Dear Government: please update the CAMR website

Much has occurred since 2004, the year Canada’s ambitious humanitarian law known as Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR) came into force. In 2008-2009, one order of an HIV-drug left Canada for Rwanda, which highlighted the need to simplify the law and make it more user-friendly. (This order marked the one and only time the law was used.) Later, two reform bills (S-232 and C-393) entered Parliament in an attempt to amend the unworkable law. They both died in the Senate however: S-232 following prorogation in 2009 and C-393 after it was effectively stalled by Conservative Senators and left to die on the order paper when Parliament dissolved in 2011. CAMR raised many eyebrows and a handful of stories emerged online and in Canadian newspapers. Heck, even celebrities such as K’naan started talking about CAMR. But according to the Government of Canada website dedicated to CAMR, nothing new has occurred since March 13th, 2008. I’m not suggesting the government give a shout out to K’naan but it wouldn’t hurt to update the “what’s new” section. Just sayin’.

Passing drug bill imperative: AIDS in Africa could be stopped in its tracks if medications were available

Here is a recent op-ed written by Craig and Marc Kielburger of the non-profit Free the Children. Reprinted from the Edmonton Journal. Definitely worth a read…

– – –

We build schools in Kenyan villages where teachers die, but their students refuse to name the cause because of its potent stigma, even as coffins are lowered into graves.

We’ve seen husbands, mothers, and then their children, wither away from a mysterious illness rather than be ostracized with a diagnosis.

In North America, access to treatment makes it possible for people with HIV/AIDS to lead relatively comfortable lives. In developing countries, where antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) are prohibitively expensive, AIDS is a curse.

There’s still no cure, but Canada has a chance to save potentially millions of lives with a single legislation. Bill C-393 would reform Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime, a system so flawed it’s only been used to ship a single drug to Rwanda since it was first introduced six years ago.

Bill C-393 allows Canadian companies to manufacture generic versions of patented drugs, like ARVs, making it easier to deliver affordable medicine to developing countries. It passed the House of Commons on March 9, but stalled in the Senate, and then died on the order paper when the government fell.

When Parliament resumes June 2 there will be numerous pleas for the attention of Stephen Harper’s majority government. But this is more than a plea. Finally passing this bill is a moral imperative, and research released since its initial passing has made it an urgent one.

A few weeks ago, a major clinical trial found that treating HIV-positive people with ARVs led to 96 per cent reduction of transmission for the 1,763 participating couples in 13 sites all over the world, including Kenya.

The breakthrough was so great that results were released four years earlier than scheduled.

“We have a new vaccine and it’s called treatment,” Dr. Jennifer Cohn from Medecins sans frontieres, a medical relief organization with offices in Kenya, recently told the Nairobi Star. Advocacy organizations also predicted the virus could be eradicated in Kenya in just a few years.

Kenya is our second home -we’ve spent the past 15 summers there. We love the untouched beauty of its landscapes and the warmth of its people, but we’re sick with the knowledge that AIDS devastates the country.

Mary was a nurse in Kenya’s Rift Valley. She knew her husband had been unfaithful, and that she was in danger. But he refused to wear condoms -he’d paid her dowry, she was his property. When Mary was diagnosed with HIV, her husband abandoned her while she was pregnant with their second child. Women are more likely to be identified as carriers because of prenatal testing. Her child, who we will call Abby, was born HIV-positive.

Mary couldn’t afford proper treatment. When she died, none of her close relatives would adopt Abby for fear of “catching” the virus. The now two-year-old has little hope of receiving the medicine she desperately needs to survive.

Canadian pharmaceutical company Apotex Inc. has promised to make a generic duplicate of a pediatric ARV should bill C-393 pass. Dr. James Orbinski, founder of the medical humanitarian organization Dignitas International and staunch supporter of C-393, has said this alone would save millions of lives, since generic drugs reduce treatment costs from $10,000 to $100 a year -even less for children, like Abby.

We wonder how many people were infected while Canada’s unelected Senate stalled a bill that passed in the House of Commons with a vote 172 to 111 -including support from the Bloc and NDP, all but two Liberals and a handful of Conservatives.

But not a single Conservative cabinet minister supported the bill, and brand-name drug companies, threatened by the prospect of lost business, lobbied against it.

