This bill is from the 39th Parliament, 1st session, which ended in October 2007.
Tony Clement Conservative
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament has also written a full legislative summary of the bill.
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.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Bill numbers are reused for different bills each new session. Perhaps you were looking for one of these other C-5s:
Steven Fletcher Conservative Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB
Yes, that is right.
With regard to the points raised by the member around committee work and so on, it seems that the member, courageously, may be challenging part of the record of the previous government as far as its effectiveness and efficiency.
I wonder if the member could clarify his concerns a bit more. He does seem to be out of step with comments made by other parties, including his own earlier on in the debate, in that the legislation was tabled by the previous government. We want to move expeditiously in bringing this legislation through second reading and then to committee.
Is the member indeed contradicting the comments of other parties?
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
Mr. Speaker, no, that would be an unfair characterization of my comments.
The bill was before the last Parliament. I think all members would agree that it provides the foundation, the tools and the mechanism to work. The issue really comes down to how we use that foundation, those tools and that mechanism. I do not want to see any more committees.
The member knows that the last time I sat on our health committee, Dr. Butler-Jones came before us with a report that the committee had asked for and it turned out to be a report showing what had been done over the last number of years. However it gave us absolutely none of the feedback that had been directly asked for by the committee. That is unacceptable. I do not care which party is in government. I am a member of Parliament. I asked the question and I wanted an answer, as did the committee. As the member will recall, the committee, which received approval in this chamber to make the request, did not get the response that it requested.
As a parliamentarian, if I am going to be accountable for my work and the things that I am interested in, I am going to want to ensure that the tools that are available to us are used in a cost effective way and in a progressive way so that public health issues do find solutions for some of the problems that we face.
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to make some comments on Bill C-5 and to ask the member a question.
I come from British Columbia where, as members know, an outbreak of avian flu two years ago devastated the eastern Fraser Valley zone of the lower mainland. We found at that time that the coordination among various federal agencies was done very poorly. This strain of avian flu basically mutated by a factor many times over 24 hours. It took many days to get test results back because of the lack of coordination at the federal government level. The quarantine lines were breached twice.
I am talking about an extremely serious situation that ended up being catastrophic. Seventeen million birds were exterminated. It was only because of the geographical isolation of that particular part of the Fraser Valley and the fact that there are eastward flowing winds that the catastrophe was averted beyond that. However it was still a catastrophe that had huge ramifications for citizens of that region of British Columbia.
We see four areas of concern with Bill C-5. First, the Chief Public Health Officer is not given authority over areas of federal jurisdiction, such as airports, railways and military bases. Second, the power to enforce the Quarantine Act remains with the Minister of Health. Third, the Public Health Agency is not given the authority to act when a province is overwhelmed by a crisis. Fourth, the Public Health Agency is not given authority to impose mandatory reporting of diseases by the provinces. We see those as loopholes and we are concerned about them.
I wonder if the member for Mississauga South shares those concerns.
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
Mr. Speaker, the member will know that the position reports to the Minister of Health. I do not discount the significance of the example the member gave but it almost sounds like he wants to suggest that Health Canada somehow should be divided in terms of one being for the delivery of public health initiatives, as we have discussed under this bill, and the other basically dealing with the health care system and the Canada Health Act. That may be a debate for another day.
Robert Thibault Liberal West Nova, NS
Mr. Speaker, the member has done a lot of good work in the House and through committees on issues that we know very well, such as fetal alcohol syndrome. If we know them well it is because he has brought them to our attention. He is published on that matter. He has brought forward private member's bills that I hope will have an effect on the way the department operates and works toward those strategies.
When we look at the Public Health Agency we see two areas of interventions: in emergencies and pandemics, such as SARS and the potential of an impending bird flu. However we also have disease prevention and common health risks, fetal alcohol syndrome being one of the areas where the member has been working a long time on prevention.
