Mr. Speaker, I wish to say first that my brother-in-law is a firefighter at the Vancouver airport and he welcomes the type of initiative by my colleague from Fraser Valley. As we are talking about blood sampling, the other day I had the privilege and honour of donating my 100th donation to the Canadian Blood Services. I encourage all members of parliament and their families, those who are healthy and those who can, to donate blood on a regular basis to help those less fortunate in our society.
Instead of coming up with one of my eloquent speeches, I thought I would just repeat a speech from my former colleague, Mr. Peter Mancini from Cape Breton, who spoke on the bill so eloquently. I thought it would be proper just to repeat what he said.
First, we welcome the member for Fraser Valley for bringing forward this piece of legislation, Bill C-217, which is well intentioned. We commend him for it. It raises some important questions about people who partake in the kind of activity envisioned.
When listening to his remarks we became a little concerned, and the government member raised some of those concerns as well. There is a difference between people who engage in criminal activity and people who in the execution of their professional duties, such as firefighters or peacekeepers, have suffered or have cause to be concerned about whether they have been infected with various forms of hepatitis or HIV.
A great deal of his time was spent referring to the perpetrators of the crime. He was right. When someone has committed 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 when in the execution of their duty, which is the protection of our society, they encounter some activity that has caused them some concern?
The bill 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 such as saving an individual from a burning building, came 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 which is obviously a real concern for the member and the people engaged in those activities.
We in the New Democratic Party intend to support the legislation to at least get it to committee where it can be examined. However we wonder if we might better to 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, people in day care centres, et cetera. We are talking about a wide range of professionals and working people who are faced in 2001 with health and safety concerns that we could not possibly have imagined 25 years ago.
We applaud the intent of the legislation. The purpose of the legislation is good. However we wonder if by working collectively through the committee members of the Conservative Party, the Alliance, the Bloc, the NDP and the Liberals, we 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 all be able to achieve just 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 as well.
We may be able to find a way to take the thrust of the legislation out of the criminal code and place it in labour legislation. The government talks about working in tandem with health. We 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 we remind him, and he obviously knows, that this legislation is very wide ranging.
My colleague is a lawyer and a bit of a wordsmith from Nova Scotia, 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 by which the applicant came into contact with the bodily substance”. We 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, these 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? We need some clarification on that. By sending the bill to committee, we might very well get the clarification that is required.
In summary there is a serious point raised by the government and the opposition members, and that is the arresting of someone who has not committed a criminal offence. That is a serious matter for all of us to consider, especially in the constitutional challenges.
In Canada one of the things we pride is our freedom: freedom from arbitrary arrest, freedom from arrest without the reading of rights and without knowing what we have done wrong. This 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.
We have fought the intent of the legislation. We would like to bring it forward to the committee for further examination. There are some real concerns that we see with it, but we think by working together we will be able to iron them out.
This was originally said in 1999 by our great colleague, Mr. Peter Mancini from Nova Scotia.