Ideally, competition on the global market would increase with added competition from generic companies better able to compete on price, driving costs down for poor people dying preventable deaths. This is a humanitarian aid bill meant to save lives, not money.
After years battling opposition and regulatory quirks in the House, only to be stalled to death in the Senate, Bill C-393 isn’t guaranteed a swift pass through this Parliament.

Canada’s political landscape has changed. The NDP say they will reintroduce the private member’s bill that was first passed in the minority Parliament.

Canada has two choices.

The Conservative government could bolster the country’s reputation on the world stage at no cost to taxpayers. In fact, passing the bill would make Canada’s foreign aid dollars go further because we, and developing countries, could purchase more medicine for less.

Or, our government could fail to act, leaving countless people to die needless deaths.

CIHR Reverses Drug Trial Policy

Canada’s national funding agency for health sciences, CIHR, made a controversial move to cancel a policy that required full public disclosure on results from drug trials. Without full disclosure of study results, the public may not be privy to important early details about drugs that may be ineffective or worse, significantly toxic. Transparency, a necessity for gathering evidence and truth in making healthcare related decisions, is believed to have been further undermined by the lobbying efforts of Canada’s pharmaceutical corporations. CIHR has increasingly drawn fire for its closeness with industry, having appointed last year an executive from Pfizer to their national board. Quoting Sir Iain Chalmers, co-founder of the U.K.’s respected Cochrane Collaboration research body: “It seems to me that CIHR has decided that it’s going to put my interests and the interests of other patients behind those of industry…. I think that’s tragic.”

The full article by the National Post is available here.

What Would You Say to your Children about the Canadian Government? (My two cents)

It’s election time again and, as is the norm, we see teachers using the opportunity to talk to their students about things such as Prime Ministers, parliaments, senates, and, well, basically – how this thing we call the “Canadian Government” is meant to work. My own daughter who is in Grade 4 is in such a class, and has been asking me all sorts of questions: the most prevalent of which is “Who is Alice Wong?” Not a surprising question, since her face is fairly ubiquitous in Richmond, BC where I live, being set against the many blue Conservative signs and placards (she is our incumbent MP).

Because we’ve had a few elections of late, I have a habit of how I deal with such questions from my kids – these opportunities to talk politics. So far, being an educator and scientist myself, my training forces me to be objective, focusing primarily on the different philosophies that each of our political parties represent, including the general pros and cons of each. I tell my children that who you choose is a personal decision driven by what you think is important. Above all, voting is a privilege, as is the act of receiving a vote if you are campaigning. I think it best to not indoctrinate your kids with your own views, but rather to succinctly tell them that voting is something special, and deserves some effort to be informed on the issues. If you take that view, the rest will happen naturally.

Unfortunately, this time around, and to my surprise, I found myself facing my daughter and uttering the following: “I’m not really a big fan of Alice Wong.” This was quite a shift of attitude, and here is why: I have no issue with Conservative ideas and values (I actually agree with some of them), but I am tremendously concerned with the actions of the current Canadian Government.

How I came to this conclusion is due to many issues, but the one that has lit the proverbial “fire in my belly,” is a law that would fix policy to allow life saving drugs to be made at lower cost. There’s merit in this because it permits individuals, desperate in places like Africa, to be able to afford them. HIV/AIDS has the most disconcerting narrative: if you are diagnosed with HIV, now considered a chronic disease with very effective medicines, the choice between living and dying is based on your income. It’s that cold.

This law was called Bill C-393. And it was a good one. It was aimed to be innovative and to fix the previous law, which wasn’t working at all. It took care to protect Canadian pharmaceutical companies so that such generic drugs could only be sold to markets that weren’t in the industry’s bottom line. It had a built in “let’s monitor” clause. It was backed up by robust expert peer review, involving economists, policy analysts, health experts. Cost to taxpayers: zero. Because of all of these facts, it was passed by the Parliament in March – even many Conservatives broke rank and voted for it.

However, in a truly frustrating string of events, it was left to die in Senate, when Tory Senators (a large portion of which were appointed by Harper) continually delayed voting on it, until it was killed by default with the call of the election. A mini screenplay to describe this would consist of four acts, each one with the same dialogue: “We’d like to adjourn because such and such would like to speak, but oh, he’s left for the day, can we do this tomorrow?”

Why were there these four days of delay? Apparently, it’s because the pharmaceutical industry would rather keep things as is, even going so far as to distribute misleading counter arguments, all of which have been firmly discredited by the aforementioned expert peer review process. All of which were delivered top down to the mailboxes of Conservative Senators, and the rest, as they say, is history.

