Mr. Speaker, I echo the compliments to the members from the PC/DRC who put forward the bill in both the last parliament and this parliament. It is a bill that is intended to protect those individuals who, in the line of duty, in the line of protecting individuals, who seek to serve and protect others, are inadvertently potentially infected by a disease that could make them sick or at the very worst could be fatal. In particular we are talking about HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C, the three primary viruses prevalent in our society and unfortunately on the increase. The bill is designed to focus on those people who are doing good Samaritan acts or also acts in the service of others, particularly those people who are firefighters and police officers.
The bill has been on the legislative table for quite some time. As such, the member for Fraser Valley, like many others in the House, has done a lot of work in trying to get co-operation.
If the bill were bad, if the bill were somehow going to trample on the rights of others, we would not see the support we see for it from dozens of groups, and I will name just a few today, including the Canadian Police Association, the Ottawa-Carleton Regional Police, the Toronto Police Service, the RCMP veterans society, the Central Saanich Police Association and so on. Additionally there are dozens of police organizations, firefighting organizations and hospital organizations that support the bill.
The purpose of bill is to enable an individual who has been accidentally infected to have the blood of the person who accidentally infected him or her, or occasionally deliberately, as police officers have found in the line of duty, taken and examined. The information would be shared by the physicians treating the person and the physician or the medical personnel treating the individual who is accidentally infected. This information, as medical information, would be treated with the utmost respect and as such would not be shared with the general public. That was a concern of those individuals who in fact composed the bill.
Some say that the bill tramples on the rights of the individual who is sick and whose blood accidentally infects emergency personnel. The fact of the matter is that we have a legal precedent which says that it does not actually infringe upon the rights of individuals. That overarching philosophy imbued within our legislative codes is the good Samaritan bill, whereby if we found somebody sick on the side of the road we would be obliged to some degree, to the extent of our abilities, to help that person. If in the course of trying to help that person something happens where that person is injured or we are injured, we are protected by the overarching belief within our legal system that we were trying with the goodness of our heart and to the best of our ability to help that particular individual who was hurt. Therefore we are protected. The fact that we are protected also means that we are protected from other eventualities that could happen when we are trying to help that other person who is sick. That is what the bill is all about.
The bill, as the member for Fraser Valley has put it so articulately in the past, is meant to protect the good Samaritan, just as that good Samaritan is trying to protect the individual who is hurt. I define a good Samaritan as not only the member of the public who is trying to help somebody but also as the firefighters, the police officers and indeed the medical personnel who try constantly to help individuals in the line of duty.
We do not often speak about how prevalent this is, but we know at it is. There are people like Isobel Anderson, a constable here in Ottawa who has done a tremendous job of putting this on the board, and dozens of personnel who in the line of public service are accidentally infected by blood products. They go through all kinds of trauma. They go through emotional trauma and trauma with their families. They go through a great deal of uncertainty that by and large is not necessary.
The bill would remove that uncertainty to a large degree. It would give them much greater peace of mind, not absolute, but it would greatly diminish the consternation and psychological trauma they would endure if they were potentially infected.
As a physician I have worked in emergency medicine. I have treated many colleagues who have been accidentally infected. In the course of our duties in the emergency department we are continually confronted by blood sprayed out in all manner of ways when treating patients who are very sick. There are cases where unfortunately, people are infected. It does not happen very often but it can happen in the line of duty.
There are individuals who seek to deliberately infect police officers, firefighters and emergency room personnel. This is an assault of the most vile nature. As such, the emergency response personnel need to be protected. They must be protected in that particular environment.
I wanted to address a couple of issues because I am a strong supporter of the bill. A number of people have said that this bill is an effort to root out those people who have these diseases, that it is an effort to stigmatize those individuals. Nothing could be further from the truth.
There is not a man nor a woman in the House today who does not want to see a cure and a prevention for HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C. All of us recognize the scourge and the incredible heartbreak exerted on the individuals who are infected with these diseases. Our hearts go out to them.
Reciprocally, we have to put ourselves in the shoes of those people who are trying to help those individuals who have been infected and unfortunately, encounter blood borne product. On balance, the legislative framework within our country today, the good Samaritan laws clearly articulate that it is within the realm of fairness and of our legal system to protect those individuals who put their lives on the line in the service of others.
I encourage the House to adopt the bill, put it into legislation. The bill will give a great deal of comfort to the police officers, firefighters and emergency personnel who day in and day out put their lives on the line.
Given the number of groups in those three professions across the country that have supported the bill from the outset, those individuals and groups that have made eloquent interventions in support of the bill, it is important that the government listen to them. They are on the front lines. They are the ones who put their lives on the line and they deserve to be supported.