previously identified concerns. Disallowance reports are very rare.

Let us consider the sequence of events surrounding the Food and Drugs Act regulations concerning interim marketing authorizations. I want to give this example so that the members in the House, the public in general, and our media scrutiny can also understand and comprehend the problems facing this committee.

On April 7, 1999 counsel for the scrutiny of regulations committee wrote to the DIO and questioned the legality of provisions of food and drug regulations that provided for notices of interim marketing authorization. The objection was that these provisions provided for unauthorized exemptions and also involved an illegal sub-delegation of powers.

On November 25, 1999, 232 days later, the department responded that it considered the provisions to be a valid exercise of regulation-making powers conferred by the Food and Drugs Act.

On December 23, 1999, the committee counsel reviewed the arguments put forward by the department and sent a letter countering those arguments, asking for reconsideration.

On March 8, 2000, now 355 days, almost a year after the initial correspondence and over three months since the last letter, the department replied indicating that generally it was committed to the policy, but that it might review the regulatory provisions in question with a view to making a “clarifying amendment.”

Exactly seven months later, on September 28, 2000, the committee was forced to again write to the department to inform it that it wished a detailed response to its letter of December 23, 1999.

Nothing more was heard from the department until October 17, 2001, over one year since the last correspondence, when a comprehensive reply to the letter of December 23, 1999 was finally received by the committee.

On December 12, 2002, the file was re-submitted to the joint committee with a 13 page note on the October 17, 2001 response.

On March 3, 2003, myself, as co-chair of the standing joint committee, wrote to the Minister of Health to restate the committee's position and explain why the response from the department was not accepted.

Over a year later, on June 24, 2004, the committee was informed that:

It is the intention of the Department to bring forward legislation in the early Fall 2004 that will amend the Food and Drugs Act to allow the Minister of Health to issue NIMAs and provide for a limited power to exempt food products from the application of the Food and Drug Regulations and paragraph 4(d) of the Act.

Finally, on November 29 Bill C-28 was introduced. There was a little over five years between the time the issue was first raised with the department and the introduction of remedial legislation. As I said earlier, when compared to other files that stretch on for decades, this issue was resolved rather quickly. However, five years is still five years. That is far too long for illegal regulations to remain in place.

Departments and their ministers take far too long to respond to concerns of the committee. There is no good reason for the department to go over a year without responding to a letter from the committee. It is an affront to the rule of law, it is an affront to Parliament and it is an affront to democracy. That is why we need Parliament to be reformed, including scrutiny of regulations issues.

I support Bill C-28. The amendments to the Food and Drugs Act are years overdue. I give full credit to the members, the staff and the counsel of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations for identifying the drawbacks in the system, bringing that to the fore, and following and chasing it through until remedial action is taken by the department to correct this parliamentary affront that has been going on so long.

I will conclude by asking members of Parliament to look into the regulatory process so that the regulatory process in this country is fair, efficient and effective.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know exactly where to start in putting my question. The hon. member and Bloc Québécois critic for health started off by saying that he would be brief. By that he meant that he would touch only briefly on the matter at hand and spend all his speaking time on several issues, each more interesting and more important than the other.

He raised all at once clinical trials, horizontal application and Viagra. Bearing in mind the time of day when our proceedings are broadcast on television across the country, perhaps we should be careful with that.

Regarding Bill C-28, I am pleased to see that we can count on cooperation and discussion at committee. The hon. member and all the other hon. members will recognize that the intent is to institutionalize what is already in place, what we have already been doing for the past five or six years, and that we are responding to the request by the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations. We must therefore make sure that the regulations we apply will not be successfully challenged in court.

I would like to come back briefly to tobacco use. I want to congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, who raised the issue. We considered it today at committee and heard testimonies. All members of the committee unanimously approved a report.

It is indeed important to have this discussion today because, this evening, the hon. member for Cape Breton—Canso will be introducing a bill concerning a deduction for volunteer emergency service workers and the contribution they make to Canada when it comes to curbing among Canadians the risk of fire associated with tobacco use. That is very important.

I would also like to congratulate the hon. member, as well as the hon. members of all stripes who sit on the committee. We have done good work on the quarantine issue. We have moved the issue forward and demonstrated that a minority government can work, take action and count on the cooperation of everyone. These were my comments.

