Rob Merrifield

[Contraventions Act, March 8th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, that is the nub of the problem. The courts are going soft on this. They are sending the message to society that they are not going to prosecute. That is why so many of our policemen are refusing even to enforce the charge on the small possession of marijuana.

We should send a message to the RCMP and to society that we have had it, that we are sick and tired of the abuse and we are going to push back against the illicit use of drugs. We could do that by changing the bill in the way that we recommended, which is to only allow three to five grams as a small amount that would be decriminalized but increase the fines. We would give the tools to the front line RCMP to ticket aggressively. We would be pushing back much more aggressively in society on the damage that this is doing. We would be taking it out of the hands of the courts. A ticket could be issued rather than taking it to court which would plug up the courts, and the courts are not enforcing it at any rate.

The solution is not to send a message to society that this is not really a problem and let us go soft on it. The message should be that we are sick and tired of the problem, that we have had it and we are going to push back with everything we possibly can. That is what the message should be from the government. That is what we would do. That is what the bill should be reflecting and it is not. That is why we are so opposed to it.

[Contraventions Act, March 8th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what is happening in Yellowhead. It is such a severe problem that communities are linking arms with all of the resources they possibly can muster to push back against the problem of the methamphetamine within their communities.

This started in a smaller area but the history the member talked about with regard to the experience in the United States is absolutely right. We have been warned that wherever methamphetamine takes hold in a society, it will be absolutely devastating. We had better wake up and realize what we are dealing with on this issue because it is severe.

Not only have communities gone so far as to link arms but the community of Drayton Valley in my riding has hired a police officer and another individual who has actually recovered from methamphetamine use to set up a program to deal with the situation within its schools. One social studies teacher told me that a third of his students are hooked on methamphetamine. If the numbers are anywhere close to being accurate, the repercussions to society are going to be enormous and absolutely phenomenal.

When we link that to this bill which sends the message that we are going soft on marijuana, it is going absolutely in the opposite direction to where municipal governments, local communities and the provinces are going. The federal government is out of step and out of tune with where society needs to go with regard to marijuana use and the repercussions of illicit drugs throughout society.

[Contraventions Act, March 8th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand on behalf of the people of Yellowhead and speak to this issue, which is important especially in the Yellowhead area which has been dealing with the problem over the last number of years, as long as I have served them as their member of Parliament. I think it will go on for a considerable amount of time.

What we first have to ask is: Who is driving this agenda? Why are we having a debate today on this legislation? Why is the legislation saying what it is saying and who thinks our society should go soft on narcotics?

My colleague from the Bloc, who just spoke, suggested that it would be great to have an abstinence with regard to the use of marijuana and there are others who are saying that would be a great thing. However the legislation sends the message that it is wrong to criminalize everyone for simple possession. To some degree that may be true but the message in the legislation goes beyond that. It sends the message that we should go soft on drugs, that we should go soft on marijuana, particularly for youth. One section in the legislation actually states that the fine should be reduced if one is a youth or a student. That message is loud and clear to the youth in my riding, which is unfortunate.

I want to go back to the question of who is driving the agenda. Why is the legislation coming forward the way it is? Is it the parents who are calling for the decriminalization of marijuana? I do not think so. Is it the police? No. We have heard from the police forces and they are saying no. They are the frontline officers who deal with this on a daily basis and they are saying no. It is also not coming from our communities.

Canada has three orders of government, municipal, provincial and federal, all with specific roles. One would think that on something as important as this, which would have an impact on every man, woman and child and for a considerable amount of time, that those orders of government would be dialoguing with regard to this legislation, that those who are closest to the problem, the municipalities, would be bringing forward their recommendations, then it would come to the provinces and then up to the federal level. That is not really the case.

This legislation is driven on the federal side. This is federal legislation. The municipalities are not being heard. In fact, the message coming from the municipalities in my riding is that this is a bad legislation and that the problem is intensifying. The legislation is sending them the wrong message. The Liberal government is saying that we should go soft on drugs.

It is very difficult when one is sending that message to a municipality or a school system. I was chair of a school board in a regional school division so I know firsthand the complexities of the problems those individuals face within the school system.

Last fall when I talked to some of those principals, who I know very well, they told me that the problem was that drug use had increased significantly because the message getting through to students was that marijuana was almost a legalized substance. They do not follow the legislation as closely as we do here and therefore do not know how it would impact them.

