(FOR BILL C-393 STALLING UPDATES SEE BOTTOM OF POST: LAST UPDATE ON FRI, MARCH 25th) A few weeks ago, I was lecturing during a global issues course (ASIC200), when it became immediately clear that on some occasions, a solitary single facepalm is simply not enough. In fact, there seemed to be many things and events in this world that would merit many many simultaneous facepalms, or as we’ve been calling it in class, a MEGAFACEPALM! Anyway, when I looked it up on the internet, there didn’t seem to be any pictures of large groups of people doing the facepalm, and so I thought, why not make our own? And so after a few clicks on my camera, and a handy “Make your own motivational poster” website, here is how it turned out: Of course, then the big question was for what occasion should we bestow this honour – this first unaltered photographic MEGAFACEPALM image? Well, I had a chat with the class the other day, and it seemed that the issue of Bill C-393 seemed like a worthy cause. Now, if you’re late to the game and need a primer on this Bill C-393, then read this boingboing post and then come back here for the MEGAFACEPALM lowdown.

Hereby: I would like
to declare that this MEGAFACEPALM will be awarded to the Harper
government should: 1. Their members of Senate
kill Bill C-393 by voting not to pass it. and/or
2. They indirectly kill the Bill C-393 by
“ignoring/postponing” the Bill: especially if it has anything
to do with some false nonsense about election
calls. Yes, we know that maybe there will be an
election call, but that is neither here nor there since this
Bill should not be subject to such sneaky political
maneuvering. All to say that, Prime Minister Harper: the
outcome is in your hands… p.s – I realize that
technically, we shouldn’t call it a MEGAFACEPALM, since the
name would infer the presence of a million (=mega) people doing
it – but oh well, I figured this was a still good start.
Besides, you can also consider this a challenge for others to
create even bigger MEGAFACEPALM pictures.

We now
have reliable information that the Conservative Government is
unwilling to let Bill C-393, which would fix Canada’s Access to
Medicines Regime (CAMR), proceed further in the Senate. We are
working to uncover further details.

This position shows contempt for Parliament — if nothing else,
the Senate must study the bills that come to it with majority
support in the House of Commons, not simply stall them. (Bill
C-393 passed in the House of Commons recently with a vote of
172 MPs in favour and 111 against, with support drawn from all
parties.)

Given this latest news, we
must therefore redouble our efforts, which had an amazing
impact in the House of Commons. This is the final hurdle and
one that, as predicted, will take time. But it is doable. The
Senate must fulfill their obligation to allow this to come to a
timely vote so that Bill C-393 does not die on the Order Paper
(again).
From the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal
Network

UPDATE –
TUES, MARCH 22nd, 9:56pm PST DAY 2 FOR BILL C-393 IN THE
SENATE

Bill C-393 was up for
further debate in the Senate this afternoon, after word was
received this morning that the Conservative leadership is still
refusing to let the bill proceed to a second reading
vote.

Conservative Senator Nancy Ruth
rose to speak first. She reminded the chamber that this bill
enjoys widespread support, including 26 MPs from her own party
in the House of Commons. She noted that the virtually identical
Bill S-232 had previously been studied at length with no less
than 6 days of hearings from witnesses. She highlighted how
Bill C-393 could, at no cost to taxpayers, make Canada’s aid
help more people, describing it as a concrete example of “aid
effectiveness” and “value for money”. She noted in particular
how this bill would complement the Harper government’s
initiative on maternal and child health. She urged Senators to
pass the bill without delay, as it makes good business sense
and good public health sense.

Liberal
Senator Roméo Dallaire then rose to speak in support, referring
to the devastation of AIDS he himself has witnessed in
countries such as Rwanda. He noted again that only one use of
CAMR has been seen to date and it is unlikely to be used again
in its current form — he wondered how anyone could claim this
is a success, and remarked of the brand-name pharmaceutical
companies’ claim to this effect, “what planet are they on?”. He
noted the critical importance of access to paediatric
formulations of fixed-dose combinations and that Apotex had
committed to producing these. He ended with an eloquent plea to
the Conservative government: “Are their children less human
than ours? Do they not deserve the same humanity?”

Finally, Liberal Senate leader James Cowan
rose to plead with the Conservative government that it allow
the bill to move forward without delay. He underscored that,
while it was not the obligation of the Senate to pass bills
from the House of Commons, it is the chamber’s obligation to
consider them in a timely fashion. He noted specifically that
Senators had received hundreds and hundreds of emails and
telephone calls, and he could think of not a single one
expressing any opposition to the bill. He urged Senators to
consider this overwhelming public support, and to move this
bill on to the Banking Committee so that it could quickly study
it and return it to the Senate so that it might be addressed
before a possible election.

However,
Conservative Senator Stephen Greene then moved to adjourn
further debate, consistent with the expected approach of the
Conservative leadership. The motion was carried, on a recorded
division. The bill will therefore appear again on the Order
Paper tomorrow, Wed March 23. At this time, indications are
that the Conservative leadership in the Senate will continue to
stall the bill.
~Richard Elliot, Canadian
HIV/AIDS Legal Network

UPDATE – WED, MARCH 23rd, 4:44pm PST RE C-393:
CONSERVATIVES STALLING FURTHER!