I would like to thank the hon. member for his cooperation with respect to Bill C-28.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my comments will be brief, which is unusual for me, although I do not exclude the possibility of expanding somewhat, if I feel any enthusiasm in this House.

Bill C-28 is a rather technical bill, as the hon. parliamentary secretary very eloquently reminded us. The purpose of Bill C-28 is to provide the Minister of Health with the authority to issue interim marketing authorizations. This is a bill reflecting the full extent of the will shown by the government to review the regulations.

As I said, the purpose is to enable the Minister of Health to issue interim marketing authorizations for foods that contain certain substances at specified levels, which are not hazardous to health, and therefore exempt from certain regulatory requirements for foods that have not yet been commercially approved.

We are not opposed to the principle of this bill. But I will be curious to see how it will be received in committee. In fact, I have just come from the Standing Committee on Health, where we approved a somewhat more controversial bill, on which I was pleased to work in a great spirit of consensus, a bill dealing with the whole issue of fire-safe cigarettes put forward by the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health.

This study was undertaken in the previous Parliament. It is something to realize that, in committee, we have approved regulations drawing from the work of that precedent setting city of New York. In my opinion, it has to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world. l do not know how many hon. members have visited New York City during the Christmas period. Might I add that the people of New York elected their first female senator to the U.S. Congress? That is not the only thing that makes New York City an interesting place.

So, in principle, we support Bill C-28, which seeks to amend the Food and Drug Act. We will see just how far the minister wants to go in issuing interim authorizations. We understand that a number of criteria will have to be met. At first reading, however, we were not convinced that the minister was the best person to issue these interim authorizations. We will see what the Department of Health and the experts have to say in committee. This is a fairly technical bill, but we will do our work in committee as usual.

Personally, if I may say so on our last sitting day, I would have liked there to have been more work this session on the important issue of drug costs. This is an important debate that can create a welcome division of opinions. It is not always about agreeing on everything, since the right to dissent exists.

If I were asked to identify a few measures that this House could agreeably consider, I would spontaneously suggest four. First, it is not really acceptable, as the hon. member for Saint-Lambert knows, for the retail prices of generic drugs to be 30% higher in Canada than in the United States.

The United States is not, we agree, a society that opposes free enterprise. When I think that President Bush, a Republican, who is not a model for anyone in this House, is one of the most right-wing men I have never met, since I was denied access the day he came to the Hill. But it was not the right time to talk.

In my opinion, we must remember that the United States of America limited the scope of the Notice of Compliance, which was adopted in 1984 by the Conservatives, who wanted to establish various provisions to prevent counterfeiting. This was received favourably by some.

I remember, for example, that a man named Bernard Landry tabled a brief before the MacDonald Commission saying that it was important to have a national bio-pharmaceutical R and D industry.

We understood that the conditions were not in place for this industry to emerge when, from 1923 to 1988, anyone wanting to copy a drug—the parliamentary secretary knows this because he is very much on top of this question—could just pay a fee to the innovator. So a generic manufacturer wanting to copy a pharmaceutical product of an innovative manufacturer needed only to pay a royalty to the originator in order to do so.

At that point, there was not a lot of either legislative or regulatory control, but I can assure you that when the regulation was adopted, inspired by the U.S. legislation, the desire was to ensure that counterfeiting of drugs would be impossible.

There was some very real pressure brought to bear, both on the Government of Canada and on the governments of certain provinces, to adopt regulations similar to those in effect in the U.S. The objective of the link regulations was to avoid counterfeiting. While I do not want to stir up any unpleasant memories for anyone here, I would point out that the Conservatives under Brian Mulroney passed a link regulation in 1989.

What was this link regulation that was adopted under the patent legislation? The regulation provided that Health Canada could be blocked in the process of issuing a compliance notice if the same company filed a notification citing reasons to believe that a patent was about to be infringed.

Just to amuse my colleagues, I will take Viagra as my example. Viagra could have eight patents out on it, one for colour, another for the key ingredient, one for the secondary ingredient. So let us assume there is a total of eight patents. The generic company therefore has to go down the whole list of patents and prove that it is not going to infringe upon any of the patents for which a compliance notice has been issued

At the slightest hint of counterfeiting, the company that holds the first patent, generally an innovative company, can gain an injunction for 24 months. We know that, from the legal point of view, an injunction is a pretty potent thing—no bad pun intended there—a pretty serious thing, because the process will be held up for 24 months.

