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Drug shortages obviously would cause substantial distress to Canadians. Not being able to access prescribed drugs can compromise a patient’s care. Studies have demonstrated that during drug shortages patients may experience increased stress, higher rates of drug errors, and more adverse events, including even death. Short of such extreme effects, drug shortages can also result in greater costs both to patients directly and to the health-care system as a whole.

The Canadian public would not stand for such a situation, especially since it resulted from policy decisions taken in another country. In response to the new policy, the federal government has already vowed to protect Canadians’ drug supplies and access to medication. We can only speculate as to how it would do so. Supply monitoring of exports coupled with export controls through, for example, permits, may be possible tools, provided these are consistent with Canada’s international trade obligations. So, although in theory the new U.S. import proposals could significantly affect Canadians and their drug supplies, given the likely response both of market players and of Canadian government, their actual impact likely will be minimal.

The FDA has described its proposal as a way to provide “safe, lower cost drugs to consumers.” Importing prescription drugs from Canada is a populist idea that comes up every few years in the U.S. Americans pay the highest prices in the world for their prescription drugs — on average more than three times as much as Canadians for brand name medications, according to the Canadian Patented Medicine Prices Review Board in 2017. Given this, it is hardly surprising that they clamour for lower drug prices. Although there are other obvious steps Washington could take to lower the cost of prescription drugs, so far its politicians have always been reluctant to take them. But importing from Canada can never be a complete or permanent remedy to the problem of high U.S. drug prices. As has often been said, Canada cannot be “drugstore to the world.”

David C. Rosenbaum is a partner in the Toronto office of the law firm Fasken and Dara Jospé an associate in its Montreal office.