We learned today in the House that on Health Canada's website there is no longer a reference to the rate of disease strategy, an investment of $300 million working in partnership with Canadians, with the provinces, with local authorities and with non-governmental organizations to reduce these disease elements and health risks that are common to a bunch of diseases, such as cancer, cardiac problems, pulmonary problems, diabetes and so on.
Would the member care to comment on how he would see us working through the Public Health Agency and with the Department of Health on all these elements?
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
Mr. Speaker, that is the dilemma. If everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority. I would think that Canadians want to know that we are prepared for the big hit, whatever it may be, whether it is a pandemic, another SARS, bird flu or who knows what. Those kinds of things have the potential to kill a large number of Canadians. We need to tell them that we are going to deal with it.
We have already done much work in some of the other areas. It is not to belittle them. We must continue to work on all fronts but there are certain priorities we have to deal with.
Last week the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse issued a wonderful report and I hope members will look at it. It was on the current situation with regard to the costs and the morbidity from misuse of tobacco, alcohol and drugs. If members have not seen that report they can read it on the CCSA website. It states that alcohol is the one area where we have not made progress. In fact, it states that binge drinking is one of the most critical causes of health problems among Canadians. This is consuming a large number of drinks in a short period of time on a periodic basis. It does not mean that a person is a chronic drinker. It could be one occasion. We are talking about billions and billions of dollars annually as a cost of this misuse of these drugs and the mortality from them, which makes this a significant priority for the new Public Health Agency.
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to address Bill C-5, an act respecting the establishment of the Public Health Agency of Canada. If anything demonstrates the need for the position of a chief medical health officer at a public health agency to deal with these types of concerns, it has to be the former administration's response or, more appropriately, lack of response to a SARS outbreak that is behind the creation of this agency.
By acknowledging that the Public Health Agency of Canada was created in September of 2004 through orders in council, Bill C-5 represents housekeeping legislation from the last Parliament as the new agency lacks parliamentary recognition in the form of its own enabling legislation. As such, the legislation would provide a statutory footing for the Public Health Agency of Canada and gives the agency and the Chief Public Health Officer, the CPHO, the parliamentary recognition they need.
Canadians will recall that the previous administration, as part of the democratic deficit that led to its eventual defeat, routinely organized and reorganized federal government and then sought retroactive approval from Parliament after the fact. In one of the worst examples of the democratic deficit that existed in the House prior to the last election, this was done to provide a cabinet spot for the member for York Centre, who was encouraged to move from the hockey arena to the political arena. This was after his predecessor was encouraged to leave elected politics and took a patronage appointment to the other place to create a seat vacancy.
The proper sequence would have been for the appropriate legislation to come before Parliament. That should have been the case with this legislation. However, this is housekeeping legislation, as the new government works to restore the confidence Canadians will have in their public institutions.
As my colleagues have indicated, this legislation represents a key piece in supporting the federal government's efforts to promote and protect the health of Canadians. The need is there and I support that need.
As everyone may know, following the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak, known as SARS, there were discussions and debates on the state of the public health system in Canada. As a member of Parliament from the province of Ontario in the 37th Parliament, I participated in the emergency debate in the House on severe acute respiratory syndrome as an important independent voice.
It was clear from the outset, when SARS was first identified that leadership, was evident on the benches of what is now the government of today. My colleagues and I were very careful in our approach, allowing the old administration latitude on how it dealt with SARS. Our questions were constructed to provide information to the public. It would have served no purpose to unduly alarm the Canadian public or the international community.
In that regard, the Conservative Party was very responsible in its approach to the SARS crisis. The tragedy of that case was the total lack of leadership from the federal government. The people of Ontario suffered. First, there was the West Nile virus to scare away the tourists. Then, because of the incredible incompetence on the part of the old government, the World Health Organization, the WHO, issued a travel ban against Toronto, Ontario based on the lack of information it had at that time.
