In the centre of the coat of arms is a sand dollar, which is a special talisman for Michaëlle Jean. Sand dollars are marine creatures found on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Canada and Northern United States. The Royal Crown symbolizes the vice-regal function and service to all Canadians. Above the shield, the sea shell and broken chain allude to the famous sculpture Marron inconnu by Albert Mangonès, displayed in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, depicting an escaped slave blowing a sea shell to gather and call to arms his fellow sufferers around the whole island. For Michaëlle Jean this image evokes the victory of her ancestors over barbarism and, more broadly, the call to liberty. Beside the shield are two Simbis, water spirits from Haitian culture who comfort souls, purify troubled waters and intervene with wisdom and foresight. Moreover, the Simbis' words are enlightening and soothing. These two feminine figures symbolize the vital role played by women in advancing social justice. They are shown in front of a rock set with a palm tree, a symbol of peace in Haitian history, and a pine tree representing the natural riches of Canada. The motto Briser les solitudes, which means "Breaking down solitudes", is at the heart of the objectives Michaëlle Jean intends to follow.
"(Simbi) is definitely a cross-roads loa, and his symbol, or vever, is a snake in a field of crosses ... In Simbi's case, the cross-roads principle is extended to the concept of straddling the Rada/Petro division in one direction (it is said that, while Simbi is primarily Rada, a "hungry" Simbi would be invoked through Petro) while in the other direction, he is known as Simbi/en/deux/eux and straddles the waters above and the waters below, which are understood either as the heavenly and the abysmal waters, or as the sweet and salt waters. .... Certainly it is a role for which his pivotal position in the cosmos and in the pantheon equips him admirably, for he radiates in every direction from his central location ... Yet, for all his activity, his personality is more obscure that that of many other loa. Songs refer repeatedly to his reluctance to enter the hounfor gate, his loitering outside, like a sociable neighbour newly come to the district, who is still a little shy for all his knowledge and power."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper invoked these words from Scripture in his election-night speech not to announce a social conservative theocracy but to signal a strategic shift. The Conservatives won this election by polarizing against a divided centre-left, but the way to govern for the next couple of years will be to tack back and forth between the opposition parties, using the arts of conciliation and compromise to build support for each piece of legislation as needed. Mr. Harper will use the coalition-building talents he showed when he reunited the fragmented Canadian Alliance, then pursued the successful merger with the Progressive Conservatives.
It is essentially the way Mr. Harper operated in the first half of his previous minority government, before the Liberals became more combative under their new leader, Stéphane Dion. Thereafter, Mr. Harper switched to intimidation, using confidence votes and the threat of dissolution to pursue his agenda. It worked well in terms of passing legislation, but it also encouraged the opposition to fight back by hijacking parliamentary committees. If Mr. Harper eases up on confidence votes, it should encourage a more co-operative spirit among the opposition. If not, he can always go back to the lash.
I don't write much on Canadian politics, but given our present absurdities how can I resist. So ...
According to his Wikipedia entry - once upon a time way back in high school - in Don Mills Ontario, back in the seventies - where in addition to running cross-country, being a member of his school's Reach for the Top team and graduating at the top of his class with a 95.7% average, Stephen Harper was also once a member of the Young Liberals Club.
Believe it. Could Stephen Harper have once got his groove on and succumbed to the full emotive power of Trudeaumania? Imagine that.
But because he "disagreed" with the National Energy Program of the then federal Canadian government of Pierre Trudeau he would later drop out of the University of Toronto after two months and move out to Edmonton, Alberta where he took a job in the mail room at Imperial Oil. He completed both a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Economics at the University of Calgary, all the while immersing himself in right wing Canadian politics. First with the then Progressive Conservative Party, as chief aide to MP Jim Hawkes, where he soon became "disillusioned" again, this time with the government of Brian Mulroney, in particular its fiscal policy, and so he ultimately ended up in his natural home of the then Reform Party. Which he in turn ended up leaving as well. I'm not sure why, perhaps he had a some kind of extremely disillusioning falling out with its founder Preston Manning. No matter, because the rest, as they say, is history. Even now.
