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Affordable Drugs for the Poorest Countries - Bill C-393 at final hour of debate

Fri 27 Nov 2009

40th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION
UNEDITED HANSARD • NUMBER 119
OFFICIAL REPORT (HANSARD)
Friday, November 27, 2009

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis (Winnipeg North, NDP): Mr. Speaker...Canada's Access to Medicine Regime was an innovative, pioneering move five years ago and it still is today, but it is not working and it needs to be overhauled. It needs to be fixed. We need to keep our commitment to the world to ensure drugs get to people who need them in developing nations.

For all of the arguments we have heard in opposition today and in the past, there are strong rebuts. There all kinds of arguments that have been made in the Senate and in this place, and I am here to urge members to let this bill go to committee so that we can actually spend the time rebutting those arguments or hearing concerns and making any necessary amendments.

I am not here saying this bill is perfect. I am here to say it is absolutely essential. We cannot miss this opportunity. We owe it to too many people here in this country to fail at this point.

Two years ago we had an opportunity to fix CAMR and we did not. We failed at that point. We dare not fail today. We dare not let the world be disappointed by our inaction because we did not have the courage to at least hear the arguments at committee, make the case and be able to improve this legislation. We owe it to those who need our medications. We owe it to those whose lives have to be saved.

I owe so much to the grandmothers across this nation for the work they have done on this issue and I want to acknowledge their work. I want to thank Sharon Swanson who is with us today, from the Lanark County Grannies. I want to thank, from the Ottawa group, Peggy Edwards, Kathleen Wallace-Steering, Gillian Sandiman, Elizabeth Renny, Andrea Beale and Marilyn Cools, and I want to thank, from Winnipeg, the Grands and Moore Winnipeg Group, especially Linda Watson, Edith Butler, Charlotte Keridan, Barb Fletcher, Shelley Coombs, Nancy Causeway, Jean Sorco, Jean Altmeyer and many others.

Finally, I want to say that we are doing this for people who need our support. I want to quote, in the last minute I have, from Stephen Lewis, who is a pioneer in this area and who helped form Grandmothers to Grandmothers.

I want to quote from an article in The Globe and Mail of Saturday, October 22, 2005, when he said:

“The 40 million people affected worldwide, 26 million in Africa, the millions, mainly young women, without access to treatment because the world won't pay for it”. His voice drops to a whisper, “And they're all young women and they're all in the twenties and thirties. You go into a hospice, 25 beds, 23 of them filled by women in their twenties. You can't get the drugs to them in time. You know they're going to die in a matter of months”.

He goes on to say, talking about the children:

"You go into a little community centre for kids, and I remember this, you have a whole group of kids sitting in a little room. They look as though they're four or five. They're all stunted and they're really 8, 9 and 10 years old, all HIV positive and there are no drugs and you know these kids are measuring their lives in minutes and you just wonder, why is this? How long did it happen? How long does it have to go on incrementally? It's just so bad and so awful."

Let us not fail these children, these women, the people in other parts of the world who need our help. Let this bill go to committee.

At this point, the bill is on Wednesday. We do not have enough support for it. We have all of the Bloc and all of the NDP members who are committed to supporting it. We only have a third of the Liberals. We have a handful of Conservatives. That is not enough to move this bill forward. We need each and every one of them to think about this and at least allow for a positive vote on Wednesday so we can study this matter further and ensure that this country stands up to its promise in the world and is true to the commitment it has made to people everywhere.