Bill C-12 (Historical)

Quarantine Act

An Act to prevent the introduction and spread of communicable diseases

This enactment repeals and replaces the existing Quarantine Act.
Its purpose is to prevent the introduction and spread of communicable diseases in Canada. It is applicable to persons and conveyances arriving in or in the process of departing from Canada.
It provides measures for the screening, health assessment and medical examination of travellers to determine if they have a communicable disease and measures for preventing the spread of communicable diseases, including referral to public health authorities, detention, treatment and disinfestation. Provisions for the administrative oversight of the detention of travellers are also included.
It provides for additional measures such as the inspection and cleansing of conveyances and cargo to ensure that they are not the source of communicable diseases.
It imposes controls on the import and export of cadavers, body parts and other human remains.
It contains provisions for the collection and disclosure of personal information if it is necessary to prevent the spread of a communicable disease or, under certain circumstances, for law enforcement purposes.
It also provides the Minister of Health with interim order powers in the case of public health emergencies and enforcement mechanisms to ensure compliance with the Act.

Quarantine Act

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join in this debate on the quarantine legislation.

It really amazes me that anyone in this House would try and block quarantine legislation in this day and age. The world as we all know is getting smaller and smaller.

We have the most diverse country in the world, so we have people, on a daily basis, with actual physical links with not tens but with hundreds of countries. In the province of Ontario, for example, we have people from 211 different countries, first generation Canadians, who have relatives coming and going and they travel. They are moving all around the world.

It is quite clear, under those human circumstances, that we need quarantine regulations. The idea of trying to block that at this time is really quite extraordinary. In addition, and I do not really know the statistics, we have daily trade with scores or hundreds of countries. We have products of all sorts, plant and animal products, moving across our borders.

We are a great trading nation. Among the G-8, we are the nation which depends most on trade around the world. If we send our goods elsewhere, other people are certainly sending their goods here. If ever there was a time when we needed quarantine legislation, this is it. And if ever there was a country which needed quarantine legislation, this is it.

I would have thought that the members of the opposition who are blocking this bill and slowing it down would have learned from the signals which we have been receiving in recent years. These are not just hints that there are problems in the area of quarantine, and of screening people and products as they come across our border. These are major signals of what is happening.

We think of SARS. In Ontario, particularly in southern Ontario, the the city of Toronto was affected just like that by the SARS epidemic. It also spread out to the hospitals and nursing homes in my riding of Peterborough.

Then there is avian flu, which we escaped, but my colleagues on this side from the west coast experienced it. I went to one of the ridings out west soon after the first avian flu epidemic. Hundreds of thousands of birds were slaughtered. The effect of that was staggering not just on the economy but on the morale of the people living there.

We can all recall the hoof and mouth disease from some years ago. We were all very concerned about that. We had a hoof and mouth free environment and here was a risk of it coming into our country. We remember walking across mats in the airports with disinfectants on them. Our farms were surrounded by fences and again, we had to go over disinfected barriers to enter the farms.

Madam Speaker, I know that you have many deer in your riding. People think of hoof and mouth disease as a cattle problem, but in fact, if that had skipped into the area of wildlife in our enormous country, it could have disappeared into the bush, be gone for generations, but be there for generations, and come back into our fields and into our herds and flocks.

I have not yet touched on BSE. We talk about screening for various things, but in the case of BSE, it is a little different than some of these other diseases. Here we have a disease which comes from contaminated food. It has now closed the border for years. In my riding 1,000 farm families are affected. Cattle, sheep, a large bison herd, they are all affected by BSE.

Then all over the country, and not just in British Columbia, people talk about the beetles and bugs that have come in which are affecting our trees.

Our maple trees are being affected. There is nothing more symbolic of Canada, as my colleague will note, than the maple tree and it is being affected by a beetle, which could result in the destruction of all the maple trees in the country.

We have already had Dutch elm disease and there is another tree in southern Ontario that is being affected. We are cutting a swath across the province to try to prevent the spread of it.

I have beekeepers in my riding. Bees are not a large part of the agricultural economy in my riding, perhaps $250,000 a year, but in counties around me the bee industry represents millions of dollars. We have to import queen bees from New Zealand and places like that because our own queen bees have been affected by some exotic disease.

I started off with quarantining for human beings and then I mentioned trade. I then mentioned some examples, which were only the more familiar examples that our colleagues here know. The fact is that the two are linked. Increasingly, it is becoming clear that there is no real difference between animal disease, human disease and plant disease. There are crossovers from them all.

We can have a diseased animal, which is the case in BSE. If we eat the meat from that diseased animal there is another disease that we can get. There are crossovers when we think of SARS. We can think of the links between mosquitoes, the dead birds which are the indicator of SARS, and the dead human beings who eventually succumbed from SARS. Think of the fear in South Korea at the present time for avian flu skipping into human beings.

In this important matter of quarantine, which the opposition has been blocking here, we are talking about a serious increasingly complex matter. It is complex in terms of what is crossing our borders, human disease wise, animal disease wise and plant wise, and it is complex in terms of the crossovers between plants, animals and human beings.

I think we need a quarantine system that truly addresses that. It does not say that this is what we do for plants, this is what we do for animals and this is what we do for those other animals which we call human beings. Somewhere in the sophisticated computer system, which is screening for these things, it tells us about a plant disease that can affect animals and a plant disease that can affect human beings. It then tells us about a human disease that can affect animals and plants. This is the sort of sophistication we should be at in this modern day and age.

