Health Committee on June 4th, 2007

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

We'll have a short break. We want to thank the witnesses for coming forward, and then we'll proceed to Bill C-42.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

I call the meeting back to order.

To start with, I want to introduce our legislative clerk, Marc Toupin. It's good to have you with us to usher us through this clause-by-clause on Bill C-42.

We have the bill before us. On the government side, we have the two amendments we were talking about. We want to present those, lay them on the table, and debate them. We'll then go to clause-by-clause. Hopefully, we'll get through the bill by the end of the meeting, if it's the will of the committee.

We'll start on clause 1 right now, and we'll ask Mr. Fletcher to introduce his amendments.

(On clause 1)

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB]

Thank you.

Honourable colleagues and friends—hopefully you're one and the same—I am proposing two amendments to Bill C-42, an act to amend the Quarantine Act.

When Bill C-42 was developed, a decision was taken to remove the requirement for advance notification by land conveyance operators, such as buses and trains, and to focus only on air and marine conveyances. This decision was based on an assessment that land conveyances posed a limited threat to Canada. Advance reporting by land conveyances could have been prescribed by regulation at a later date, should it be deemed necessary.

Ensuring the safety and security of Canadians is vital to the importance of this government. As you know, outside Asia, Canada was the country hardest hit by SARS. Hundreds of people became seriously ill and dozens of those people died. In addition, SARS had a considerable negative social and economic impact on Canada. Protecting the health of Canadians is our primary concern.

Upon reflection, in keeping with the government's desire to have the most comprehensive public health protection legislation possible to protect Canadians, I am proposing two amendments to Bill C-42. These amendments will reintroduce the requirement for advance notification by land conveyance operators, before they arrive in Canada, and will address another matter relating to notification efforts by all conveyance operators.

The first amendment will require advance notification by commercial land conveyance operators, such as trains, buses, and trucks, so that Canadian authorities can be as well prepared as is reasonably possible to respond to health threats at Canadian borders. The advance notification obligations of land conveyance operators will be identical to those of air and marine conveyance operators.

The mechanism for meeting the requirement will be simple. A 1-800 number will make it easy to contact a quarantine officer 24 hours a day. Conveyance operators will simply need to call before arriving in Canada if they have reason to suspect a person, cargo, or thing on board could cause the spread of certain listed communicable diseases or a person on board has died. Advance notification by operators of all conveyances will give Canada the best public health protection measures at our borders in order to protect the health and safety of Canadians.

I'm also seeking a second amendment to clarify that all these operators can invoke the common-law defence of due diligence, meaning that if they have taken all reasonable steps to comply with proposed section 34, they will not face penal sanctions.

We are doing this because we are concerned about the use of the expression “if it is not possible” in proposed subsection 34(4). The subsection states that no conveyance operator contravenes the advance notification requirement if it is not possible to inform the quarantine officer before arriving.

Our intention has always been to require conveyance operators to make reasonable efforts to notify in advance. The amendment is necessary to remove any risk that proposed section 34 is setting a higher standard; that is to say, requiring an operator to take all steps short of the impossible. We wish to make it clear that conveyance operators who take reasonable efforts to meet advance notification requirements will have fulfilled their legal obligations. As such, the second amendment will clarify that the due diligence defence continues to be available to all conveyance operators who have made all reasonable efforts to comply with the advance reporting obligations.

These amendments will ensure Canada will be better aware of the public health threats approaching our borders and aboard commercial conveyances. The adoption of this requirement would ensure that Canada has in place better legal protection, in respect of these types of conveyances coming into the country, than any other state in the world. These amendments complement the international health regulations and go one step further in order to offer Canadians the best protection possible.

These proposed amendments strike the necessary balance between protecting Canadians from the threats of dangerous communicable diseases and facilitating the movement of persons and goods across international borders. They provide a clear public health benefit and are not expected to have a significant impact on cross-border trade.

Honourable colleagues and friends, I ask for your support in amending Bill C-42 as I have outlined.

The first amendment that I'm proposing is that Bill C-42 in clause 1 be amended by replacing line 8 on page 1 with the following:

(a) a conveyance that is used in the

The second amendment reads is that Bill C-42 in clause 1 be amended by replacing line 2 on page 2 with the following:

it is not reasonably possible for the operator to inform a

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

We'll vote on them one at a time.

Actually, I'm a little bit nervous about this, because the last time Rahim Jaffer was able to make it to our committee meeting, everything hit the fan and the meeting was in a real problem. He's here again, so I am a little nervous. I just wanted to let him know that. It has nothing to do with him. Nonetheless, we will be able to debate both these at the same time because they are somewhat related. Then we'll go to a vote on these amendments and then go to clause-by-clause consideration.

Go ahead, Ms. Brown.

[Bonnie Brown, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm quite happy to do both amendments. They sort of go together. I compliment the parliamentary secretary and you for communicating the concerns of the committee to the minister, and for your achieving this result of restoring something to a bill that we only passed a while back.