I know that critiquing Miss Wong in front of my daughter is somewhat unfair (despite being one of the few who voted against Bill C-393 in parliament), but she is representative of the bigger problem. She is a small cog in a remarkably unsettling machine. I know the value of strong leadership, but this should not trump ethical leadership. Can you imagine my daughter at school, learning not about how the “Canadian Government” works, but instead, the “Harper Government?”

Drop a beat: Grannies rap about access to medicines

Canadian grannies and their families rap to K’naan’s Wavin Flag to demand that Canada make good on its promise to provide affordable medicines to countries in need. A child dies every 6 seconds in developing countries because of a lack of affordable, lifesaving medicines. Some 17 million children in Africa have been orphaned because of HIV/AIDS. Most are being raised by their courageous, desperately poor grandmothers. You can help–take action at http://www.aidsaction.ca/ and contact your local politicians today!

A chance for Canada to make good (for a change).

Here’s an interesting press release regarding Canada’s reputation as a do-gooder. It seems that it’s taken a hit over the last few years, but that there’s still opportunities to improve our image: a big one being our possible actions on the Access to Medicine front.

Anyway, here’s the just released press release. And don’t forget: If you’re a reader from Canada, don’t forget to check out aidsaction.ca. Here, you can look up your candidates and send off an email to support the Call to Action to reform Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime and help save lives!

For immediate release

NEW POLL SHOWS CANADIANS CONCERNED ABOUT GLOBAL REPUTATION, BUT CONFIDENT IT CAN BE IMPROVED BY MAKING AFFORDABLE MEDICINES AVAILABLE TO DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Grassroots campaign begins to build support for quick passage of bill after election

Toronto, April 26, 2011 – A new public opinion poll shows twice as many Canadians (35%) believe the country’s international reputation has declined in the last few years rather than improved (17%), with a third (37%) believing it has just remained the same. But according to the same poll, seven in 10 Canadians (71%) feel that it would improve the country’s reputation if Canada were to pass a bill making it easier to supply less expensive, generic medicines to people in developing countries for diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Canada was on the verge of passing such a law – Bill C-393 to reform Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR) – before it was delayed in the Senate and thus died on the order paper when the election was called.

“This poll confirms the tremendous opportunity presented to Members of Parliament and Senators willing to fix Canada’s broken Access to Medicines Regime,” said Richard Elliott, Executive Director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. “Not only will such a bill help get desperately needed medicines to people dying of treatable diseases, it will also improve Canada’s reputation as a good global citizen.”

With Canada’s foreign aid now frozen and the loss of a seat at the UN Security Council seen by some as a setback for the country’s international reputation, humanitarian initiatives such as legislation to fix CAMR – which will cost taxpayers nothing – presents a compelling rallying point.

In fact, a grassroots movement made up of grandmothers groups, student organizations, and health and human rights activists have launched www.AIDSaction.ca. It asks every candidate from the major federal parties in every riding to indicate whether they support fixing CAMR to help those most in need. The website will track candidates’ responses online in an interactive chart so voters across the country can see which candidates in their riding have already stated their support for fixing CAMR. It also makes it easy for voters to e-mail the candidates in their ridings to ask them where they stand if they haven’t yet replied.

“Canadians were strongly behind a bill that would have saved lives,” said Andrea Beal, co-chair of the National Advocacy Committee of the Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign. “We’re asking candidates to listen to the will of the people and support making affordable medicines accessible to developing countries. This new poll is just further evidence of why they should act.”

Created unanimously by Parliament in 2004, CAMR has been rendered practically useless because of red tape. Only one order of one medicine was ever filled, and to just a single country. The one generic drug company that did use CAMR has said it will not attempt to use the cumbersome process again, nor will any developing countries try. Critical to the goal of cutting through this red tape is the “one-license solution”, a key part of any CAMR-reform legislation.

Before Bill C-393 died in the Senate last month, public momentum was behind efforts to make affordable medicines available to people who need them. The legislation – which included the “one-license solution” – had the support of many prominent Canadians including international aid workers, human rights leaders, physicians and faith leaders. It was also supported by more than 70 000 Canadians who signed a petition or sent letters calling on Parliament to pass the bill into law. When the House voted on March 9, Bill C-393 passed by a strong majority – 172 to 111 – with support from MPs representing all parties.

