Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime is not delivering on the country’s pledge to help developing countries get affordable medicines. The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network recommends a number of changes that will help fix the current, flawed Regime.
Our central recommendation would replace the existing process for obtaining a compulsory licence with something considerably more streamlined and user-friendly — and hence more likely to be effective — while respecting Canada’s obligations as a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
We also recommend a number of additional reforms that would eliminate some of the unnecessary and counterproductive features currently hindering the efficacy of the Regime; some of these changes would be moot if the compulsory licensing mechanism we recommend were to be adopted, while others are relevant to whichever mechanism appears in Canada’s law.