Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-42. Since the parliamentary secretary is here and just posed a question to me, I will try to deal with that first.
For the first time in thirteen and a half years, when I asked for a bill from the Table so I could look at it, the bill that was delivered to me and other members who had asked for it was a first reading bill. Unless you have seen, Mr. Speaker, the Standing Committee on Health, in its ninth report, reported back to the House two amendments to the bill, which was debated at second reading.
I looked at the minutes of that meeting, which I believe was June 4, and noted that the chair of the committee had asked for the vote on the two amendments and then asked whether the bill should be reported back to the House, and it. However, there was no question on whether the bill should be reprinted. Therefore, we get into this difficulty where there might be a misunderstanding by members in this place, who were not on the committee, when they assume the bill they receive for debate purposes is the bill as amended. There is an opportunity for the committee to ask if the bill should the bill be reprinted, and in this case it was not.
In answer to the member's question, my question was based on the best information available to me by the House. It certainly was not partisan to continue to suggest that land buses, trains and trucks were still exempted. According to a copy of the bill I received, that was the case. However, the committee had made changes to it.
Maybe the member understands now why I asked that question earlier. For future purposes, should a bill not be reprinted after committee where changes have been made, maybe somewhere it should be stamped “amended” or have an addendum that says what the changes are. Sometimes it may be important.
In any event, I think that clears it up for the parliamentary secretary as to why I still thought that subclause 34(1)(a), dealing with the Quarantine Act, still had watercraft and aircraft and now is replaced by the words “a conveyance”.
It does raise an interesting question though. I am not sure whether the bill has a definition section where “conveyance” is a defined term. However, the bill does say that the minister may make regulations. I assume the regulations will proscribe conveyances from time to time, or be amended, and the minister can do that. The amendments made at committee were appropriate and were supported by all parties at the committee.
If we look at the three meetings, we have a bill that makes very modest amendments to the Quarantine Act in terms of their volume, but their impact is much more important because we are talking about health and safety issues.
We have the recent case of Mr. Andrew Speaker, who has a very contagious form of tuberculosis. He travelled from Europe to Canada and then by land conveyance, a car, or a cab or something, and crossed the border into the United States. During that trip, a number of people, particularly those on the aircraft, were exposed to this very dangerous strain of tuberculosis. This enhances the reasons why dealing with this matter was very important. Of course, the bill came forward before that event took place.
Events in our past have taken place which would have some impact on this. Probably the most significant was the SARS experience. Interestingly enough, if we were to look back at some of the detail, we had taken a number of steps to try to address it. Not many of them were very successful because we did not know very much about the disease itself in the first place.
One of the things we did know was it was an imported situation. In fact, it came from a province in China. It also raised an ancillary issue, which was transborder point to Canada turned out to be Taiwan.
As we know, we do not have diplomatic relations with China. Taiwan has been seeking, for a very long time, to at least obtain observer status at the World Health Organization. Its knowledge and technology would have been of significant help had that occurred at a much earlier time. I know there are still efforts being made to do that. However, one of the most significant threats to the Canadian public's health and safety was imported from China, through Taiwan, to Canada.
If we look at the meetings held by the health committee, one of the things I found fascinating was some of the witnesses in committee were representing public safety and security. There was a substantial amount of discussion about the security and prosperity partnership. This is might surprise some members. All of a sudden we were getting involved in an agreement between the United States and Canada, and Mexico was added, with regard to security and prosperity issues.
In fact, it is much broader than that. I understand that at the Cancun meetings in March of last year, some 300 to 400 bilateral activities were identified as being of interest to the security and prosperity partnership, but that it would be very difficult to prioritize them.
I raise this because at second reading the issue of the exemption given for cars, buses, trucks and trains was brought up in debate, but in the bill it was not explicit. It was by exclusion because the bill itself says:
This section applies to the operator of any of the following conveyances:
(a) a watercraft or aircraft that is used in the business of carrying persons or cargo; and
(b) a prescribed conveyance.
A prescribed conveyance is not defined, but I assume this is in a schedule or regulations that may provide other details, which normally are not available to members when they are in debate. The fact that it was specifically watercraft or aircraft led to the question about all the activity of conveyances, not only of persons but of products, fruits, vegetables, meat products and other things. It is a very important area.
