Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his pertinent question.
I am pleased to answer him since I did not have an opportunity, in the time allowed me, to talk briefly about the legislation of the Conservative government. Do you know why the government wants to include risk groups 1 and 2? It is not complicated.
At first, it did not want any consultation. Moreover, the government never stops advancing the spectre of a bioterrorism attack; very nearly casting researchers as potential terrorists. We have heard about the flu virus, which presents no problem in risk groups 1 and 2. There is not even a risk. Even if there were a low risk and the virus were to spread, we already have all the science necessary to control it and medical care to deal with it.
Once again, the government wants to frighten people by trying to exercise control and by saying there could be a risk of terrorism. Terrorists are not going to steal pathogens of some flu strain and send them to British Columbia. That makes no sense. The government, however, wants to control the students who will practice medicine. It tells them not to touch that area because there is a risk. Does it think, perhaps there is a student who would take the flu virus and spread it within a school? Moreover, if a student did such a thing, he or she could be put in prison for six months and fined half a million dollars. At some point this is stranger than fiction.