When the Senate came out over a year ago recommending that we legalize marijuana and this legislation says that we should decriminalize it, the message getting through to the individuals walking the street was that Canada should go soft on drugs and that it was not a big problem.

It is a big problem. It is a huge problem in Yellowhead. Last week CBC had a documentary showing just how intense the problem was along the Yellowhead Highway. It is not something we are proud of in Yellowhead but it is not something that we are prepared to run and hide from and neglect dealing with.

Yesterday at the airport I was talking with one of the mayors from one of the communities in my riding. He was saying how the mayors felt somewhat ashamed of the black eye the drug abuse and drug use in their communities was giving them. They were questioning whether they should have gone forward with the documentary on the CBC. I encouraged them by saying that we either had to stand up against the abuse and misuse of drugs in our society or fold our cards and walk away from it and to think of what our society would look like 10 years from now when would we see the actual intensity of the problem that is happening.

It is not so much the marijuana problem in my riding, although that is a serious problem, as it is the drug busts on a routine basis of grow ops within the riding. The amount of damage that is causing is unbelievable. In fact, the very first year that I was a member of Parliament the drug use and abuse became so intense that there were vigilante threats coming from our society to those individuals who were known in the community to be causing a problem. I come from a rural area where most neighbours know each other. They know who the drug users are and they know where the problems are coming from.

This group was so intent on theft and on breaking in to supply the money to be able to deal with the habit that they were addicted to it became very intense. Vigilantism came to the forefront. We had to call in K division to be able to push back against the drugs. That was done. It is settled in one area but it just spilled out along the highway a little further to our neighbouring communities. This problem is absolutely severe.

It is not so much the marijuana problem as it is the methamphetamine problem. Methamphetamine has only been around for about a decade. It is important that we understand just what this drug will do to our society if left alone and we just turn a blind eye to it.

In our school system they are lacing the marijuana with methamphetamine. The drug experts have told me that 46% of those who smoke methamphetamine for the first time will be addicted for life. For those who smoke it twice, over 90% will be addicted for life. This is an unbelievably toxic product that is very addictive and is permeating our society in Yellowhead.

In Alberta where I come from four out of the five worst communities for drug use are in my riding. Therefore I am not speaking off the top of my head. I experience it when I go into the communities. I talk to the mayors and reeves and the school people.

I was at a meeting just before Christmas where they were talking about this problem. They were throwing their hands in the air saying “We have to do something about it. We are not prepared to just sit back and let the RCMP deal with this problem”. They brought the school division in, the health authorities, the RCMP and social services. All of the different services within the community came together in a meeting to decide how they were going to deal with it. They decided that they had to link arms as a unit to be able to push back against the abuse and misuse they were seeing of marijuana and methamphetamines.

We heard in a debate here today that marijuana use is not a gateway drug. I suggest that it is a gateway drug. It is said that those who smoke cigarettes, those who get involved in alcoholism and those who smoke marijuana all lead to methamphetamine abuse which is also being laced in cocaine and other drugs within our communities.

We have to deal with these serious problems. Therefore we have a decision to make as leaders in the House. We can just stand back, put forward legislation and not deal with it, or we can put forward legislation that will deal with the problem, which is what I encourage us to do. However this legislation sends the wrong message, a message saying that anyone under 18 years of age will only receive a fine of $100. That is the maximum fine, by the way. I did not realize that until I spoke to some of my colleagues who were sitting on the committee who said that it was the maximum fine for simple possession up to 30 grams, which is about 60 cigarettes. The maximum fine is $100 but the minimum fine could be $10 or $25. The problem is that our courts are not dealing with this.

It is fair game and I think it is a good healthy debate to say that if the courts are not dealing with it perhaps we should give it to the frontline workers, the RCMP, and give them the resources to push it back.

The message should not be that we go soft on it. It should be that we are sick and tired of the courts not dealing with it. It is time that we took it out of the courts and gave it to the frontline people so they can push back aggressively against the misuse of this narcotic that will be there as long as we are here in Canada.

We need to start protecting and standing up for our youth. We need to begin looking after our society before this problem gets so intense that we are not able to deal with it. I am saying that the methamphetamine problem that I have described has only been here for a decade. What happens if we leave it alone for another decade? Imagine the intensity of the problem. If this legislation spins us into that, we would be making a terrible mistake to pass it in the House at the present time.