Hon. members need to know that this injunction is issued prima facie, and is a very drastic measure. The slightest allegation can block the process for 24 months.

If it were up to me to propose four measures, let us say, I think that this House should look at a better balance on the Patented Medicines (Notice of Compliance) Regulations. The Patented Medicine Prices Review Board has the same powers as a superior court. It limits the prices set by manufacturers for all patented medicines to ensure they are not excessive. In Canada there is control over medicines, but not a limit on the retail price. That is not what we are talking about. This is control linked to the cost of medicines from the moment the manufacturer puts them on the market until the time the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board has a look at them.

Thus, the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board Act could be amended to ensure that the generic manufacturers are also subject to it.

Third, in addition to asking questions about the Patented Medicines (Notice of Compliance) Regulations, and hoping for changes in the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, I think we all know that Canada is participating in an international conference on data harmonization.

Of course, we can easily imagine how thrilling a quest for learning this must be. Canada is therefore an observer at an international conference where Japan and the European Union are represented. Should we not be looking at mechanisms for making drug approvals easier?

Should we not be asking questions, as parliamentarians, about the way we want the companies to present their clinical data? Let us not forget that there are usually three phases in getting a notice of compliance. In each phase, clinical data must be presented. Naturally, this can cost thousands of dollars.

In short, with respect to the cost of medicines, we must look at the issue of the PM(NOC) Regulations, the role of the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, and the way this can be done as quickly as possible. It is in the public interest, so that Canadians and Quebeckers can have access to medicines and know they are safe. It is a matter of health and public safety to make certain that the medicines for which a notice of compliance is issued will not be subject to a recall.

Unfortunately, over the past few weeks there have been three examples of drug recalls. That is not good. There needs to be a good balance between quick and careful registration and there also needs to be mechanisms that give reasonable and solid guarantees on the safety of the drugs.

I know that in the previous budget the government had announced an extra few million dollars to help Health Canada perfect its analysis techniques. When a clinical monograph is submitted it can represent a stack of books from this wall to that wall. I am talking about thousands of pages of information that has to be looked at by examiners, who are often doctors, people who have a doctorate who must fully understand—research drugs are first tested on animals and then humans—the entire framework of the clinical trials.

If the parliamentary secretary does not mind, I will digress a little and talk about something that is at the heart of Bill C-28. The issue of clinical trials in Canada is a bit slack. We looked at this in the parliamentary committee. There are no real regulatory agencies that monitor clinical trials. Health Canada does this a little, somewhat horizontally. This issue of clinical trials is an extremely important one. It poses ethical questions as well as medical questions.

In the parliamentary committee, we presented 15 or so recommendations to the Minister of Health so that Canada could become competitive in terms of the conduct of clinical trials and also so that these trials could be publicly funded. It is unsettling to see that most clinical trials in Canada are conducted at the instigation of the private sector. Very little publicly funded research has been done on clinical trials. One has to wonder: is it good, in a society like Canada's, for the pharmaceutical industry to dictate, in a way, the clinical information program? I am not so sure. I think a solid research infrastructure needs to be implemented.

I want to digress again. We have, of course, the health research institutes. We do have to recognize that their budgets are now over half a billion dollars.

I have very fond memories of the time I spent as R and D critic for my party. The following will recall those fond memories for the House.

The former premier of Quebec, Mr. Bouchard, is a brilliant lawyer and a first-rate litigator. He was a remarkable premier, a strong statesman, who served Quebec very well. I am being, of course, very objective here. Let me remind my hon. colleagues of the brilliant campaign we led in 1993 under Mr. Bouchard, who was the leader of the Bloc Québécois at the time, which turned us into the official opposition.

In a huge fit of generosity, rarely seen in public life, Mr. Bouchard entrusted me with the R and D portfolio. That kind of surprised me. As people close to me know, I am a noble-hearted man, who has a very tough time operating a VCR. So, I was not too familiar with research and development. But I certainly tacked it. I met with people and read a lot of reports.

At the time, there was no department dedicated to research and development. I was very surprised then to read a report from the OECD, which, in a way, is the rich countries club. During the 1990s, the OECD was saying that Canada was next to last in research and development. This is serious. A continental country such as Canada, which had a relatively high GNP, was focussing less on research and development than other nations that had much fewer resources.

