Courting Opportunity

There are times when hard-headed introspection is required to ensure that gain exceeds loss.  Canada is courting two potential sources of enhanced trade opportunities, both representing coalitions of trading partners with the enticing possibility of opening up Canadian markets to hundreds of millions of prospective new buyers.  Needless to say Canada has items of interest to those markets as well, many of them wanting to take advantage of an inside track on valuable natural resources.

Canada has been courting the European Union with its 27-member countries and its representation of over a half-billion people.  There are some sticking points, aren't there always?  Negotiations have been ongoing for several years, and there are hopes that they will soon result in a signed agreement between Canada and the EU for enhanced trade opportunities for both. 

Canada's tradition of support for particular markets has been a contentious issue between the two.  The egg, milk, chicken marketing boards subsidizing production in those areas and resulting in higher costs to the consumer while guaranteeing good returns to the producers is not looked upon kindly by the EU negotiators.  Not that they do not themselves support internal EU marketing boards. 

Of particular concern is the EU's demand that Canada recognize a longer period of pharmaceutical patent protection.  Should Canada, in its eagerness to sign off on a free trade deal agree to the European Union's demands Canada's own generic drug manufacturers would be nonplussed, and the additional costs to the provinces through their drug formularies would have the effect of penalizing the entire Canadian population.

And then there is the other free trade deal that Canada is assiduously courting, one with the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement led by the United States, which is currently considering Canada's application for membership.  That is a group of nine countries some, like Peru and Vietnam in their development stages.  Within that prospective agreement lies a similar demand, that Canada relax its marketing support for those same groups.

And the issue of the production of less-expensive generic drugs has raised its head here, as well.  The United States insists on longer and more restrictive rules to ensure generic competitors are kept out of the name-brand market, maintaining high prices for pharmaceutical companies.  The new challenge of these drug companies taking out new patents on variations of old drugs to prolong patent protection is yet another issue; additional cost with no additional therapeutic benefits.

These demands will impact Canada's domestic market deleteriously.  No, not the diminution of the egg, milk and chicken marketing boards which will then have to fend for themselves in a larger marketplace which Australia has demonstrated can be done quite effectively.  But the issue of higher drug costs, fewer opportunities for generic manufacturers to pick up where patents have left off, impacting on consumer costs and provincial health-drug formularies.

Within this potentially costly giveaway is yet another problem that lurks which should offend the public conscience.  The availability of generic drugs to combat HIV and AIDS and other afflictions that impact on impoverished populations in Third-World countries hugely dependent on the goodwill and charity of advanced countries.