I bring this up now because its the closest clue that I can presently find, the rosetta stone if you will, that might help us, dear reader - if we dare, decode the dark, angry psyche of our present Prime Minister of Canada which is, I believe, the true cause of our present Constitutional crisis. For this one was personal. Its all on him. His baby, his creation.
Stephen Harper's anger has always been a mystery to me, and so yes, this helps explain a lot. Harper as a man of reaction. In reaction to something deep inside himself, something from way back when, when he was young, when he believed. This kind of dynamic is not uncommon in politicians afterall, and one could argue that their youthful 'disillusionments' count among the greatest learning experiences of their careers, certainly some of the most formidable. Pierre "reason over passion" Trudeau once flirted with fascism when he was young and Ronald Reagan was a well-known New Deal FDR Democrat. Their roots in the "Trotskyite' Left of what has been come to known as "neoconservatism" has been well documented in recent years.
Once should never underestimate the motivation born of alienation.
I'm trying to imagine the young misunderstood Stephen Harper, the smartest kid in school, arguing passionately with his fellow Young Liberals about the centralist tyranny represented by the National Energy Program, lost in the stultifying soft-left conformity of the Toronto suburbs while dreaming of the purity of the West. Why can't anybody see? I will make them. I will make them see. One day. They'll all see. Or later, nursing his pride, assorted intellectual grievances and plotting his political future while shuffling envelopes in the Edmonton mail room of Imperial Oil. Indeed, as in the early years of this century a young Ho Chi Minh, the one time Jeffersonian Democrat, worked different jobs in kitchens from Paris to London and even New York and Boston while spending most of his free time educating himself at the public library. As just another Parisian bus boy and advocate for Vietnamese Independence he even once tried to crash the 1919 Paris Peace Conference.
Dear reader, the comparison is not that far off. For modern Conservatives, at least the North American variety, have always gotten off styling themselves as revolutionaries. Its their little ironic joke and inspires them to no end. Everybody remembers Mike Harris.
For Harper's Grand Project, it seems to me, what really inspires and animates him, has always been The End of Trudeau Liberalism, the End of the Trudeau Vision of Canada (i.e. the final victory over his youthful self, so full of illusions) - and to that end he has sought to dramtically shrink the size of the federal government. The problem is that he has yet to achieve a majority government and so he has been forced to go about his goals quietly, gradually, often with a 'death by a thousand cuts' approach, as with the GST cut. And circumstance and political expediency has demanded that he go about it, more often than not, stealthily lest he leave himself open to the charges of being the hard core conservative that his dreaded opponents are always attempting to tag him as, and thus court electoral defeat. And this public subterfuge,this lack of clarity, has often been the primary complaint of not just those same opponents, but of Canadian conservatives themselves. As well known Canadian conservative columnist Andrew Coyne blogged just today:
Should Stephen Harper wear this? Of course. It was his decision, and his error. Some have attributed this to hubris. I think it is rather timidity. It is of a piece with the whole strategy the party has pursued over the past several years. Rather than openly advocate a particular course of action — rather than clearly articulate a distinctive philosophy of government and a program of government that flows from it, they have relied on trickery, surprises, tacitcal manoeuvres — and sometimes on sheer thuggery. They don’t have the confidence that they can win the arguments on their merits, that they can beat their opponents, as it were, on the ice. So instead they try to lick ‘em in the alley.
Arrogance, combined with timidity, of all things. Not having the courage of his obvious convictions.