Let us think now of quarantine for human beings, although it would work just as well for all animals. One of the difficulties with any quarantine system is that if we are not careful, if we wait until the animal or the human has the full blown disease, it is too late. Therefore if a person or an animal is coming through one of our airports or getting off one of our ships and they are already very diseased it is too late.

We need to develop quarantine systems that will get in front of that so that we will detect people, animals or plants, if we can because it is more difficult with plants, before the disease becomes impossible to control. There are various ways of doing that and one of them is to detect symptoms.

Let me do this from the point of view of, let us say, Peterborough county, and then we can think of it in terms of Canada as a whole. If Peterborough county had a tracking system in the hospitals, the doctors' offices, the nursing homes, the seniors' homes and the schools where they have nurses who are doing check-offs of children, it could input people's symptoms, which may include high temperatures and fever, or instances of vomiting and diarrhea.

As we all know, a variety of diseases have different symptoms but let us say we had tracked 10 or 20 of those symptoms. From the Palm Pilots in the schools, from the doctor's office computers, from the emergency room of the hospital, or from people checking on residents of seniors homes, if we discovered that in Peterborough county there were spikes in two or three of these twenty symptoms, this would be a signal to us that something is happening.

It would be checked and we might discover that in a particular seniors' home there might be food poisoning or it just happens there are more people with fevers than usual. However if in fact we discover that in all of those places, two or three of these symptoms are showing up at the same time, we might say that here is something that could be an epidemic, here is something which worldwide could be a pandemic, and we are catching it at the symptom stage.

That is why, in terms of a quarantine system for the airports and for the docks, among other things, as well as looking for the obvious signs of diseases, such as spots on people's faces or that kind of thing, we can scan for high temperature. We can have people watching for individuals who look as though they have a fever, take them to one side and see if we can check it. We can then input that very quickly to discover whether it is something that is nationwide, not something that is local to a family or to a particular airport.

There is one more thing about this that has human rights implications and ethical implications. It has to do with tracing human beings and animals. We know that the biggest scientific breakthrough of this century is DNA. Each of us, each plant and each animal is perfectly identifiable from DNA. Let us take the case of BSE. If an animal has BSE, from a sample of its blood that was given at birth or when the animal came over the border, we would know with absolute certainty which animal it was. When a problem occurs it can be traced right back with DNA.

One of the interesting examples of this lately is Maple Leaf Foods which is now taking DNA samples of all its hogs. What this means is that if we find something wrong with a piece of bacon it would be possible from the DNA to identify the hog from which that bacon came.

I mentioned the ethical implications and I will come back to that in a moment, but if we are going to have a quarantine system, particularly tracing human beings coming in but also animals and plants coming in, it is not just enough to say that a certain animal in a certain condition passed through the border at Windsor the other day. We have to know first of all where the animal is going, and hopefully we know that already, and then if there is something wrong with it we have to know where it is coming from so we can address the source of the actual problem.

When we think of human beings, including sick human beings, the DNA analogy applies at the same time. We have to remember the ethical aspects of that but it is extremely important to be able to trace a very sick individual to his or her original environment.

I would go back to what I said at the outset here. I do think it is of the greatest importance that this House, including the opposition parties, move as quickly as we can, bearing in mind the ethics that I have mentioned and the complexity I have mentioned, to a deal with the management of emerging and re-emerging threats to public health.

I have been mentioning animals and plants all the time but I do not see any difference between monitoring human beings for public health reasons and monitoring animals and plants for public health reasons.

At every point of entry to Canada we need to invest money, technology and creativity to protect our population. It is our duty as members of the House of Commons to do that. Those border points are our first line of defence as long as we can trace the products and the people that I mentioned earlier. There are other things we can do, such as the symptoms analysis in Peterborough county that I described before, but the first line of defence is the quarantine system around this wonderful huge country.

This legislation would provide the Government of Canada with truly modern, 21st century tools to screen people and products coming across our border. It would also give the Government of Canada the capacity to respond once it had evidence that something is going on.

In the case of this bill, it is not as though we are dealing with something that someone has just dreamt up or something that has just appeared out of nowhere. The Standing Committee on Health made significant contributions to the bill and strengthened the legislation. I certainly acknowledge its efforts and commitment.

The Senate of Canada recently completed its legislative review. As a result, the Senate Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology adopted amendments pertaining to the tabling of regulations before Parliament.

Bill C-12 was passed by the Senate of Canada on condition that the proposed quarantine regulations be laid before both Houses. Constitutionally, that has to be done. This amendment reflects equal status for both chambers in parliamentary oversight of the regulation making process. Furthermore, the governor in council may only make a regulation under section 62 of Bill C-12 if both Houses concur.

From time to time I have been critical of the other place but I respect its jurisdiction and I respect the individuals who operate there. It is my hope that members of the House of Commons will find merit in the work previously undertaken by the Senate of Canada and concur with the Senate amendments to Bill C-12.

I wish to express my strong support and the government's strong support for this important piece of health protection legislation. I urge all members to give third reading to the bill in the interest of global public health and the health and safety of all Canadians.

I am delighted to have participated in this debate. I urge all members to move rapidly on this matter. It is urgent and it is something which responsible members of Parliament should do.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Madam Speaker, I had not really intended to rise to address Bill C-12, but I have been moved to do exactly that given the events of today.

