Bill C-5 (Historical)

Public Health Agency of Canada Act

An Act respecting the establishment of the Public Health Agency of Canada and amending certain Acts

This enactment establishes the Public Health Agency of Canada to assist the Minister of Health in exercising or performing the Minister’s powers, duties and functions in relation to public health. It also provides that the Governor in Council may make regulations respecting the collection and management of public health information and the protection of confidential information, including personal information. It also makes related and consequential amendments to certain Acts.

Public Health Agency of Canada Act

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to priorities, this is the first of the five bills introduced that is specific to health care. It is interesting that it represents the number five, which is the five priorities that this government stands for. We are going to hear more about that this afternoon in the budget speech.

However, the commitment we have to health care waiting times and the commitment we have to implementing Bill C-5 shows leadership, shows direction.

The former government had 13 years to talk about how important these issues were. It had the opportunity to speak and, more important, act on the issue of providing good fundamental leadership when it came to health care and standing up for the five principles of the Health Care Act. It is not by coincidence that the number five plays a key role in why the legislation is before us. One of our five key priorities is health care, the five principles of health care in the Canada Health Act, and the fifth bill presented in the 39th Parliament regarding health care.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to participate in the debate this afternoon on Bill C-5, the Public Health Agency of Canada act.

This is legislation that my New Democrat colleagues and I want to support. We will be working hard on this legislation and our health critic, the member for Surrey North, will be working hard on it at committee to improve it, but we are happy that the legislation is before Parliament.

It was a resurrected bill from the 38th Parliament, Bill C-75. I have to say, given the last exchange we just heard, that both the previous government and the current government deserve some credit for moving forward on a public health agenda. The previous government did in fact institute the position of minister responsible for public health and did appoint the Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. David Butler-Jones. The member for St. Paul's, who spoke earlier today, spoke enthusiastically about the work of public health in Canada. He was the first minister of public health.

The current government deserves credit for giving it a high priority, for formalizing the agency through this legislation and for putting the bill forward so early in this Parliament. I think there needs to be some joint credit on this issue.

The genesis of the legislation was probably the SARS crisis, which a number of members spoke to earlier in the debate. SARS affected Toronto in particular. Outside of Asia, I think Toronto was the major area that SARS affected. It shook up people in Toronto and in Canada fairly significantly to say the least. Their faith in our system their faith in our ability to deal with a major infectious disease was shaken.

Canadians want to know that their families are safe. They want to see that there is an ability for health care professionals to coordinate their activities. They know that there are dedicated teams of health care professionals. We saw that during the SARS crisis where people came together under very difficult circumstances, where, in some cases, their own lives were in danger. They worked very hard and in very creative ways to address SARS.

Canadians want to know that kind of cooperation and those kinds of skills are coordinated and effectively utilized all across the country during those kinds of crisis points in our health care history. The SARS crisis demonstrated clearly the need for a national coordination of public health issues.

A national advisory committee on SARS and public health was struck after the SARS crisis. It was chaired by Dr. David Naylor and it made many recommendations. I think this legislation flows directly out of those recommendations.

It is good to have something tangible on the agenda of this Parliament and something tangible to deal with the concerns of Canadians with regard to infectious diseases and to deal with the concerns of health care professionals who have to attack those infectious diseases.

I have a real bias when it comes to talking about public health and that bias is to increase the influence of public health nurses and public health professionals in government, in our health care and in our social systems.

Before I was a member of Parliament, I worked in the community of Burnaby for 18 years. I was always impressed by the approach that public health care nurses took to dealing with issues in our community. Public health care nurses have a particular skill set that brings something crucial to almost every discussion in our community. They bring very specific health care skills through their nursing training. They have particular people skills that are not always evident in every professional group. Public health care nurses are particularly good at analyzing the context of crises and problems in our community. Public health care nurses have shown that they are excellent organizers. In fact, I cannot think of better organizers in our community than the public health care nurses who serve Burnaby.