At the time, the industry was bitterly complaining about this situation. Some leadership should be assumed through public funds for research and development. We should not think that this is merely the responsibility of the private sector.

I will conclude this digression by saying that we have witnessed the creation of 13 Canadian institutes of health research, which basically replaced the medical research council of Canada.

The council was well known to Quebec researchers. During at least one generation, particularly when Mr. Bureau provided leadership with the health research funds for our province, on average, Quebec researchers were presenting 33% of the applications for funds to the medical research council of Canada. Even though we accounted for only 24% of the country's population, our ratio of researchers was much higher. Consequently, we were hoping to get corresponding funds.

When we examined the research by the Canadian institutes of health, we found out that they were virtual. Consequently, we were funding researchers and infrastructures, but these were not physical locations. We wanted networking for each of the research centres that existed at the time. We had an institute of health research for neurology, another one for cancer, and yet another one for mental health.

Concerning mental health, I want to digress for a moment. In the next years, one Canadian in five will have various degrees of mental health problems. Our relationship with mental health will thus face a major challenge in the next years. In a society where there is a lot of stress, health determinants vary.

It is interesting to ask ourselves why a person may go through life with a healthy attitude, a good mental balance, even a certain joy of living. We realize more and more that it is not medication that contributes to this. Tobacco use, among other things, has some effect on this.

In conclusion, we will study Bill C-28 in committee. It is a technical bill, but we realize that it has a lot of substance. We will be happy to hear representations from officials. We have some concerns over the role that the minister might want to take upon himself in respect of voluntary notices of compliance. We will be vigilant, but we view favourably a bill that I have examined thoroughly.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak in support of Bill C-28 which proposes two amendments to the Food and Drugs Act. These proposed amendments would provide the Minister of Health with the authority to allow Canadians faster access to a wider variety of safe and nutritional food products. Before I speak about the bill, I will provide some context to the reason the bill is being proposed.

The first proposed amendment responds to the concerns of the Standing Joint Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulations on the legal status of regulations that currently permit the issuance of notices of interim marketing authorizations under the food and drugs regulations.

These notices allow the earlier availability of safe foods in the Canadian marketplace while the formal process is undertaken to amend the regulations. That is quite important to a lot of producers, to a lot of consumers and to industry so that we can get these products on the shelves as quickly as possible without undue duress but in a safe manner. I will get to that later.

The amendments introducing this concept into the food and drugs regulations came into effect in July 1997 after thorough consultation and analysis in accordance with the regulations of the federal regulatory process. Members will notice from the dates that we are talking about something we have been exercising since 1997. It does not change the effect of the way we manage these things. It just brings it into the proper regulations according to the Standing Joint Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulations.

These provisions allow the director, defined as the assistant deputy minister of the health products and food branch of Health Canada, to issue a notice of interim marketing authorization to exempt certain foods from the application, in whole or in part, of the regulations after a thorough safety assessment has concluded that no harm will be caused to consumers or users. By doing so, the director can allow the sale of these foods by all manufacturers and producers while the regulations are amended. We do not have to go through this step for every manufacturer and every producer. Once this has been done, these products can go into the marketplace.

In fact, this is the final stage of the federal regulatory process and of the review conducted by the Standing Joint Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulations made by the governor in council, under the Statutory Instruments Act.

The standing committee examined the provisions on the notices of interim marketing authorizations and expressed concern that the power to exempt some foods from the requirements of the Food and Drug Regulations would give to the director administrative discretion that exceeds the legislative authority granted by Parliament to the governor in council.

Essentially, the standing committee maintains that the regulations authorizing the issuance of notices of interim marketing authorizations go beyond the scope of the Food and Drugs Act.

Since the coming into effect of these regulations, Health Canada has issued 82 such notices without any concerns being raised by consumers or the industry. Consumers have had quicker access to new and safe food products. For example, foods to which vitamins or mineral nutrients were added to increase their nutritional value were offered more quickly on the market.

It is important to understand that the committee's concerns are not related to food safety. Rather, they are technical having to do with the powers of health bureaucrats or personnel, under the act and regulations. This is what we want to correct. They are not making any comments, since this is not their role.

As to whether the system works, we have already issued 82 notices of authorizations without encountering any problems. We have been doing this for a while, following a public discussion process.

