Madam Speaker, Bill C-12 is an act to prevent the introduction and spread of communicable diseases.
I am pleased to stand today on behalf of my constituents and as a member of the health committee to discuss some of our concerns relating to this bill. We must recognize that the bill is updating the original Quarantine Act which dates all the way back to 1872. I think we were all in agreement that given the current realities, it was time to look at how a new act should be implemented.
The legislation covers a whole range of issues relating to transmissible and communicable diseases. It defines the powers of the minister. It gives details on designating analysts and officers at quarantine stations and facilities, on the designation of entry and departure points to the country. It has great provisions relating to obligations for arriving and departing travellers, duties to provide information, obligations to inform, how the traveller is to be informed, arrest without warrant, disinfestation of a traveller, and medical examinations. It is a very comprehensive list of events that could affect society in quite a broad way.
It talks about interpreters and public health authorities. It talks about conveyances, aircraft coming and going, a bus or a ship coming in, and reporting obligations. It talks about transporting cadavers and body parts or remains. It has a whole definition of powers, who has powers of inspection or warrant, standard dwelling places, public officer powers, relations between quarantine officers and environmental health officers, and compelling people to provide information.
There are a lot of aspects to this bill that Canadians would be interested in and which may in fact affect them greatly if the provisions in this bill are implemented.
One of the concerns I have is that a person who has a disease is actually isolated because of the disease, but a person who might have it is put into quarantine. Those terms are used differently; a person who actually has a disease is isolated, but a person who might have a disease is put into quarantine.
We went through the bill because ultimately the clauses in multiple places refer to if a person has or there is reason to think a person has a disease. We added in at least 27 places “or might have”. When talking about “or might have” a disease, that could include all of us here in the House. We never know whom we might have sat with on the bus coming here today, on public transit, on an aircraft or walking through a mall. We might have passed by somebody who had a sniffle. It might just be a cold but it might be something else.
I am concerned about the “or might haves” that are provided all the way through the bill. We are giving extraordinary powers to actually control civil movement, to confine people for extended periods. The hon. member for Hochelaga who raised the question a moment ago mentioned 48 hours, but people could be confined for up to a week without any evidence that they were actually sick. They have to have an examination but it could be a week before symptoms might show.
There are great fears and concerns today. In Toronto we saw the devastation SARS had on the economy. There were 55 people who succumbed to the disease and many thousands who were inconvenienced by the disease. We saw the impact on the community.
There is a lot of fear being spread today about diseases, whether it is the avian flu or the West Nile virus. We are concerned about how they might affect the public. We saw an example in the Fraser Valley where there was concern about chickens that were sick. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency killed millions of chickens in the Fraser Valley. A lot of them were not sick. Some of them were organic birds, separated some distance from the ones that were sick. Was it necessary to kill all those birds in order to contain that disease? Were these responses appropriate or were they not? The agriculture committee is having some discussion about this. There are officials here this week discussing that very issue.
We have concerns about how these provisions might be implemented. We all hope that the provisions in this legislation will rarely be used and maybe never be used. The provisions in the old act were not called upon to be used that often.
My concern is that in today's environment of mobility, overzealous people may be concerned about something that inconveniences a lot of people who may not be ill at all and who may be held on suspicion and greatly inconvenienced.
There are powers for a screening officer without a directive from a quarantine officer to isolate a traveller. Police can arrest without warrant those who do not comply. People could be compelled to have an examination. They could be forced to have a health assessment if they might have a disease and forced to have a medical examination. That is not unreasonable if there is a serious concern. However they could be compelled to report to public health authorities.
Clause 26 concerns me. People might have a communicable disease or they might not and they could be compelled to have a treatment. It says that if a traveller has been in close proximity to a person who has or might have a communicable disease or is infested with vectors, the quarantine officer may order the traveller to comply with treatment or any other measure for preventing the introduction and spread of the communicable disease.
It worries me that people could be compelled to have treatment for something they might or might not have. Someone could come up with the notion that we should all be vaccinated with a new vaccine.
