First, as I mentioned previously, this bill does not give the Public Health Agency of Canada the power to impose fines. It is wrong to believe that the fact that a fine is set at $50,000 gives us the power to impose it. On the contrary, it establishes a penalty, and, to determine the penalty, you first have to look at the activities that are regulated and what the people have to commit to as a result. So, essentially, a licence holder must, for example, contravene one of the conditions of his licence or fail to comply with the law. After an inspection, or some other investigation, the person could be prosecuted. In other words, a summary charge could be laid. With a summary charge, penalties and procedures are much less onerous. Essentially, that is the mechanism that Parliament provides for establishing criminal penalties.
So it does not mean that we can impose fines on anyone. It essentially provides the ability to prosecute people who contravene the law. As Dr. Butler-Jones said, it would be just in cases where people did not comply with instructions given by inspectors, and it would depend.
I would also like to emphasize that the bill as written provides for the due diligence defence. So if a person has taken legitimate and reasonable precautions established as his obligation and duty under the regulations or the legislation, it is a full defence to section 53. It would then be a question of the penalties intended for risk group 2.
This is a procedure that allows the government to bring prosecutions, but only if the act is contravened. Ultimately, it is up to the court to decide if the act has been contravened and if the accused should be found guilty. I should mention that the penalty indicated is the maximum. It is very rare for a court to impose the maximum penalty in anything but an extreme case. Penalties are determined completely within the scope of sentencing principles that a court must consider. For example, the person's behaviour is a factor. A court would impose a maximum penalty only in cases where there had been prior warning, where the accused had not followed the guidelines, or where he had flatly refused to observe the law.