Which brings us to where we are today. Though the Opposition (or Future Coalition Government, whatever you want to call them) may complain that they have been forced into this action because of Harper's lack of what they deem to be a proper economic stimulus, or even for his effort to take the right to strike away from the public sector unions both contained in the now infamous 'Economic Update - Protecting Canada's Future - Economic and Fiscal Statement, November 27, 2008 - I agree with those commentators who have pointed out that his actions are more base and more political. In the relative chaos of this present transition phase Harper saw the possibility of striking a death blow against his foes, and more importantly to the Liberal Party itself, in an opportunity to cut off the present bulk of their funding, and he went for it. All in, as they say in Texas. And there it is on Page 51 - the poison pill, as its being called:
Political parties now receive taxpayer support in three ways: (a) tax credit for
contributions to political parties; (b) the reimbursement of eligible election
expenses; and (c) a quarterly subsidy based on votes cast. In keeping with
the focus on spending management, the quarterly subsidy that benefits
political parties is no longer justifiable. The Government will eliminate this
subsidy as of April 1, 2009.
The Government will report on its progress on these initiatives in
Budget 2009.
Now I, like I assume most people, wasn't even aware that this arrangement even existed and now that I do I think I can say honestly that I don't really have a problem with it. I have since learned that it amounts to $1.95 a vote (Canadian) and that for The Bloc, for example, this amounts to about eighty six percent of their funding (though I have no idea to the accuracy of this latter figure). I certainly don't think its anything to bring down the government over and if Stephen Harper really felt that way he should have made his feelings known, in public, or even campaigned on it. But he didn't. Like with the Arts cuts in the previous budget he attempted to pass this thing by stealth and dishonesty. And then the Opposition called his bluff.
Which brings us to where we are today:
Stephen Harper standing in the House of Commons about ready to burst a vein, roaring about the perfidy of the Liberals, their lack of patriotism, about "getting into bed" with "Separatists" and "Socialists". In other words, he has engineered a situation, perhaps even unconsciously, where he can now live out his real life and exist in his natural state. In all his glory.
Its all pretty unnecessary, but it is what it is. And I don't know what's going to happen. But the tragedy is that next to nobody really cares about this, and nobody certainly wants to live here:
Here. In Stephen Harper's head.
Action and Reaction. The impulse, and then the defense.
No, its not the cast of the Sopranos, but members of the Toronto police force drug squad. The charges against them were staid today because of unreasonable trial delays in what has been called Canada's "biggest ever police corruption scandal.".
The controversy that would surround the staying of charges would be far preferable to a parade of witnesses alleging they were beaten and robbed, Sapiano argued. (Toronto defense lawyer Edward Sapiano who 'helped trigger the probe')
"The last thing in the world they want is witness after witness taking the stand, testifying about how these things happened to them and about our courts, our judges, accepting uncritically the word of the officers."
Robert Gates's statements the other day about NATO shortcomings in counterinsurgency warfare in southern Afghanistan reminded me of all that I have learned from my recent reading of the indespensible The Unexpected War by Janice Stein and Eugene Lang.
"I'm worried we're deploying [military advisors] that are not properly trained and I'm worried we have some military forces that don't know how to do counterinsurgency operations,"
"Most of the European forces, NATO forces, are not trained in counterinsurgency; they were trained for the Fulda Gap," Gates said, referring to the German region where a Soviet invasion of Western Europe was deemed most likely.
Gates said he raised his concerns last month in Scotland at a meeting of NATO countries with troops in southern Afghanistan and suggested additional training.
But he added that his concerns did not appear to be shared by the NATO allies. "No one at the table stood up and said: 'I agree with that.' "
The article goes on to state:
Gates' criticism comes as the Bush administration has decided to send 3,200 U.S. Marines to southern Afghanistan on a temporary mission to help quell the rising number of attacks. It also comes amid growing friction among allied commanders over the Afghan security situation.
But coming from an administration castigated for its conduct of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, such U.S. criticism of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is controversial. Many NATO officials blame inadequate U.S. troop numbers earlier in the war in part for a Taliban resurgence.
