Speech given by Lance Izumi:

Thank you so much. It is a great pleasure for me to be here today. Before beginning my remarks, let me first thank the Atlas Foundation for inviting to their conference and for organizing this distinguished panel.

All of us, whether we are South Americans, North Americans, Asians, Europeans or Africans, understand that our peoples need an increasing amount of knowledge to succeed in a complex global technology-based economy. Heightened economic competition between nations, which is important if consumers are able to get the best goods at the best prices, has made it more necessary than ever to have well-educated workforces. Because of this necessity, governments around the world have realized that public school systems must be held accountable for the achievement or lack of achievement of students. The issue that I would like to address today is how best to craft an effective school accountability system.

One of the areas in which Canada lags the world is in the speed with which it allows its citizens to use new medicines. The Canadian government forbids patients from using prescription drugs that American, European, and Australian patients have already used months earlier.