I just came back from Washington, D.C. the other day. There was an issue in the paper there about anthrax vaccines. U.S. military personnel are still being compelled to have anthrax vaccinations even though there was a court order to stop doing that because the vaccine had not been tested. There are very serious concerns about the safety of that vaccine and the FDA had not approved it.
There was a celebrated case in Canada. One of our own soldiers refused an anthrax vaccine. Some would say he might have been the smartest one in the group. The troops did not run into anthrax over there. If he has a good immune system, it may not have been a significant concern anyway, and there are very serious concerns about the effects of the vaccine on a healthy person's immune system.
I am concerned about compelling people to have treatment because they have been near someone who might or might not have a disease.
There are other concerns about compensation. We addressed those briefly in the exchange with the minister a moment ago. Clause 6 for example will require six and perhaps eight of our major airports to provide space free of charge. That includes fixtures, heating, electricity.
The airports at one time were run by the federal government but that is not true today. They are all run by airport authorities. Privately controlled airport authorities are having to raise their own funds for their expansion programs and for renovating their facilities. If the government is going to compel them to provide facilities, fixtures, heating and electricity without compensation, many of us in committee found that rather strange when those same organizations are paying very exorbitant rents to the federal government in order to use the space in the first place.
When we talked about compensation, we felt that if the minister was going to require the airports to cough up space for those facilities, the government should at least pay for what it requires them to produce. The airports already provide space for the Canada Border Services Agency, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, CFIA, Health Canada, the Air Transport Security Authority and the RCMP. All of that I gather is without compensation, while the airports are paying very expensive rents. It is a huge concern to the airports and airport authorities.
We mentioned in our questioning of the minister that the agency or the minister could take over a hotel, an arena or an auditorium to quarantine people if there was suddenly a need to contain people for an extended period of time and there is no provision to ensure compensation. It seems to me that fundamentally if it is a public concern, we should not drive a private hotel owner into bankruptcy because as a public good the owner was compelled to provide that facility for purposes other than what it was scheduled for.
There are a lot of concerns about compensation.
I am also concerned that many of the amendments we put forward at committee were disallowed because they had to have a royal recommendation. I understand the same thing happened yesterday when amendments were put forward to provide compensation in instances like the one we just mentioned. They were disallowed for the same reason. We as members of Parliament cannot introduce an amendment that would cost the government money.
As members of Parliament it seems to me that our role is to stand between the government and the people to make sure the laws that are coming in actually serve the public interest and protect the public from being exploited by the government. Some of us in the House still think that is our role.
In trying to introduce those amendments to the bill, we feel it is a valid concern to be raised to protect Canadians from activities by government, such as expropriating property without compensation. On this side of the House we actually believe in property rights, that citizens do have some rights and government should not expropriate their property or livelihoods without some form of compensation.
The bill talks about confining people. It talks about confiscating conveyances and cargo, aircraft and ships. We talk about issues of compensation.
There was another issue on which we brought forward an amendment, which I believe is still on the floor. Motion No. 11 would amend subclause 40(1). It has to do with a person being compelled to move a conveyance that may or may not be infected with vectors. We introduced this amendment to say that no person could be compelled to carry out an order under subclause 39(1) if doing so would expose them to danger as defined in subsection 122(1) of the Canada Labour Code.
That was to protect people where, for example, a quarantine officer might decide that a plane could have a disease on it which might just be a cold, but it could be something else, and the aircraft has to be moved. If the pilot is concerned that everybody has been quarantined and he has already come off the plane, he should not be forced to go back on that aircraft to move it. It could expose him to some risk that may put him out of circulation for some time to come. There may be another way to move a conveyance. That provision protects people from being compelled to perform a duty that may put themselves in danger.
The SARS episode a short time ago showed us the severe consequences of a rapidly spreading disease. It had a devastating effect on the economy. Perhaps the minister of state would correct me, but I understand there were about 55 deaths directly related to SARS. That figure probably is in the ballpark. There was a disruption to many thousands of people, to businesses and certainly to the entire health care system. It crippled the economy in the greater Toronto area for some time.
