Health Committee on March 24th, 2009

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Yes, but maybe you could simplify it a bit. How is the risk grown in a laboratory? Perhaps you could give an example.

[Roland Leitner]

Let's distinguish between bacteria and viruses, for instance.

You have different temperature requirements. You have different requirements. You have viruses in special culture flasks that you grow them in. For instance, if you were to encounter HIV, which is a virus, in its natural environment, you would have a very low concentration of those viruses within the blood of a patient. However, if you take HIV, impart it into cells and grow those cells, you would have a much higher concentration of those particular viruses within the same volume. As such, if you were to expose yourself to one drop of human blood infected with HIV, that would be quite different from the number of actual organisms within one drop of tissue culture fluid.

The same goes for bacteria. If you were to grow them, you would have much more per volume than you would have in the natural environment.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

I have a question for Raymond Tellier.

Given the fact that you spend much of your professional career working in hospital-associated laboratories, I want to know your thoughts on this. Some have objected to the inclusion of hospital-based laboratories, either diagnostic or research, under the proposed legislation. What are your thoughts on this? With hospitals being under provincial jurisdiction and the fact that individuals work in these hospitals and obviously have a greater risk of catching infectious disease, would it not seem logical to have a different level of government playing a role in the oversight for impartiality purposes?

[Dr. Raymond Tellier]

Quite frankly, I am not competent to decide on the jurisdiction conflict between provincial and federal governments.

What I can tell you is that from the point of view of the operation of a laboratory, it is highly desirable that proper procedure and regulation be promulgated and enforced to ensure that the necessary laboratory work is conducted safely from the point of view of those who do it and from the point of view of public health considerations, while ensuring that the diagnostic work is done.

What is the line between provincial and federal jurisdictions? I am not a lawyer. I cannot help you there.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

In terms of the impartiality aspect of that?

[Dr. Raymond Tellier]

I'm not sure I follow.

From the point of view of impartiality, pathogenic micro-organisms have been one of humankind's worst enemies since the beginning. And we're all on the same side to make sure we wage the war against those together, with minimal risk.

I'm not sure I understand the question.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

I guess a federal regulatory body would have a greater recognition of supervising the provincial operational risk rather than it being more self-governed.

[Dr. Raymond Tellier]

My initial reaction to that is to make sure that the regulation and authority in the labs is guided by science and that people will have sufficient scientific knowledge about this issue to both promulgate the implementation and make sure it's being followed. I think your greatest guarantee of objectivity there is the scientific know-how of the people involved.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Mr. Tellier.

Dr. Carrie.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Dr. Butler-Jones, I don't want to put you on the spot, but Madam Murray did bring up the B.C. letter again. And I know Ms. Wasylycia-Leis mentioned that the people that she talked to in Manitoba have some concerns. I know sometimes there's a bit of a disconnect between politicians and the people who work with them. In my own office sometimes people will ask, “Did you do this, or did your staff do it?”, and I don't know if it's done or completed yet and I have to check with them.

But could you reiterate for Ms. Murray—I don't know if she was in the room—was there, let's say, a different communication? You said you had spoken to the B.C. officials since the letter, and I believe you mentioned you'd had breakfast with Manitoba officials. Was there a slight change, once they'd listened to what you had to say and your intent with the way the bill is written? Was there a disconnect there?

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

If you don't mind--I mean, it's obviously at the wish of the committee--I think there's a recognition in this that even when you think you've consulted with jurisdictions and had people involved, it's not necessarily the case that everybody talks to everybody in our organization, let alone in theirs. We have been able, I think, to address their concerns as we move forward with both departments in B.C. It was the chief medical officer in Manitoba whom I had breakfast with on Saturday. I had as well a phone conversation with all chief medical officers last week, and there was a whole range of other people that both I and others have had personal conversations with. The fact that not everybody in an organization is aware of the involvement of others in the organization is a reality.

I really don't want to go too far down that road other than to say the conversations are in place. There were conversations in place, but not everybody was communicated with in the way we had hoped, on all sides, and I think there are some lessons in that for us. But on the substantive issues of whether there are issues being addressed and whether they feel they can be addressed, I would say, yes, and we are committed to making that happen.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much.

You also mentioned earlier some of these lists. It was mentioned that polio was on, then polio was off. You said you had listened to stakeholders before, and that's why the lists were changed.

In your opinion, is it easier to have a tougher list or a lighter list, or does it really matter?

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

Again, what's attached to the act is for illustrative purposes only; it is not intended to represent what will be regulated.

[Jane Allain]

Can I tackle this?

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

You can do the legal definition of it, and then I'll say how we're going to use it.

[Jane Allain]

Essentially, there are two things that you have to look at when you look at the statute. You have to look at the definitions that are in the risk groups--risk group 2, risk group 3, risk group 4 definitions--which is what the intention is, and they fall into the different categories. These are definitions that are in the biological safety guidelines and they're definitions that the scientific community have over the years developed and refined. They are definitions that are acceptable.

On that, there is, as Dr. Butler-Jones has indicated, the list of attached schedules and toxins. The schedules, as they're listed, are mirrored back to those risk groups. So it's not an exhaustive list; it's not every one enumerated. You have to look at both the definition and the list.

For the prohibited substances that no one can have, as in schedule 5, that is a closed list, and that is only for smallpox.

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

Then what will happen in the regulations, where you specify which level of regulation requirement is for which bugs, will require fairly extensive scientific input. For example, level 2 would not require security clearance. Not all level 3 would require a security clearance. Clearly, for people working with bioterrorist agents, they would likely end up requiring that. But clearly not all level 3 agents are a security concern in that same way. But we need to go through the consultations on the specifics.

The other thing is that times change. The reason for having the regulations as opposed to the act is that should new bioterrorist agents be developed, or other things, you need the ability to adapt the regulations accordingly.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

The bells are going now, so I guess we'll have to adjourn to vote. We have a notice of motion from Dr. Duncan that we'll have to deal with next day.

We want to thank you so much for coming today.

Ms. Murray.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

I'd like to propose something for the next meeting. It's not with respect to the panel. I suggest we not go through clause by clause until after Easter, because there may be some changes coming from the department that we will need to have time to look at. We'll need time to go back to our provinces and the medical officers, and so on, to ask whether this substantively addresses their concerns. We cannot do that and do clause-by-clause on Thursday. So I propose we put that after Easter and start working on our study.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

We have to decide quickly.

We had planned to go clause by clause on Thursday. The suggestion is that we wait until after Easter.

Dr. Carrie.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I believe there are some meetings later on today and tomorrow where discussions could be made on potential amendments. I don't feel that we need to wait until after Easter. If we put it off until Tuesday, that will give us a lot of time. You'll be able to be in touch with people who may have differing opinions. Then we can get on with the clause-by-clause and the actual amendments. You'll still have the weekend and everything to phone people.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Dr. Bennett.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Rather than phoning people, I would like the researchers to choose the witnesses who seem to have the most difficulty with the bill to see if they are available to come back on Thursday to let us know whether they think the amendments deal appropriately with it. If that's not possible, they should come on Tuesday, but they should be provided with the government amendments before they come back.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Dr. Carrie.