CLASSIFIEDS/NATION&WORLD
8 | ALBERNI VALLEY TIMES | WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3, 2015
POLITICS
HEALTH
Company says some producers paying MDs THE CANADIAN PRESS
Quebec Premier Jacques Parizeau gestures during his speech to Yes supporters after losing the referendum in Montreal on Oct. 30, 1995. [THE CANADIAN PRESS]
Former Quebec premier Parizeau dies at age 84 THE CANADIAN PRESS
MONTREAL — Jacques Parizeau, the blunt-talking sovereigntist premier whose strategic cunning came close to ripping Quebec out of Canada, has died at the age of 84. “Immense grief tonight,” Parizeau’s wife, Lisette Lapointe, said on her Facebook page in what was the official announcement of Monday’s death. “The man of my life has gone . . . he was surrounded by love. After a titanic fight, hospitalized for five months, facing challenges one after the other with extraordinary courage and determination, he passed away... We are devastated. “We love him and will love him forever.” The blustery, mustachioed Parizeau was premier during the 1995 provincial referendum which saw the federalist No side defeat
sovereigntists by a whisker after a bitter campaign. In a career-ending slag on referendum night, Parizeau blamed “money and the ethnic vote” for the loss and was roundly criticized to the point that he resigned as premier a day later. “That night was a tragedy for him and for us,” Jean-Francois Lisee, one of Parizeau’s key advisers at the time, said in a 2006 interview on the public Tele-Quebec network. “It was brute emotion. (The referendum) was a big step forward but all he saw was his failure to take the next step. And that anger came out.” In an interview in October 2013, Parizeau insisted the infamous remark was not meant to target specific voters — just community organizations. ”The common front of the Italian, Greek and Jewish congresses was politically active in an extra-
ordinary way in the No camp and had formidable success,” Parizeau told Montreal radio station 98.5 FM. ”It was very efficient.” Parizeau, one of the most influential Quebecers of his generation, had never minced words. He was outspoken, sometimes to the point of making his audience cringe, but love him or hate him, there was no question of where Parizeau stood — unabashedly in favour of Quebec sovereignty. “To try to orient one’s life toward having and building one’s country, I think is a very worthwhile purpose,” he said in an interview after the loss. Parizeau hailed from a prominent family in the upscale Montreal suburb of Outremont. His grandfather was the head of the Quebec Chamber of Notaries and his father was a historian and author as well as the president of an insurance company.
TORONTO — A major producer of medical marijuana says doctors and specialized clinics are receiving kickbacks from some licensed pot producers in exchange for sending them patients, a practice the company calls unethical and a violation of professional medical standards. Greg Engel, CEO of Nanaimobased Tilray, said his company recently resigned from the Canadian Medical Cannabis Industry Association (CMCIA) after unsuccessfully pushing for the organization to adopt a code of ethics that would outlaw the practice. The dozen members of the CMCIA were unwilling to sanction such a code because “many were currently participating” in such kickback schemes, he said. Tilray is starting a new industry group, the Canadian Medical Cannabis Council, which will insist on strict adherence to ethical conduct.In a statement from the CMCIA, executive director Neil Belot said the organization agrees on the need for a high level of ethical conduct among producers, but more agreement had not been reached on the wording of such a code. The CMCIA said Tilray’s proposal was not accepted by its board because it could “have had the inadvertent effect of prohibiting members from conducting meaningful research and data collection initiatives,” for which they receive specific compensation from doctors and clinics. The group’s lawyers also advised the board to exercise caution in developing guidelines, due to potential risks associated with Canadian competition law. “Tilray resigned from the association before the matter was fully discussed or resolved,” Belot said. “Instead of continuing to work together on an important issue, Tilray chose to exit the association.”
Engel said his company has never and will never compensate a physician for a referral or for writing a prescription for medical cannabis. Yet the company provided copies of invoices it had received from two doctors, three clinics and two patient aggregator groups that work with health practitioners. The unsolicited bills seek direct payment, most for $50 each, or a percentage of cannabis sales. “Even though we don’t have agreements in place with any physicians, they’ve actually submitted invoices to us for payment,” Engel said from Nanaimo. “Some of these clinics are also asking for fees, anywhere from $150 to $400, for a patient referral to the licensed producer,” he said of the practice that’s begun permeating the fledgling industry. “And then there are a number of patient aggregator groups that are looking to either payments or a percentage of sales for referring patients to them.” The Canadian Medical Association has strict guidelines prohibiting its 80,000-plus members from accepting any type of fee related to prescribing a medical device, pharmaceutical or medicinal marijuana. “The rationale is really fairly straightforward that you shouldn’t be recommending products or services and then have a financial incentive,” said Dr. Jeff Blackmer, the CMA’s vice-president of medical professionalism. Patients should have the assurance that their health-care provider is acting in their best interest — not in the provider’s best “financial” interest, he said. A number of provincial colleges of physicians and surgeons that regulate doctors’ conduct — including those in Ontario and B.C. — also ban acceptance of any fee from pharmaceutical companies or licensed cannabis producers linked to prescriptions.