My colleague said that we should give it six months and then look at it again. He wants us to wait a little longer before we drive this country down a road on which we should not be driving. Let us send a message to the organized crime dealers and the grow ops in our ridings that we are not prepared to take it any longer.

I am concerned about the issue from another perspective. The people of Yellowhead have this problem and, as their member of Parliament, I am in the process of having a private member's bill drafted which would give the RCMP the tools that they need to deal with the methamphetamine problem. Products that go into the cooking of methamphetamine can be purchased from any drug store. Anyone who has the Internet can find out how to do it in a flash. This is happening at an unbelievable rate, not only in my riding but in ridings across the country. The RCMP should have legislation that would allow it to charge anyone found in possession of those ingredients. We need to start there.

In the last couple of months there have been a couple of drug busts in my riding. One involved a $50,000 grow op operation and another involved a $3 million operation in a community in Drayton Valley. We cannot afford to sit back and do nothing. We have to send the message that we are sick and tired of allowing our youth to be victimized by this product. As far as the methamphetamine problem is concerned, it not only involves youth, it involves people of all ages and in all professions. We need to have a national drug strategy. We need to bring forward legislation that will support our RCMP in its endeavours.

I was talking to another member of Parliament who represents the neighbouring community of Morinville. As a point of interest, he went down to the courthouse and asked how many stayed sentences for simple possession of marijuana were in the court system. Morinville is a rural community of 7,000 people. The number of stayed sentences was 782. If that was extrapolated across the country, we would realize the intensity of the problem and the fact that we need to do something about it.

Colleagues from all sides of the House want to go soft on this because everybody is doing it and they claim it is not a big deal. It is a big deal and we had better do something about it. If we do not do something about it now it will continue to victimize our society in ways we have never thought of.

I was my party's senior critic for health during the discussions on the medical use of marijuana. What is interesting is that the government brings forward legislation that would go soft on marijuana, but on marijuana for medical use it brought forward the idea of licences for those who use it for medical purposes. Individuals licensed to use this product for medical purposes could have grow ops in their backyards or basements.

However there are a few problems with that. There would be no way to determine exactly how much those licensed people would be growing. Professional counsellors in my riding have told me that this could be a problem. They said that licensed individuals growing this product for medical purposes could now traffic in it. They could supply five different individuals with marijuana at a cost of $300 a week, and it would not be used for medical purposes. How would we control that?

Not only do we have a problem there, but marijuana is much different today than it was 20 or 30 years ago when the THC level was 3%. It is now up to 33%. The toxicity of the product is much different now. That was the problem with the Flin Flon experiment where the seeds were taken off the street. The government realized, once the product was grown and some tests were done, that there were 165 different varieties growing from its experimental plot.

If that is what it had with the product that it was experimenting with, saying that it was going to be used for medical purposes, my question is, who knows what the toxicity level is for the crop that is being grown and licensed to be grown for this government?

I can say that nobody knows, not the Minister of Health, not Health Canada, no one. That is a very serious medical marijuana problem because it has not been licensed. That is why the Canadian Medical Association says it has not jumped through the litmus test and has not had the proper testing to prove that it is the product of choice.

We can get it in the form of a pill in any pharmacy across the country. But when we talk to those who want it for licensing to be able to have a grow op in their own house or backyard, they will say they do not want to take it in a pill form, they want to smoke it. There is another problem with that because it has twice the toxicity as far as tar level and problems for health down the road.

I am not saying that medical marijuana is all bad. I am saying that it has not jumped through the hoops. We should be doing the proper testing before we allow it to be grown. If we grow it, we should know the toxicity level of the stuff we are growing. If we do not do those things first, we are making a terrible mistake.

Medical marijuana is a serious problem. When we think about it, we are having a real problem with Health Canada letting in natural food products. These are just natural food products--vitamins and minerals--from the United States. It is a product called Empower Plus used for bipolar disorder. It is being stopped at the border not allowed in for individuals who are using it for their own consumption.

The problem I have with that is that we are told it is not licensed to be used as a natural food product in Canada. Compare that with what the government is doing with marijuana and it is saying that there is some consistency. This is absolutely ridiculous. We are licensing marijuana with no proof whatsoever of what it can do as far as being a benefit to the user and yet we are stopping natural food products from coming into the country with which there is absolutely no problem and from which there is a tremendous amount of benefit.