"It's been very, very difficult to apply the classic counterinsurgency doctrine because you've had to stabilize the situation sufficiently to start even applying it," said one European NATO official, who discussed the issue on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the alliance. "Even in the classic counterinsurgency doctrine, you've still got to get the fighting down to a level where you can apply the rest of the doctrine."
Gates' views, however, reflect those expressed recently by senior U.S. military officials with responsibility for Afghanistan. Some have said that an overreliance on heavy weaponry, including airstrikes, by NATO forces in the south may unwittingly be contributing to rising violence there.
"Execution of tasks, in my view, has not been appropriate," said one top U.S. officer directly involved in the Afghan campaign who discussed internal assessments on condition of anonymity. "It's not the way to do business, in my opinion. We've got to wean them of this. If they won't change then we're going to have another solution."
Gates has publicly criticized European allies in the past for failing to send adequate numbers of troops and helicopters to the Afghan mission. But concerns about strategy and tactics are usually contained within military and diplomatic channels.
In the interview, Gates compared the troubled experience of the NATO forces in the south -- primarily troops from the closest U.S. allies, Britain and Canada, as well as the Netherlands -- with progress made by American troops in the eastern part of Afghanistan. He traced the failing in part to a Cold War orientation.
In the days following though Gates was forced to do major damage control, to apologize, backtrack and praise the contributions those NATO allies he had previously criticized - particularly Canada, Great Britain, and the Netherlands - one couldn't help but feel that the desired effect had been achieved. The raising of the question. The sowing of the seed. And leaving aside for the moment the great difference between the South and the East of Afghanistan and the distinctions between the counterinsurgencies in those respective areas -
The Unexpected War is a deeply researched, absolutely vital book that tells the back story all about the decision making processes behind the Canadian involvement in Afghanistan, as well as the many, often competing political agendas of many of the primary movers in Ottawa.
One learns,for instance, that Canada's original six month involvement in Kandahar in 2002 came about because there were rumblings within NATO's European members that Canada was somehow not up to the task set forth in the original mandate of the International Security Assistance Force. And this seems to have been taken and felt very personally within the corridors of power as it came to light amongst Canadian politicians and policy makers, particularly within the Canadian military. And thus Canada ended doing a six month - "early in, early out" - tour in Kandahar to prove that we could, to do our part, and because apparently many decision makers within the Ministry of Defense and the military proper would much rather deal with the Americans than with our European NATO Allies. In fact, one learns a lot (I certainly did) about our Military's obsession with "interoperability" with our American Allies, and just how much the our nation's civilian preoccupation with our much celebrated "peacekeeping image" grinds upon our Military - so hurt by the scandals and budget cuts of the '90's - "the lost years" as they are known - and how much they crave respect as a world class fighting force.
So I'm sure it comes as no shock to General Hillier that Robert Gates feels that our military is stuck in some kind of a 'Cold War' mindset since this is precisely how he feels. The Unexpected War tells the story in great detail of how the very intelligent and charismatic and well-connected Hillier stepped into a strategic vacuum in Ottawa and basically had his way and set the course for Canadian policy in Afghanistan and thus became the most prominent and powerful Cheif of Defense Staff in recent memory, perhaps ever. Hilier envisions the conflict in southern Afghanistan as a "transformative" theatre for the Canadian forces, training them to fight a "three block war" in the "failed states" which will certainly be the greatest security challenges of the 21st Century. Hillier feels that the Canadian military needs to stop being all things to all people everywhere, and needs to stop being some kind of miniature version of the American or British Armies. He wants our military to be the best small army in the world. And most definitely, definitively trained in counterinsurgency. So what better environment than southern Afghanistan.
Through this book I learned that despite all our dramas up here the Americans didn't really care nor want us involved in the war in Iraq. But because of those dramas, and perhaps in compensation, we extended our mission in Afghanistan in order to make amends, and yes "do our part". We took over the leadership of ISAF based out of Kabul for a year, lead by Hillier and then we subsequently moved back into Kandahar. And then Harper extended the mission through a truncated, strategic vote in the House of Commons, and thus here we are.