In my experience, if we are looking for someone at a community meeting to work on a community project or for someone to cut through the rhetoric and get to the core of an issue, that person is more likely to be a public health care nurse than any other professional in the community. They also have a particular understanding of grassroots organizations. Because they deal with people who are experiencing health problems or who are experiencing the problems that lead to health problems, they really understand what is going on in the community. I think they are actually grassroots experts in many ways

Public health care nurses take a holistic approach to solving problems in our community. They do not limit themselves to specific health issues. They go to environmental issues and other social issues, like poverty, to understand the importance of public health in the community. They draw connections between all of the issues that face the communities. They would draw connections between the environmental, between human rights issues and between poverty issues to come up with a holistic approach to solving a health problem. That is very typical of the entire profession and the entire professional group. These are people who bring broad experience and know how to apply that and know how to organize around that experience.

That is something that is needed more in this place. I remembered this morning that a former colleague, the former member for Hamilton Mountain, Marion Dewar, a former mayor of the city of Ottawa, came out of a public health background. I think one of the reasons for her success in her political life was from the expertise she gained there. We need to integrate that perspective into government.

In the future, I would be happy if we saw more public health care nurses in this place. A few less lawyers and more public health nurses would be a good thing in my opinion.

Public health care has five tenets: disease prevention and injury prevention, health promotion, health protection, health surveillance and population health assessment. Those five tenets are very important but they are often the flip side of our health care system where we are dealing with the more acute and treatment issues in health care.

Specifically, the bill seeks to address those five tenets of public health care. Where that is evident is if we look to the preamble of the bill specifically. In the preamble we see that by undertaking the establishment of the Public Health Agency, that the government wants to take public health measures, including measures relating to health protection and promotion, population health assessment, health surveillance, disease and injury prevention and public health emergency preparedness and response seriously. Those relate directly to the five tenets that I just noted.

We also see that the government wishes to foster collaboration within the field of public health and to coordinate federal policies and programs in the area of public health. The agency is:

--to promote cooperation and consultation in the field of public health with provincial and territorial governments;

The agency is:

--to foster cooperation in that field with foreign governments and international organizations, as well as other interested persons or organizations;

We have heard many times today how viruses, bacteria and disease do not respect any border, let alone international borders and provincial borders and how this kind of coordination is very important in the public health area.

Finally, from the preamble, it states:

--the creation of a public health agency for Canada and the appointment of a Chief Public Health Officer will contribute to federal efforts to identify and reduce public health risk factors and to support national readiness for public health threats;

The preamble says it all and it shows why the bill is so important and why it is so important to Canadians. We need to recognize that this is a significant step forward, that there are specifically focused public health measures in the federal government, is something that is perhaps overdue and it is a measure that I think we can all enthusiastically support.

We need to have confidence in the leadership in public health and we need to have confidence in the structure of public health in Canada. This will fill a gap that has existed for some time.

Earlier this morning, my colleague, the member for Surrey North, the NDP health critic, talked about some of the concerns that we have in this corner of the House with regard to the bill. I will just go through six of the concerns that we would like to outline.

The first one, which I raised earlier today and we have had some discussion on this afternoon, is the question of the resources that will be dedicated to the agency and to the important tasks of the agency. We have heard that there is concern out there that there are not enough financial resources nor not enough human resources available to do this important work. A group like the Canadian Medical Association and other stakeholder agencies have raised that issue. I do hope, maybe even today in the budget that we will hear later today, that we may hear a commitment from the government to ensure the resources are there, if necessary, to do this important job.

We also have raised the concern that the Chief Public Health Officer is not given authority over other areas of federal jurisdiction such as airports, railways and military bases, as well as the health of aboriginal people. We need to ensure, given infectious diseases often spread through our transportation system, as we saw with SARS, that the Chief Public Health Officer has the a mandate to deal with health concerns in those areas.

Also, there is an important role for the Chief Public Health Officer in correctional services in terms of harm reduction around drug use and the spread of diseases like HIV-AIDS and hepatitis in the prison system. We know that is a public health issue. It is not only concentrated in the correctional facilities. Prisoners get released and they go back into the general population. Therefore, the health of folks who are incarcerated in our prison system is of concern of all Canadians.

We are also concerned about the power to enforce the Quarantine Act. Under the current system, and this bill would not change that, the power would remain with the Minister of Health. In other jurisdictions the power around the Quarantine Act rests with the provincial public health officers. This seems to be a bit of a disconnect between the provincial system and the federal system. It is probably something that merits attention in the committee.