In fact, I have had reports from individuals who have had this held up by Health Canada and because of that they have gone into depression and committed suicide in at least two cases already. This is absolutely crazy. This government is so far out of touch from its electorate and the people it is trying to serve.

We see what is happening with the World Health Organization. There is a treaty that was signed to reduce the amount of tobacco use but not ratified. We must ask ourselves, why would the government sign this treaty against tobacco use and yet not ratify it? We have this mixed message all over the place, especially when the World Health Organization also said that we should be involved in pushing back against drugs. Yet, we have a piece of legislation that is going the other way on this whole idea.

All of us in the House must soberly ask ourselves, what are we doing with this piece of legislation. Why are we doing this? Do we understand the impact that it will have on our youth and society?

The amendments that we tried to bring forward are very clear. Decriminalization may be fine up to five grams, which is three to six cigarettes, but the fines should not be $100 for youth and $150 for adults. They should be significantly higher than. We want to give the power to the RCMP to deal with the problem as aggressively as possible because the courts have failed to do it.

I am sick and tired of being a member of Parliament and giving up power to the courts. We are not taking the responsibility that we have been entrusted with by the individuals who put us into office in this place.

It is time that we stand up in this place and give ourselves a little more credit for who we are trying to represent and give ourselves a little more authority to deal with the problem. We should not skirt around our responsibility by giving it to the courts. I am sick and tired of a Prime Minister who stands up and says that the time does not fit the crime, that we have to go soft and a criminal record is a problem.

I would be much more proud of a Prime Minister who would stand up and say that we have a problem in this country and we are going to fix it, and that we are sick and tired of the courts not dealing with it, and if the courts will not deal with it we will.

That is the kind of Prime Minister we need. It is about high time that we started having that kind of leadership in this country. We have had a leadership vacuum for a decade and we have to fix it.

I hope there is an election come April and the people of Canada have an opportunity to vote. I would be excited about going to the people of Yellowhead on this issue alone. I would love to see a Liberal candidate come into my riding and explain this piece of legislation to the people who are victimized by the narcotic use in my riding.

I am sick and tired of it. I believe everyone in the House is as well. The drug problem is not unique to Yellowhead. If members do not have it in their backyards, they are going to, and members in this House need to understand that very quickly.

[Contraventions Act, March 8th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I would like to comment because I was challenged a little bit about the message that is being sent under this piece of legislation. It is not saying that it is legalizing marijuana, but it is sending a message to our youth that it is okay.

It says that the punishment for possessing under 15 grams of marijuana is $150 for an adult; however, if one is a student with a student card, it is only $100. What message is that sending to our youth?

If it is one gram or less of cannabis resin, then it is $300 for an adult, but only $200 for a student or a youth. That sends the message loud and clear to our youth that the government is going soft on the idea of using marijuana. That is where this piece of legislation is sending a wrong message to this nation. We had better get serious about it because it is not just marijuana use that is the problem in my riding.

On The National this week there was a report of the massive problem that we are having with methamphetamine which is linked very closely to marijuana. There have been massive marijuana drug busts in my riding and the marijuana is laced with methamphetamine. The addiction to the product is unbelievable. Communities are outraged because of the damage that is being done in schools and in society. They are fighting back with everything they have.

As they are fighting on the home front on this war against illicit drugs, we have a piece of legislation here that is not working in tandem with them. It is actually working against them. This is an absolute mistake. It is a piece of legislation that is sending all the wrong messages for all the wrong reasons. I would like my hon. colleague to comment on this.

[Contraventions Act, March 8th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I listened to my colleague's comments very intently. This is an important piece of legislation and I have a couple of thoughts on his presentation.

He presented the example of an individual driving under the influence of marijuana and that we should follow it up with another piece of legislation to ensure that it is looked after. Is that not getting the cart before the horse? Would we not be a lot wiser to bring that in before we bring forward a piece of legislation such as this that sends the message that in society it is okay to smoke marijuana? He is saying that is not what is happening. I would challenge him on that.

I want to ask him, how would he respond to the high school principal I talked to this fall when he said that just the idea of this piece of legislation going through this House has sent the message to the students in his school that it is okay to smoke marijuana?

