Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to make some comments on Bill C-5 and to ask the member a question.
I come from British Columbia where, as members know, an outbreak of avian flu two years ago devastated the eastern Fraser Valley zone of the lower mainland. We found at that time that the coordination among various federal agencies was done very poorly. This strain of avian flu basically mutated by a factor many times over 24 hours. It took many days to get test results back because of the lack of coordination at the federal government level. The quarantine lines were breached twice.
I am talking about an extremely serious situation that ended up being catastrophic. Seventeen million birds were exterminated. It was only because of the geographical isolation of that particular part of the Fraser Valley and the fact that there are eastward flowing winds that the catastrophe was averted beyond that. However it was still a catastrophe that had huge ramifications for citizens of that region of British Columbia.
We see four areas of concern with Bill C-5. First, the Chief Public Health Officer is not given authority over areas of federal jurisdiction, such as airports, railways and military bases. Second, the power to enforce the Quarantine Act remains with the Minister of Health. Third, the Public Health Agency is not given the authority to act when a province is overwhelmed by a crisis. Fourth, the Public Health Agency is not given authority to impose mandatory reporting of diseases by the provinces. We see those as loopholes and we are concerned about them.
I wonder if the member for Mississauga South shares those concerns.