Mr. Speaker, that is certainly the big question that has been raised by a number of members. It has a great deal to do with the rights of the individual and Canadians at large covered under the charter and the responsibilities of a government and health authorities to protect us against something that the consequences of which could be enormous. The consequence could be a pandemic that could kill hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people if not checked and dealt with at its early stages.
When the member read from clause 22, he may have misspoke himself when he said that it would require a traveller to undergo an investigation. The bill in fact states “medical examination”.
If we are talking about a quarantine officer, a medical officer, a doctor, a nurse or whoever is going to be responsible for making these assessments, I do not believe they are there to do harm. They are properly training and are there to protect Canadians. They will not detain someone for some personal whim, personal bias or whatever it might be.
In clause 26, the member said, “if the quarantine officer has grounds to believe”. This is not a matter of frivolous grounds. In a matter of emergency someone has to make some serious decisions and we first need to ensure that those who are put in those positions of authority have the tools to do these things, are properly trained and are acting in the best interests of Canadians.
The member kind of asked the questions almost in the context of what if we get somebody who maybe is not doing things in good faith and is just doing it to somehow disrupt the rights and freedoms of individuals, of travellers or to be invasive.
Medical examination is one thing but a medical examination does not tell us where the person has been, who the person has seen and in which place where there were problems has the person been. Those things are not part of a medical examination. A medical examination is with regard to that individual and the individual's own condition.
If there is some basis for looking at people's travel documents, or whatever it might be, and it would be helpful to get information to do an investigation, then I would say that it is a proper thing to do and a responsible thing to do because individuals themselves coming into a country who have gone through a medical examination may not even know what exactly has been going on, what the problem is, what the disease is or what causes it. There is an awful lot of information, much of which is not readily available through simply the process of a individual screening or maybe some sort of a medical exam.
This is a very good example of where parliamentarians often get into the situation where we have conflicting interests, and sometimes people will describe it as the lesser of evils, but in this particular case the act is prescribing the tools to be used by properly trained medical professionals who are prepared to take on the responsibility and to discharge that greater responsibility, which is to protect public health. It is in the best interest of not only that individual, it is also is in the best interest of the country at large, which is the greater question. We do make these tough decisions. In this regard I would say that the provisions, in my opinion, within Bill C-12 are fair and reasonable.