Most of the citizens who walk the street do not follow the legislation as closely as we do here, but the message is clear to them, and to the students in that school, that it is okay. The courts are not enforcing it and the police are not enforcing it. This piece of legislation would send the message that we are going to go soft in society on this illegal drug.

I know that the bill does not necessarily say that, although it does send a message to our youth that they would get a lesser $50 fine if they were under the age of 18. So, under this piece of legislation, the repercussions to students would be far less than if they were adults. I think there is some justification to the idea that this piece of legislation sends the wrong message to society.

He is saying that the sky is not going to fall and that drug use is not going to increase. I would ask him to explain to me, how would he answer the principal that has seen the drug use in his school double this fall because of the message that is being sent by this legislation?

[Adverse Drug Reactions, February 20th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I listened intently to my colleagues as they deliberated and discussed the merits of this motion. All parties of the House, except the Bloc, are in favour it. The only opposition the Bloc has is that it deals with provincial jurisdiction. In recognizing that, this is not an attack against any province.

In fact, just as many of those hardworking and well-intended individuals in Quebec are dying because of adverse reactions as any place in Canada. If anything, this is something that the Bloc should be applauding because it would stimulate that province into facilitating this and ensuring that it happens within that province.

We have to gather the data somewhere and that is now happening in Health Canada. We should expand that to make it mandatory reporting. We have a database which is not interfering with provincial jurisdiction. It is working hand and glove. That is the way our health care system was designed originally and the way it should continue to be moving forward into the 21st century.

We should design a health care system that puts the patient first and then works in the best interests of the patient. All levels of government, provincial and federal, must work together to that end. That is indeed what we are trying to promote in this motion and why I would encourage the Bloc members to reconsider their support.

This is about sending a message of awareness to the country and Health Canada. This is something that absolutely must happen and must happen in a mandatory fashion.

Some of the things we should consider is why this is quite timely. In the Globe and Mail today, one of the editorials talks about pushing for mandatory reporting. The CBC has been discussing this all week long. This is more faith than anything else. It is sort of a lottery where this motion comes forward at a time when in a week there is such interest in the nation on this issue.

The program Disclosure last week had a half-hour documentary exposing the problem and considerations of why we should be doing it. There is no question that tens of thousands of individuals are passing away on a yearly basis in Canada on our watch because we are not doing anything about it. Would this save all of those individuals? No, but it is a stepping stone toward putting in place a system that would help. We need to consider and deliberate on what is actually happening.

I have spoken with the Canadian Medical Association this past week. It has always reneged with regard to support for the idea of mandatory reporting; however, it is not resisting like I had thought it would. I am meeting with the president next week and we will be discussing this and other issues, I am sure.

I look forward to that deliberation because this is not an attack against the professionals. This is an ability for us to work in collaboration with them in order to set up a system. We need to listen to them to hear their concerns and to understand how we can streamline this mandatory reporting in a way that will be palatable to them and to others.

I encourage all members of the House to consider this. I encourage them to talk to their colleagues who are not here, and to talk to their friends and families because if they do not know of someone who has been affected by an adverse reaction, those other people do. This is an important issue. The health and welfare of Canadians is hanging in the balance and, on our watch, we should do something to solve it.

[Adverse Drug Reactions, February 20th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for the question because it is a very valid one and something we really need to look at.

He is right in that other countries such as Italy, France and Sweden have the mandatory reporting. We also have to understand that they are rated one, two and three as far as health care systems in the world. There is no question that if we go down this road, it will give us the comfort zone of being a much better health care system.

Why are they not reporting numbers? We have to realize that in Canada we do have mandatory reporting for the pharmaceutical companies, but not for those on the frontlines who actually see it happen.

I should elaborate a little on some of the testimony we heard as we went across Canada. Those individuals who came forward with some of the numbers on adverse reactions said that our practitioners, our doctors and nurses, were not trained well enough to diagnose an adverse reaction when they saw it. We have to work on this in a multifaceted way. It is not that I think mandatory reporting will be the panacea and be the perfect solution. It is just one of the building blocks that we have to work on to get us to where we need to go so we can deal with this problem in a comprehensive way.

