Open letter to MP Ryan Leef:
I am writing to encourage you to vote for Bill C-398 at second reading so that it may go to committee. This bill provides amendments to Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime. This legislation currently before Parliament allows Canadian generic pharmaceutical companies, under World Trade Organization guidelines, to fill orders for life-saving medicines for specific countries that cannot afford brand name medicines and which are battling epidemics such as HIV-AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
As a grandmother of healthy Canadian grandchildren, I can only imagine how the grandmothers of Africa must feel when they know that there are medicines that could help their orphaned grandchildren but are not available to them because of the cost.
Across Canada, grandmothers belonging to the Grandmothers Advocacy Network have been meeting with members of Parliament and encouraging them to support this bill. We are not alone. Organizations such as UNICEF Canada, the YMCA-YWCA, Oxfam Canada and the HIV-AIDS legal network also urge support for this bill.
You have an opportunity to help to change the lives of millions of people who could benefit from this medication.
Please make your vote count.
Audrey McLaughlin
Grandmothers Advocacy Group
Whitehorse