“Canadians have shown over and over that they get it when it comes to the rights of all people to have access to medicines that will save their lives,” said Aria Ahmad, coordinator of the University of Toronto chapter of the international student group Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM). “We urge candidates for Parliament to listen to them.”

More background information on efforts to fix Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime including detailed arguments by international legal and health experts in favour of previous legislative attempts to do just that can be reviewed at www.aidslaw.ca/camr.

A Primer on the Subject of Access to Medicines

Here’s a piece I wrote for online reading at Scientific American. It basically tries to cover the main ideas and main challenges in Access to Medicines issues. Not a bad place to start to get into the swing of things. Also, If you’re a reader from Canada, don’t forget to check out aidsaction.ca. Here, you can look up your candidates and send off an email to support the Call to Action to reform Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime and help save lives!

– – –

30 minutes, 70 fates.

You don’t know it, but as I write this piece, there is some serious procrastination going on. My attention span is weak and sidetracked constantly by a variety of diversions, and if you must know, it’s taken me close to half an hour to write these first two sentences. Still, one could argue that none of us are strangers to procrastination, and 30 minutes is relatively short – only a minor instance of time in the grand scheme of things.

But a lot can happen in thirty minutes. Earlier, I had been looking over some 2009 UNAIDS statistics, and noting the numbers issued in the report. They are all very big, big enough certainly to require the pressing of buttons on calculators. More to the point, I learn that during my thirty minutes, approximately 70 people died from HIV/AIDS in Sub-Sahara Africa. That’s 1.3 million victims each year – in Sub-Sahara Africa alone. Many of these were parents leaving orphans, and many were young children just leaving. Most troubling, however, is the fact that all of them suffered their fate with a loss of dignity.

Why do I say this? I say this because people shouldn’t have to die from HIV/AIDS. There are good medicines out there, and they can control the disease. In fact, for those in the developed world, HIV/AIDS is now considered a chronic disorder, not a death sentence. If you are diagnosed, you are no longer forced to take a shortcut to demise. You can still have a long life, you can still be productive, and you can still live with dignity.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t an option for those who passed away. For them, the medicines were out of reach. They were simply too expensive. And from this, you come to realize a cold hard fact in this narrative: that the fate of a person living or dying from HIV/AIDS is determined by their income. This statement is fairly straightforward, with no mincing of words, or confused rhetoric. But for most, it feels fundamentally wrong, and yet, it is a simple reality of how the world works today. Why it works in this way, however, is complicated.

Let’s Talk Prescriptions, Canadian Style

I understand the free market system, I really do. I understand the necessity of incentive and that companies are accountable to their shareholders. I get it. But I also think there are limits.

I recently heard some very convincing arguments for why we should privatize healthcare and save taxpayer money. Those who can afford insurance shouldn’t be responsible for those who can’t. It was hard to hear. Thankfully I then came upon this article by Marc-André Gagnon which reinforced my beliefs that privatizing everything does not lead to the greatest benefits.

He points out that Canada has the fastest rising drug costs in the world, over 10 percent per year. Where is it less expensive? Countries with universal pharmacare (i.e. France, Britain, Sweden). A shift to universal Pharmacare in Canada? Could save at least 2.9 billion (more details in the article).

What I felt was the most significant point in the article was that drugs are not necessarily prescribed because of efficacy but because of drug company promotional campaigns. What we need is a shift to something called ‘evidence-based medicine’, this means drugs are prescribed because they will help you not because they are the latest invention.

BC’s Therapeutics Initiative encourages evidence based medicine:

“Because of this, not only do British Columbians have the best therapeutic choices and the best health outcomes in Canada, they also pay on average 8.2 per cent less per capita for their drugs”

That sounds pretty good to me.

Sneaky: European Free Trade Talks can also affect prices of drugs in Canada

Yup. Apparently, our previous post on data exclusivity and the like, will also effect prices in places like Canada as well.

Specifically:

Provisions in a new trade deal being negotiated between Canada and the European Union could add about $2.8-billion a year in costs to Canadian drug plans if implemented, a new report warns.

The estimate includes $1.3-billion more for public drug plans and $1.5-billion for private drug plans.

This is because the EU is asking for a number of things, including lengthening the terms of data exclusivity. Given that in Canada, “Generics account for 54 per cent of prescription drugs and brand-name drugs 46 per cent,” moves such as this will obviously prevent or at least greatly delay the existence of generics in the market. Crucially, and what is a bit dodgy about this whole thing, is that such moves will do these things even if a patent has already expired. It’s just another sneaky way for the pharmaceutical industry to keep control.

