Health committee  First, let me thank you for giving me the privilege of coming to share with you the concerns of a number of my colleagues and myself with regard to many aspects of Bill C-11. I am a professor and researcher at the Institut Armand-Frappier. Most of the research and teaching activ

Health committee  Maybe I can answer that question. Concerning level 3 and level 4 pathogens, there are already a lot of regulations. I don't think that adding this criminal aspect would help in deterring somebody determined to cause a bioterrorism act. I think somebody like the person who was

Health committee  I briefly mentioned inadequate infrastructure. To establish a level 2 containment laboratory, you have to buy the proper biological safety cabinets. If you do not have them, they will cost you $20,000. Where is that money going to come from? Building and maintaining a level 3 con

Health committee  Concerning the level 2 pathogens, if you consider the risks associated with working with these pathogens, the risks or the remote possibility that terrorists would use them to cause harm, and then you consider on the other hand the constraints--financial, etc.--on researchers wor

Health committee  Well, I think it's a bit exaggerated, but--

Health committee  No, but if you look at the possible sentences and fines for not complying to specific rules.... If you work with a level 2 pathogen and you don't comply, you can be fined and go to jail. Compared to somebody who is caught drunk while driving, it's a clear imbalance between the po

Health committee  The classification to schedule 3 was a big surprise to all of us working on Leishmania in the country. There was a big mobilization. There were just about 12 labs in the country working on Leishmania. After our contact with Health Canada and Mr. Hynes, whom I just met here today,

Health committee  Yes, they did, which is a good thing. We are very happy that they listened. But then you wonder about the other pathogens. I don't know; I did not do the work for the other people.

Health committee  Indeed. I do not like the word “pathogens“ because, often, micro-organisms living in some nook or cranny in the environment suddenly find themselves inside a human being and cause disease. Using the term “micro-organism“ is better than saying “pathogen“ all the time. Removing lev

Health committee  For example, no one has satisfactorily explained why Leishmania, which everyone in the world, including in Canada, considers to be a level 2 micro-organism, suddenly found itself on the level 3 list.

Health committee  Actually, there already is a classification in Canada. In the Health Canada web site—I do not know exactly where—all micro-organisms are described. It tells whether each is a bacterium, a protozoan, a fungus or a virus. It says what family they belong to, what pathology they can

Health committee  I agree with what Dr. Hynes just said.

Health committee  Do you mean changing a lab that's actually level 2?

Health committee  In fact, what happens most of the time when you take a micro-organism out of its natural environment, like a human or an animal, where it is infectious, and you passage it in vitro, it loses its ability to cause infection. In fact, what you would see more often is the other way

Health committee  Thank you again for giving me the opportunity to express some fears or concerns about Bill C-11. I would like to take the opportunity to raise a matter that went unnoticed last time: bacterial toxins. The CDC in the United States consider two or three toxins to be really dangero