Grant Hill

[Petitions, November 24th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I have four petitions from members of my constituency to present today.

The first one is on the issue of health foods, similar to the preceding one presented by my colleague, stating that health foods are valuable as a preventive measure for all Canadians.

[Drinking Water Materials Safety Act, November 18th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, if I made a mistake and called the member minister—maybe in another life. I did mean member. I was speaking of the Minister of Health having received this information.

[Drinking Water Materials Safety Act, November 18th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, could the member comment on the circular I received from the health department which stated that consultations were held with various groups throughout the development of this legislation. These stakeholders include representatives from industry, public health, consumer groups and so on.

Yet I presented to the House information that consumer groups and industry had tried very hard to be in touch with the department on this issue and had been denied. I have quite a correspondence from them. Does the minister agree with the fact that this consultation has been cursory and quite restrictive?

[Drinking Water Materials Safety Act, November 18th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I believe the member for Hamilton Mountain had completed her discourse at any rate. That would be why she is not here.

The bill is designed to make sure that Canadian drinking water is safe. I am strongly in support of it but there are some difficulties. I am always concerned when I am on the save wavelength as members of the Bloc. On this issue members of the Bloc and I are in concurrence.

Water control has traditionally been a provincial matter. The bill is purported to look at materials, piping, filtration, chlorination systems and matters that are not supposed to be under provincial control. I have tried to look at it from an unbiased perspective and to say initially what need exists for Bill C-14.

I have gone to the organizations in Canada currently involved in this area. For the benefit of all Canadians, let me list those organizations. They are the Canadian Bottled Water Association, the Canadian Institute of Plumbing and Heating, the Safe Drinking Water Systems Coalition and the Canadian Soft Drink Association.

I contacted these groups for their expertise, advice and guidance. I was fascinated to find these expert organizations to a group are all opposed to Bill C-14. Whenever I find opposition of that nature I ask what need exists for the bill.

I went to each one of the organizations. I have quite a series of documents from them. I want to highlight some of their concerns. Let me start with the Canadian Safe Drinking Water Systems Coalition.

This group says that it tried very hard to have its opinion heard by Health Canada and has been singularly ineffective in that approach. It is bizarre to me that a group that has an interest in the issue would not be well heard. I read that the minister says consultation was broad and thorough. It says neither are in fact accurate.

This group has a number of concerns. It says there is no documented scientific case for the regulations, no problems that warrant this degree of intervention. It says that nationwide infrastructure codes and standards are already in place, safe, excellent drinking water standards.

It goes on to talk about problems with things that are not correct, warranties that are wrong, and that there are hazardous products acts and mechanisms to deal with them. It talks about Revenue Canada customs already having the ability to look after enforcement at the border. It goes through a host of things the bill purports to address.

The Canadian Institute of Plumbing and Heating also expressed very vigorously that its attempts to contact, meet with and influence Health Canada were rebuffed. It wanted to co-operate but there was poor notification of the introduction of the legislation. Its attempts to meet with Health Canada were difficult. It is also having difficulty finding the scientific need for the legislation. There are problems with our water supply but it says not in the areas the bill approaches.

This group gets quite specific. It supplies roughly 90% of the domestic distribution of components such as pumps, pipes, valves, fittings and faucets, and 90% of the home use water filtration. It simply says the bill is unnecessarily intrusive and expensive.

I could go on but I probably should not do so because time is relatively short here. Let me say that the groups most affected are the industry individuals, the bottled water association and plumbers. They are not small groups. One group I mentioned comprises 600 Canadian manufacturers and installers. When it says the bill does not seem to have a great need, is intrusive and could be very expensive, my ears perk up.

Is this an effective use of our resources when it relates the needs of Canadians for safety and friendliness? Costs are uncertain. I have seen significant estimates of costs, but I cannot dig up any cost estimates from the government. They were unavailable. Many other areas are far more desperate for funds than this area. There are waiting lines for health care, poor technology for health care and massive loss of nurses and lab technicians, just to name a few.

I listened to the speech by the member opposite as it related to the bill, hoping that she would enlighten me and give me the pearls of reason for going down this road. I picked up a pearl from the member for Hamilton Mountain. She said one problem with the bill was the issue of cryptosporidium infection. The doctor that I am, I went to my Cecil textbook of medicine. For those listening who want to do this, it is the 20th edition, page 1910, where it mentioned cryptosporidium.