Part of the problem is that technology, the medical records following the patient and what that will allow us to do in this whole area of reporting has got to be exercised. We have to take a serious look at that. When we do, we have to engage the professional people, our pharmacists, nurses and doctors, and ask them how they can make this work in mandatory reporting.

This is not an attack. It is there to give them the tools to be better professionals. That is what this is all about. That is where we need to go. We should not do this in isolation with a big stick. We should do it in collaboration with the provinces and with the professionals to make it work. That is what Canadians expect and that is the way we should go.

[Adverse Drug Reactions, February 20th, 2004]

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider making it mandatory for health care professionals to forward to Health Canada information on all “serious” adverse drug reactions within 48 hours of their occurrence.

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to be able to introduce a motion in the House. It is a very important issue because it needs to do two things. We need to raise awareness of a very serious problem in Canada, something I have had a researcher on for the last three years. It is something I have a tremendous amount of information about and we have seen a lot on about it on the CBC news this week with its reporting of exactly what is going on. Canadians are starting to wake up to the issue and this is an attempt to wake the House up to this issue and actually do something about it.

Not only do we need to raise awareness, but we also need to make sure that we put into law the awareness we are trying to raise of the number of adverse drug reactions. We actually must have mandatory reporting of those serious adverse reactions from our professionals in the health care system, our doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health care workers.

It is important that we raise awareness of these issues. The CBC has done a very good job of that. Actually it has tried for the past five years to get information on the database that Health Canada has with regard to the number of adverse reactions that are being reported in the country. The CBC was able to get this information only through an access to information request. Now they have 162,000 recorded cases on a website, so Canadians from coast to coast to coast will be able to go to the website to try to determine this and see for themselves some of the reactions that are happening.

It is very important because we see skyrocketing numbers of cases in Canada. Some of the numbers disclosed this week involve kids. Serious reactions in that group have tripled in the last couple of years, but Health Canada has no ability to be able to deal with trends for this information.

That is another thing that has come forward. Even if Health Canada had all the reporting in place right now, we have to understand that it does not have the wherewithal to be able to deal with the actual trends taking place before our eyes. It is understaffed and underfunded. Not only are we going to have to be able to deal with awareness and mandatory reporting, but then we have to deal with what we are going to do with that information and how we are going to protect Canadians because of it.

In March 2000, this all came to a head when Vanessa Young, a 15 year old girl from Oakville, died in front of her father because of the inappropriate use of a drug called cisapride, also known as Prepulsid. The two names mean the same drug. Health Canada knew about this back in 1996, long before this child died, and the United States had flagged it as well. There were 14 deaths from this drug in Canada prior to this time and numerous other deaths in the United States. Why was it allowed to happen in Canada before our eyes? Why is it happening today? We have to ask ourselves those questions.

The coroner's inquest actually brought this to light. There were actually 59 recommendations coming out of that inquest as to how we could deal with the problem, 14 of them levelled right at Health Canada. One of them was the mandatory reporting of adverse or very serious reactions to medication within 48 hours. Therein lies what this motion is all about, which is to make sure that this actually happens.

In fact, the inquest went one step further and actually defined what “serious” means. It means that which results in “significant disability or incapacity, is life-threatening or results in death”. It is a very clear, very simple definition of exactly what we are talking about.

We have to ask why this was not acted on before now. Why is Health Canada dragging its feet on this one? This is not the first time that this idea has been introduced in the House. There was another very similar motion introduced by the member for Winnipeg North Centre in September 2001. At the time it was introduced to the House, it was discussed and supported by all sides of the House. One would have thought that would send a serious message to Health Canada but it did not, because there was no vote on it and no actual direction from the House to make sure it would take place.

So now we are seeing a much more serious problem as it escalates. We have an opportunity to send a very serious and very strong message to Health Canada and to the Minister of Health so that we will be able to deal with the issue.

How big an issue is it? How big a problem do we actually have out there? I think we need to ask ourselves that.

A study done in the United States in 1998 estimated that, annually, 2.2 million individuals were hospitalized for serious adverse drug reactions. There were an additional 106,000 fatal adverse drug reactions in that same year.

We can compare the data. There are 300 million people in the United States and 31 million in Canada. That translates into a little over 10,000 deaths in Canada on a yearly basis due to adverse drug reactions. These are significant numbers. A 1999 report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal estimated that there were approximately 1,825 deaths due to adverse drug reactions. The doctors themselves came forward with these numbers. Researchers David Rosenbloom and Christine Wynne estimated that the number of deaths due to adverse drug reactions was around 7,600.