The book tells the story about how our involvement in Afghanistan had almost nothing to do with Afghanistan and everything to do with us. Afghanistan being the "object", and not the "subject".
The Americans have just sent another 3200 Marines to southern Afghanistan. The Taliban is itself surging, perhaps in control of 50% of the country. Things in Pakistan are deteriorating with fundamentalists, tribalists of many factions on the rise. There is much debate amongst NATO countries about their own future involvement in Afghanistan. And Canada's own involvement is scheduled to finish in a year - in Febuary 2009. And so thus are own great debate about this topic - about what to do, about whether or not to extend the mission - will soon be upon us. Is, upon us.
And then Gates drops these comments in the press. I heard Brian Stewart say on The National the other night that he doesn't think they were directed towards the troops themselves, or even towards the military, but rather towards our politicians. Gates would like them to be more aggressive in their planning and decision making in this counterinsurgent warfare.
Gates is playing games in the press. He knew what he was doing.
I'm guessing that when the 2010 Vancouver/Whistler Winter Olympics finally roll around in two years there's going to be lots of references to Aboriginal culture. Lots of dancing, drumming, native dress, references to aboriginal creation myths during the opening ceremonies; some elders will be brought in to bless the proceedings, that kind of thing. You can already see them using an Inuksuk (those Inuit 'rock piles') as one of their official icons. And as it should be. I have no problem with it, in fact I'm all for it. Like Australians we post-centennial, post-modern Canadians like to reach back to the deep time or the dream time when it comes time to show our face to the world. How real we are. The indigenous art. What inspired up and out from the land before the blight of colonialism. See, "we" are as ancient as everybody else. As old as Europe.
I suppose its a kind of progress really, but a large dose of irony might still be necessary amidst all our mutual, terribly official self-congratulation. Residential schools aside - check out Bill Reid on the twenty dollar bill. Bill Reid at the Vancouver airport. And my personal favourite, Bill Reid at the Canadian Embassy in Washington.
Many a Canadian white boy and girl has ventured forth into The Bush, however clumsily, trying to catch a whiff of the spirits. Going deep, getting back, oh yeah - getting real. Going back to the earth, because as the late, great Canadian poet Gwendolyn MacEwen once wrote: "No one invited us here.".
But I wonder if any "Canadian" (and yes, in the context of this post I do feel the need to put that word in quotation marks) ever saw this 'real spirit' behind the surface of what we now call Canada better and more vibrantly than the recently, dearly departed Norval Morrisseau. His paintings were literally churning from the inside out. Skeletal and skeletons. Often called "x-ray". People within animals and animals within people and animals within animals within people covered in flowers riding on a fish, and all of it singing in the most glorious colour. And so out there and dangerous, freaky, hallucinogenic, tripping the bounds of sanity, and erotic. And inspired by sacred, ancient aboriginal myth.
"Why am I alive?"he said in a 1991 interview with The Toronto Star. "To heal you guys who are more screwed up than I am. How can I heal you? With color. These are the colors you dreamt about one night." (from the NYT obituary)
I've adored his work for years, before I ever knew his name or even knew who the fuck he was. I bought my first Norval Morrisseau print a few years back at some poster sale in Hamilton and I remember riding the GO bus back into Toronto with the thing spread out on my lap for the whole trip, taking it in grinning ear to ear, just dazzled. And that was just a print. A poster. I tacked it to my kitchen wall and it made me happy every time I looked at it.
If anyone was the God Father of the Renaissance of Aboriginal Art and Culture that has ultimately made Canada a much humbler, more honest, better and yes more beautiful place, it had to be him. And at its heart the work was a profound movement for justice. That which cannot be denied.