The tourism industry, which is important for jobs and our economy took a hit as a consequence. The economic losses to Ontario alone were in the hundreds of millions of dollars. If the province of Ontario, under the firm leadership of the new Minister of Health acting in that capacity for the province of Ontario, had not acted decisively and displayed the leadership necessary to control this spread of SARS, it is clear that Canadians could have been faced with a full-blown epidemic.
Canadians will probably never know how serious the threat to the health of Canadians SARS posed. What is unfortunate is that it took this crisis for the old government to finally grasp the need for a public health agency and a chief medical health officer. Canadians who watched the emergency debate on SARS were surprised to learn that Canada had a minister responsible for emergency preparedness. That minister, who had a mandate to deal with national emergencies, went missing and was totally invisible as the events unfolded regarding SARS.
Canadians should not be surprised to learn that the minister responsible for emergency preparedness at the time was the same individual who had the dubious distinction of shutting down the Emergency Preparedness College in Arnprior at precisely the time Canadians would have benefited from over 50 years of experience in training for emergencies and emergency first responders for Canada.
I had the opportunity to question Assistant Deputy Minister Jim Harlick, in committee, about the government reaction. In responding to a question from the member for Compton—Stanstead, Mr. Harlick stated the following:
We only have one minister at the federal level really designated as Minister for Emergency Preparedness although all ministers under the statute have responsibility for it.
Too many people being responsible led to the confusion where no one stepped up to assume the leadership that was needed in the SARS crisis. The Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness, OCIPEP, was described in the media as a secretive emergency agency and the decision to split up that office, which Bill C-5 effectively does in this legislation, will allow the Canadian public a clearer view of the role of the various government agencies and how we prepare for an emergency with clear lines of communication for people to understand who work in government also.
In the 9/11 budget, OCIPEP received $396 million to prepare for emergencies. For Canadians to understand why the old government was so inept at handling SARS, a look at the old administration's own internal analysis on how it responded to 9/11 as informative.
In the federal government's own internal assessment of how it responded to 9/11, it found the following. There were concerns with fluctuating requests, multiple players, problems with the available and capacity with ground transportation, with special blame directed at Health Canada. There was a lack of clear coordination within the Government of Canada. There was no declaration of a lead department, no standard coordination mechanism and a lack of clarity around OCIPEP's role.
The creation of the Public Health Agency and a Chief Public Health Officer is a direct response to that internal assessment.
The internal analysis then identified immediate steps to be taken such as properly trained personnel, the need for strategic airlift and the need to develop a permanent pie level interdepartmental body responsible for planning, directing and coordinating federal and national operations during a crisis.
The most scathing criticism was reserved for the $396 million that the OCIPEP received. This is the same agency, I remind Canadians, that discarded all its institutional memory on how to deal with an emergency when it made the decision to close the emergency preparedness college in Arnprior.
OCIPEP was characterized as having inadequate internal operating procedures and a workforce with little relevant experience or specialized training. These inadequacies generated confusion, slow responses and disappointed stakeholders. The OCIPEP assessment went on to confirm that Emergency Preparedness Canada had a limited capacity to maintain extended operations that would be required in a crisis.
The headquarter staff, many of whom have been OCIPEP for less than six months, displayed “a lack of knowledge and awareness of policy and operational procedures”. The new Chief Public Health Officer will have the expertise to deal with this crisis. I have no doubt that the next health crisis is waiting to happen and we will be better prepared for it.
As an example of what may occur when a potential threat is not properly identified and analyzed, just looked back to that great blackout of 2003. The old office of critical infrastructure, protection and emergency preparedness produced a threat analysis to Canada's infrastructure. Under the section “Impact and Accidental Threats on Canadian Critical Infrastructures”, it has this to say about power failures, and I quote from its website.
The North American hydro grid is more interconnected today than it was at the time of the Great Northeast Blackout. "This interconnectedness has increased the ability of the grid to withstand unexpected disruptions as managed by coordinated real-time monitoring across North America."...This work is therefore making the possibility of another massive blackout that would leave large areas of North America without power, remote.
