Children Can’t Wait! Dying for Drugs in Developing Countries

Seven years ago, Parliament unanimously passed a bill creating Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR). The law was supposed to help get lower-cost, generic medicines to people in developing countries. Instead, bureaucracy has weighed it down: so far, only one order of one AIDS drug has been sent to a single country. Both developing countries and generic drug manufacturers have complained that the current regime is too cumbersome and difficult to use — it is highly unlikely that CAMR will be used again unless it is reformed.

In the last Parliament, a resounding majority of the House of Commons passed Bill C-393 on March 9, 2011, which would have fixed CAMR so that drugs could be sent to developing countries and lives saved. This bill enjoyed widespread support from humanitarian organizations, health professionals, and religious and community leaders. MPs from all parties supported the bill. But then it was deliberately and fatally stalled in the Senate: Bill C-393 died on the Order Paper when Parliament was dissolved and the 2011 federal election was called. Read the joint statement from a wide range of Canadian organizations.

The desperate need to reform CAMR and get medicines to those suffering and dying in developing countries still exists. We will have to wait until our new Parliament convenes to determine whether or not there will be an opportunity to reintroduce similar legislation.  This is an important humanitarian issue that transcends partisan politics, and it is our hope that we will have another chance to fix CAMR.

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Key Documents

Background materials

• Fixing Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR): What You Need to Know About Bill C-393 — Myth vs. Fact (March 2011)
  
  
• Fixing Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR): 20 Questions & Answers — An overview of CAMR, the problem with it, the proposed solution and the arguments
   
• Delivering on the pledge, treating the most vulnerable — Ensuring affordable AIDS drugs for children in the developing world by streamlining Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime
  

• Delivery past due: global precedent set under Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime — feature article in HIV/AIDS Policy & Law Review 13(1)

Bill C-393 in the Senate — Briefs and submissions

• Bill C-393 in the Senate: Amendments to the Patent Act (March 2011)
  
  
• Bill C-393: Key features and compliance with Canada’s WTO obligations (March 2011)

Bill C-393 in the House of Commons — Briefs and submissions:

• Letter to MPs and Submission to House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology — generic pharmaceutical manufacturer Apotex Inc. (January 2011)

• Making CAMR Work: Streamlining Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime — Legal Network’s Brief to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology regarding Bill C-393 (October 2010)

• Bill C-393: Key features and compliance with Canada’s WTO obligations — A supplementary submission by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network to the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology (October 2010)

• Reforming Canada's Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR): Bill C-393 — Finding the Expeditious Solution — Conclusions of an International Expert Consultation
  convened by the UN Development Programme and the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network (February 2010)

• Submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology regarding Bill C-393 — Médecins Sans Frontières Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines (October 2010)

• Prepared Testimony before House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology regarding Bill C-393 — Frederick M. Abbott, Professor of International Law, Florida State University College of Law (October 2010)

• Submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science, and Technology regarding Bill C-393 — UNICEF Canada (October 2010)

• Canada: Fulfill Your Commitment to Increase Access to Medicines — Dignitas International’s Brief to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology regarding Bill C-393 (October 2010)

• Submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology regarding Bill C-393 — from Aidan Hollis, Professor of Economics, University of Calgary (October 2010)

• Submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology regarding Bill C-393 — Marc-André Gagnon, Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration, Carleton University (October 2010)
  
  
• Submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science, and Technology regarding Bill C-393 — YWCA Canada (September 2010)

• Getting the Regime Right — Brief to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology regarding Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime (April 2007)
  
  
• Letter to MP Marc Garneau re: Bill C-393 to reform Canada's Access to Medicines Regime — from Oxfam Canada and Oxfam Quebec (March 2010)
  
  
• Review of Canada's Access to Medicines Regime — Legal Network submission to the Government of Canada (January 2007)
  
  
• Delivering on the Pledge: Reforming Canada's Access to Medicines Regime — GTAG submission to the Government of Canada (January 2007)

Former Bill S-232 in the Senate — Briefs and submissions:

• Making CAMR Work: Streamlining Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime — Brief to the Senate Banking, Trade and Commerce Committee regarding Bill S-232
  
  
• Bill S-232: Key features and compliance with Canada’s WTO obligations — Supplementary submission to Senate Standing Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce

Other Materials

• From knowledge to action for access to medicines: An open letter to Parliamentarians from concerned Canadian health professionals and scientists — March 7, 2011
  
  
• The Price of Life: An Open Letter to Members of Parliament from Leaders of Faith Communities in Canada — March 3, 2011
  
  
• Fixing Canada's Access to Medicines Regime: Open Letter to WTO Members Regarding review of Doha Paragraph 6 Mechanism on Access to Medicines — Statement from the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network (October 2010)
   
• "Global Health: Canada Could Lead" — op-ed in NOW Magazine, June 3–9, 2010, Issue 1480, Volume 29, Number 40
  
  
• Delivering on the Pledge: Global Access to Medicines, WTO Rules, and Reforming Canada’s Law on Compulsory Licensing for Export — article in McGill International Journal of Sustainable Development Law & Policy, Volume 3, Issue 1
  
  
• Access to Medicines and Intellectual Property — An International Expert Meeting on Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime, Global Developments, and New Strategies for Improving Access
   
• Médecins sans frontières
  Neither Expeditious Nor a Solution: The August 30th WTO Decision is Unworkable
   
• (RED) & HBO
  "The Lazarus Effect" (30-minute documentary)
   
• Global Treatment Access Group
  The Global AIDS Crisis: 5 Steps Canada Should Take — A Civil Society Platform for Action

Learn More:

• Publications
• News releases

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