Mr. Speaker, like the previous speakers I too am pleased to speak to this private member's bill. A private member's bill is an important avenue for those of us in the House to put forward issues we think are important. I commend the member for Fraser Valley for bringing forward this piece of legislation, Bill C-244.
He began his remarks by talking about and relating the story of the good Samaritan. I suppose it would have been helpful to us all if we had looked back at that time to see if the good Samaritan had taken the gentleman he found in the ditch to be tested for the plague. Then we would not have had to have this debate today. We might have had some guidance from the Divine.
It is a well intentioned piece of legislation and I commend him for bringing it forward. It raises some important questions about people who partake in the kind of activity envisioned.
When listening to his remarks I became a little concerned, and the government member raised some of my concerns. There is a difference between those who engage in criminal activity and the important examples which he has given of those people who in the execution of their professional duties as crime fighters or peacekeepers have suffered or had cause to be concerned about whether they had been infected with hepatitis B, hepatitis C or HIV.
A great deal of his time was spent referring to the perpetrators of crime. He is right. When someone is committing an offence, should our police forces or security guards not have a right to find out if they have been infected with some kind of disease if in the execution of their duty, which is the protection of society, they encounter some activity that might cause them concern.
Bill C-244 is wider and goes further than that. It does not narrow those affected to those involved in fighting crime and to the perpetrators of crime. The legislation says that a person, not a crime fighter or a police officer, may apply to a justice for a warrant authorizing the taking of a sample of blood from another person who is not necessarily the perpetrator of a crime.
There are numerous examples. We can envisage how wide ranging the legislation would be. For example, it would apply to firefighters who, in the execution of their duties, perhaps saving an individual from a burning building, come into contact with bodily fluid, blood or whatever, and may have cause to wonder if they have been infected in the line of their duty with some disease. The same would apply to health care workers and paramedics. The bill is quite broad. It applies to persons who in their professional capacity may find themselves in that situation.
Like the government member, I wonder if the criminal code is the best way to meet the need that is obviously a real concern for the member and the people engaged in those activities.
I intend to support the legislation to at least get it to committee where it can be examined. However, I wonder if we might better look at labour legislation, because we are talking about the health and safety of individuals engaged in the performance of their professional duties, be they nurses, firefighters, policemen, security guards, prison guards, teachers or people in day care centres help children. We are talking about a wide range of professionals and working people who are faced in 1999 with health and safety concerns that we could not possibly have imagined 25 years ago.
I applaud the intent of the legislation. The purpose of the legislation is good. However, I wonder if working collectively through the committee, members of the Conservative Party, Reform, the Bloc, the NDP and the Liberals might find a better way to ensure that this legislation does what the member wants it to do without running into all kinds of hurdles. Working collectively we may be able to achieve that.
In addition to wondering whether the criminal code is the appropriate piece of legislation, there are certain civil liberties that have been raised by the government speaker.
We may be able to find a way to take the thrust of this legislation out of the criminal code and place it in labour legislation. The government talks about working in tandem with health. I lean toward labour legislation. If we find a way to do that then we may avoid some of the constitutional challenges that could follow as a result of criminal code legislation.
The hon. member in speaking to his bill referred to the perpetrators of crime. However, I remind him, and he obviously knows, that this legislation has a wider ranging.
I am a lawyer and a bit of a wordsmith, and we deal with words all the time. Subclause 3(b) states that a judge can issue a warrant, and it outlines the considerations. Subclause 3(b) goes on to state “by reason of the circumstances in which the applicant came into contact with the bodily substance”. I need to explore that to see exactly what it means. If it is a matter of a criminal code offence, then we know that if, in the execution of his or her duties—and the examples were given by the mover of the legislation—a police officer gets stabbed by a needle or gets bitten, those are compelling circumstances.
However, for a nurse who works in a hospital, in a unit where a number of people suffer from HIV or hepatitis B, are those circumstances sufficiently compelling? No one says, as in some of the criminal cases cited by the member, “I bit you. Now you have HIV” or “I have a score to settle with you and I am going to pierce you with a needle”. How compelling should the circumstances be for the invasion of someone's civil liberties to take a blood sample?
I need some clarification on that. By sending the bill to committee we might very well get some of the clarification that is required.
In summary, there is a serious point raised by the government, and that is the arresting of someone who has not committed a criminal offence. That is a serious matter for us to consider.
In this country one of the things we take pride in is our freedom; freedom from arbitrary arrest, freedom from arrest without the reading of rights and without knowing what we have done wrong. That is where the criminal aspect of this is different than applying it to the civil aspect, to those engaged in health and safety occupations where no crime has been committed.
I applaud the intent of the legislation. I think it should have serious examination in committee. There are some real concerns that I see with it, but I think that working together we may be able to iron them out.