Moreover, the notices of interim marketing authorizations allowed for the quicker sale of foods from cultures that were treated with agricultural chemicals, including safe and effective pest control products.

In order to maintain the current mechanism that offers benefits to consumers and industry by allowing the consumer timely access to safe food products, the government has brought forward Bill C-28.

The first proposed amendment would provide the Minister of Health with the authority to exempt the food from the application, in whole or in part, of the Food and Drugs Act and the applicable requirements of the food and drug regulations.

The minister would do this by issuing an interim marketing authorization, which would allow the immediate sale of some food products for which scientific assessment has already established that these products would not pose a hazard to the health of Canadian consumers or users.

The sale of these food products would be allowed while the full regulatory process was undertaken to amend the regulations. It has to be clearly understood that all the questions of safety have already been taken care of and all the testing has been done; then we go through longer term regulatory process and the mechanics, which could take some time.

Just to stress this latter point, I repeat that the issuance of an interim marketing authorization would not affect or circumvent the conduct of a thorough safety assessment prior to the availability of these food products on the market.

These authorizations could only be issued when the scientific evaluation concludes that no harm to consumers would result from the consumption of the food, and Health Canada has made the decision to propose a regulatory amendment for a number of reasons: first, the extension of use of a food additive already permitted to be added in other foods into a new food or the change of a permitted level of use of a particular additive; second, maximum residue limits of an agricultural chemical or veterinary drug in a food where the food and drug regulations already permit these substances in other foods, or the increase in the permitted maximum residue limits; or again, the addition of vitamins, mineral nutrients and/or amino acids at different levels than those listed in the regulations, or to new foods.

This limited scope of application of the interim marketing authorization mechanism in the bill is exactly the same as in the current regulatory mechanism that was reviewed by the standing committee. The only difference is that it clearly specifies the authority in the Food and Drugs Act instead of the regulations.

Again, it is nothing new. It is giving stability to the industry and making sure that Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations is comfortable and confident that what we are doing is within the regulatory powers of the department.

The second part of Bill C-28 deals with pest control products and their regulation pursuant to the provisions of the new Pest Control Products Act and the Food and Drug Regulations.

The new Pest Control Products Act, which was given royal assent in December of 2002, empowers the minister to specify maximum residue limits for the product or for its components or derivatives in food.

When specifying maximum residue limits, the minister shall evaluate the health risks of the product or its components or derivatives and determine if they are acceptable. To that end, he must determine that there is reasonable certainty that no harm to human health will result from use of a food item containing a residue level of a specific pest control product no greater that the maximum limit.

However, under the adulterated food provisions of the Food and Drugs Act and its regulations, a food is adulterated if it contains a residue level of a pest control product greater than the levels stipulated in the regulations.

Therefore, any food with a residue level of a pest control product not greater that the maximum limit set by the minister, under the Pest Control Product Act, cannot be sold until the maximum residue limit is officially set in the Food and Drugs Regulations. The regulatory change process can easily take up to two years.

The proposed amendment to the Food and Drugs Act to recognize maximum residue limits specified under the new Pest Control Products Act, for Food and Drugs Act purposes, would result in administrative efficiencies and would also benefit the agricultural industry by allowing faster access to improved pest control products for use on food crops.

The proposed amendments to the Food and Drug Act support the Speech from the Throne objective of providing a “predictable regulatory system that accomplishes public objectives efficiently while eliminating unintended impacts”.

They are also in line with the ongoing intent of the Government of Canada's smart regulation initiative and the recommendations from the external advisory committee on smart regulation. These aim in part to provide access to safe products in a more timely fashion and remove possible restrictions on international trade.

Finally, the proposed amendments will support ongoing work under the North American Free Trade Agreement technical working group on pesticides, through which Health Canada and the United States Environmental Protection Agency have accelerated bilateral harmonization in the registration of pest control products in order to provide faster and simultaneous access to a wide range of newer, safer pest management tools in both countries.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, for the Minister of Health]

moved that Bill C-28, an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Human Resources and Skills Development

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-28, the compassionate care bill, is to be reviewed early in 2005.

Canadians in need have discovered that the bill is seriously flawed. They are humiliated and demoralized at a crucial time when they are desperate to care for their loved ones.

Will the minister set a date for the review and will he open the process to allow all Canadians, including those who are seriously in need and seriously affected, to have input into that review?