I certainly support the earlier comments of our public health critic, the hon. member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, and the comments she made in support of this legislation.

Having said that, given the present situation not only in the House of Commons but indeed in our country where we have a corrupt government in office that should not be in office for one day longer, I find that I simply must move the following amendment. I am pleased to have this seconded by my seatmate, the whip of the official opposition, the member for Niagara Falls. The amendment is self-explanatory.

I move that the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “that” and substituting that a message be sent to the Senate to acquaint their honours that this House disagrees with amendment no. 2, made by the Senate, to Bill C-12, an act to prevent the introduction and spread of communicable diseases, because the passage of the amendment may be construed that this House has confidence in the Government, which is in dispute, and the adoption of this motion should confirm that it does not.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Madam Speaker, we are still confident that, while it did not fully meet our expectations, Bill C-12, as considered clause by clause by the Standing Committee on Health, can be amended through its regulations so that our needs are met.

But, as my hon. colleague indicated, the message from the Senate, asking that the bill be amended by specifying that the governor in council may only make a regulation under section 62 if the minister has caused the draft regulation to be tabled before both houses of Parliament, is simply unnecessary.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Madam Speaker, even though I do not have the witty eloquence of the hon. member for Hochelaga, who discussed this issue earlier, or the clarity of the hon. member for Verchères—Les Patriotes, or the poetic skills of the hon. member for Saint-Lambert, I am very pleased to rise in this House to address Bill C-12 once again.

It was a few months ago that we conducted the clause by clause review of Bill C-12. The Standing Committee on Health worked very diligently on this legislation. Indeed, it is important for Canadians and Quebeckers to have an act that is very effective in containing the dangers of communicable diseases, particularly in this age of supersonic jets, as the member for Hochelaga so aptly pointed out. People travel from country to country much more rapidly than in the past.

A few days ago, white powder spilled from a suspicious parcel found at Montreal's airport. Those who had been in contact with that parcel became sick and had to be taken to hospital. About 20 people were affected. We are not exempt from biological terrorism. Therefore, we have to be very careful and ensure that we have good legislation to deal with these problems.

Not long ago, I had the pleasure of going to South Africa with you, Madam Speaker, in order to attend the third session of the Pan-African Parliament, which is made up of 46 of the 53 countries on the African continent. Before that trip, I had no idea of what danger some people face. When we are safe at home, we do not realize the grinding poverty of certain countries and the huge shortage of drugs to combat certain diseases.

Recently, the Canada-Africa Parliamentary Association discussed HIV-AIDS. Efforts are being made to halt the spread of this disease, but it is still far from being eradicated.

Sometimes we have an opportunity to see such situations first hand. You know that, Madam Speaker, because we both visited an orphanage in Bedoni, where one extraordinary woman cares for 105 children aged 2 to 16, whose parents had AIDS, and who are HIV positive themselves or have other problems. We saw the living conditions there, which were very rudimentary and difficult. Up to 18 children shared a small room chockablock with beds, measuring 7 by 10 feet. This woman and her few helpers look after all those children. We could feel the love and joy that surrounded them despite the circumstances.

When we are dealing with a bill that relates to the problem of transmitting disease, we also need to think of the human beings who will be protected by it. That is what I learned from my experience, to always think of the human beings.

My colleague from Nanaimo—Cowichan has dealt very well with several of the points of concern to us in connection with this bill. I hope that the regulations will also address them.

When people travel, they have to have a number of vaccines. Before we went to South Africa, we had to have a whole series of immunizations. When we leave here, we can be pretty well sure that we will come back healthy. But if someone's journey starts out in a country where vaccines are virtually non-existent or harder to obtain, or perhaps have to be paid for, the situation becomes a bit more complicated. This is the case in the poor countries where medicine is not well developed. Even if it is, there is not always the money to deal with all the diseases that afflict the inhabitants, such as Ebola fever.

Recently, in one of the African countries, there has been a reemergence of a fever caused by a virus that is even stronger and more difficult to fight. In addition, with all the antibiotics we are taking even for small infections, there is no doubt that our immune systems are weakened.

It is clear that a bill like this one can pretty much ensure the continued safety of those we want to protect.

I think we have been very diligent, during the clause by clause study, in protecting ourselves against actions taken too hastily by the Minister of Health or anyone wanting to work with those capable or suspected of introducing any such disease or virus in this country.

We do not need, however, yet another procedure or the approval of another house to protect ourselves and take appropriate action, where new regulations would have to be considered and studied. There are enough adults in this place to decide whether the regulations we take are the right ones. We do not need another house for that.

Our friends the senators are also very diligent. They have no doubt done their homework. But once the bill is passed, I think that we can rely on ourselves to implement it properly. It is very important to us that, with respect to this legislation, theinterested political body be this House, and not the Senate.

I hope that the hon. members of this House will think twice before approving these amendments to the bill and that they will object to having to seek the approval of the Senate again.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP will be supporting Bill C-12, but I need to emphasize the fact that there are some issues which continue to need to be addressed. Whether they are addressed through the mechanism of this bill or through other mechanisms, I think it is important that we are on record.

