Djaouida Sellah

[Health, May 1st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Health continues to abdicate responsibility in the matter of the diluted chemotherapy drugs. The problem is that, as her Ontario counterpart said, this matter falls under federal jurisdiction. Marchese Hospital Solutions even approached her department as early as 2011. Why does the minister continue to deny that drug safety in Canada falls entirely under her jurisdiction? When will a permanent solution be found for this problem?

[Health, April 30th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, we learned yesterday that Marchese Hospital Solutions, one of the companies accused of supplying diluted chemotherapy drugs, approached Health Canada in 2011 to inquire about the federal regulatory framework and to ensure it was following the rules. However, Health Canada told the company that that was outside its jurisdiction.

Health Canada knew what was going on.

Why did the minister not do what had to be done from the start to prevent this crisis?

[Committees of the House, April 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her passionate speech, and I join with her to say that I, too, am an immigrant and proud to be Canadian.

I will talk about my particular case. When I came to Canada, I was a doctor by training, but I had to retake courses to obtain my equivalency. I had young children. Despite the many obstacles, I sponsored their grandmother. Had she not been able to come, I would not be here today.

All that to say that if we want those that we allow to become Canadians to make a contribution to this country, we also have to think about their relations—their parents, their wife or their partner. We know that family ties make nation building possible.

I also heard the comments by our colleague opposite. He said that we need to match immigration to the economy. According to the statistics, Canada is grappling with an aging population and a declining birth rate. One in five Canadians is over 60 and, according to forecasts, that number will be one in three by 2020. Furthermore, CIC estimates that in five years, or 60 months, new needs for skilled labour in Canada will be met entirely by immigration. How can the hon. member say that? Under this government, the immigration rate has fallen to a historic low of 0.7%.

Could my colleague comment on the economic contribution of immigrants when they are allowed to bring their family members to Canada?

[Health, April 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, for the second time in just a few months, the American Food and Drug Administration is sounding the alarm about the safety of drugs made by Canadian manufacturer Apotex.

The FDA, which has sent several notices of violation to Apotex, is going as far as threatening to prohibit it from accessing the American market. Why? Because the factory does not meet safety standards.

How can the Minister of Health justify this situation?

[Immunization, April 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, last week was World Immunization Week, which gives me an excellent opportunity to remind everyone that immunization is one of the best public health tools at our disposal to prevent disease. This has never been clearer to me than it was during my recent trip to Malawi at the invitation of Results Canada.

I saw first-hand the effects of immunization on families and especially their communities. I saw hundreds of women and children waiting for their injection.

While immunization is a trivial matter to us here in Canada, it provides those women and children with hope for a better, healthier life. Canada must continue funding immunization clinics to ensure that such a future remains possible for all.

[Combating Terrorism Act, April 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and riding neighbour.

As I just mentioned, many important people support our position, including Denis Barrette, a spokesperson for the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group; Ihsaan Gardee, the executive director of the Canadian Council on American Islamic Relations; Ziyaad Mia, the chair of the Advocacy and Research Committee of the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association; Carmen Cheung, a lawyer for the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association; and Nathalie Des Rosiers, the general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. All of these people agree with us.

[Combating Terrorism Act, April 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I truly understand how he feels about this bill.

We know that this Conservative government is slashing budgets everywhere, including the budgets for community police services.

How can we expect community police, or other enforcement services, to do their job properly if they do not have the required means? We know very well that satellites and sophisticated devices are not the way to collect reliable information.

We have to provide the tools and the means, even if only to those in the field, to detect any activity that could result in a terrorist act.

[Combating Terrorism Act, April 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague opposite, who is a fellow member of the Standing Committee on Health, which runs smoothly.

Unfortunately, I do not agree with this bill. The NDP believes that Canada must give serious consideration to the issue of terrorism while maintaining the rights and freedoms of all Canadians.

This bill is not the right response to the threat of terrorism. It would reintroduce measures that, in the past, have proven to be unwarranted and ineffective.

[Combating Terrorism Act, April 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, like a number of my colleagues, I will start by denouncing the reasons behind debating this bill today.

Bill S-7, the Combating Terrorism Act, could have been brought back to the House quite a while ago. If the government really believed that this bill was vital to the safety of Canadians, it could have decided to debate it a long time ago. If the government truly believes that this bill is vital and it did not put it on the agenda until yesterday, then it is negligent.