The Public Health Agency is also not given authority to act when a province or a territory is overwhelmed by a crisis or when a crisis transcends provincial and territorial borders. As I mentioned earlier, we know that viruses, disease and bacteria do not respect borders created by people.

Our fifth point is that the Public Health Agency is not given authority to impose mandatory reporting of diseases by the provinces and territories. Part of the health surveillance mandate is to assess risk in the population. We cannot have a system where we have 13 different strategies. We need to have the ability to control a communicable disease outbreak. This morning my colleague discussed the current outbreak of mumps in North America, specifically in the United States, but also in Canada. Also, the re-emergence of tuberculosis is a major health concern in many of our cities across Canada. We have to ensure that there is the ability to coordinate and that someone is looking at the overall picture across Canada. We cannot have 13 different strategies to address these important issues of communicable diseases.

Finally, our sixth concern is to ensure that the Chief Public Health Officer has some modicum of independence from the Minister of Health. We think there is an important role for independence of this officer and that he or she should have the ability to run with the issues within the mandate of the officer and to take the initiative, as seen fit, to promote the important mandate of the agency. I know my colleague, the member for Surrey North and the NDP health critic, will be raising this when the bill gets to committee.

This is very important legislation. We strongly support getting it to committee and moving on this. We know how important it is to the public health of all Canadians. We know it has been an important response to a major health crisis in SARS. We want to ensure that we do not delay, that we take the appropriate action to follow up on both that crisis and the recommendations made by those who we asked to study this. We should get on with the work, get it into committee and get the bill enacted.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in addition to those that do not respect borders, there is also the federal government which does not respect the borders of infringement on the provinces’ jurisdictions.

We know that the new agency, which is already in operation, but which is going to be given powers by Bill C-5, with its mandate and its mission, will not respect the “borders” of federal jurisdiction.

I would therefore have a question for the NDP member regarding the structures that will be put in place in order to fulfill this new agency’s entire mission.

There are currently 2,000 public servants to carry out this entire mission. The mandate is a broad one, it does not relate just to SARS or diseases and viruses that can be transmitted from one “border” to another, as the member said. It has much more to do with diseases such as diabetes, cancer and heart disease. We are well aware that a lot more public servants will be needed. Already, this agency has been given $1 billion to meet its responsibilities.

Does the member not think that this is an enormous bureaucracy that is going to be created, particularly in provinces like Quebec, which already has all the institutions to meet the needs and comply with global requirements in relation to health prevention and in the event of a pandemic or other diseases or viruses?

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member and I probably have a different understanding of the jurisdiction and the importance of the federal government. That is probably a given in this conversation. However, she raises an important question about not creating an unnecessary new bureaucracy, which would be the wrong thing to do. We have to respect that some provinces have excellent measures in place in this area.

We often hear from her corner of the House of the good work that has been done in Quebec. We often hear about as Quebec being Utopia. I do not think it is always as good as it sounds, but there are some good models. The community health agencies in Quebec are an important model of health care delivery and preventive care from which we could all learn something. I wish we had a similar institution in my province.

However, we do not want to go around willy-nilly creating a new bureaucracy that is not effective. This is something that all of us in every corner of the House will be interested to follow to ensure that the agency does the work it is supposed to do effectively and efficiently.

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his party's support. This is an excellent example where the Conservatives and the NDP can work together for the betterment of all Canadians.

Could the member comment on the fact that it seems to have taken the previous government forever and a day to introduce the bill, and nothing came of it, while this government, with the support of the NDP, has worked quite quickly to bring the bill forward? Does the member have any comments on the commitment, or lack thereof, of the previous government in the area of public health.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, to go back to where I began my speech, I want to recognize that the former Liberal government took some important steps in this area. I recognize that it established the minister of state for public health as an important cabinet position. It appointed the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada, which was important action to take.

I am glad the current Conservative government has given this bill high priority and put it fifth on its list of legislation in this Parliament. That is a significant thing to do.