I know a number of the members of border communities have been extremely concerned about the economic impact of having delays at the border, what it causes in terms of the backup for people trying to get across the border when trucks are lined up for many reasons.
I talked to a couple of members and raised the question about whether there were conflicting objectives taken into account when Bill C-42 was tabled in the House at first reading, for debate second reading, by the fact that the other conveyances were not named. The conflict is an economic objective pitted against the objective of health and safety.
I noted this in an early question in the House that this matter had been raised at second reading. It was the amendment to change the bill in subclause 34(1)(a) from a watercraft or aircraft and to replace that with a conveyance, which would cover any conveyance of persons or cargo.
I must admit I was taken aback when the parliamentary secretary made an attempt at an explanation. The explanation, as I read into the record, was it was determined, when the bill was done, that land conveyances “posed a limited threat to Canada” and that it was a conscious decision. I quote from the June 4 meeting of the Standing Committee on Health. The parliamentary secretary said:
When Bill C-42 was developed, a decision was taken to remove the requirement for advance notification by land conveyance operators, such as buses and trains, and to focus only on air and marine conveyances. This decision was based on an assessment that land conveyances posed a limited threat to Canada.
When we think about, it is a significant decision to have taken. Consider the volume of activity that goes across the borders between Canada and the U.S., certainly between the U.S and Mexico. If we read the media reports about products, fruit and vegetables, which have been produced in other countries and imported, the produce has been grown with chemicals that have been banned in Canada for a good reason.
In the last report I saw, Canada today imports fruit and vegetables from other countries. The produce has been produced with 10 or 12 chemicals, chemicals that have been banned in Canada, but not in the country of production. The question is an issue of food safety.
With regard to the United States, in the same report it indicated there were fruit and vegetables imported from other countries, which used some 17 chemicals that were banned in the United States.
In terms of using chemicals to treat fruit, vegetable, meat products and anything else, they may not be present in their pure form. The reason they would be banned by a country in the first instance is that the trace elements in those foods may be harmful to the health and safety of Canadians or those who will consume them. That is where a very large number of our imports come by rail and truck.
They are major distribution conveyances other than air or water. I have to question why the decision was taken that there was a limited risk to Canadians when there was some knowledge that there were some serious threats to the health and safety of Canadians by the importation of products which may have come by truck or rail. We have to ask ourselves whether or not those decisions were motivated by some objective other than health or safety.
Those are the reasons I have raised this issue.
I have looked at the evidence given at the health committee. Representatives appeared from the Department of Public Safety and Security as well as the department responsible for trade and the security and prosperity partnership.
The Quarantine Act is a very modest act. It is so small that it was not even reprinted after being amended.
We had some fairly substantive discussions at the Standing Committee on Health on some significant issues of which Canadians probably have very little knowledge.
I have seen some articles on the security and prosperity partnership, often referred to as deep integration with the United States. The Hill Times published a couple of substantial articles on it. For many people it raises a lot more questions than it gives answers.
We now, I believe, as a consequence have amended this bill in section 34(1)(a) to include “a conveyance”, putting that in and replacing “aircraft and watercraft”, and now includes all conveyances that are transporting or conveying persons, cargo or other things which may be a risk to Canadians.
I wanted to raise that because often things happen in committee which have very little to do with a bill. This is a case in point. If members are interested, they may want to look at the proceedings of the June 4 meeting of the Standing Committee on Health. The witnesses gave a detailed history of NAFTA and of the security and prosperity partnership. I am not sure why the primer was given, but I must admit it was very interesting.
The bill is important. I discussed much earlier public health threats such as SARS, but we also know that West Nile virus and the avian influenza are significant risks. There have been discussions about pandemics. Some experts have said it is inevitable that Canada will experience a pandemic. There have been discussions and public pronouncements that there may not be sufficient medications to treat Canadians and that there will be rules about who will have access to these medications. These issues need to be continually looked at.
Canadians need the assurance that public health and safety will not be compromised by economic expediency or by the objectives of another nation. Canadians need to know that Canada's objectives will be firm. We look to the government to give us assurance that when matters come up, public health and safety will not be compromised for economic objectives.