Posted At CTV.ca

BY : Canadian Press

Federal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh is set to table legislation Friday to ban the bulk export of prescription drugs to the United States and set up an early warning system to detect drug shortages caused by the cross-border trade.

But after spending more than a year weighing his options, Dosanjh's bill will likely die before the ink has had time to dry if the government falls in a non-confidence motion expected to pass Monday.

The minister decided to go ahead with the bill because he told stakeholders and members of the Commons Health Committee earlier this month he would take action before the end of November, a federal source told The Canadian Press.

The bill is intended to keep Canada one step ahead of various efforts by the U.S. Congress to legalize bulk imports of cheaper brand-name Canadian drugs.

It would also address recent concerns about Canada's ability to respond to infectious disease outbreaks, such as the bird flu, by detecting shortages with help from manufacturers, pharmacists and others in the supply chain.

However, it falls well short of what opponents such as the Canadian Pharmacists Association, the Canadian Medical Association and patient advocacy groups have asked for - a complete ban on Internet pharmacies that sell cheaper Canadian drugs to uninsured and underinsured Americans.

Politicians of all stripes, as well as opponents and supporters of the Internet pharmacy industry, have already expressed support for the measures contained in the bill to be tabled Friday.

A senior health advisor said the government is disappointed Conservative health critic Stephen Fletcher, who represents the Winnipeg riding of Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia, "would place at risk work on a piece of legislation deemed to be very important to Manitoba" by helping his party force an election.

Fletcher has repeatedly criticized Dosanjh for not taking action to ban bulk exports, while also cautioning him against going too far and effectively crushing the industry without any evidence it is causing shortages.

The Internet pharmacy industry was founded in Manitoba and the province remains home to the majority of the estimated 6,000 jobs and overall trade of about $1 billion a year.

But Dosanjh has said the industry is unethical and illegal because it is based on the practice of having Canadian doctors co-sign prescriptions for American patients they haven't examined. In Canada, pharmacists can legally only fill a prescription written by a doctor licensed to practice in Canada.

The industry's largest lobby group, the Canadian International Pharmacy Association, has said those concerns could be addressed by allowing Canadian pharmacists to accept the U.S. patient's original prescription.

Sources say jurisdictional wrangling between the provinces and the federal government over how the relationship between a patient, doctor and pharmacist is defined have prevented Dosanjh from toughening the law to squeeze the industry out of Canada completely.