Credit needs to be shared. I do not agree necessarily with the parliamentary secretary's position that there was no action. It would have been nice if the legislation had come to the previous Parliament and gone through, but that did not happen. To say the previous government did not take any important initiatives in this area, is wrong. At the same time, I do not want to take away from the initiative that the member's government is currently taking in this area.

We need to get on with this important work, get the bill to committee and get it through and enacted so the system is up and running as it should be.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like the New Democrat member to be a little more specific in regard to his fears about the bureaucracy. In his speech, or in the answers he gave just a few minutes ago, he referred to a fear, an apprehension in that regard. I would like to hear him speak to that subject.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure I can be any more specific than I was in my speech. The reservations we have in this corner are not huge ones. I am not sure they are ones that cannot overcome even by further discussion at the committee and by further clarification on the roles of the agency and the Chief Public Health Officer and the relationships of that agency with the 13 other provincial and territorial governments in Canada.

That is what I heard from my colleague, the member for Surrey North, this morning when she spoke on behalf of our party as our health critic. I think these issues can be addressed in committee and worked out so we will have a clear understanding of the legislation by the end of that discussion.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

It being 2 o'clock, we will now go to statements by members. There will be three minutes left in the period of questions and comments for the hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-5, An Act respecting the establishment of the Public Health Agency of Canada and amending certain Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

When the debate was interrupted, the hon. member for Burnaby--Douglas had the floor for questions and comments, and there were three minutes remaining in the time allotted for questions and comments.

The hon. member for Windsor West.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-5 has a potential provision in it that could be very helpful. The NDP championed a motion, which was passed in the House of Commons, relating to the banning of trans fats. The member for Winnipeg Centre was a particular champion on this motion.

We know trans fats are in everything from children's baby food to regular types of packaged food. It is one of the things we can reduce, as a human health factor, through promotion, enforcement and regulations. Having an advocate for this through Bill C-5 would be an enhancement. Public policy could be shaped across the country that would improve wellness. More important, it could eliminate some of the risks factors on human health, which costs us on the medical side and shortens the span of life of our citizens.

What is the hon. member's opinion on how the bill might be able to tackle overall coordination and advancement of the elimination of trans fats and other types of human health issues that affect us on a regulation basis?

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Windsor for reminding us of the great victory we had in the last Parliament, as an NDP caucus, concerning the vote of Parliament and alerting all Canadians to the dangers of trans fats.

This Public Health Agency will have responsibility for health promotion and the ability to deal with the whole issue of trans fats in our foods. It has been something that has been lacking, frankly. We have not had the ability to focus, to give the kind of attention to the health promotion aspect of our health care system. We have often become bogged down in the important questions of health care and the more acute questions of the health care system.

The Public Health Agency and the Chief Public Health Officer will have an important role to play in promoting health and in dealing with issues such as trans fats. This legislation is very important on that issue as well.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to contribute to the debate on Bill C-5.

Starting yesterday, the parliamentary secretary addressed the House on the bill. It is quite clear that the bill has the support of the House. It is a bill that was available in the last Parliament, but was not able to get through the full legislative process before Parliament was dissolved.

The summary of the bill states:

This enactment establishes the Public Health Agency of Canada to assist the Minister of Health in exercising or performing the Minister’s powers, duties and functions in relation to public health. It also provides that the Governor in Council may make regulations respecting the collection and management of public health information and the protection of confidential information, including personal information. It also makes related and consequential amendments to certain Acts.

In a brief paragraph, that is precisely what the bill does.

Oddly enough, the debate has become one about health issues, which are really important. It is really important to understand why the bill was first developed in the last Parliament.

I can recall in 2000 or 2001 having a private member's initiative in which I proposed that the Government of Canada establish the position of physician general of Canada. Members will be aware of the surgeon general in the United States. The physician general of Canada would be a parallel position. I specifically wanted to address the issue of the evolution of the roles and responsibilities of Health Canada, which were becoming so great that Canadians were having some difficulty finding out exactly where they would get information.

To visit the website of Health Canada is a very problematic exercise even today, because there are so many aspects to Health Canada. It does not surprise me that we are trying to put some focus, particularly as it relates to some of the more critical aspects of public health.

