Merci, madame la présidente, and thank you all for your presentations.
I don't see anybody trying to pull a fast one here. I don't see anything necessarily devious about this whole question, but there's a problem with where we end up. One of the problems with where we end up is that it is true that everybody can donate and everybody typically can receive a donated organ, because of the exceptional distribution clause. Essentially, everybody receiving a transplant now signs a waiver. So you can always say that you can go through that system and anybody can donate, even if you're on the exclusion list, with the proper science of serology, and all of those things that were laid out.
Where I see the problem is that with the regulations now in place, a lot of people are going to feel that they have to remove themselves as donors. I'm a donor; I signed my card as a donor, but when I look at the list, I question whether or not I should have done that. I don't have hemophilia, but I have received cryoprecipitate in the past, in the years that were iffy. I've been fortunate not to have been one of those who developed.... I have a cousin who died; one of my mom's cousins had the same problem I had and received cryoprecipitate during surgery and died of AIDS subsequently.
So I wonder if I shouldn't remove my name from that list. I look at the exclusionary criteria in item e), “persons who have had sex in the preceding 12 months with any persons described in Items a) to d)....” Now, I know a lot of people who couldn't truthfully answer that question, whether they knew if the partners they have had sex with—although I assume they've practised safe sex—have slept with somebody who may have slept with a prostitute or paid for sex in the past five years. I think that is very difficult.
When you look at the probability clause and those questions, I would question the Correctional Service of Canada and the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice would have gone over these criteria, I would presume. To state in the regulations of the Government of Canada that no Canadian can spend 72 hours incarcerated in a Canadian facility without being at huge risk of engaging in risk-factor sex.... If you're automatically excluded for having been incarcerated for 72 hours in Canada, you're telling every man incarcerated over a long weekend for a drunken driving or assault charge, or something, that they will be raped in a facility in Canada. That's the probability the Department of Justice has calculated. I find that a little bit disappointing.
But coming to back what I think is the serious part, people are telling me that they are removing their names from the list of donors, and they would otherwise have been donors.
Dr. Levy said—and I believe he told me this in my office—that the biggest risk for increasing AIDS now is not necessarily from the MSM group, but from young women engaged in anal sex. That's where they're seeing the largest increase now in the AIDS population. But this criterion doesn't remove young women, nor should it. But it removes men who may be in monogamous safe-sex relationships. It automatically removes them, when they should be donors.
I agree with informed consent, as John has pointed out. I should know as a donor and I should know as a recipient...and I think everybody agrees with that. I agree we should take absolute care to use the best science possible and recognize that we will have some risk.
I will perhaps put this question to Mr. Alexander and let the others respond, but having seen the regulations now and knowing that they probably don't meet the test of law—it's questionable whether they will pass the charter of rights, and certainly the delegatory powers.... You can delegate powers, but you can't delegate the delegated power, which is what the Standards Council of Canada has here. We understand that these regulations probably doesn't meet the test of law, but are they reparable? Can we work within these regulations and make them work, so that we don't discourage people from going on the list of donors, and still protect the supply?