After a speech by Cons. Senator Stephen
Greene opposing Bill C-393 (full of the same old mistruths that
we’ve heard ad nauseum, directly contrary to what his
legislative assistant told me earlier today), and a moving
speech by Lib. Senator Mobina Jaffer in support of the bill,
Cons. Senator Carignan stood up to say that Cons. Senator Larry
Smith, who was absent from the chamber, wished to speak to the
bill and therefore he was moving to further adjourn debate.
(Smith was present earlier in the chamber.)

Liberal Senators demanded a recorded vote and bells are
now ringing for vote to happen at 8:05 p.m. Supporters are now
urgently calling Conservative senators thought or known to be
supportive of Bill C-393 to urge them to join in voting against
this adjournment.

If any of you know a
Conservative Senator whom you know or think is supportive,
please email and phone them and urge them to vote down the
adjournment.
~Richard Elliot, Canadian
HIV/AIDS Legal Network

UPDATE – WED, MARCH 23rd, 5:20pm PST C-393
ADJOURNED BY CONSERVATIVES, BY VOTE OF 44-36
UPDATE – THURS, MARCH 24th, 9:44am PST NOTE THE
FOLLOWING EMAIL SENT BY TONY CLEMENT (ON BEHALF OF THE
PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY) TO ALL CONSERVATIVE
SENATORS

From: Fowlow,
Patti-Lou
Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2011 11:17
AM
To: – SEN C
Subject:

Dear Conservative Senate Staff &
Senators,

Senator Larry Smith had the
opportunity to meet with pharmaceutical industry leaders in the
Montreal area, all are against bill C-393 as it is extremely
damaging to our ability to motivate companies to patent new
drugs in Canada. Many jobs in Canada’s research and development
sector, stand to be lost as a result of this bill. I have
attached the documents prepared by Mr. Tony Clement.

Sincerely,
Nichole A. Beck

+++++++++

Vote
Rationale C-393 CAMR
Under the current CAMR system,
the process includes the following important steps:
• The product must be identified as safe and effective for
human consumption
• The target country/population
must be clearly defined and the request must come from the
target government itself
• A tracking system must
be in place to monitor the drugs flow from Canada to the target
country/population to ensure consumption by intended
group
• That under CAMR, only THAT drug identified
for export can be sent to the intended country/population
Stephen Lewis and his friends have said that these checks
are the ‘problem’ and need to be removed. In fact, these steps
are vital. If they are removed, the following consequences can
result:
• Instead of one shipment of a particular
drug, an advocate can be granted permission to break patents of
multiple drugs and ship them to multiple locations, potentially
for commercial purposes.
• Drugs that are not
certified by Health Canada as being safe and effective could be
shipped to unsuspecting populations, to their detriment.
• Drugs shipped under CAMR could be redirected to the
black market with proceeds going to non-humanitarian causes
such as weapons.
• If drugs are shipped without the
consent of the home government, the drugs could run against
their domestic laws and traditions.
• If C-393 is
passed, Canada’s CAMR will be out of step with our
international trade obligations. And if current patents are
threatened, the patent holders will leave Canada seeking
shelter in countries which value patent protection. The loss to
Canadian R & D will be significant.
Most
importantly, Canadian Generics are some of the most expensive
in the world. With C-393 or not, NGOs in the developing world
will direct their precious resources to cheaper drugs coming
from places like India and Asia. Testimony was clear – This is
an irrelevant measure to address the problem of a lack of drugs
in Africa.
Committee was clear that the solution to
this problem is multifaceted and to that end, the Government of
Canada has:

1. Launched the Canadian
HIV Vaccine Initiative
2. Made several
contributions to organizations such as Health Partners
International Canada (Jake Epp’s group) who in turn have sent
millions of doses of free drugs from Canadian pharmaceutical
companies to the developing world
3. Supported the
Global Fund, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative and the
Clinton Foundation, to name a few. Please contact Minister
Oda’s office for more details. In all, close to $2.1 billion in
International Aid flows to the developing world each year from
Canada.
The bottom line is that C-393 lessens
Canadian Patent Protection and vital health, safety, and
verification of non-commercial purpose checks. Worst of all, it
won’t solve the problem. As such, Government members should
oppose C-393.

Tony
Clement

To which a rebuttal has just been
sent out:

Dear Senators:

Yesterday was another missed opportunity for the Senate
to move forward on Bill C-393 and finally fulfill Parliament’s
pledge to the developing world to help increase access to
affordable medicines via Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime
(CAMR). For a third day in a row, this bill has been stalled,
deliberately and unnecessarily, and another 5000 people died of
AIDS alone in low- and middle-income countries.

It was also a day where recycled falsehoods
cast an unfortunate pall over your deliberations. Senator
Stephen Greene’s comments repeated yet again the same
discredited claims by big pharma that have been shown again and
again to be inaccurate and overblown. Please take a moment to
look at the text of Bill C-393, and you will quickly and easily
verify the falsity of the objections being repeated like a
mantra. Specifically:

· Bill C-393
does NOT remove the requirement
that Health Canada approve drugs exported under CAMR. (See
section 21.04(3) of the Patent Act.)