A great deal of information has been left up to the minister to develop through regulations. As recent experience has shown with the Chrétien bill for Africa, which was Bill C-9 in the last Parliament, developing regulations can be an incredibly slow and tedious process. We cannot wait indefinitely for these kinds of regulations to be developed.

There is one area of concern in the report that came back to the House. It specifically indicates that the proposed regulations or any version of the amended regulations should come to both the House and the Senate. We are concerned that it will delay the process if regulations must be approved by both the House and the Senate. We would urge expediency in looking at this, because we are often dealing with issues that are in the nature of a crisis when we are talking about quarantine.

I have addressed this issue before, but I feel compelled to raise it again: the use of screening officers is a major concern. It appears that we will be forcing customs officers to take on another role, that of medical professional. This is on top of their already substantial duties, which include enforcing the Customs Act, looking for potential terrorists and stopping materials that could harm our flora and fauna. This is far too much to expect one group to enforce. We must take that into consideration when we are asking our customs officers to take on these duties.

Other organizations, including the Canadian Nurses Association, have pointed out some concerns. They have pointed out that emerging diseases often have unique symptoms. Screening officers will have to be continually trained and supported to ensure that they know what they have to watch out for. A bad cough is not only the sign of a potential epidemic; it can be the sign of some other things. They must be able to determine what the differences are.

Bill C-12 does not explain how this system will be supported over time. We must address this in order to protect the health and welfare of Canadians.

One of the lessons learned from the SARS epidemic was about the lack of coordination and official communication responsibilities during the crisis. Again, the Canadian Nurses Association recommends that the Chief Public Health Officer and the Public Health Agency of Canada have a critical role in any epidemic or suspected epidemic. They were not included in this bill because enabling legislation to create that position and organization is still being written. This is a serious oversight. We urge the government to act quickly on that legislation. Everyone who spoke to the committee emphasized how important it is to have one clear authority during a health emergency.

It is our hope, however, that we never need this bill, but if we do, we must make sure that the sweeping powers given to the minister to detain people, to use privately owned facilities and to force people to accept medical assessment or treatment, are not unchecked. There are not enough assurances in this legislation that the minister will act in a reasonable manner and that people's rights to privacy will be respected or that workers affected by the quarantine will actually be protected. My colleague from the Bloc spoke quite a bit about this.

Some of these areas of concern are going to be dealt with by regulation. We have already indicated how important it is that the government act quickly in this area.

There is one other area for which we know this government will soon bring forward legislation, especially around protecting workers, and that is a quick response during a health emergency to such issues as employment insurance claims, medical leave and health and safety standards for front line workers. It is absolutely critical, if we are asking front line workers to put their lives on the line for things like this, that we ensure there is a social safety net to protect them.

Another omission that was identified during the committee stage was that the bill covers travellers and materials in and out of Canada but has no provisions for interprovincial travel. Considering that it takes longer to fly to Vancouver from Halifax than it does to fly from Europe to Halifax, the possibilities for communicable diseases being transmitted from one end of the country to the other are quite available.

I also want to briefly mention the Canadian Medical Association “SARS in Canada” report. A couple of key issues the association brought forward are not specifically dealt with adequately in this bill. They include communications.

As we saw during the SARS crisis, and I will quote from the report:

Without a coordinated system to notify acute care facilities and health care providers of global health alerts, front line clinicians often have no prior warning of new emerging diseases.

One of the things that became apparent during the SARS crisis was the lack of a list of current fax numbers or phone numbers of family doctors. There was an inability to communicate with physicians in real time. We must ensure that a communication system is developed to allow us to deal with emerging crises. Many crises emerge very quickly and an early response time is absolutely essential.

One of the other issues that was raised by the Canadian Medical Association was the fact that there was no system. Again I will quote from the report:

There was a lack of a system to distribute protective gear to health care professionals in the province. Once this became apparent the OMA [Ontario Medical Association] identified suppliers and manufacturers and offered to undertake distribution of masks to physicians in order to protect them and their patients.

It is absolutely essential when a crisis emerges that we have lists of suppliers and that we have communication systems in place so that we can adequately protect not only our front line workers, but also the Canadian population as a whole.

Although we will be supporting Bill C-12, I would urge that we quickly address some of these glaring omissions and gaps in the legislation.

(Bill C-282. On the Order: Private Members' Bills)

Second reading and reference to the Standing Committee on Health of Bill C-282, an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (export permits)

Business of the House

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, for the rest of today, tomorrow and early next week the order of business will be the consideration of the Senate amendments to Bill C-12, the quarantine legislation; followed by third readings of Bill C-9 respecting economic development in Quebec; Bill C-23, the human resources bill; Bill C-22, the social development bill; and Bill C-26, the border services bill.

We would then consider second reading of Bill C-45, the veterans bill; and then Bill S-18, the census bill.

Tomorrow the government will introduce a companion bill to the budget implementation bill. We hope to debate second reading of this bill by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.

We will then also resume consideration of Bill C-43 which is the budget implementation bill.

To assist members in their planning as well, I wish to inform the House that on the evening of May 18 the House will go into a committee of the whole on the citizenship and immigration estimates, and on the evening of May 31 on the social development estimates.

My hon. colleague across the way asked about opposition days. As the rules provide and call for, six opposition days are required before the end of June. Certainly our focus will be on moving the budget implementation bill forward. I would expect that we would do that.