There are very serious concerns. On the other hand, I am concerned about a lot of media attention to diseases today. There is a lot of what some people might call fearmongering, particularly relating to the avian flu. We could perhaps include the West Nile virus. Ottawa city council passed an ordinance against using pesticides and herbicides in parks and areas where children might be exposed to these elements. That was overridden and we saw people spraying every little pond and pool of water because of the fear of the West Nile virus.
When I was on the health committee, officials who came before us said that only 1 in 155 people who contract West Nile virus have even a mild inconvenience, such as a fever, a cough, a cold, or any symptoms they could identify related to that disease. We have to wonder whether the heroic interventions that are being advocated by some are appropriate or whether they are excessive.
We are talking about viruses and pathogens. In the minister's opening remarks, she talked about the fact that today air travel moves people around much more quickly as opposed to the days when there was only surface travel and intercontinental travel took days and weeks.
However, there is quite a difference from being at surface level and being at 35,000 feet. Some of us in the House, especially those from the west and from the north, spend a lot of time on airplanes. Part of the difference is that the cabin pressure is much lower. The oxygen in the cabin may be as much oxygen as we have at ground level, but the pressure is not the same. They could not have ground pressure, one atmosphere, in the plane at 35,000 feet. It would blow the walls off the aircraft or it would be too heavy to fly.
The air pressure in the cabin is equivalent to about 700 feet of elevation. One of the privileges of travelling the long hours is we sometimes get to sit beside interesting people. I had an interesting discussion with an aeronautic engineer about this factor so I have some confidence in what I say. The problem with that is we need the atmospheric pressure to drive oxygen into our tissue. I am sure the minister would be willing to agree, or concede, that viruses work in anaerobic or hypoxic conditions. They have a great advantage over our immune system because our immune system is fuelled by oxygen. When we are on an aircraft, our heart rate is low, our respiratory rate is low and the cabin pressure is low.
We have talked about greatly inconveniencing air travellers by locking them up in an airport if they get off with a sniffle or with an elevated temperature. Maybe somebody ought to look at what we can do to reduce the threat to air travellers if they have a rapidly cycling virus, like the SARS virus, reproduce produces very quickly in their tissue when their immune system is at a disadvantage. That is where a long flight puts them at great disadvantage. If they were on surface travel, they might never have had the same complication with their immune system. However, this very rapidly cycling virus has advantage over their immune system, especially on long flights. We should look at this.
Perhaps it would be a good idea to give them more oxygen. That is not an expensive intervention. If people on the aircraft are ill, perhaps they could be administered more oxygen. Perhaps we could put a higher percentage of oxygen so the lower cabin pressure might not put them at as great a risk. Perhaps we could look at what we could do with the filtration systems. I know travellers today are very worried about breathing the air when somebody has a cough or a sniffle. Those of us standing in lines at airports know what this is like. If people have a bit of a cough or tickle in their throat and they cough, they can have a lot of looks coming their way, even though what they have is probably a minor affliction. People are very worried about it today. Perhaps we could look at installing UV-light systems in the duct-work, which would reduce virus transmission in passengers.
I hope someone is considering these options to make air travel safer.
As well as what I have suggested, members who travel long hours should take a little extra antioxidant vitamin before they fly, some Coenzyme Q10, or some extra vitamin C, or some pycnogenol, or some maritime pine bark, some good antioxidant vitamins before they travel. I know a lot of members take COLD-fx now. It is anti-viral and non-toxic. Taking a little of that when immune systems are at a disadvantage might be a good idea for a lot of our colleagues in the House. I notice a lot are suffering right now from coughs and sniffles. This is one thing that we might consider doing.
What about other ground level interventions that might really help? For example, I remember when SARS came out, the former minister of health came out trumpeting that there was no known cure for SARS. The minister of state just admitted that. We did not know what it was. That is why we gave sudden acute respiratory syndrome an acronym. However, we suspected it was a virus.
Why would we not consider using things that are known to be anti-viral? We have Top medical expert Dr. Rath from Germany asked why had not considered giving intravenous vitamin C. There is a good possibility that it might have saved all but the most severely compromised.
I hope other alternatives are being considered. We hope the provisions of this bill will not be implemented very often. We hope we can all work together to see that Canadians are safe when they travel.