·
Bill C-393 does NOT remove or
weaken the existing safeguards against the diversion of
medicines. The bill leaves unchanged all requirements for
differentiating the generic product exported under CAMR from
the brand-name product and for special markings, packaging and
labelling, as well as a tracking system to monitor the flow of
drugs to recipient countries. (See sections 21.06 and
21.07.)

· Bill C-393 does
NOT change the list of countries
eligible to receive medicines under CAMR — which was already
agreed upon by all countries, including Canada, at the WTO in
2003 and was already approved unanimously by Parliament in
2004. (It combines them into a single, simplified list; it does
not change eligibility.)

· Bill C-393
does NOT allow for medicines to be
used in an eligible developing country contrary to its domestic
law. Those countries’ laws regarding the registration of a drug
as meeting necessary standards are unaffected by this
bill.

· Bill C-393 does
NOT run counter to Canada’s WTO
obligations. With the exception of big pharma’s paid lawyer,
every legal expert who has testified before Parliamentary
committees has affirmed that Bill C-393 is consistent with WTO
requirements, as did an international expert consultation
convened by the UN Development Programme to study the
bill.

· Bill C-393 does
NOT threaten jobs or investments
in R&D; in Canada. This unbelievable claim is made by big
pharma based on no evidence and has been debunked by economist
experts in submissions to parliamentary committees. CAMR does
not allow exports to the high-income countries where brand-name
companies make the vast majority of their profits, which are
what determine their R&D; decisions. Furthermore, it
requires generics to pay royalties to brand-name companies on
any sales to eligible countries.

Finally, consider the nonsensical argument that CAMR should not
be fixed because generic drug prices are too high in Canada.
The price of a good in the Canadian market is
entirely irrelevant — what is relevant are the prices that
Canadian generic manufacturers are able to offer to developing
countries. What generic manufacturer would think
it could land any contract with any developing country, whose
purchasing power is much less than Canada’s, by offering a
price comparable to what it charges in Canada? Why would any
developing country buy generics from a Canadian manufacturer
unless they were of good quality and sold at a competitive
price? Recall that in the one use of CAMR to date, the Canadian
manufacturer landed the bid to supply Rwanda with a Health
Canada-approved product at the same price as two Indian generic
manufacturers (19.5 cents per tablet, a dramatic reduction from
the price of the brand-name options.)

Why would Canadian parliamentarians block a bill that makes it
easier for Canadian companies to compete globally in supplying
urgently needed medicines?

The worst is that while you were sitting through
yet another recitation of these falsehoods, more children in
desperate need of life-saving medicines lay
dying. This is not just, nor is it the will of
Canadians — as expressed through the vote in the House of
Commons, an opinion poll that shows 80% of the public supports
Bill C-393 or in the tens of thousands of e-mails and phone
calls that have been coming into the offices of you and your
colleagues. Nor is it necessary. The Senate could still pass
this bill into law before an election.

As a chamber of sober second thought, we urge you to listen to
the clear weight of the evidence and to think critically about
the self-interested and unsubstantiated claims by big pharma,
which claims in public to care about access to medicines but
has done everything it can to kill a bill that is an important
part of an overall response.

How is it that children in Canada should have
access to medicines but those in developing countries should
not? When will common decency and common sense prevail over
falsehoods, obfuscation and inaction? We ask you to move
forward on Bill C-393 now.

Sincerely,

Richard Elliott
Executive Director
Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal
Network

UPDATE – THURS, MARCH
24th, 3:59pm PST MORE STALLING . . .

C-393 came up.

Senator Dallaire asked Senator Carignon whether he was prepared
to speak on the issue.

Carignon said
Senator Larry Smith wants to speak – but (again) wasn’t in the
Chamber.

The Conservatives moved
adjournment. Liberals refused and insisted on a standing
vote.

We await the news of that vote,
but the likely outcome is that the item will again be
adjourned.

Canadian HIV/AIDS
Legal Network

UPDATE
– THURS, MARCH 24th, 4:20pm PST C-393 ADJOURNED BY
CONSERVATIVES (AGAIN – THAT’S 4 TIMES), BY VOTE OF
38-25 Note that Prime Minister Stephen Harper,
Senator Marjory LeBreton, and Senator Gerald Comeau are the
primary targets for public pressure. You can send
all three an email by using this Avaaz
link, which will also provide
information on phone numbers should you wish to make personal
calls. Also, please retweet this post and urge others to do the
same! UPDATE: FRI, MARCH 25th, 10:58am LOOKS LIKE
IT’S DEAD. STAY TUNED FOR A PROPER MEGAFACEPALM
SENDOFF. OTHER LINKS: Tony
Clement urges senators to block generic-drug
legislation Rush
is on to pass legislation before election Canadian
Access to Medicines Bill Under Threat Access
to Medicines bill stalling in Senate Dear
senators: Pass Bill C-393 now and save lives Battling
AIDS: Approve drug bill now A
reform to save lives left to Canadian Senate Killing
Bill C-393 would be a facepalm of the highest
order