As far as courage, I am not sure I see very much along the way certainly across the floor when in fact we have people on this side of the House who are prepared on behalf of Canadians to ensure that this Parliament works, but I see no evidence of that from my hon. colleagues across the way.

Quarantine Act

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

A pleonasm, indeed. Let me reword that. This is almost like in a courtroom, with all the objections. I am happy to have an attentive audience.

We were concerned about the possibility that a person placed in detention could be detained for more than 48 hours. We had concerns about the principles of natural justice and, basically, the fact that these individuals could not seek legal advice and that the reasons for detaining them were not clear, especially since, initially, the bill did not really provide for the possibility of appealing decisions.

We know the importance in law of the ability to review decisions. All my colleagues in this House are indignant about the fact that the Immigration Act passed last year abolished the refugee appeal division. It should be recalled that the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration at the time, the member for Bourassa, promised that the situation would be corrected. Another minister has now moved to immigration. We are on our third incumbent in this position, and the right to appeal to the refugee division still has not been re-established.

All my colleagues share with me the deep indignation of these people over such a violation of a principle of natural justice, namely the right to appeal a decision and have it reviewed.

Immigration is not an unimportant matter. There are four great immigrant countries in the world: Canada, the United States, New Zealand and Australia. Immigration is important. This issue brings us back to our national sovereignty project. In immigration, there are two great problems, two great visions of the integration of Neo-Quebeckers.

We in the Bloc Québécois have always felt that the future had to be built with immigrants. I would like to take advantage of this opportunity, by the way, to pay tribute to our critic for immigration, the member for Vaudreuil-Soulanges.

I would like to finish by saying that the immigration issue takes us back to the two major ways of integrating people. There is Canada's multiculturalism model, where people are led to believe that we can keep our own culture, regardless of our country or place of origin. Then there is the Quebec model with its shared public culture. Gérald Godin, formerly the member for Mercier, used to say, “There are 100 ways to be a Quebecker, but the important thing is to be one in French”. That is why, in Quebec, French plays an integrating role in regard to the shared public culture and why we had Bill 101. The father of Bill 101, the former member for Bourget, Camille Laurin, occupies a special place in our hearts.

That said, all my colleagues will understand that the connection I wanted to make between immigration and quarantines is the following. In a country that welcomes a lot of people—on October 1 every year, Canada announces its immigration plans and last year the figure was 248,000—it is very important to ensure that the most judicious measures are taken but not measures that infringe on human rights. That is why the Bloc Québécois tabled amendments to Bill C-12, because it seemed to us that we should seek a better balance.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have been dying for a long time to speak to Bill C-12, the Quarantine Act. I would like to thank my party's whip for enabling me to speak to a bill as fascinating as it is scientifically interesting.

We spent several committee sessions studying this quarantine bill. We were generally in favour of modernizing an act that dated back to the 19th century. It had been passed at a time when methods of transportation were developing especially quickly, including ships, which played a major role. Over all the years since then, new transportation methods have developed and new technologies have emerged. Nowadays, there are trains, airplanes, and even high-speed trains.

When one speaks about globalization and the heightened, ongoing and increasingly worldwide contacts among people, it becomes apparent that travel is no longer a marginal phenomenon. If we were to do a little poll here by show of hands to determine how many of us have visited one, two, three or four continents, we would soon see that travel is not unusual. People are obviously in closer contact than in the 19th century. There was an urgent need, therefore, to modernize the Quarantine Act.

Throughout the committee hearings, my colleague, the member for Laval and I were concerned about how frequently the wording of act left a lot of discretionary room to quarantine officers. For example, there were often no references to notions of time and accountability. The amendment that was clearly most often formulated by all the parliamentarians in committee had to do with the fact that there was no mention of the expression reasonable and probable cause, which is well defined in law.

We therefore tabled several amendments. We made the bill more acceptable and were in favour of its general arrangement.

Before going into greater detail about this bill, it should be recalled that we had two major reasons for concern.

The first was that the Minister of Health can designate the quarantine zones. This means that if there is an epidemic or pandemic, the Minister of Health can designate an area to be quarantined on his own without referring to his counterpart responsible for health and social services in Quebec, New Brunswick or any other province. The Bloc Québécois introduced an amendment on this matter, but it was unfortunately not accepted by the government.

We were disappointed to see that the government had not read our study asking for a quarantine zone. Of course, quarantine zones are often located in places such as airports, which do not pose any problems, because these come exclusively under the federal government's jurisdiction.

However, if a quarantine zone were established in a location that does not come under the federal government's jurisdiction, our critic on intergovernmental affairs would surely rise in this House and say that the government does not respect jurisdictions. He would be justified to do so. I should add that he is a vigilant person with a very keen mind, and we would never want him to be placed in quarantine.

So, we were concerned that the federal government might decide alone to designate a quarantine zone, without consulting authorities in the provinces affected.

We also had concerns about the medical technology. The real novelty in this bill is that the minister will designate certain persons. We wondered who these persons would be. Would they be doctors, nurses or health care professionals? Currently, it is primarily those who make initial contact with newcomers, such as customs officers and others. It is mostly they who control access at our borders when people arrive here.

We wondered what skills and conditions would be required to exercise the powers provided under Bill C-12. I will read clause 14, which is probably the most important provision in this legislation:

Any qualified person authorized by the Minister may, to determine whether a traveller has a communicable disease or symptoms of one, use any screening technology authorized by the Minister that does not involve the entry into the traveller's body of any instrument or other foreign body.