Parliament of Canada Act

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, as we have heard a few times this afternoon, here we go again. For those of us who have been here for more than one term, we have had this discussion before, and it has a ring of familiarity. I guess I am reminded of the statement by J.K. Chesteron that if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly. That is what seems to have happened with this issue.

In 2001 the government brought in Bill C-28. It said that it would solve this situation once and for all. We had a discussion on this issue. The government came forward with legislation that would tie the salaries of MPs to those of the judges, as has been said this afternoon.

I guess the government did not plan at the time that the commission, which reviews the salaries of judges, would come back with a recommendation that those salaries be raised somewhere between 11% and 16%. We heard the minister this afternoon say that it was closer to 16% than 11%. The government did not figured that into the equation.

I appreciated what my Bloc colleague had to say earlier. He said that when the Prime Minister heard the news that had been leaked to the media, he overreacted and said that he would separate himself from anything to do with it. He was one of the people who brought forth the legislation in the first place. We are back again today.

When Bill C-28 came out in 2001, the government was enthusiastic about it. The minister of state and leader of the government in the House at the time, the member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, issued a press release. It stated, “This bill implements the recommendations made in the report of the independent Commission...The bill makes parliamentary compensation more transparent”, which is ironic given what we have run into over the last couple of months in trying to deal this issue, “and brings it more into line with compensation for comparable groups.” He concluded by saying, “It is a fair and reasonable approach to parliamentary compensation and I invite all parliamentarians to support it”. It was supported, but it turned out that it was not a fair and reasonable package and approach to this situation. We are back dealing with it again.

In the House the member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell said:

--parliamentary compensation would be based from here on in on the compensation of the supreme court chief justice. This is not a new idea. Officers of parliament, such as the information commissioner and the chief electoral officer, already receive the same compensation as a federal court judge, so the precedent is there for officers of the House. What we are proposing here is to do the same for parliamentarians.

He went on say that under Bill C-28 the prime minister would receive the same compensation as the chief justice of the Supreme Court, not $1 more. I do not see him here today to defend the previous bill, which he was once so enthusiastic about.

I would like to ask my colleague a question. We have now switched the system for indexing parliamentarians' wages from tying it to the Supreme Court chief justice to using a different system. Rather than tie it to the chief justice of the Supreme Court, it will be tied to the index of the average percentage increase in base rate wages for the calendar year resulting from major settlements negotiated with bargaining units of 500 or more employees in the private sector of Canada.

Does he feel the government is competent enough that we will not be back again dealing with the issue in light of the fact that those settlements may at some point in the future be too extreme for the government to deal with as well? Is he comfortable with the government's approach now? Does he think this is a fair and reasonable way to do it?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, usually when I get up to speak in the House, I say that I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak. Thinking about this particular bill, realistically and honestly, I do not feel like I am pleased to have this opportunity. I am doing it because I am the House leader for the NDP and I am doing it to reflect the position of our caucus. Quite honestly, I am fed up with this issue as are many people. Here we are again in 2004 debating compensation for members of Parliament.

I listened very carefully to what the government House leader had to say. At one point in his remarks he said it was very logical to take this step, that is, Bill C-30. I began to think about that in terms of the logic of what is taking place here today in debating Bill C-30.

I suppose one could argue that it is logical from the government's point of view once the Prime Minister had made his political statements that he was going to undo what Parliament had previously done. From the government's point of view, one could argue that it has some logic. However, in the greater scale of things, it is unfortunate that we are yet again debating what seems to be a perennial issue on the compensation of members of Parliament.

One of my colleagues asked the government House leader why the government wants to have this particular index. The government House leader said the index was based on average wage settlements in the private sector and was a reasonable thing. Why is this index acceptable now, but in 2001 another measure was somehow acceptable? This question was brought up by my colleagues in the Bloc, and is the question we need to ask.

I feel that yet again this issue has become politicized. All members on all sides of the House would agree that we want, what we have been striving for, is a system of deliberation and implementation of pay increases for members of Parliament that is independent, rational, defendable and realistic.

I happen to believe, and I think most members of the House believe, that we get paid very well. I, like other members, work very hard at what I do. I consider it to be an enormous privilege to be a member of Parliament. I consider it to be an enormous privilege to be one of 308 members of Parliament representing the diversity of our ridings across this country. We get paid well for that. We all work hard. All members share in that sort of commonality and solidarity about what this place is about.