I looked at whether the bill would help patients infected with cryptosporidium. Let us cut this monster word down to something understandable. Maybe I could call it crypto. This organism causes diarrhoea. It is worse in AIDS and immune compromised patients, those whose immune system is messed up. It is not treatable so it would be a good idea to prevent it. Most Canadians would recognize that.

There are eye infections in the young in communities where there is warm wet weather and in communities where there is overcrowding. This is not something common to Canada. It is spread from animals to humans. It can be spread from humans to humans, usually by contaminated source water. It does not show up in the pipes. It does not show up in treatment facilities. Unsanitary conditions are the main problem. When found in treated or untreated water it is resistant to common disinfectants. In other words it is a tough bug to kill, a tough bug to have any impact on. The bill will be singularly ineffective in combating cryptosporidium.

The pearl of reason for going down this road in my judgment was not sufficient. I searched more and I found some scientific information from a group that felt the bill was not sufficient to suggest where we could go in a constructive way. Reformers try not to only oppose. We try to say that there are some problems with fresh drinking water and that maybe we should go in another direction.

Here are my suggestions for the minister and for those who might be interested. There are problems with our drinking water. They are generally problems at source. In other words, our well water is not so good and our commonest problem with well water is leaking sewer pipes. That is eminently fixable but it is not eminently fixable by regulations. It is eminently fixable by going into the ground to fix the infrastructure, to fix the sewer pipes.

The scientific study found estimates that leakages from sewer pipes were from 10% to 35%. Some municipalities do not have a clue how much is leaking. The recommendation, because these sewer pipe discharges may penetrate groundwater supplies and contaminate well water, is to fix the leaking and rusted sewer pipes. Funds should be spent to start fixing the infrastructure.

There were more scientific studies to look at our drinking water in a broader context. I found them to be quite satisfying. We have been paying attention to our drinking water. The Great Lakes are a fascinating source. It is a mini capsule look at how we are doing with the environment. It is interesting that the industrial discharge of phosphorous into the Great Lakes has dropped from 20,000 tonnes to 7,500 tonnes over the past 20 years.

The study measured PCB levels in herring gull eggs. They have dropped over some 20-plus years from 160 parts per million down to below 20 parts per million.

Doom and gloom is always wonderful, but Canadians do enjoy a pretty good standard of drinking water. Maybe some individuals who say that environmental legislation is totally ineffective should reflect upon the success we have had.

Two reasons for my rejecting the bill would be if it were intrusive into an area where there was no need and if it were potentially very expensive.

Broad categories seem to come from our legislators today. I also have concerns about the regulatory and inspection components of the bill. They are very broad powers of inspection. They are unspecified fees. The governor in council, which is fairly typical, may make regulations that are necessary for anything they want to do.

I have objected to every single bill when I have come across broad regulations. I have tried to find other constructive mechanisms to see what could we do with the regulations. My constructive suggestion is that they should be brought to the committee that passed the legislation. Quite frankly I hope the bill does not pass but I presume the majority will get it through. The regulations should come back to the health committee.

We had a mini victory on the tobacco bill that passed in the last parliament. It was an accident but the regulations on the tobacco bill must come back to the health committee.

I cannot say how strongly I feel it is necessary to have scrutiny by the individuals elected to look at regulations so that we do not have a framework of a bill in parliament and then intrusive regulations doing things that were never intended.

I think I will be making this comment throughout my life as a parliamentarian. I simply say that broad regulations that are not specified are not a good idea. Bureaucrats are not the best individuals in this area. We need to have public scrutiny of regulations and of other things such as fees and bills. It is amazing to look at some of these fees, $300,000 for breaking some of these acts. Three hundred thousand dollars may not be much to a bureaucrat who is used to dealing in billions but it is sure a lot to the company representatives I spoke with.

The following statement summarizes how I feel about this bill, why I am opposed to it and suggest strongly that Parliament reject it. This bill further allows the federal government to pickpocket us under the guise of what it deems is best for us. This bill is unnecessary. This bill is intrusive. This bill is potentially expensive. For those reasons I will oppose it vigorously.

[Krever Inquiry, November 7th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, those are very reassuring words.