I want to also thank my colleagues on the committee. It may have seemed at one time that I was making a big fuss about this bill, but you will recall from today's conversation that there are many committees, many working groups, meeting around regulatory change, all attached to this SPP, and the fact of the matter is that unless an earlier committee of some sort--be it the health committee or some other committee--requires that regulations come back to a standing committee, the normal modus operandi is that any regulatory changes are simply put in the Canada Gazette. They do not come back.

Because this was a change in legislation, we got wind of it. It had to come to us, but had it been only a change of regulation, my guess is none of us would have known it was happening.

In terms of this bill, it's not only going to be a good thing that we got to look at it, but it's also alerted us and, I hope, some of our colleagues on other committees to have the researchers keep their eye out for the Gazette when regulatory changes are published there and to bring them to our attention, because we may choose to call a meeting to call the departmental officials who are proposing such a regulatory change to come and explain it to us. We have gone through an exercise here that I think is very worthwhile from the perspective of keeping the parliamentary oversight on top of this whole SPP process.

I would like also to say, Mr. Chair, that I'm not opposed to certain regulatory harmonization. I can certainly see the value when it has to do with manufacturing and those kinds of things; however, it seems to me we should be on top of anything that has to do with the health and safety of Canadians every step of the way.

Thank you for your patience. I will be supporting these two amendments and the bill as amended.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you. I would just add to what you said. It's a tribute to everyone on the committee. We're pretty united on this issue. It's great to see democracy work the way it has in this instance, and I think it's a tribute to everyone around the table.

Go ahead, Mr. Fletcher.

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB]

I have to agree with that. We've heard of other committees having problems, and I have to say it's a real pleasure working on a committee within which we can actually have respectful dialogue and come up with consensus whenever possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Ms. Priddy, please go ahead.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Thank you.

Steven, could you just walk through the second amendment again for me, please?

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB]

You have to go to page 2 in the act, which my aide is grabbing right now, to get the context.

But if it's not reasonably possible to inform, it just--

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Could you give me a couple of examples of what that might mean? When might not it be reasonable to enforce?

I'm not trying to draw this out, Mr. Chair. I'm just wondering how easy it is or not to get out of that particular--

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Let's have Dr. Butler-Jones answer that.

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

Jane can supplement from a legal standpoint.

Essentially what we're trying to do is get compliance, but if it's not possible, it acknowledges the existing reasonable defence under common law that you actually tried. Maybe the cellphone network was down. Any number of things could do that. They still have to report at the border, even if there was an advance notification.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Right.

Do they have to prove they tried?

[Jane Allain]

Essentially, the reason we brought in that amendment is that under the common law, but also under the charter, because of section 7 of the charter--which requires that everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of the person, and not to be deprived of that unless it's done in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice--when you have a strict liability offence, similar to the one we have here in proposed subsection 34(2), you have to allow an accused to mount a defence of due diligence, that they weren't negligent in the exercise of their function. To be able to make that requirement we've inserted the word “reasonable”, so that it's clear that if they make reasonable efforts to comply with their obligation--they make several phones calls, but it's not possible to get into communication--that they've shown they've done their due diligence; they attempted to meet their obligation, but because of the circumstances were not able to do so.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Madame Gagnon.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

The case of Mr. Speaker was a concern for us in terms of delays in transmitting information for reporting that an individual might be a danger to someone else. I know that we are not talking about that, but in proposed subsection 34(2), in clause 1, what do you understand the words "As soon as possible" to mean? When there are words like "reasonable time" and "as soon as possible", there is always a way to explain why it was not done, but at the same time there are very serious consequences if it is not reported, charges are laid.

Mr. Speaker talked to the newspapers, he cried, he said he was sorry, that he did not know he might be a danger to the public. That is all very well, but when someone breaks a law or regulations, charges are laid. As you see the situation, what do the words "as soon as possible" mean? Does that mean 24 hours, 10 hours, 12 hours?

If there were serious problems because "as soon as possible" was too long, how are you going to evaluate that? You say that you are not conducting a specific investigation into Mr. Speaker's case. What I think is that there should be an investigation so that this can be a lesson to us and to determine what we will put in place and what process we can apply in that situation.

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

I am sorry, but there will be a joint investigation by the CDC and us about the lessons, the challenges, and what has to be corrected.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

You are saying that there will be an investigation?

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

With respect to Mr. Speaker and his presence in Canada, we have forwarded the file to the RCMP for it to investigate. That decision, as it relates to the justice system, is for it to make.

However, in terms of the question of the words "as soon as possible", Ms. Allain could perhaps answer that.

[Jane Allain]

If we consider the wording of the case in question, as soon as possible before a conveyance arrives in Canada, essentially, that is as soon as it is aware of the situation. So once the operator has reasonable grounds to suspect that someone on board the conveyance is infected with one of the communicable diseases listed in the schedule, or that a person has died, or other prescribed circumstances, the operator must disclose that fact as soon as it is aware of it. That will therefore always be a question of fact that will have to be proved afterward. Our main concern is that once the operator is aware of the situation, it must inform a quarantine officer or cause a quarantine officer to be informed.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you.

Ms. Kadis, did you have a question?