I do not want to be here debating our pay increase yet again for politically motivated reasons. Bill C-28, the former bill dealing with pay increases for members of Parliament, was passed in this place on June 7, 2001. I looked at the record and in actual fact the member for LaSalle--Émard voted in favour of third reading of that bill.

House leaders have spoken of the process they went through at that time to establish a sense of independence and rationality when dealing with compensation. I was not a part of that. Our former House leader, the member for Elmwood--Transcona, now the dean of the House, was very much a part of that.

He has put forward the principles of establishing an independent process, and criteria and benchmarks for determining our compensation. We believed that happened in 2001. Presumably the member for LaSalle--Émard believed it also as did other government members because they voted for that bill. All of that has been undone. Here we are today with another version and another index.

I could argue, like other members have, that this index, which is based on Human Resources Development Canada and the average wage index in the private sector, is a reasonable thing. What really gets people's backs up and why we are reacting as we are to the bill today is because of the history that has brought us to this point. The question is still out there and it makes me feel unsettled. How many more times will we have to go through this?

Now we have a new bill, Bill C-30. Now we have another index. Now we are to believe that it will be an independent thing and never more will members of Parliament have to deal with this issue. What assurance and confidence is there that it will happen now that this has been undone again?

That bothers me and I know it bothers other members in our caucus. I have to agree with members from the Bloc Québécois and our member who spoke previously. There is a double standard.

We take all this time debating MP compensation when what we really need to be doing is focusing our time, resources and priorities on why the average wages of Canadians have fallen so far behind. One reason the index is so low is that people are not getting the pay increases that they need and deserve. Most people are working longer hours and more overtime but they have less take home pay now than they did a decade ago.

I invite members to come to my community in east Vancouver to see what it means for working families who are struggling to make ends meet and where both parents are working, sometimes at several jobs, and paying exorbitant child care costs. They are paying 40% or 50% of their income for housing costs. That is the debate we should be grappling with in the House.

Those are things that stick in one's craw when we are here again debating the salary of members of Parliament. It becomes a big controversial issue in the public about how much money we make and how it is decided, and we all get drawn into it.

For me it was the height of cynical and opportunistic politics in the way the Prime Minister dealt with this issue before we came back in the fall. I think that even members in the Liberal caucus were dismayed and rather shocked at how this was dealt with.

The government House leader was correct when he said that it will be the will of Parliament as to what we do. We are a minority Parliament, and yes, theoretically the opposition parties could get together and agree to vote down the bill, make a decision to do whatever in terms of MP compensation and it would carry. However that is not the point. I think we have to stick to the principle, which is that there has to be an independent process.

I have heard a lot of discussion today on what will happen to the Judges Act when it comes before us. As we know the previous increase that would have come forward was linked to the quadrennial report of a judge's increase. I think the feeling now is that if it is not good enough for the MPs why should it be good enough for the judges. Therefore there have been some remarks here today from the Conservative Party that it will not proceed in that manner.

I have to say that the NDP debated this very carefully in our caucus. As much as we do not want to, as much as we detest the politics that got us to this point today, we are prepared to deal with the bill on its merit in terms of the index that is before us. We will agree that it should go to committee.

However in terms of what takes place with another bill that comes forward on the Judges Act, we will deal with it on its merit. We will look at it at that time. We will decide, in terms of implementing those recommendations that the government has accepted on the quadrennial report, as it applies to an increase for judges. At this moment I think we would be further escalating the cynicism that is taking place and the political nature of what takes place if we said that we will just automatically turn down that increase at this point. We should wait until the bill comes forward and look at it on its own merit and on its own standing. That is what we intend to do in the NDP. That is how we will debate it.

The bill will likely go to committee very shortly and we will support that. We will look at the index that is being proposed and we will probably support it.

I think the way it has been handled smacks of the kind of politics that we have come to expect from the Prime Minister. He does not have the kind of backbone to stick with a decision that has been made. If we are talking about what is fair, then let us get to the essence of it.

Let us talk about what is fair for Canadians, particularly those who are struggling in our society because of government cutbacks, the cutbacks made by the Prime Minister when he was finance minister over the last decade. That should be the real politics of what is going on in this place, not MP compensation.

Food and Drugs Act

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Minister of Health]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-28, an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)