...[W]e live in a society that would waste whatever time and money is necessary to rescue a kitten from a bough.

But we have seen walking skeletons in Africa, and in other Third World countries, yet the Tories blocked a private member’s bill this week to make and supply cheaper life-saving medicines for millions of the poorest of the poor. …

Whatever the reason, the public should be told.

It should not have to watch Government House Leader Peter Van Loan ducking into his office to avoid questions, or Treasury Board President Tony Clement saying it was a private member’s matter and therefore none of his biz. Bill C-398 would have modified the flawed Canadian Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR) to allow generic drug manufacturers to reproduce medicines still under patent protection — like the new generation of retro-viral HIV/Aids drugs — as long as these lower-cost clones were strictly for export to the World Trade Organisation’s list of the neediest countries.

...[T]he bill’s precursor ... had made it through the Commons …. So why did it not pass this time? Why did just enough Tories turn tail, allowing for the bill’s 148-141 defeat? Unfortunately, the vote wasn’t about kittens in a tree.—(Nov 30)