Scandalous

While coverage of Sheila Fraser's latest report has focused mostly on alleged spending abuses by Ron Stewart, a far more important failing has received only a cursory mention:

Health Canada programs designed to regulate the safety of everything from cribs to prescription drugs may not be meeting their own regulatory responsibilities, Fraser found. Her report cites a drop in funding for core regulatory activities last year and says the department doesn't have the resources to tell whether it can meet its responsibilities as the regulator of drug products, medical devices and product safety.

And the discovery only looks worse when examined in more detail:

The Product Safety program has requested additional funding, but it received very little funds for special initiatives in 2005–06 to address the shortfalls presented above. Program managers indicated that their inability to carry out these responsibilities could have consequences for the health and safety of Canadians, such as exposure by consumers to non-compliant hazardous products. There is also a risk of liability to the Crown...

Drug Products and Medical Devices programs were successful in getting some additional funding for special initiatives. According to program managers, this allowed them to eliminate the backlog of submissions made by manufacturers seeking review and authorization to market a product. However, they considered the additional funding to be insufficient to address all the shortfalls identified...According to program managers, failure to carry out these responsibilities could have consequences for the health and safety of Canadians, such as exposure to unsafe, ineffective, or dangerous therapeutic products. There is also an increased risk of liability to the Crown.

It's noteworthy that for all the oft-trumpeted increases in government spending over the past few years, the federal agency responsible for ensuring the safety of such a wide variety of products apparently hasn't received an extra dime despite an increasing workload. And it may only be by luck that the result hasn't (to anybody's knowledge) been disastrous both for Canadian citizens who rely on Health Canada to properly evaluate products, and for the government which would have to pick up the bill for any failure.

If there's any plus to the story, it's that Health Canada agrees with the recommendations and has a process in place to try to improve matters. But it can't be much comfort to know that it'll be another year and a half before Health Canada even sets baselines by which to evaluate whether it's able to fulfill its mandate. And the combination of stagnant funding and incomplete reporting in an agency so closely linked to the safety of Canadians should be a far more important impetus for change than the disgrace of a single former athlete.