In hindsight, it is now clear from this faulty analysis by OCIPEP that the federal government totally underestimated the potential threat to the power grid, just like it underestimated the threat from SARS. The OCIPEP assessment concluded, and I will continue to quote from the federal government's own internal assessment to handling emergencies, that the Government of Canada paid insufficient attention to emergency planning.
In many respects, Canadians were very lucky that SARS was contained the way it was. This is a disease that on average claims 4% of its victims. Imagine what would have happened if we had a disease such as smallpox, which takes 30% of its victims. If that had hit instead of SARS, the consequences would have been far more serious for the health of Canadians.
SARS was a disease that was unintentionally introduced at a couple of sites in Canada. Again, what would have happened if a contagion had been deliberately introduced, carefully planned so the infected persons went to several major cities across Canada or North America for that matter? A pandemic. There would not be enough people on this continent to battle against such a case of biological warfare.
A nationally coordinated plan with a clear and rehearsed protocol for all the relevant stakeholders and departments of government that would take in all the information from the World Health Organization is what Canadians can expect from this new agency.
We recognize that health care is a provincial responsibility, but responding to international health bodies like the World Health Organization is a requirement of the federal government. I am confident that this new agency will complement the role of health care in Canada and our ability to respond to the next health crisis in a timely manner.
France Bonsant Bloc Compton—Stanstead, QC
Mr. Speaker, Bill C-5 looks like a cut and paste of the bill the Liberals introduced last year.
During the election campaign, the Prime Minister said, and I quote: “A federalism of openness means respecting areas of provincial jurisdiction, keeping the federal government's spending power within bounds—”. From what I see, the government in office is creating a structure that will be another health monster.
I have a question for the hon. member. How is it that, with its openness and knowing that health is under Quebec's jurisdiction, the government is once again meddling in an area belonging to the provinces?
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Mr. Speaker, we recognize that health care is a provincial responsibility. The legislation and the formation of the agency will complement what the provinces are doing.
Public Health Agency of Canada ActGovernment Orders
Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia Manitoba
Conservative
Steven Fletcher ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health
Mr. Speaker, the agency was created by an order in council and there was no legislative framework. The legislative framework that was brought forward in the last Parliament was done during the dying days of the government. However, the legislation is being brought forward in the very early days of the present government. Could the member explain why public health seemed to be such a low priority in the last government and such a high priority in the present government?
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Mr. Speaker, in the last Parliament, with the opposition as government, there was clearly a lack of leadership.
We are tabling the legislation and going forth, even before we present our first budget. We are showing that public health safety is definitely a priority with the government.
Richard Nadeau Bloc Gatineau, QC
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke.
During the SARS crisis, the Toronto region went through quite a difficult time. If I remember correctly, the World Health Organization made an announcement restricting travel to and from Toronto. It was not only up to the government of the day to ensure that travel was restricted.
Could we take this into account and show that this international organization actually did have an important word to say in regard to this crisis?
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Mr. Speaker, the responsibility to respond to the World Health Organization was and is that of the federal government. Because the federal government at that time did not respond to the World Health Organization, travel restrictions were put in place.
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke for her intelligent comments with respect to half of her comments. Those were the comments regarding the Chief Public Health Officer. The other half on the history of it and the partisanship should be left behind. This bill was ready to go in November. The opposition pulled the plug on the government and the legislation came down.
The other side should recognize that not every public health crisis was well handled by Conservatives. I was very involved as a mayor in water crises across this nation. I remember being in Ontario during the Walkerton crisis, which was not handled well by the Harris government, and many of whom have resurfaced in positions of power across the way.
On the important parts of my friend's speech, does she feel constructively that the Chief Public Health Officer and the agency created should look at issues that affect all Canadians, all municipalities, all communities, such as pesticide use, water crises, second hand smoke inhalation and tuberculosis which my friend from West Nova is dealing with in his riding right now? Are those topics that should be covered by the new agency?