Anyway, read the whole Globe and Mail article at the link below.

LINK; EU trade deal could cost Canadian drug plans billions

Voting: An Access to Medicines Perspective

If you’re looking for the most access to medicines friendly party in this election, I’d say the NDP is looking pretty good right now.

Jack Layton has done two monumental things for C-393 so far in my opinion. In the English language debate he noted the audacity of the Senate to block a bill passed by the House of Commons. Then, in his official party platform, he explicitly states that his party will aim to remove the red tape for the export of generics. –> http://www.ndp.ca/platform/leadership-on-world-stage#section-6-3

You might also notice that on the newly launched www.aidsaction.ca, the NDP have all endorsed C-393, contrast that with the rest of the parties. Hmm…look’s like someone’s got their priorities straight.

Note: this post is based on personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect the position of UAEM

IT’S ALIVE PEOPLE! (http://AIDSaction.ca) #aidsaction

Janet says:

Dear friends,

AIDSAction.ca is now live – a grassroots online community where you, personally, can make positive change related to the human rights issues facing people affected by and vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, in Canada and internationally.

And there’s no better time to take action than right now – during the 2011 federal election! Please visit http://www.aidsaction.ca to ask candidates in your riding to indicate their support for fixing Canada’s (broken) Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR) and stand up for those most in need. You can also visit our interactive Candidates Chart to see which candidates in your riding have already stated their support for fixing CAMR.

If you want to make your voice heard, AIDSAction.ca is one way to do it! Please spread the word widely and ask your personal networks to stand with you as you work to make our world a better place.

The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network

LINK: AIDSaction.ca

More of this please. Green Party steps up for Bill C393

Game on!

4 February 2011 – 3:14pm
OTTAWA — The Green Party applauds Parliament’s decision to allow NDP MP Paul Dewar to be recognized as Bill C-393’s new sponsor. The bill would amend the Canadian Access to Medicines Regime to allow developing countries access to affordable medications. Submitted as a private member’s bill by now retired New Democratic MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis, the bill had been waiting for a new sponsor before a final debate. “We are so pleased to see this spirit of cooperation on such a critical issue,” said Green Leader Elizabeth May.

Now that Bill C-393 has been rejuvenated, the Green Party of Canada urges all MPs to vote in favour. “Millions of people struggling with AIDS/HIV, particularly in developing countries, would be helped by the passage of Bill C-393,” said Elizabeth May, Green Party Leader.
Almost a third of the more than thirty million people living with HIV still do not have access to medicine, according to UNAIDS. This Bill would allow Canadian companies to produce and distribute AIDS medication at a low price, something that is currently prevented by barriers within the Canadian Access to Medicines Regime. “The Canadian Access to Medicines Regime is not working and needs to be fixed,” said May. “This bill is how we do that and in turn ensure Canada is on the front line of helping ensure global access to medication.”

“Surely the connection between maternal health in developing countries and the need for affordable AIDS drugs is evident to all. Opposing Bill C-393 would undermine maternal health – not to mention child health,” said Dr. Georgina Wilcock, Green Health Critic.

LINK: Greens support amendments to Canadian Access to Medicines Regime

HIV/AIDS expert Julio Montaner urges Vancouver crowd not to vote for Stephen Harper’s Conservatives

Former President of the International AIDS Society and Director of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, Dr. Julio Montaner, delivered a powerful speech calling on Canadians to do the right thing with their vote in the upcoming federal election:

“Even the pope gets it, so why the hell does Stephen Harper [not] get it,” Montaner, a former International AIDS Society president, said.

The Harper government has launched court challenges to try to have Vancouver’s supervised-injection site shut down.

Montaner revealed that B.C. is the only jurisdiction in the country that has experienced steadily decreasing rates of new HIV diagnoses since 1996.

He pointed out that no other region in the country can match B.C.’s record.

“Do the right thing when you go to vote,” Montaner advised the audience.

 

You can find the original article from the Georgia Straight here.

In which the shuttlecock is a metaphor for how access to medicine laws can get treated in Canada.

In other words, it doesn’t get treated well, but (given the circumstances), it’s amazing that it doesn’t ever totally get destroyed.

O.K. You want coverage of Tony Clement being sneaky? Here you go.

Probably not his favourite picture of himself.

