Who approved Oxycontin? Health Canada ... though it seems to have a habit of registering drugs for use (think registration fees) though it prevaricates about accepting the fact that many doctors and patients equate registration with approval.

On a related issue, this reminds me of Canadian doctors who go to the Caribbean or Ireland to get medical training, since there are limited spaces in Canadian med schools.  Upon return to their homeland, they are viewed as 'foreign doctors' who require upgrading IF they can find an internship.  Only 2,600 students are accepted to med schools across Canada while 40,000 apply annually. Yet, family doctors are in very short supply.  Meanwhile, we get automatic increases in MPs and MPPs based upon population growth, forced upwards by immigration, so this increase comes as no surprise. Why not plan for it? Why do we need more politicians, but doctors' numbers are fixed? Something ODD about medicine in Canada ... brought to you by too many politicians.