The show documents Morrisseau's progression as an artist, charting the creative and spiritual journey that would contribute to his unique style of painting known as 'Woodland' or 'Legend' painting, now called Anishnaabe, of which he is the originator. In works that evoke ancient symbolic etchings of sacred birchbark scrolls and pictographic renderings of spiritual creatures, Morrisseau reveals the souls of humans and animals through his unique '"x-ray" style of imaging: Sinewy black spirit lines emanate, surround, and link the figures. Skeletal elements and internal organs are visible within the figures delineated segments. Saturated with startling, often contrasting colours, such paintings appear to vibrate under the viewer's gaze.
Michael Grange nails it as to why Steve Nash can no longer Captain our beloved Canadians on the international stage:
But there is one statistic worth mentioning that might tip the balance for those somehow aggrieved at the fact he’s no longer spending his summers ‘serving’ his country. Or at least conflicted about it.
In his first five NBA seasons, when Nash was still a regular with the national team program, he missed an average of 20 games a year due to injury. In his next five NBA seasons, when he played only one summer of international basketball, he’s missed just 20 games total.
A player who Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban wouldn’t re-sign in part because he was concerned about Nash’s durability has become a virtual ironman while at the same time playing the very best basketball of his career and earning wide recognition as one of the best point guards of all time
I was at a reading given by Stephanie Nolen back in April at the Art Gallery of Hamilton when a very earnest young woman stood up duing the question and answer session and asked her what she thought of the 'tragedy' that was 'Canada's AIDS drug law and the fact not one drug has been delivered so far?'. "I don't how much of a tragedy it is", answered Ms. Nolen (to the best of my recollection), "things have kind of moved on. They get the drugs from India and South Africa now. The drugs aren't really the issue anymore. The issue is now more infrastructure, and people, and money.". And with that the discussion of 'Canada's AIDS drug law', on this particular occasion, came to an end.
Which brings us to proverbial gadfly Dr. Amir Attaran and his article in the April 20, 2007 edition of the Canadian Medical Association Journal concerning the brief history and fate of The Jean Chretien Pledge to Africa Act, formerly called Bill C-56. I certainly think it t bears a second look for all that it addresses concerning Canadian law and government, humanitarian aspiration, the pharmaceutical industry, essential medicines and global health. And so if I may, I think I shall quote it extensively.
From the article:
In May 2004 Canada's Parliament was the the first in the world to subscribe to reforms enacted by the World Trade Organization, which promised to bring cheaper medicines to poor, epidemic-ridden developing countries. Parliament passed a new law, setting out an 'access to medicines regime' that Canada's manufacturers of generic drugs could use to override the patents of brand name drugs in order to manufacture and export generic medicines according to the needs of governments and charities in poor countries. Canada's new law - The Jean Chretien Pledge to Africa Act - was meant as a grand humanitarian project, and it got a fillip from numerous churches, labour unions, university groups, and especially nongovernment organizations such as the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and Medicins Sans Frontieres, which lobbied vigorously for its passage.
Parliment is now reviewing the law 2 years after it came into force, but it faces this difficult reality: The law has never been used, and it has caused zero treatments to be manufactured for zero patients. (boldness mine) Even the law's advocates concede that it "is failing to meet its goals.".
"There are basically 2 competing theories for why the law has failed, and for what Parliament should do about it.", Attaran writes, "The first theory lays the blame at the law's complexity. Although it welcomed the law just 2 years ago, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network now believes that the law is cumbersome ... to the point that it effectively deters those who might [use it].".
In some ways, this criticism is correct. The law stipulates that charities and governments in poor countries, working with Canadian manufacturers of generic drugs, may apply to Canada;s Commissioner of Patents for a 'compulsory license' - a type of patent override. But Applications must be filed and processed singly; they cannot be shared by countries or charities who want to band together to submit joint applications to minimize the work of the application process. Even successful applications are hobbled by the fact that a compulsory license cannot last more than four years, after which the entire applications process must begin again. These national and temporal limitations make no sense alongside the global, chronic nature of epidemics such as HIV/AIDS, and they portend a churning bureaucracy of application-handlers if the law ever comes into common use. There is no reason why Canada has to have such an inefficient, user-unfriendly law.