However, I do not think that is the case. I really think the government decided to take advantage of recent events in order to muster public opinion. That is also what the editorial team of The Globe and Mail thinks.

Let us be clear. Like all my NDP colleagues and all my colleagues in the House, I condemn terrorism. To quote the former secretary-general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, “terrorist acts are never justified, no matter what considerations may be invoked.” I condemn the Boston bombing and I condemned the September 11 attacks. I condemn the bombings that take place throughout the world every day. I want to take this opportunity to commend all the law enforcement officers who in any way participated in the investigation that led to yesterday's arrests. Well done.

Many of my loved ones have been affected by terrorism. Whether it was because of the Algerian war or the Islamic Army in the 1990s, my loved ones have lived in fear. I have learned one thing from this: it is always civilians who pay the price for such senseless violence.

I also had the experience of being in a place where bombs were dropped when I worked as a medical volunteer for the Red Crescent during the first Gulf War, and so I know the effects and dangers of terrorism. I am therefore proud to stand in the House and oppose this bill.

I am opposed to this bill for many reasons. The first, but by no means the least of these, is that I believe in the rule of law. This bill, as it currently stands, violates the most fundamental civil liberties and human rights. I want to prevent attacks on Canada, but I also want to prevent the arbitrary arrests and the abuse we see in police states.

In Canada, we already have laws that punish crimes of terror and give law enforcement officers the tools they need to protect national security. In this morning's edition of Le Devoir, there is a great quote by Nathalie Des Rosiers, general counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. In reference to the case of Canadians involved in the hostage situation at the In Amenas gas plant in Algeria, she said:

If the police had had any evidence, they would have done something. There are many provisions in the Criminal Code under which these individuals could have been arrested.

Denis Barrette, a spokesperson for the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, made a similar speech in 2011. He said:

We know as well that these provisions could, as we see it, be abused. I am thinking here of the Air India case. We believe that Canadians will be better served and better protected under the usual provisions of the Criminal Code, rather than others that are completely unnecessary. Reliance on arbitrary powers and a lower standard of evidence can never replace good, effective police work.

The NDP wants to strike a balance between safety and people's rights and freedoms. We proposed numerous amendments to the bill in order to strike that balance. The government rejected them all. However, I found them to be quite reasonable.

The committee members would have had plenty of choice if they had wanted to pass even one amendment as a sign of goodwill, which they obviously did not do, because my colleagues proposed 18 amendments. I would like to mention a few of the amendments so that Canadians can judge for themselves just how stubborn this Conservative government is, how obsessed it is with always being right and how it believes itself to be infallible.

Here are a few of them: ask the Security Intelligence Review Committee to look at the possibility of an inter-agency co-operation protocol to ensure that it would be effective and that rights protected by law would be respected, and have that protocol in place before the leaving the country offences could come into effect; establish the right to state-funded legal aid if a person had to attend an investigative hearing; add a comprehensive review of the government's implementation of the Arar commission's recommendations with regard to accountability and oversight mechanisms, with particular attention to oversight and activities among agencies; and include the advice of the Canadian Human Rights Commission on the racial discrimination and profiling issues surrounding Bill S-7.

Really? I thought it was impossible to be against virtue. These are just a few examples of the amendments put forward by the NDP, but to no avail. The members of this government rejected them all, one by one. I would also like to point out that neither the Conservatives nor the Liberals even bothered to propose any amendments to this bill.

Many of the measures in this bill were suggested in 2001 following the September 11 attacks. These measures expired in 2007, so they have not been in force for the past five years, and when they were in force, they were used a grand total of zero times. Zero, zéro, sifr, none, nada, never.

I would like to quote something former CSIS director Reid Morden said in 2010 about some of these measures:

I confess I never thought that they should have been introduced in the first place and that they slipped in, in the kind of scrambling around that the government did after 9/11.

He added:

Police and security forces have perfectly sufficient powers to do their jobs. They don't need more powers.

We in the NDP will continue to fight to achieve a balance between personal rights and freedoms and people's safety. We believe that the provisions included in this bill provide no additional protection to anyone in this country. I would remind hon. members that this bill is in its present form because the government refused the 18 amendments we proposed in committee in order to strike a balance between safety and rights and freedoms. Accordingly, I cannot support this bill.

Furthermore, this bill leaves out some of the additional protections that were included in the 2001 legislation. An editorial published in today's Ottawa Citizen entitled “No need for new laws” shares many of our concerns. To quote that article:

The idea that the state can arrest and detain someone who has not done anything criminal runs counter to the fundamental values of our society.

