The federal agriculture minister also finds dealing with such democracy difficult. That's why he doesn't see the need to hold a fair vote from all barley and wheat farmers in western Canada. He knows what the results would be if he did. The message is clear, Chuck Strahl; Manitobans will not sit idly by while your government ships hundreds of jobs and hundreds of millions from our province south of the border without genuine consultation with producers.

This story reports that representatives of Manitoba's online pharmaceutical companies are calling the ban of bulk and retail exports of prescription drugs we are proposing as scaremongering and not justified. The president of the Manitoba International Pharmacists Association states: "...it will be years from now before any proposed U.S. legislation could become reality."

The issue is that Canada's drug supply is precisely that -- it is Canada's. The high price of drugs in the U.S. is a real problem, one that Americans must solve on their own terms. Allowing Americans covered by Medicare and those covered by state and federal drug plans to source their prescription from Canada is perhaps good for online pharmacies in Manitoba, but it is not good for Canadians.