Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this chamber today to speak in support of Bill S-201, the genetic non-discrimination act, which passed the committee and third reading stages in the other place on April 14.
First put forward by the Honourable James Cowan, senator for Nova Scotia, and moved in the House of Commons by my colleague for Don Valley West, Bill S-201 would allow one of Canada's most important and core values to become entrenched in our laws.
As Canadians, we pride ourselves on our charter and human rights because they provide every single Canadian with equal protections from various forms of discrimination and disadvantage. Unfortunately, to date, we have lagged behind on the key issue of genetic discrimination, leaving thousands of Canadians vulnerable because of their very essence, their DNA.
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada produced a report in March of 2012 on the potential effects of such a bill. It made the case that one's genetic makeup represents, in the most personal of ways, “one's very identity”. If we, as a nation of equals, value the protection of individuals based on their gender, sex, or religion, the question is this. How can we not seek to protect the very basis of their being? The short answer is that we cannot. I believe strongly that we, as the House and the entire body of Parliament, recognize that reality to be a fact.
On at least three separate occasions has such a bill made its way through the committee structure, including receiving extensive praise from the Senate Standing Community on Human Rights, and three times has the gap that exists in our rights and protections failed to be bridged. Finally, we have an opportunity to change that.
I am proud to be part of a government that values and respects science, scientists, and the scientific community. That is why our government abolished rules that placed restrictions on scientists' work and prohibited them from talking about their work, as important as it is.
If we want to ensure a more prosperous future for Canadians, we have to pay attention to science and make sure that laws designed to protect us evolve in step with technology.
Canada is a society that values freedom and privacy. Giving employers, insurance companies, or any other group the power to use people's most private information against them is not in keeping with Canadian values.
I talked about the speed of scientific progress. From 2003 to 2016, the number of genetic tests available increased from 100 to 33,000. These tests are key to, for example, determining early on whether a woman is predisposed to developing breast cancer and thereby improving treatment success rates.
I myself have had cancer twice, and as a survivor, I am well aware of the positive impact this type of technology has had and can have moving forward, not just for me, not just for the citizens of my riding of Vaudreuil—Soulanges, but for Canadians from coast to coast to coast. However, without proper legislation, this reality is a double-edged sword. Billions of dollars in genome research has no doubt saved tens of thousands of Canadians affected by a variety of illnesses, because we can now detect them in ways we could not before and, therefore, treat them better than we could before. Indeed, for diseases such as cancer, time is everything. Time is life. It also means that there are about 33,000 new ways for people to try to seep into the personal lives of individuals, ultimately giving them the power to possibly fire, overcharge, or discriminate against them.
Should Bill S-201 not pass through this chamber, Canada may face serious public health challenges, where Canadians, concerned about being treated unfairly due to the fact that their employers or insurers require them to disclose the results of genetic testing, would no longer seek such beneficial testing. The consequences could be that thousands of individuals may never know their chances of developing certain illnesses because they fear the consequences of discrimination more.
We can live in a country that proudly respects science and the advances the scientific community has given us while also protecting the rights and freedoms we as Canadians so proudly enjoy. That is exactly what Bill S-201 seeks to accomplish.
At its core, this bill addresses an important change that needs to be made to both the Canada Labour Code and the Canadian Human Rights Act. It is not, however, without its challenges.
We are a government of collaboration, committed to engaging with our provincial and territorial counterparts to ensure that certain parts of this bill do not interfere with their jurisdictions. We must, nonetheless, remain committed to supporting the genetic non-discrimination act after ensuring that the rights of the provinces and territories are safeguarded and used to effectively promote the same principles that this bill puts forward. It is my hope that the chamber can see the genetic non-discrimination act for what it is, a crucial step in the move toward protecting our rights, our freedoms, and our privacy.
In conclusion, I think we can all agree that neither the state nor any other group, be it a corporation or organization, has any business knowing the genetic makeup of Canadians, and should not have the power to use this information negatively against any Canadian. We are a country of values, where we respect an individual's rights above all else.
The genetic non-discrimination act is one key step to encouraging those rights and freedoms to continue uninhibited for all the people the House represents.