Unless of course, (an forgive me for being cynical since, yes, I don't have any real world sense of how such things work) Canadian pharmaceutical companies and lawyers and lobbyists for Canadian pharmaceutical companies never had any intention of the law actually working, for anybody. I do believe that one of the things that caused the bill to be bogged down in the first place was the insistence by the pharmaceutical industry for the insertion of a 'Right of First Refusal Clause' . This 'clause give/gave the patent drug companies the right to steal any deal from a generic drug company at the last minute'. If this was the case then what incentive would there be for generic drug manufacturers to develop any 'deal' with any 'nation'? Not sure what became of this.
But, as Attaran continues, "there is a second theory for why the law is not used: it is barely relevant, and it will remain so no matter how Parliament struggles to streamline it.
Contrary to popular belief, drug patents are extraordinarily rare in the developing world. In a study of 65 low and middle-income countries, patenting was rare for 319 products termed "essential medicines" by the World Health Organization; only 17 of the essential medcines were patentable, although usually not actually patented, so that overall patent incidence was low (1.4%). Critics argue correctly that, within this 1.4%, there are certain instances in which patents cause exploitive pricing in poor countries; however, that reasoning focuses on rare exceptions and dresses them up as to prove a rule. The better-supported rule is that, where pharmaceuticals are covered by patents in poor countries, the manufacturers usually offer a donation or deep discount (as for 15 of the 17 medicines studied), so the patent's economic effect on price-setting is unlike raw monopoly power.
Thus, there are few patents, and most are voluntarily attenuated already. Accordingly, it stands to reason that opportunities to improve public health by overriding patent rights will be very rare.
Even in the isolated cases in which the overriding of patents might benefit public health in poor countries. Canada's manufacturers of generic drugs are unlikely sources of help. Lack of competitiveness is the reason. Simple economics argues that generic drugs made in Canada would tend to be pricier than those made in newly industrializing countries such as China and India, where the cost of wages, regulatory compliance and other noncapital inputs is traditionally less. Further, Canada's manufacturers of generic drugs are accustomed to charging such uncommonly high prices that selling to poor countries , at little profit, is out of character. According to the federal Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, prices of generic drugs in Canada exceed those in Australia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Even in tiny, remote New Zealand, generic drugs cost 77% less than those in Canada. All things considered, cash-strapped developing countries can get better value buying generic drugs from almost anywhere but Canada.
And finally, Attaran closes with perhaps his most salient point in all of this, and thus the one that produces the greatest opportunity to learn.
(P)ossibly the strangest fact is this: the poor countries that might ask to import generic medicines made under compulsory license are, to date, simply not asking. (italics mine) Both the World Trade Organization and Canadian law require that, as a first step to issue a compulsory license, the country wanting the generic medicines has to notify the World Trade Organization of the type and the quanity of medicines it needs. That notification need not be complex: a brief letter will do, and Canada even helps with easy step-by-step instructions for lawyers to follow. However, as of March 2007, the World Trade Organization reported that 'no notifications have been made so far'.
If poor countries are interested in compulsory licensing, curiously they have not taken advantage of it. The complexity of Canada's law is not to blame, since the European Union, Norway, Switzerland, China and South Korea (31 countries in all) also have laws permitting compulsory licensing and exporting of medicines - and none of those laws have been used either.
Taken together, these facts suggest that any amendment Parliament might contemplate to Canada's law is bound to be fruitless. There is probably no amendment that, while remaining consistent with the World Trade Organization's rules, could differentiate Canada's law from those in the 31 other countries. Even if one imagined that Canada's law could undergo a magic amendment to make compulsory licensing easy where 31 other countries have failed, the princely pricing of Canadian-made generic drugs would make that success nugatory.