So at the bottom of this post is a quick round-up of the various news articles that went up (just before Bill C-393 died), that basically showed how the Bill was delayed and ultimately killed…

But for those who want the truncated version, here (in a nutshell) is what basically transpired. You can get a fuller version of the events of that one week of Senate activities by checking out this megafacepalm post at Boingboing.

1. We have someone who would like to say some stuff, but, hang on, he’s stepped out so let’s delay it until tomorrow…

2. And then there was stuff about “Well if you want it passed, you should try to make sure this election call doesn’t happen, but oh wait, let’s delay it for a day anyway…”

3. And then the next day, it was delayed again…

4. And then again, except “Oh, here’s an interesting leaked email, which happened to be full of spun misinformation, going around…” Hmmm… maybe we should delay it another day?

5. And then, well, it essentially died because you know the election call thingy happened (oh what a shock! If we had known, maybe we would have dealt with this earlier!).

So what happened: Well, by and large it seemed to be that certain folks preferred to not have to vote on Bill C-393 (knowing how popular it was and all), especially since there is always the need to maintain good relationships with your pharmaceutical friends.

All to say that this doesn’t strike me as either being very a rational way to examine a potentially invaluable law, or a very democratic way to do things.

Tory senators determined to delay bill giving medical aid to Africa (Ottawa Citizen, 23 March, 2011)

Tony Clement behind Senate delay, leaked document shows (Xtra!, 24 March 2011)

Clement attempts to block AIDS drug bill (Toronto Star, 24 March 2011)

Tony Clement urges senators to block generic-drug legislation (The Globe & Mail, 24 March 2011)

Supporters vow to make AIDS drugs an election issue.

(From Dale Smith National / Thursday, April 07, 2011) – link

NEWS / Grannies target opponents, including former senator Larry Smith

A bill that would reform Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR) — which would make it easier to sell cheap generic AIDS drugs to the developing world — died in the Senate when the election was called. Supporters of reforming CAMR have vowed to make this an issue on the campaign trail, and some of them have the organization to make this a reality.

For the Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign, a group of “grandmothers and grand others” from the Western world who pair with grandmothers in the developing world to address the challenges of AIDS there, they have already begun the work.

“We’re putting articles in every community newspaper, and continuing to write articles for major newspapers, and trying to get the press involved in this as much as we can,” says Bonnie Johnson, an Ottawa member of the Grandmothers’ national advocacy committee. “We intend to be asking questions at every candidates’ meeting, and we intend to get a question asked at the leaders’ debate.”

There are more than 240 Grandmothers groups around the country.

Bill C-393 and the Failure of Canadian Democracy.

(From Sahar Golshan, THE VARSITY (University of Toronto) This article was published on Apr 4, 2011 in the Comment section. – link

What you should do to recover an initiative that can bring greater access to medicine

Good News! The House of Commons passed Bill C-393, a proposed law to create greater access to life-saving medicines to treat AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria and other public health problems in developing countries.

Bad news. The Harper Government killed it.

The battle to improve Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR) has been a seven year long fight. Recently, 70,000 Canadians kept up the fight by mobilising in demonstrations, signing petitions, and contacting their democratic representatives in Ottawa.

How can Conservative senators look at themselves in the mirror?

(From Gerald Caplan, Globe and Mail, Published Friday, Apr. 01, 2011 3:45PM EDT) – link

Stephen Harper ended Parliament in typical style. He had the trained seals he’s appointed to the unelected Senate (a body he doesn’t believe in) sabotage the clear will of the democratically elected House of Commons with consequences that will cost the lives of “thousands, maybe millions, of poor people” in Africa and elsewhere.

The words are those of an outraged James Orbinski, a renowned doctor and Canadian expert in international health. The issue is Bill C-393, passed by a large majority in the House to provide inexpensive Canadian-made generic drugs for people in poor countries dying of easily treatable diseases such as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

The role of the Conservative majority in the Senate was to deliberately stall passage of the bill ensuring it died once the election was called. The instructions came from the Supreme Puppetmaster, Stephen Harper, speaking through one of his most reliable dummies, Industry Minister Tony Clement. The message from Mr. Clement cemented the reputation he warmly earned during the long-form census fiasco. As Dr. Orbinski noted, Mr. Clement’s case to the Senate’s Conservative majority for not supporting C-393 was based on “distortions, deceptions, lies and scare-mongering.” Par for the course, in other words.