For all these reasons, I will oppose this bill and I will vote against it with pride and with my head held high.

[Anaphylaxis, April 19th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to this motion on anaphylaxis.

Anaphylaxis is a serious allergic reaction that occurs very quickly and can be fatal. It typically involves a number of signs and symptoms, affecting one or more systems of the body. It can be brought on by food, medication, insect bites, contact with latex or exercise. The most common cause is food. Eight food items are responsible for 93% of anaphylaxis cases in children, and these products are very commonly used in processed foods. These food allergens include eggs, peanuts, milk, soy, tree nuts, fish, seafood and wheat.

Anaphylactic shock can occur without any forewarning. Any direct or indirect contact with an allergen, usually involuntary, is all it takes. In addition, the reaction does not always occur upon first contact with the substance. It may not happen until the second or third exposure.

I spoke with many people in my riding who are affected by this problem. I am certainly not the only member in this House who knows someone, since 50% of Canadians know at least one person who has a food allergy.

Living with the risk of anaphylactic shock or, even worse, having a child at risk of experiencing anaphylactic shock is an ongoing concern. A number of parents have told me they have a hard time finding daycare for their children because of the risk involved. For people in my riding, this has meant using private, non-subsidized daycare and having to pay more than $7 a day.

Those same people often have to cook meals from scratch to ensure that they do not affect their children's health or their own by doing something as simple as eating.

The new food labelling rules implemented in 2012 were very welcome. It is finally easy for people to know what is in the products they buy. The labels now indicate the content in simple terms. The list of ingredients must include commonly used words. In the case of kamut, for example, the label must now indicate “wheat”. That is much better than listing dozens of names.

However, the fact remains that for people at risk, anaphylaxis is a threat that hangs over their heads. The statement “may contain” is not mandatory, and many companies include it as a preventive measure. The rules and procedures in cases of anaphylactic shock also differ from province to province and even from one establishment to another.

Many provinces have already passed laws or adopted rules to keep children with allergies safe. In Ontario, Sabrina's law requires all school boards in the province and child care providers to meet certain standards in staff training and emergency procedures. Sabrina's law seems to be a benchmark, since a number of groups in Quebec have said to me that they are trying to have similar legislation passed in Quebec, which would be called Megan's law. Other provinces such as Manitoba and British Columbia have already dealt with the matter.

The motion before us speaks for itself. Anaphylaxis is a growing problem, and according to the Allergy, Genes and Environment Network, the true extent of the problem and the number of people affected are probably underestimated. Measures must be taken to ensure that people at risk of anaphylaxis have a good quality of life.

I find this motion disappointing because it does not contain any specific measures.

The member for Niagara West—Glanbrook made some suggestions in his speech, and I would like to thank him for that.

The groups and associations we spoke with support this motion first and foremost because the debate will raise awareness and increase dialogue about anaphylaxis. Anaphylaxis Canada definitely supports it. I am not going to argue that.

However, what are the “appropriate measures necessary” that this motion refers to? I have a few suggestions. First, we need drug coverage in Canada.

Every affected person should have an auto-injector. It must be replaced once a year, even if it has not been used. Auto-injectors are not free and are not always covered by insurance, public or private. Each one costs more than $100. Families affected by the economic crisis, who are often part of the middle class and are suffering the consequences of the Conservative budget, must pay at least $100 out of their pockets each year for medication that could save a life. That is a problem. Many families cannot afford it, but they still need to have one. If we had a universal drug plan, the problem would be solved.

Access to our health care system and to primary care services also needs to be improved. Early diagnosis would prevent severe reactions. During an anaphylactic reaction, each minute, even each second, counts. However, that cannot happen because hundreds of thousands of Canadians, including thousands in my riding of Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, do not have access to a family doctor. The same is true for emergency services.

Despite the inadequacies in our health care system, this government has decided to pull out of this sector. Instead of negotiating with the provinces and territories in order to determine how to make a drug plan work, this government has decided to unilaterally impose a funding formula on the provinces and territories and deprive them of $36 billion in federal health transfers. That was a Conservative promise.

Anaphylaxis is a very serious public health issue. I would like to thank the member for Niagara West—Glanbrook for having brought this debate forward. I hope that it will result in tangible help for Canadian families that have a member living with anaphylaxis.