Mr. Speaker, in speaking today on Bill C-337, I would like to start by telling a story about Johnny. Johnny was a little fellow who was adopted into a family. This family had enough resources to take on Johnny's responsibilities. They welcomed him with love and care into their home. He had come from a family that had some problems, a broken family.
As Johnny grew he was different from the natural children in this family. His growth was somewhat stunted. He was smaller than the other kids. They thought perhaps it was heredity. When he was old enough to start learning things he seemed to fall behind the other children in the home. He was a very active boy. He had a very strange habit in that he could climb the door frame right to top of the door. He got himself into most peculiar spots in the home. He would climb up on top of the cupboards.
As he got a little older Johnny was hard to control in the sense that he would run away from home and the family would have the police out looking for him. He could be gone for three or four hours and be impossible to find. One day he left home, crawled into a camper down the laneway and found some matches. He built a little bonfire in the camper and lit the camper on fire. This was a neighbour's camper, a most unpopular item.
Johnny loved wildlife. When he was outdoors he was extremely interested in the frogs, the turtles and the insects. He was really happy when he was outdoors.
I am going through his life now. As he got older and became a young teenager it was quite obvious Johnny did not have the mental capabilities of a normal teen. He was stuck somewhere back in preschool in terms of his educational capabilities. He became somewhat aggressive and difficult to handle. He ended up having to become a ward of the government, a ward of the province in which he lived. He had to leave the home that had provided him with love and attention. He had to be looked after by other individuals.
Johnny is now old enough to recognize that he will never hold a productive job. He will always be a responsibility of the government, a responsibility of the province, a responsibility of the individuals who care for him.
It turns out that Johnny's natural mom drank heavily. Johnny was a victim of fetal alcohol syndrome. His mom had so many problems that her life was not complete without alcohol so she drank heavily. Johnny has an incurable problem. His life is completely affected by that early childhood, the time when he was in the womb.
Fetal alcohol syndrome is totally preventable. Early development with alcohol presents birth defects, retardation, hyperactivity, all the things we saw in Johnny. It is totally preventable. All we need to do is make certain that young moms and even older moms when they are pregnant do not drink heavily.
I would like to compare fetal alcohol syndrome to German measles, rubella. How do we treat German measles? We inoculate all women who will become pregnant or could become pregnant. We warn pregnant moms during the first trimester of their pregnancy not to come in contact with German measles. We do rubella tests on them to make certain they have immunity to rubella. We educate and in the instance of rubella we do not have to legislate.
Is legislation necessary in this instance? Bill C-337 calls for putting a warning label on all alcoholic beverages, a warning label that says that consumption of alcoholic beverages can impair a person's ability to operate machinery or an automobile and may cause health problems or birth defects during pregnancies. When should we legislate personal behaviour? When should we legislate what an individual may do in society? We should legislate when there is a third party who has no choice. In this case, with foetal alcohol syndrome, there is a third party with no choice. The infant in the womb has no choice. Legislation in this instance has merit.
I compare this issue to smoking in a public place. In an enclosed place where others are affected by the smoke of a smoker there is a place for legislation.
Reformers generally want to have as small a government and the least intrusive legislation possible. However, in the case of foetal alcohol syndrome legislation may be warranted.
Is this label the way to go? If I were thinking how best to warn women most likely to be affected by foetal alcohol syndrome I would not put a worded label on the bottle, I would put the profile of a pregnant woman on the bottle with a big red X across it. I would direct my efforts toward those women most likely to drink heavily, some of whom are illiterate. In many cases native women are affected by this problem. Some of them would not understand a worded label.
How would I implement such a change? I would first say to the alcoholic beverage companies that legislation would not be necessary if they would comply voluntarily. There is a strong public sentiment for good corporate relationships. I challenge those companies to listen carefully to this debate. Legislation would not be necessary with the proper labelling for foetal alcohol syndrome on bottles. They have shown some willingness to comply by their anti-drinking and driving campaigns. It would be profoundly reasonable to comply on this campaign.
This bill is some evidence that Parliament can co-operate. Reform members are quite keen to see health measures of a preventive nature promoted in Canada. Consequently we will support this bill to the committee stage at this level quite strongly. We are supporting it on my behalf because of my wish for little Johnny to be happy.