There was the SARS outbreak in 2003. This was probably the big wake-up call that was needed for parliamentarians. The SARS outbreak was particularly focused in the greater Toronto area, actually in Scarborough. A particular member had an area which was under close scrutiny. A lot of people were scrambling around trying to figure out what to do. There was the potential for a serious viral epidemic in Canada threatening the health of a countless number, who knows, thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people.

I can also remember looking at the websites of various departments to determine what they were doing in terms of the SARS issue. The Health Canada press releases referred to 18 different websites and 18 different departments. It was an indication that within Health Canada there were so many things going on. There were areas of controversy like the hep C issue, which certainly was a significant problem. There was an issue of where the focal point was for public health issues.

Canadians may wonder what public health issues are. Canadians will also recognize that there has to be a reason for the legislation. There has to be a linkage to the constitutional authority given to the Minister of Health.

As it relates to public health, the government obviously wishes to take measures in certain areas. These include health protection and promotion. There is a health protection branch already, but it is in need of that focal point as well.

The issue of population health assessment is another important area, as is health surveillance to ensure that we are vigilant about emerging problems and early detection of situations. There is as well disease and injury prevention. There is also emergency preparedness and response, which is where the SARS situation comes in. These areas are of significant importance to Canadians because they all relate to the umbrella topic of public health.

The Government of Canada also needs to have this focal point to foster collaboration within the field of public health, to collaborate and coordinate federal policies and programs in the area of public health, as well as to promote cooperation and consultation in the field of public health with provincial and territorial governments. It is extremely important that there be this coordination. I can think of a couple of examples where the absence of that coordination has caused some significant delays in progress on certain public health issues.

It is also fair to say that the public health issues transcend Canada's borders as well. It is important that we also foster cooperation in the field with foreign governments and international organizations, as well as with other interested parties and organizations. We did have one issue as it related to SARS which was the sourcing back to a province in China and the fact that there were significant delays in the reporting of the detection of the SARS related problems to the World Health Organization. This had a ripple effect of putting everyone else behind in terms of their ability to respond to this emergency situation.

There are many people who frequently travel internationally and Canada is a destination for many people from around the world. There is significant activity at our borders and airports. Equipment was put in at the airports to try to detect whether or not there might be some problems. This should come as no surprise.

As I listened to the debate yesterday and today, one of the things I noted is that the debate has basically become a broader discussion of health issues and their importance. We have talked about trans fats. The member for Yellowhead took us down memory lane with all the subjects that the health committee has dealt with over the last several years, ever since he has been on the committee. It gives Canadians an opportunity to appreciate the breadth of work that happens at committee and the importance of that work.

Bill C-5 indicates that the minister has the authority to set up committees. These committees are going to be paid and the bill sets out the Treasury Board guidelines, et cetera. It is rather interesting that it is in there. It is almost as though this actually does happen. It is under the general provisions clauses 13, 14 and 15.

Back when Allan Rock was the health minister I was advocating a private member's initiative relating to fetal alcohol syndrome. Allan Rock used to sit beside me at national caucus. There were press releases going out and all kinds of government documents on the issue of fetal alcohol syndrome. These documents were actually put together by committees of people who were responsible for that little area.

One of the principal statements the Government of Canada made at the time was that fetal alcohol syndrome is the leading known cause of mental retardation in Canada. What an ominous statement. It sure should get our attention. It is an interesting statement to make but this came from Health Canada and the statement was absolutely wrong. Fetal alcohol syndrome is not the cause of anything. It is the result. In fact, it is prenatal consumption of alcohol by the mother that is the leading known cause of mental retardation, yet Health Canada in its wisdom was putting out things like that.

It went further. Health Canada set up a coalition that included the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Nurses Association and NGOs representing all walks of life, including aboriginal people. It came out with what was called a joint statement which said the same thing, and this was some years later. It said that fetal alcohol syndrome is the leading known cause of mental retardation in Canada.

When there is a coalition of some 18 groups and organizations representing virtually everybody who has ever touched an issue and those groups still do not get it, we start to have some questions about whether or not committees have been charged with the proper instructions.

