Health committee  We're not legislators. We don't know how much work that entails.

Health committee  I would say it's fixable if you leave out the level 2s. That's the general sentiment I'm hearing.

Health committee  Do you mean with genetic engineering? If you were to clone in a gene from a level 3 or 4 pathogen, by definition your level 2 would be upgraded to the next highest level.

Health committee  I was surprised to learn in the documents from the information sessions that there were lots of laboratories in the country that are not compliant, or we don't know if they're compliant with the guidelines on biosafety that the university and government researchers have to adhere

Health committee  One point might be that this is always going to be subject to whatever regulations the Public Health Agency comes up with, and those are going to change from time to time in response to different challenges. I think you need to build into this bill that those changes will always

Health committee  I don't think I can answer that question.

Health committee  Right now, it reads: “human pathogen” means a micro-organism, nucleic acid or protein that (a) is listed in any of the Schedules And one of those schedules includes E. coli. If you interpret that literally without recourse to a set of regulations that explain things othe

Health committee  I think it would be great to have such an advisory committee. I'm sure the regulations will come out fine after PHAC goes through them and consults with people. It's just that there's an issue, especially among the more vocal members of my society, that they do not like being ask

Health committee  I think so, yes. We'd deal with the severe issues of levels 3 and 4 first in an act, and then clean up the other stuff afterwards. That would make sense to me.

Health committee  The membership would be very happy to have level 2 pathogens removed from this act—at least for now—even if that reference were to be replaced by a statement that all work with pathogens should be subject to guidelines generated by PHAC. That would be fine in the act. We'd wait t

Health committee  I'm not sure if I'm the best qualified person to answer that. There obviously has been concern about the possibility of micro-organisms being used for bioterrorism. Some of the precedents for that are the suspected use of anthrax and other agents in the Iraq-Iran war. There was

Health committee  I would like to thank the honourable members and the committee for giving me an opportunity to speak today. I'm here on behalf of the Canadian Society of Microbiologists, of which I am the president--that's an elected office, and it just happens to be me this year. This is a soci