Of course, I sensed for a moment that all sorts of fantasies had gone through my colleagues' minds, but let us keep things at a medical level.

The expression “any...person authorized” was too vague and it was important to be more specific. As for the expressions “any screening technology” and “entry...of any foreign body”, hon. members will admit that they are very general. The Bloc Québécois, ever mindful of its responsibilities, tabled an amendment to refer instead to “appropriate medical technologies”. This amendment sought to set some limits.

The bill proposes a number of new points. For example, a new requirement applies to the operator and crew of conveyances. These may be planes, boats or land vehicles. They are required to report all cases of illness or death on board before their arrival in Canada. It is understandable that those responsible for these means of transport might be able to identify possible sources of infection. It is an act of civic duty—the obligation to report them—now enshrined in the law. The aim of the mandatory reporting is obviously to prevent the spread.

Clause 15 is also of some importance. It concerns the obligation on travellers who believe themselves to have a communicable disease or have been in contact with a person with a communicable disease. They must present themselves to a quarantine officer on arrival or departure. Initially it was felt that this should be a voluntary measure and not a requirement. A person who thinks they have malaria, German measles or measles is required to present themselves to the quarantine officer on their arrival or departure. Obviously, the quarantine bill concerns people from outside coming to Canada.

This is a fascinating bill. We have studied it for two weeks.

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, today I rise on behalf of my constituents and the Conservative Party of Canada to speak to the amendments to Bill C-12, the Quarantine Act.

We have passed a series of amendments from our colleagues in the other place with the intent of approving the bill we sent to them. We have reviewed these proposals and agree with them. The amendments will bring additional oversight and accountability to this important legislation, which was lacking in the version the government has sent them before.

For the benefit of those who do not have the bill text before them, I will get to the heart of these amendments.

The original bill did not call for the oversight of both Houses of Parliament, but the proposed amendments would correct this. Should the Quarantine Act need to be enforced, this extra layer of prudence would be essential in ensuring the proper application. In addition, the amendments also call for and facilitate the ability to have public meetings and hearings regarding the act and its applications.

Once again, I welcome this change. It adds an extra layer of protection for Canadians affected and also allows for a broader consultation process. I would expect that at these hearings, if ever held, it would allow experts and affected Canadians to be heard. I support this approach.

I have been hearing many things regarding our preparedness for such a situation and the news at times is not encouraging. Recently I met with firefighters who informed me that over 70% of them do not have the necessary nuclear, biological and chemical emergency training. This worries me greatly, especially as I have had emergency preparedness training and know how important it is for first responders to have the training and tools to do their jobs. If they fail, so do those who follow.

I call upon the government to step forward and ensure that this training takes place as soon as possible. The next pandemic can take place at any time, and this training takes time. Such emergency training also needs to take place for those in our hospital emergency rooms.

Recently I met with our next generation of doctors. They have said that they would welcome this training, but believe that it is also essential. They and I agreed that if medical students were paid to take the training during their academic recess, they would graduate with proper training. What would be better than having our next generation of doctors enter service fully trained and without reducing current staffing levels in the process?

The legislation is just a piece of paper. It alone cannot protect Canadians. It is the people behind it who need to be prepared. In a pandemic situation, running through the streets and waving copies of this bill will not make us safe. Proper training and resources will. My colleagues and I will support the amendments, but we also will do so at the same time that we call for further action; action, not words.

SARS proved that hindsight is twenty-twenty. SARS has also proved that pandemics can cost human lives. Let us not repeat those mistakes.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Minister of State (Public Health)]

Mr. Speaker, increased population mobility and its relation to the rapid spread of disease is a heightened concern in today's globalized world. Our recent experience with SARS, the arrival of an avian influenza, and the looming threat of the influenza pandemic are stark reminders that public health is a cross-border issue of growing importance. A serious communicable disease can now spread to any part of the globe in less than 24 hours.

Although the principle of uncertainty prevails in global public health, officials do know that economic and psycho-social upheaval is contingent on how virulent the virus is, how rapidly it spreads from one person to another, the capacity for early detection, and how effective preventive control measures prove to be.

The challenge is containment, and the ability to block the disease in question will depend on vigilant monitoring activities at the borders. We will also have to depend on efforts by out-of-country partners for such things as health care delivery, hospital isolation of infected persons and quarantine of potentially exposed individuals.

Although the present public health system has served Canadians well, the time has come to update our legislation so that it better reflects the changes required for preparation and emergency intervention in this 21st century.

In response to this new risk and this threatening environment, the Government of Canada has moved promptly to modernize the Quarantine Act, which is one of the oldest pieces of Canadian legislation.

Bill C-12 plays a paramount role in the management of emerging and re-emerging threats to public health. Administered at Canadian points of entry, it is the first line of defence in protecting Canadians from the importation and spread of a communicable disease. It provides the Government of Canada with modern tools and additional authorities to ensure a rapid and effective response capacity in the event of our next public health crisis.

Members may recall that the Standing Committee on Health made significant contributions toward strengthening this bill. During the examination process members listened to the issues raised by external stakeholders and put forward amendments to reflect their areas of concern. Acknowledging the efforts and commitment of our committee members, the House passed Bill C-12, as amended, on December 10, 2004.

