11 January 2005

The Government of Manitoba gets it
They will set the worldwide benchmark for distance based delivery of healthcare. As long as the Feds don't interfere.

The only threat to the Canadian drug supply would be bulk wholesale trade with the U.S. We have never offered that and we never intend to. Any suggestion that it is at all imminent is purely a scare tactic to justify a pre-conceived agenda that obviously has nothing to do with ethics or protecting Canadians. And everything to do with protecting the interests of the pharmaceutical companies.   Why would we sell out ourselves to the Bush Administration's blatant sponsorship of those interests?!   Banning wholesale and commercial trade would assure the safety of the drug supply and pricing regime and still offer mail-order services to a relatively small but desperate group of American patients. 

The maximum market would be 5 million not 295 million. There is no realistic mechanism that could possibly trigger that kind of demand. Legalization based on MMA is virtually dead due to the HHS Task Farce Report and S2328 respects Canada's intolerance of wholesale.   Despite what Minister Dosanjh would like Canadians to believe there is no threat. And even if there were, banning wholesale would be all the protection we would need. You can even throw in a protected drug list for good measure. 

The wholesale trade can come from Europe. Canada can stick to what it does best - mail-order only. 
There can be no justification to kill an entire sector and 4000 jobs for a threat that does not exist.

David MacKay
Executive Director Canadian International Pharmacy Association

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