Thank you, and thanks for the invitation back. I'll also be brief, because I understand the primary purpose is to respond to questions.
The first point I'd like to make is that I very strongly support the need for legislation on this matter of pathogen security. I actually think there is some urgency to passing the right legislation. For example, a U.S. congressional committee late last year found that it was more likely than not that there would be a weapons of mass destruction attack somewhere in the world by 2013, and a biological one was more likely than a nuclear one. So we don't want to drag this out for months and months and months.
Secondly, having said that, I'd like to focus my remarks by really zeroing down on the question of the inclusion of level 2 pathogens in this bill. I would like to tentatively put forward a position or pose a question—maybe even do this in a type of question-and-answer format, since we have this great opportunity of being here with Dr. Butler-Jones and his colleagues, whom I have a great degree of esteem for—and maybe Dr. Butler-Jones and his colleagues would be able to respond.
Wouldn't this be a better bill if level 2 pathogens were just taken out of it? I want to advance four lines of argument around this supposition.
First, I didn't hear in any of the testimony real evidence and proof that the inclusion of level 2 pathogens makes us considerably safer. You'll remember that my testimony last time had to do with the point that pathogen security does not equal biosecurity, especially when you're talking about level 2 pathogens. I would just like to hear more of the case that the inclusion of level 2 pathogens is actually a very, very significant benefit.
My second line of argument is that if the criminal penalties were reduced for level 2 pathogens—and that would be an obvious move to make in amendments—you're still going to be left with criminal penalties. And that's a very, very significant thing for scientists. In a nutshell, you could get into a situation where sloppy record-keeping on the part of a scientist in a relatively low risk, level 2 lab, or by a student or faculty member—though the faculty member would probably be accountable in this case, or the university—could leave someone with a criminal conviction. Even if there were no fine or jail term, that person couldn't then travel to the United States. That's a very serious use of the criminal law in a relatively low-risk situation.
The third line of argument I would like to advance, just in this hypothetical case of it being a better law if you took level 2 pathogens out of it, is the comparison with the U.S. In the days since I heard from the clerk, I've been in touch with some biosecurity colleagues in the U.S. I asked them about regulation of level 2 pathogens in the U.S. It turns out that what's criminally and federally legislated in the U.S. is this U.S. list of select agents and toxins. If you read the stuff on the U.S. select agents list, it correlates mostly with what's in schedules 3, 4, and 5 in Bill C-11, I think, exclusively—but I haven't done this in detail. Maybe there's one that's in level 2. But to my knowledge—and I would be interested in the response from PHAC colleagues—I didn't find any level 2 pathogens from Bill C-11 on the U.S. select agents list. Everything else is regulated, but not federally and not criminally, in the United States. So I left this list wondering if a somewhat bioterrorism-obsessed country like the United States, which passed legislation in the wake of an actual attack, doesn't even regulate level 2 pathogens in a criminal and federal way, why would Canada do that?
Finally—and this is an issue of leaving the matter for regulation, and again focusing just on level 2 pathogens—imagine you're regulating level 2 labs across the country. Imagine the horrendous, but not impossible, scenario of there actually being an attack. What will the cabinet do to those regulations the day after the attack, when there's considerable pressure to change them? Do you really want a situation where the level 2 pathogens, which can be relatively low risk, are in a piece of legislation, with regulatory provisions for them, and cabinet can change those regulations in a climate of fear after an attack, and do so without going back to Parliament?
That's why it's the day-after-the-attack scenario that I want you to think through.
I'm perfectly comfortable if on the day after an attack--God forbid that it should occur--cabinet does something with level 3 or level 4 labs. Those have very serious pathogens. However, at U of T, for instance, there are somewhere between one and three level 3 labs; there are hundreds of level 2 labs. They are relatively low risk and much larger in number. Do you really want to be in that situation of a climate of fear in which something can happen?
In summary, the legislation could definitely be made better by amending it to change penalties, security clearances, etc., related to level 2 pathogens, but I'd love to hear a response to the idea that this would be a better bill if you excluded them totally. You could pass the bill very quickly by doing so, and I believe this is a good bill and should be passed very quickly. Again, are the benefits really so great for level 2? Criminal penalties are serious, and I'll mention again the U.S. comparison the day after the attack.
In closing, I'd like to say that we should not just leave consideration of level 2 pathogens and the security issues around level 2 pathogens. That's exactly the sort of question that could be referred, as I mentioned in my earlier remarks, to the Council of Canadian Academies, the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, or the Canadian Academy of Engineering. I would love to see an assessment by the academies of the way of dealing with level 2 pathogens or labs that would make this country most secure. I can't guarantee they'd immediately get to the legislation that would answer that question. They might, and if they did in a year or two, this legislation could be amended, but there are so many other things that could be done, including dealing with issues around next-generation threats and the web of protection I mentioned last time.
I feel that would be a better way to deal with level 2 pathogens, and then the government would be acting extremely responsibly. It would have closed this hole on regulation of level 3 and level 4, which is desperately needed--and I agree with this bill and the urgency for it--and it would not have left level 2 pathogens alone. It would actually be acting in a very responsible way in sorting out the best way to regulate them, and it would give the best advice to government, which is the role of the Council of Canadian Academies, on how to make this country more secure with respect to level 2 pathogens.
Thank you very much. I just put some probes there for my friend and colleague David Butler-Jones, and I very much look forward to the give and take that this panel allows.