In keeping with the parliamentary process, the Senate of Canada recently completed its legislative review of Bill C-12. As a result of this process the Senate Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology introduced amendments pertaining to the tabling of regulations before Parliament.

Simply put, the Senate of Canada passed Bill C-12 on the condition that the Minister of Health lay proposed quarantine regulations before both chambers. This amendment reflects equal status for both Houses in parliamentary oversight of the regulation making process.

Further, the governor in council may only make a regulation under section 62 of the newly proposed quarantine act if both Houses have concurred in reports from their respective committees approving the proposed regulation, or a version of it amended to the same effect.

In the spirit of collaboration, it is my hope that members of the House of Commons will find merit in the work previously undertaken by the Senate of Canada and will concur with the adopted amendments to Bill C-12.

With this said, I wish to demonstrate continued support for this very important piece of health protection legislation. Today I stand before my fellow colleagues imparting that it is our collective responsibility to move Bill C-12 forward in the global interests of public health and the health and safety of Canadians.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, for the Minister of Health]

moved the second reading of, and concurrence in, amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-12, an act to prevent the introduction and spread of communicable diseases.

Presence in Gallery

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, we will continue this afternoon with second reading of Bill C-38, the civil marriage bill. This will be followed by consideration of Senate amendments of Bill C-29, the patent bill, and Bill C-12, the quarantine bill.

We will then return to second reading of Bill C-43, the budget bill, and eventually the third readings of: Bill C-23, the HRDC bill; Bill C-22, the social development bill; Bill C-26, the border services bill; and Bill C-9, the Quebec development bill.

Tomorrow we will begin with Bill C-43. If this is completed, we will then return to the list just given.

Next week is a break week. Since it happens to coincide this year with Passover, I would like to take this opportunity to extend to Canadians of the Jewish faith best wishes on this holiday.

After today there are 35 sitting days for the House before its scheduled adjournment on June 23. The government hopes that the House will be able to complete all stages of Bill C-38 and Bill C-43 by that date, which means that the bills will have to go to and be reported from committees in time for report stage and third reading in that limited time. That is why we have given priority to these bills in order to arrive at the supply votes.

The government is obliged to designate by that date 6 of those 35 days as allotted days or opposition days. Since we do not face the logistical and timing difficulties that I have just described vis-à-vis these two major bills, it seems logical and sensible to ask the House to deal with those second readings before proceeding with business such as opposition days, which are not followed by subsequent legislative stages.

If the members opposite would not be so sneaky in trying to change the Standing Orders, in fact, we could perhaps have the kind of dialogue that the hon. member is suggesting we have.

Patent Act

[Jerry Pickard, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, it is important for me today to thank all of the different parties in the House. There was strong cooperation in committee from all parties in the House and that was very much respected.

This is a significant time to move forward and to move forward quickly. My colleague across the way has been instrumental in bringing forward the issue of disease and the help that we can bring forward with the patent changes so that generic drugs can flow to Africa and help people there.

Does my colleague see ways that we can expand that cooperation so we can meet our humanitarian challenges around the world? Every party worked together very carefully and has been supportive with respect to Bill C-12.

I wonder if the member has some views about the way we could extend the opportunity to work in humanitarian ways in all other conflicts or problems around the world. That is critical today. The Canadian government has been called upon to do things that are humanitarian in nature. We have reached out to other countries as we saw with the tsunami. We saw it in this particular case. We see it all the time. How can we work together better and achieve the goals we need to achieve?

Quarantine Act

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, first I would like to congratulate the member for Hochelaga on his excellent speech. I would like to say that as the Bloc Québécois's health critic, he always works very hard. It was a pleasure for me to work with him when I was the NDP's health critic. A newly elected member is now assigned to this task, the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan. She is very interested and has a lot of experience in this regard. I think that the members will work very hard together.

I have two questions for the member regarding Bill C-12. First, I would like to know whether the member thinks that the government learned any lessons from the SARS crisis two years ago.

Second, is it certain Bill C-12 provides protection for workers who are quarantined without any compensation when such crises break out?

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

It is exactly 71.6%, I am informed by the member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, who knows the Criminal Code backwards and forwards and who is as knowledgeable about opinion polls.

That said, the Jean Charest government is challenging the reproductive technologies bill in court. This is nothing to sneeze at, for this is not a government particularly known for standing up for the interests of Quebec. WIth all due respect, one might in fact call it somewhat spineless.

This is a kind of repeat tendency by the federal government to wish to interfere in areas not under its jurisdiction. It is not surprising to see them doing so in connection with health, since that is still the area of most concern to our fellow citizens.

I do not want to stray off topic, so let us get back to Bill C-12. As I have said, when it was introduced by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, it was Bill C-36. This bill concerns both human rights and public facilities.

It has been clearly established that the way people move around has changed, and people are in closer contact, so the potential for infection is greater. I am talking about mere proximity, nothing extreme. In public places, even this one, we are seeing requests to wash our hands.Every time we go in or out of the House, we take great precautions. We now realize that even shaking hands can transmit certain things, though not the flu. According to scientific knowledge, influenza is not transmitted by human contact, but is a virus that can remain active a long time.

Let me not get off topic again. Back to the bill. It will give the minister the authority to designate quarantine areas anywhere in Canada. We in the Bloc Québécois, our colleague from Laval in particular, brought in a dozen or so amendments so that the government would never be able to do this without consultation and input from the health authorities, those of Quebec in our case, but those of the other provinces as well.