Judy C., a patient who was infected with hepatitis C when she had a simple tooth extraction, wrote to me and said this government blocked Krever in court, withheld very important documents. She is not encourage at all with the record of this government on Krever.

Her question is why would anybody trust the government on this issue when it looks like it is just trying to dress up an old skeleton with new clothes in its brand new interim policy on blood?

[Krever Inquiry, November 7th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, on November 21 Judge Krever will finally make his report to the Canadian public on the tainted blood scandal and we will finally know the depth of the bungling that went on with the federal government.

My question for the government today is will it follow every single recommendation that Judge Krever presents for Canadians?

[Euthanasia, November 4th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to participate in this debate as a clinician, as a GP, as a guy who dealt with people at the end of their lives, and as someone who did surgery. This has had a very significant impact on my life. I do this with humility, recognizing that the ending of a life is a significant and important issue.

I would like to make sure that those watching understand what euthanasia is not. Euthanasia is not withholding unwanted heroics. Euthanasia is not advanced directives. Euthanasia is not unplugging resuscitation equipment that is unwanted or useless.

Euthanasia is active help to aid a person commit suicide, or active aid to end a person's life. Asking a physician to participate in that goes against everything I was taught in medical school.

Proponents say, and in fairness I listen to their arguments very well, that if we had strict guidelines, the process of doctor assisted suicide would be rare. I do not believe that it is adequate to just listen to those arguments. A good debater can make those positions well. I believe it is much more instructive to look at jurisdictions where this has been tried.

Holland of course is probably the best jurisdiction. I am taking my information today from a fairly new publication. It is the Canadian Family Physician for those who would like to research this for themselves, the February 1997 issue in which the Dutch experience was looked at scientifically.

Holland has a total population of 15 million, just about half of Canada's total population. The data that I am discussing today is from general practitioners just like me, doctors who see a broad part of family existence. The Dutch experience is as follows.

I spoke of criteria that would be used by the proponents. In Holland the criteria are as follows. A request for euthanasia must be voluntary. It must be well informed. It must be persistent. It cannot just be casual. There must be intolerable or hopeless suffering. There must be consultation with a second doctor so that one doctor would not make the decision in isolation. Finally, there must be a report to the authorities, a report to the coroner.

How rare is euthanasia in Holland? This is just GPs. This is not palliative care or surgeons that I am talking about. GPs permit about 2,000 cases of euthanasia per year. The most interesting thing about this scientific data is how often were the criteria followed. It is quite remarkable to find that about 180 patients per year were euthanized without their personal permission. These were individuals who could have given their permission. It is quite surprising.

If we look at all doctors in Holland, substantially more than just the GPs, the numbers are even worse. This is from 1990. For those who would like to research this data themselves, it comes from the Remelink study done in 1991 by a justice in Holland.

For all doctors in Holland in 1990, 2,700 people were euthanized according to the coroners' records. This is following the criteria. But 1,040 were killed involuntarily by all doctors and not reported. Even worse, 8,100 were killed by deliberately using pain medication.

Here we have in a country half as populated as Canada, over 10,000 people euthanized in one year when only 2,700 were reported.

In Holland doctors have taken over end of life decisions. This has not become an empowering thing for the patient. I would conclude by saying giving the power of life to physicians is bad public policy.

[Krever Inquiry, November 4th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, Judge Horace Krever is about to make his report on November 21 and he will surely say that the federal government shares the blame in the tainted blood tragedy.

Will the health minister commit that he will also share the compensation package with those victims who got hepatitis C?

[Tobacco Legislation, October 30th, 1997]

In fact, Mr. Speaker, the rhetoric did sound pretty tough.

I have a quote from the previous Minister of Health. It states: “Whatever the ostensible intent of the tobacco companies, their rich, promotional campaigns reach our youth”. Then they sent a sneaky letter to the race car teams just before the election. To do what? To give them an exemption.

The health minister in his heart of hearts knows this is wrong. Why did he not just simply say, no chance?

[Tobacco Legislation, October 30th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, the health minister is weakening the tobacco bill. First it is race cars, next it will be tennis, then jazz festivals and then equestrian events.

The minister knows full well that the path he is on is the wrong path. Why has he chosen to grovel and snivel at the feet of the big tobacco companies instead of being the Minister of Health?