

Reflections, Observations, and Analyses Pertaining to the Canadian Political Scene
should we reduce, or nearly abolish, Health Canada’s drug regulatory functions? Could we be safer by trusting in the decisions of larger, better-funded, foreign drug regulators instead of little lame Health Canada?He looks to Europe for a model:
The 28 countries of the European Union, many of them quite small, long ago decided that it is expensive, inefficient and sometimes dangerously ineffective for each country to have its own drug regulator. Nowadays, most of them have delegated large parts of their drug regulatory functions to an EU-wide organization, the European Medicines Agency.Attaran is not optimistic that Canada will likely follow suit with a similar co-operative venture:
Here, the Harper government’s asphyxiating control of government scientists and almost childish pride in Canadian sovereignty mean that Health Canada minimally co-operates with America’s FDA just next door. This is dumb: the FDA is more transparent, better resourced and scientifically better equipped than Health Canada will ever be.He goes on to offer a picture of the FDA's ruthless effectiveness in interdicting suspect drugs:
Consider the case of Ranbaxy, a pharmaceutical company from India. Last year, the FDA successfully prosecuted Ranbaxy for manufacturing adulterated drugs and misleading it with false, fictitious and fraudulent drug testing data — crimes for which Ranbaxy paid $500 million (U.S.) in criminal and civil penalties.
Even though former Ranbaxy executives say they are “confident there were problems” with drugs sold here, after the criminal conviction Health Canada refused to ban Ranbaxy’s factories, and instead negotiated with the company to voluntarily pull a few of its medicines off the market for testing; Health Canada won’t say which ones.According to Attaran, the main reason for this gross disparity of response is not legal, but cultural,
namely the indolent, lapdog attitude of ministers like Ambrose and the public servants at Health Canada, who seem to lack any understanding of how governments should regulate.Because they refuse to learn from the best practices of bodies like the FDA and the European Medicines Agency, he concludes that
we should in part abolish Health Canada and harmonize our drug regulation with those foreign agencies that are more competent than our own government.While that might strike many as too drastic a solution, it is clear that major changes are needed if we are to be protected from corrupt and venal pharmaceutical companies that place their profits and their shareholders above the health and safety of Canadians.
stop distribution to Canadian retailers of what Health Minister Rona Ambrose described as “all products” manufactured at one of Apotex’s factories in Bangalore, India.I guess that is progress of sorts, since the last time Health Canada made such a request, Apotex refused. However, it is an anemic response given that when the issue first arose, the FDA banned the suspect drugs from entering the U.S.
“The quarantine will allow the department time to verify that products from this facility meet Canadian safety and quality requirements,” Health Canada said in a short release.
Health Canada has not told the public what drugs are affected by this quarantine.So even though many Canadians will have been taking these suspect and tainted drugs, they are not permitted to know which ones they are. Undoubtedly, as has been previously discussed, in the warped of Ambrose and her department, that information is considered commercially confidential.
First off, if a competing politician uttered the things that Mr. Levant said about Justin Trudeau, we would expect an apology or a resignation, or both. If we wouldn’t tolerate such shameful behavior among political competitors, what would it say about how low we are willing to see media standards fall, if there were no consequences.
Second, maybe someone can explain why any of us should have to answer to anyone for the sexual habits of our parents. I’ve never heard a voter in a focus group say “I’d vote for candidate x, if his or her parents had been more sexually conservative.”
Watch Mr. Levant’s description of events, and then read the account of how the bride’s father saw the same moments. I suppose it’s possible that the father of the bride was lying, but I think another explanation seems more likely.Labelling the unhinged Levant's performance an embarrassment to journalists, and to those in conservative politics that he is normally aligned with, Anderson feels that Trudeau's response was a reasonable one, since he is simply
holding the publisher to account and using what leverage he can muster. His goal seems not to end or disrupt or manipulate media relations in a permanent or pervasive way, but to say this isn’t normal and it shouldn’t be treated as such.In the instances of such scurrilous attacks one can either ignore the insults or speak out against them. In Anderson's view the latter is the more noble choice:
I fielded one call from a conservative who said that Mr. Trudeau was taking the coward’s way out by refusing to engage with Sun. I tried hard to understand that logic.It has been my observation that, like the bullies they are, extreme right-wingers are quite happy to mete out abuse, but cry like babies when held to account. Expect no agreement with Andersen's defense of Trudeau from that quarter.
But in the end I couldn’t help but think that cowardice in that situation is doing nothing to defend your honour, and that of your parents.
I certainly get the need to protect professional journalism. But this week anyway, it needs more protection against what Ezra Levant would do to it, than what Justin Trudeau would.
There’s a new breed of highly politicized union in town – and they’re intent on doing to Mr. Harper what they recently did to Tim Hudak in Ontario.Apparently, the rout of the Ontario Tories this past June was largely due, not to widespread rejection of their right-wing message, but union power.
Unifor was created last year from the merger of the Canadian Auto Workers and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers unions, to lead the fight-back against the Harper government, according to Jerry Dias, the national president.
In the Senate Thursday, Senator Bob Runciman said unions spent $10-million in the recent Ontario election – all on a campaign to “Stop Hudak.”Like fifth columnists, in
the Ontario election, the Workers’ Rights Campaign operated more like a shadow political party than a union, with its own war-room, field organizers and campaign strategy.With that straw man firmly in place, Ivison implies that Canadians are incapable of independent thought and decision-making and will fall under the Svengali-like influence of Dias and his anti-Harper agenda. A veritable tsunami of democratic subversion is heading our way.
Voices inside the Conservative caucus have urged Mr. Harper to call an early election to disrupt Unifor’s pre-writ advertising buys.Harper is said to be wary of breaking the fixed election date once more, as such a decision would appear opportunistic.
But in sticking with that timing, he is gifting his union opponents the chance to influence a federal election in a way we have not seen in a very long time.May God bless and protect all of us, and keep us safe from the bogeyman.