The numbers are all over place, but just using those numbers, adverse drug reactions translate into being the seventh leading cause of death in Canada. That increases the number of days for a hospital stay to 4.6 days more per individual and costs our health care system about $300 million annually.

We can play with the numbers all we like, but it does not really matter how big we make them. We have to understand that the numbers are really there. In fact, Health Canada said that in 2001, 54,000 Canadians experienced adverse drug reactions. That would translate into about 3,800 people who died in that year.

We have to say, then, that this is a very serious problem and it is getting worse all the time. Why are professionals not reporting adverse reactions? The number of reported incidents is estimated at somewhere between 1% and 10%. Why is that? We have to understand the stress that some of our physicians are under right now. There is no incentive for them to do so. A lot of them do not even know where the form is to report adverse reactions, and it is a lengthy form. We have to look at some of the solutions to this.

This is not about attacking physicians. This is not about attacking professionals. This is not about attacking pharmaceuticals. This is about bringing awareness to the issue and then looking at how we are going to deal with it.

Whether it is 400, 4,000 or 10,000 deaths is probably not really the issue. We have to understand that every one of those deaths translates into real people, real families and real friends, and every one of those deaths was preventable. If they were not preventable, they should have at least raised a flag so the same mistake could not happen to any other individuals. We owe at least that to those who fall victim to adverse reactions.

Where do we go from here? Why should we have mandatory reporting? Because we see the amount of drugs being used in this country. In 1992 Canadians spent $8.5 billion on pharmaceuticals. In 2002, a decade later, Canadians spent $18.1 billion. That is a $10 billion per year increase. With those kinds of numbers and the amount of drugs being used, we have to say that we have a serious problem and it is going to get worse.

The baby boomer generation is now closing in on 55 to 65 years of age and the consumption of medication is going to increase. We have to deal with the problem now. We have not seen anything yet when we realize what is coming down the road at us.

Let us get serious about this problem. Let us get serious and do something about it. We need mandatory reporting of pharmaceuticals by doctors, pharmacists, health care professionals and consumers. That is one way we can help this situation along.

This is not the first time a flag has been raised in Canada. Colleen Fuller is an individual who fell victim to an adverse reaction and became interested in doing some research on this. The Krever inquiry also raised a flag about mandatory reporting of adverse reactions. Vanessa Young's coroner's jury is another example.

Not only that, Canada's Auditor General said in a report in December 2000 that we cannot get to the bottom of the actual numbers and know what is going on because reporting is not mandatory. It is just voluntary. If it is just voluntary, then we do not know what the numbers are.

As I said before, only 1% to 10% is actually being reported, so there is a 90% error and guesswork is going on around this whole issue. We have to do something about it.

It is absolutely critical that we get serious about dealing with this issue. We also have to ask why it is not happening, why it is that the reporting is not going on. We have to realize what our physicians and nurses are dealing with. They have two of the most highly stressed jobs in the country. In fact, the sickest workplace we have in the country is our hospitals. Our nurses are stressed to the max. They take more sick days than any other occupation, any other professional group of individuals. When it comes to doctors, we understand that 75% of them are refusing to take on more patients because they are so stretched and so worked to the max. This is not an attack against them. This is an attempt to be able to give them the tools to be able to deal with this in a more appropriate way.

Why are they not reporting it? Number one, they have no incentive. They have no time. Family practitioners are only paid for a 10 minute visit.

We have to give them some of the tools. Maybe we do not have to use a long form. Perhaps we could use BlackBerry technology or another reporting system that could give them the ability to report in a way that is not cumbersome, in a way that is streamlined so they can do it. We have to engage them in that process. We have to ask them how they would like to be able to come forward with mandatory reporting and how we can work collaboratively with them.

That is where we need to go with this motion. This makes it mandatory, but it does not bring forward the actual tools so that we are able to do it. That is why I did not bring forward a private member's bill, which would bring down the specifics. What we want to do is raise awareness, engage in debate, and give a direction from the House that we will not take it anymore, that Health Canada has to act, and that we have to make sure something is done for the betterment of our citizens.