Unfortunately, I regret to inform the House that our amendments were not adopted by the parliamentary committee. I do regret that. The bill would have been strengthened, without our challenging the federal government's jurisdiction, if a real partnership like that could have been established.

The bill contains another important provision: it creates quarantine officers. These are people found often, but not exclusively, in airports. They will carry out investigations and verify whether someone is a source of infection. I will come back to this issue later, but it looks like an intrusion. The potential for violations of privacy in this bill was quite real. It was so real that the members of the committee felt the need to have the Privacy Commissioner testify. That was the Conservatives' idea. It was not a bad idea and we supported it. We did obtain a number of amendments, particularly concerning detention periods.

Happily or unhappily, I shall conclude by speaking of the number of quarantine officers and we will also look at some criminal law concepts. The hon. member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin will have some good memories of that.

The House will be pleased to learn that there are two quarantine officers in Halifax, four in Montreal, three in Ottawa, six in Toronto, three in Calgary, two in Edmonton and five in Vancouver, for a total of 25. The committee had this confirmed. We had debates on the issue. For example, the Association des infirmières et infirmiers du Québec could have seen health professionals as quarantine officers. Nurses could have performed the function, since they are familiar enough with the early signs of an infection.

In the bill, the minister chose to state that quarantine officers must be physicians. Is that a corporate bias? I shall refrain from judgment and each member can make up his or her own mind on this. Still, the fact is that quarantine officers, in terms of professional qualifications, must be physicians recognized by their own provincial governing body.

There also will be officers of various kinds, including environmental health officers. We understand that the Quarantine Act obviously applies to people entering or leaving Canada.

There will be an obligation, which already exists and has been confirmed, for all Canadian airports to be equipped with a site for examining people who may be infected or contaminated. This is nothing new. It is and will be the responsibility of airport authorities to provide space for this purpose.

At first glance, one might think this is a technical bill that has nothing to do with human relations or rights and freedoms. One might think the bill is not covered by the charter. We know we have a system that protects human rights. In 1982, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was adopted in Canada. René Lévesque was opposed to this charter for two reasons. I do not want to get off topic, but Mr. Lévesque said that section 27 on the enhancement of multicultural heritage went against our plan for integration. Quebec has always believed in a common public culture, which, incidentally, began with the late Gérald Godin, MNA for Mercier. Mr. Lévesque was opposed to the charter, the constitution that was imposed on us. Remember the unilateral patriation, the night of the long knives, and all that? The constitutional context is indelibly marked on the collective memory of Quebeckers.

Mr. Lévesque was opposed to this charter, specifically section 27 on the enhancement of multicultural heritage. However, he feared for the linguistic rights of Quebeckers. When we look at the Ford ruling and all the rulings—let us be frank—the Quebec clause has been invalidated. That is what happened with the charter.

Potential access to school was expanded for minorities, but not only for minorities. When a parent did his or her primary school in English in Canada, it was the Canada clause that applied, not the Quebec clause enacted by the National Assembly.

Mr. Lévesque was a visionary. I ask my colleagues to applaud Mr. Lévesque for, without his visionary side, without this grasp he had of the Charter, I think that the history of Quebec would have been different.

Let us not digress, however: back to the quarantine bill. This is a bill which concerns human rights. Why? Because the quarantine officer, to be designed by regulation, will have a power of detention. We know that he will have to be not only a health professional but a physician. In a certain number of cases—I grant you that this will have to be with court authorization—he will be able to detain for several hours, or several days, persons who he has reason to believe are infected to some degree. It is here that the parliamentary committee has shown vigilance in adding the legally sanctioned notion of reasonable doubt.

As the hon. member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin knows, it has been clearly established by the courts that one cannot cause bodily harm to a person. One cannot even compel a person to receive medical treatment. With regard to the Rodriguez case—whose connection to the Quarantine Act will be clear to everyone—and the issue of assisted suicide, it is important to know that the Supreme Court has said that section 7 on the right to life, liberty and security of the person does not imply the right to quality of life. The Supreme Court refused to declare invalid section 241 of the Criminal Code concerning persons who assist with a suicide.

Let us not forget the essential thing: all of this is to point out that Bill C-12 allows considerable powers of detention. The committee wanted to mark out those powers to some degree, and to ensure first of all that the trigger mechanism can be activated only on the ground of reasonable doubt and after an investigation.

A final note on travellers. To make it very clear to everyone, clause 28(1) of the bill creates very specific obligations for travellers. Indeed, under the Quarantine Act, when on Canadian soil, a traveller arriving from Paris, London, Berlin or anywhere else around the world, will be required to undergo a health assessment. This traveller will have to agree to the treatment identified by the quarantine officer. This is still subject to the qualifications I made earlier.

Let us look at another aspect of the bill, namely the whole issue of compensation. As we know, this issue took up a lot of the committee's time.

As I have less than a minute left, I shall conclude. In a nutshell, Bill C-12 is constitutionally valid, because it falls under the government's jurisdiction. It is a technical bill which, in some regards, should raise concerns about human rights.

We would have liked the BQ amendment calling for provincial jurisdictions to be respected and for no quarantine areas to be established without the prior consent of the province concerned. We would have liked a little more compensation. But, overall, this is a bill that deserves to be passed. The Bloc Québécois will support it.