Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to enter the debate on this motion by the hon. member for Calgary Northeast. I congratulate the hon. member for bringing this matter to the House. I am certain that HIV testing is a major concern of most people in Canada.
There is a great deal of concern about this disease. I believe the whole medical profession is evolving in its attitude toward the disease and in trying to find a cure for it.
I can speak from personal knowledge because I watched the son of a friend die from this very debilitating disease. I watched that young man lose weight, go into trauma. It was a very traumatic experience for us all. The effect it has on families and friends cannot be measured by anyone who has not experienced that.
In addition, I have also had the advantage of travelling around the world a bit. One country I was able to visit was Kenya. Kenya as some may know has a major problem with this disease, much more than we do. In some ways it has reached epidemic proportions in that country. In spite of my own experiences with the disease and watching people suffer from it, I have to reject the motion of my friend. I reject it not from an uncaring point of view but rather the importance of getting this thing right.
In other words it is very important that we start monitoring our immigrant population coming into our country. However, we must get the system correct. By getting it right, I mean the minister is now conducting a review of this whole area. In that process he is consulting medical practitioners. He is basically trying to get the system correct from day one.
Most Canadians recognize this is a very serious disease. However, authorities are somewhat split on how important a disease it is and how it affects the host population. For instance, this disease cannot be spread by personal contact; most medical practitioners do not believe it has reached crisis proportions in our population and do not regard it as a serious public health or safety threat.
Why is it important to get things right? This is the whole essence of this debate. It is not so much in monitoring our immigrant population, those coming into our country, but rather the effect we can have on the current population in recognizing this important disease.
In looking at the Immigration Act, I note in 1952 that our country disallowed the admission of immigrant populations that were disabled for medical reasons. That was not that long ago. How would our resident population of disabled people feel when their own country denied access to this nation because people were disabled? I suggest that it would make them feel like second class citizens. Many in our population do have AIDS. We
must use every resource we have to try to do away with this important disease.
It is also crucial we do not give the opinion, from the government point of view, that there is something inordinately wrong with these people, that if they want to come into the country they would be denied, that they are second class citizens.
I know that the disease itself, even in testing positive for HIV, does not mean that you have the disease. As a consequence, today as we talk, there is no clear way to effect the admissibility of immigrants coming into this population; there is no real way to measure whether they have the disease.
I note that currently the practice is that where there is a suspicion of the disease, the authorities do require testing, and they do deny admissibility. However, it is done on a selective basis, it is not done on a comprehensive basis which maybe the hon. member had anticipated.
In conclusion, it is very important that we get it right. I do not think we are really disagreeing with the importance of the monitoring process; what we are talking about is how to get it right. We have to get it right not only so that we monitor people coming into our country but we get it right in our attitude as to how to deal properly with this very important disease in our own country.