It is also not an attack at all against the drug companies. Many of the medicines that we use are wonderful technologies. They do a great amount of good, but there is also a great amount of harm. We know that. Some of the information from research I had been doing in my own office pointed me to some of the problems that are going on in this country, so we initiated a study that was done by the Standing Committee on Health. We travelled from coast to coast this fall dealing with the pharmaceuticals and the adverse reaction to these medications. Some of the testimony that came forward was absolutely amazing.

One professor who teaches university students came forward and said that 50% of individuals hospitalized in this country have an adverse reaction or there is a medical error before they are discharged. If those numbers are anywhere close to being true, we have a very serious problem on our hands and we have to deal with it.

I questioned those numbers, so I asked the next witness who came along and who I thought would have some information on this if he agreed with those numbers. In his testimony, the individual said that he could not refute those numbers, that they were probably very close to being accurate, if not underestimated.

We have a serious problem when it comes to this. We have to look at where we are as a nation. We are rated by the United Nations as the 30th best health care system in the world. The United States, by the way, is 37th, so we should not be looking to the United States for an example, but there are 30 nations that are better than we are. We had better start looking at what those 30 have to offer in giving us some information as to how we can deal with our health care system in a better way.

There are another 11 countries that have mandatory reporting of adverse reactions. The number one health care system in the world is France. France has mandatory reporting, but some people will probably get up and argue about whether it has really worked in France. It has not increased reporting that much more, but we can learn from them and understand how we can streamline the system to make it a lot easier for our professionals to be able to actually come forward to report the adverse reactions.

We have to look at what we can find out from these other countries in order to be able to dialogue with our professionals and to bring forward the actual piece of legislation and the way this has to be done, but we have to kick Health Canada in the backside to make sure it actually happens. That is what we have to do. It is absolutely important that every member of the House understands the opportunity before us: that on our watch, while we are here in the House, we have the opportunity to do something about it. We cannot delay. We absolutely have to vote for this motion so we can give the proper and appropriate direction to Health Canada.

This is long overdue and I encourage all members of the House to consider it. Saskatchewan put forward this kind of legislation in its province. We had to dialogue with the rest of the provinces to make this happen.

[Health, February 20th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, almost five years ago, Oakville teenager Vanessa Young died of heart failure after taking a prescription medication.

The inquest into Vanessa's death recommended mandatory reporting by health professionals of all serious adverse drug reactions to Health Canada within 48 hours. Health Canada has not acted on that recommendation.

Less than 10% of all adverse reactions are reported each year. Studies suggest that up to 10,000 Canadians die each year due to adverse reactions like Vanessa's. We do not really know how many are dying because reporting is voluntary and so very few events are actually being reported.

My private member's motion, to be debated today, calls on the government to consider making it mandatory for health professionals to report all serious adverse drug reactions.

This House has an opportunity to make an important statement on a matter which affects children, adults and the elderly. The problem is only going to get worse unless we act now.

[Supply, February 17th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I listened intently to my colleague's comments with regard to this scandal. We have to ask ourselves why Canadians are having such a difficult time with this?

It drives right to the character of an individual when we review some of the things that have come to light in the last couple of weeks. There is the $137,000 compared to $160 million. That was not a loan guarantee for the shipping company of the Prime Minister. This was an actual grant.

This was knowledge long before it came to light here two weeks ago. We have to ask ourselves why the character of an individual, who has tried to say he is Mr. Clean to a nation, would not have come forward a year ago? We have to ask ourselves if this drive to the character of an individual. When he took the reins as the Prime Minister of the country and knew about the scandal long before, why did he not come clean with it on December 12 or 13. All he did was cancel the program. He did not go after heads. He did not go after the money that was lost, if he was aware of the scandal.

Driving to the character of the individual, how Canadians can look at him as being believable, when he goes from coast to coast this week and says that he is Mr. Clean and that knew nothing about the scandal?

Canadians have to also question what the Prime Minister said with regard to health care and education. He has said that these are his number one and number two priorities. However, when we look at his history, he is the individual who took $25 billion from health care in the last decade, leaving it wanting and weightless. We now have a shortage of over a million doctors and nurses at a critical time. When he says that health is the number one priority and when we look at the history of the individual, is he believable? Health care is Canada's number one treasure.

Could my colleague comment on whether this gives us a pattern of a character flaw?