None of this is to say that overriding patents is never justified. The appalling failure of manufacturers of brand name drugs to pool efforts and patents - for manufacturing co-packaged or co-formulated antiretroviral treatments that are convenient for first-line AIDS treatment in poor countries - was remedied only once manufacturers of generic drugs in India ignored patents and acted (although the fact that these same manufacturers in India patented their new formulations in Africa is a helpful reminder that even they are not impelled by altruism). some allowance in law must exist to prevent patents standing in the way of desperately needed inventions such as this.
But it is doubtful that Canada's law can ever fill that role. One can plausibly argue that the law is not only a dead letter, but that groups such as the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and Medicins Sans Frontieres did more harm that good in expending political capital to pass a law that resulted in zero treatments for zero patients. Patients would have been far better if those groups had instead spent the political capital to increase Canada's foreign aid funding, or to reverse the brain-drain of African doctors. Setting a naiive and ill-informed goal (me) led to poor results. With the evident failure of Canada's law, Parliament would be wise to cut its losses and concentrate on the more concrete things it can do to help the world's poor.
Now, I will admit that I am just beginning to learn about all of this, but I think Attaran's article is important and instructive. The people involved with this law should have perhaps coordinated more with the countries involved and sought some input from them with regards to all this; at least to check and see if anyone was at least considering buying generic drugs from Canada, whatever the price. But I do think it is important to remember that at the time (2003ish?) of the advent of these laws, and this law in particular, according to UNAIDS, about 2% of the people who needed access to antiretroviral drugs in sub-Saharan Africa were receiving them - so this law was, I suppose, an attempt to respond to a humanitarian emergency - which of course still is a humanitarian emergency. So in that regard I guess you could say that they were looking to do something, anything. But as Attaran asserts - has a good deal of 'political capital' been spent here (i.e. wasted) that could have been 'spent' elsewhere, and will this have an effect on further Canadian policy decision making in this area? I don't know.
FURTHERMORE:
I think its important to remember that all of this didn't happen in a vacuum. As everybody knows in 1998 a group of 39 pharmaceutical companies did try and sue The South African government to try and prevent them from producing generic drugs for which they held the patents. And though the ensuing international outrage forced them to back down, I think this case and others like it - (including one of those 39 companies - Novartis - which is presently similarly attempting to sue the Indian government. And another the Chicago-based company - Abbott - which has decided to 'withdraw all applications to register drugs in Thailand' after the government there issued compulsory licences for three AIDS medications that it manufactures. The very excellent MSF Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines website is currently covering both stories. And I certainly think its telling that if you visit the websites of both those above mentioned multinational pharmaceutical companies - they certainly want to impress you with their 'social responsibility', in a very post-1998 kind of way) -certainly went along way towards establishing the climate where something like the 'Jean Chretien Pledge to Africa Act' would subsequently manifest itself. As I said, its important history that should be remembered; as the absolutely crucial activism that came out of it all.
And, reading this Attaran article has certainly cause me to go back and look at the AIDS numbers, which I will admit that I do forget - i.e. the number of people suffering and dying, and the growing percentage of those covered by ARV treatment. And I think one can get some sense of this through this this Stephen Lewis Foundation AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa fact sheet.
"Access to antiretroviral therapy for advanced HIV infection in low and middle-income countries continued to grow throughout 2006, with more than 2 million people living with HIV/AIDS receiving treatment in December 2006, a 54% increase over the 1.3 million people on treatment one year earlier in these countries.
"The (UNAIDS Progress) report shows that countries in every region of the world are making substantial progress in increasing access to HIV treatment. More than 1,3 million people in sub-Saharan Africa were receiving treatment in December 2006, representing coverage of approximately 28% of those in need compared to just 2% in 2003. Coverage in other regions varied, from 6% in North Africa and the Middle East, to 15% in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and 72% in Latine America and the Caribbean. Overall, while encouraging trends continue, just 28% of the estimated 7.1. million in need of treatment in all low-and-middle-income countries were receiving it in December 2006.".
We here at Global Health Nexus will certainly be examining these reports further, and will report back in the future.