We saw the same kind of problem with another issue that came to the health committee. It was about health warning labels on alcoholic beverage containers, which again related to fetal alcohol syndrome. The government created a task force. It was a very broad task force. A lot of money was spent on that task force. It worked for a couple of years and came out with reports. There was glossy literature but what the task force did not have was any recommended strategies or solutions. All of the reports and documents were saying things like, “Here is where we have been. Here is the history. Here is how we got to where we are today and we are continuing to work”.

If more and more committees are going to be set up within Health Canada, or any other department for that matter, we have to be vigilant. If accountability is a hallmark word for this Parliament, then accountability also means that when committees are established, as this bill permits the minister to do, those committees should be charged to follow the full line of activity right though to strategy, recommendations and other proposals related to implementation.

When I first raised the issue of fetal alcohol syndrome with the then health minister, the hon. Allan Rock, he decided he was going to set up a national advisory commission on fetal alcohol syndrome. One night after being in the House most of the day, I went back to my office and there was a fax on my machine. I had met with the people in Health Canada who were going to set up the advisory commission and they wanted to send to me the terms of reference for its establishment.

It was the same as what I had seen before for another committee in another department. There would be one person from every province and territory. There would be a gender balance and other criteria. There would be people who were knowledgeable about fetal alcohol syndrome and they were going to do some work.

I did not think it was really necessary for anyone to know any more about fetal alcohol syndrome after all the work that had been done. I thought that maybe what we should have been doing was creating an advisory commission that would advise the Government of Canada, the Minister of Health and parliamentarians on strategies that may very well work to handle the situation where it has to do with behaviour. We cannot legislate behaviour but we can encourage good behaviour and maybe discourage behaviour that is not healthy.

I spent the whole evening rewriting the terms of reference and saying that when we set up committees, we need to have people whom we know have the experience and the expertise to deliver solutions. We need them to recommend solutions and strategies and have the basis so that there will be a buy-in for all the stakeholders.

I recommended a behaviouralist, a psychologist and an expert in federal-provincial relations because we do cross jurisdictions within governments. We needed marketing people and communications people. We needed people who could deliver a product and get the job done.

If we continue to boast, as this bill does, that the minister can set committees up on these various subjects that relate to public health, there is the risk that we could actually increase the bureaucracy of Health Canada but not necessarily deliver in terms of the priorities. I would think that the priorities for the Public Health Agency of Canada should be amplified further with regard to what those priorities are, or at least the minister has to articulate what those priorities are in terms of the most significant health risk to Canadians.

Under the regulations section of the bill, section 15(1) states:

The Governor in Council may, on the recommendation of the Minister, make regulations respecting

(a) the collection, analysis, interpretation, publication and distribution of information relating to public health, for the purpose of paragraph 4(2)(h) of the Department of Health Act;

It is a very broad provision. It is interesting that it says that “The Governor in Council may”. I am pretty sure they will and maybe we should say they shall.

I gave this little speech about doing legislation through regulations rather than in the bill itself.

When the health committee gets this bill it may want to consider whether there should be some provisos with regard to the issues of collection, analysis, interpretation, publication and distribution of information relating to public health because we can really get carried away we this stuff. I hope it is done in a way in which we are not trying to simply see who can produce glossy brochures and a whole bunch of very beautiful looking information but, rather, who will put together this stuff where it in fact is as a consequence of the work done by this new agency under the Chief Public Health Officer who will have the equivalent position of a deputy minister. However that activity has to be established within the legislation which really emphasizes the need that this is not work that we just do to keep people busy. This is work to deliver results.

I would think that, knowing the situation we had with SARS, and given the information we have on the high possibility of a pandemic and the fact that we have situations where there are not enough pharmaceuticals necessary, these are some of the priorities which the minister will have to engage this new officer to undertake.

I wanted to raise that because I do not think the bill by itself does justice to the urgency there is with regard to this new agency.

We have some major risks and threats to the public health of Canadians. Although there are a broad range of activities, I am hoping the bill would be the kickstart to establishing the necessary priorities so Canadians have the protection that is necessary for good public health and they can have confidence in this new agency.

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his comments, particularly those around Allan Rock, but I think he may be dating himself. I remember seeing Mr. Rock on TV when I was in grade school.