Mr. Speaker, I am happy to support Bill C-309 proposed by my colleague, the member for Burlington.
The debate this morning seems to be revolving around the question of responsibility; that is, who is responsible when a person dies of anaphylactic shock based on a food allergy. The proposer of the bill is suggesting that the responsibility be charged.
I do not think there is any attempt to say that the person with the allergy or that person's parents are trying to shun their responsibility at all. The problem is that in many cases they cannot accept the responsibility fully because they do not have the tools with which to exercise that responsibility.
This bill is simply an attempt to give individuals in our society the tools with which to solve their problem in a responsible way. To that end we have support in the community of 100,000 people who have suggested that indeed they want the collective responsibility of the Government of Canada to be shown through some legislation that would require people who serve food for a living to equip the people with allergies with the information they need.
It is a moderate proposal. The bill is only asking the owners of restaurants to ensure that servers in their restaurants take the questions asked to them by customers seriously. It does not require that every server have all the information about all the ingredients of the food to be served. Rather, it requires that they understand it is a serious question and that they refer the customer to the designated person in the restaurant who has the required information. In all cases it would be only one designated employee. It would be the ingredients based on chemicals and it would not reveal the trade secrets of the merchant. There is no obligation to give amounts, just the content.
A previous speaker asked about statistics. Statistics show that 50 people a year die but there are other victims of these situations when they arise. For example, a responsible restaurateur would want to have such a system in place because the uproar in a restaurant is very distressing to his other clients who are sitting at other tables and to his staff. To be a responsible employer and protect his staff and try to maintain his good reputation with his other customers, it would seem to me that a system, a methodology that would solve this problem quickly and give people the information they want would be advantageous to all.
Of course we have to think about the families of these victims, the secondary victims. One cannot explain the depth of upset when a surprising event like this takes place.
The odd thing about allergies is that not everybody who has one knows. Therefore the onset of an allergic reaction is sometimes a surprise to the victim. Those people who have had odd reactions to medications have experienced this sort of thing.
We know that 35 per cent to 60 per cent of Canadians are avoiding certain foods because of medical reasons. They are acting responsibly once they know.
In summary, this bill deserves support for some basic reasons. We have this ever increasing phenomena of allergies in our society, and 100,000 Canadians are asking that this government fulfil its responsibility by a piece of legislation that would provide the information necessary to the victims.