Madam Speaker, I would like to comment on some of the things that the hon. member said.
There are some differences in this bill. It is not the exact bill that was brought to the House last time around.
The word "provide" now in definition is changed so that it specifically says traffic. That means that a physician or a pharmacist's providing a drug to a patient is no longer in danger of being considered trafficking. That was one of the very poor things in the last bill that had to be changed.
There are a couple of other things. The fact that a patient goes to a physician or a pharmacist and takes away and possesses drugs also has been specifically defined in the bill so that we now know that is allowable and that is not considered to be a criminal offence.
There is one other thing I want to say to the member. It has to do with the fact that he was talking about physician-patient confidentiality. There is a great misunderstanding out there in the real world about physician-patient confidentiality.
What the member should know is that there is no such thing in reality; in no court or group or insurance company. In British Columbia, for instance, the insurance company of British Columbia that deals with traffic accidents can subpoena all of the clinical records of the patient regardless of whether they have to do with the accident. This is allowable and the physician and the patient have no recourse.
There is a precedent already here that the information between a physician and a patient is not that privileged as one would expect. It is not like the information between a lawyer and a client. Lots of laws so far have allowed for ministers of health to look at records if they believe, and this is what this bill says, that the physician and the patient were in agreement to use drugs for purposes other than therapy and other than appropriate physician-patient use.
This is going to be done by health professionals who are governed by the Privacy Act and by confidentiality so that no one should be able to see this but the particular minister and the particular inspector.