House of Commons
HANSARD
April 3, 2014
Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP):
Mr. Speaker, keeping people safe is the first job of any government, whether it is airlines or drug safety. Why can the Conservatives not understand that?
Conservatives are keeping Canadians in the dark about drug safety reviews. Last year, the minister promised that reviews would be published “transparently”, but it turns out that Health Canada is keeping over 80% of the reviews totally secret, and even then the published reviews will only be very brief summaries.
Why did the minister break her promise to be transparent with Canadians about drug safety? She said that. She is not being transparent anymore.
Mr. Colin Carrie (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment, CPC):
Mr. Speaker, the minister has asked Health Canada to take steps to begin posting drug reviews to ensure that needed information is available. Health Canada experts always monitor the latest science for drugs, and we expect them to take action as needed. We have always launched the plain language labelling initiative, which aims to improve the safe use of drugs by making drug labels easier to read and understand.