Bill C-42 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Quarantine Act

This enactment amends the obligations set out in section 34 of the Quarantine Act that apply to the operators of certain conveyances arriving in or departing from Canada.

Quarantine Act

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate my colleague, the member for Joliette, for having taught us a little something about the French language, as well as a few other things.

This is a matter about which I do not need to be convinced. Nevertheless, it would be useful to have more details for some of our colleagues who either do not see the light at the end of the tunnel or do not understand necessarily what is really going on.

At the beginning or his speech, the member did specify that health care is a Quebec jurisdiction. Therefore, even if one supports the bill in principle, there is a need to point out that this jurisdiction must be protected in some way. I suppose that this is not just a whim.

Thus, I would let the member give us some explanations or details, so that our colleagues from other parties can understand that this has nothing to do with a whim, nor with a narrow vision of things.

I believe that we must emphasize again how important it is to protect our jurisdictions. They are in a way protected by the Constitution, but they are not necessarily protected when a government wants to look strong or wants to impose its views at some point in time.

I believe that heath care is a very sensitive matter. When a government like the one we have now or the one we had before wants to act like this—fortunately they were a minority government, which allowed us to slow them down—I think that it is necessary to hear more details about what the member for Joliette has to say.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question.

I think this is extremely important, and it is the source of a major misunderstanding between Quebeckers and Canadians.

I travelled all across Canada when the Standing Committee on Finance was holding hearings as part of the pre-budget consultations. Everywhere I went in the rest of Canada, someone suggested to us that a federal department of education be created, with national standards. And every time, I felt that my colleagues from the rest of Canada thought this was an excellent idea. If the federal government were to take charge of this and ensure that the provinces were spending based on the real priorities, they would be very comfortable with this.

We are always presented with the example of Mike Harris or Ralph Klein, who spent the money allocated for social programs on other things.

In Quebec, we know our citizens can be trusted to judge their governments' accomplishments. In fact, we saw this on Monday with health care. Mr. Charest had made commitments that he did not honour, and he was severely punished for it.

The federal government often uses real problems to push centralizing solutions. For example, we are told that diseases do not stop at provincial borders, and that is true.

In Quebec, we are prepared, obviously based on our priorities, our choices and our way of doing things, to share our expertise with the other Canadian provinces and with the entire planet, and to look elsewhere for expertise that might be useful to us. However, we do not want to be told how to manage our hospital system by Ottawa, because Ottawa does not manage a single hospital, apart from veterans hospitals and those for aboriginal people, with the less than glowing success we have seen.

The same is true for education. This is a particularly sensitive subject in Quebec because education is how the values and identity of Quebeckers are transmitted. On that point, it has in fact been recognized that there is a nation, a territory, a land base—Quebec, the nation of Quebec, which includes all Quebeckers, regardless of where they come from. But it is important to us to be able to transmit the values of the Quebec nation, and the French language, which is the common public language of our nation, and our specific history, and our culture, from generation to generation, with the contributions made by the people who come to us from all over the world, and to be able to do this through the education system.

However that is not how the federal government sees it. To the federal government, Quebec culture is a regional component of Canadian culture. There is no future in this, just as there is no future in a Canada-wide vision of education. In fact, our institutions, like the CEGEPS, do not exist anywhere else in Canada. Another example is in health care, as I said, where we have the local community service centres. They have now been merged with other entities, but they were innovations created by Quebeckers. This began with grassroots health clinics, and the government thought this was a good idea.

To conclude, our child care system, for example, is not a public system; it is a social economy system that was established by parents to meet the needs, in particular, of--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Order, please. Resuming debate. The hon. member for Richmond—Arthabaska.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the hon. member for Joliette on another eloquent speech, and I am pleased to rise after him to address Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Quarantine Act. As my colleague mentioned, the Bloc Québécois supports the principle of this bill, since diseases know no boundaries. Still, we have to remain very vigilant regarding jurisdictions. As we know, health is Quebec's exclusive jurisdiction. The member for Joliette made a very compelling presentation on that, and there is no need for me to dwell on this issue, but I will nevertheless get back to it later on in my speech.

So, as a party, we agree with the principle of this bill. I should remind the House and those who are watching us about the purpose of the amendments in this bill. This enactment repeals the Quarantine Act and replaces it with another act to prevent the introduction and spread of communicable diseases. It is applicable to persons and conveyances arriving in or in the process of departing Canada. It provides measures for the screening, health assessment and medical examination of travellers to determine if they have communicable diseases. It also provides measures for preventing the spread of communicable diseases, including referral to the public health authorities, detention, treatment and disinfestation. It also provides for the inspection and cleansing of conveyances and cargo to ensure that they are not a source of communicable diseases. As we can see, the provisions of this act, which goes back many years—and I will get back to this a little later on—have been tightened up somewhat.

It provides for controls on the import and export of cadavers, body parts and human remains. Earlier, my colleague said that it is not pleasant talking about it, but we must realize that a family may wish to repatriate the body of a person who has died abroad. If this person died in the jungle, or in a country such as China, no matter where or how they died, we must determine how they died and ensure that illnesses are not being transported along with the remains.

It also provides for the collection and disclosure of personal information if it is necessary to prevent the spread of a communicable disease. We must remain very vigilant here also, just as in the case of jurisdictions. We must ensure that this will not happen for all manner of reasons because it would be too easy to disclose personal information. However, in certain cases, to prevent the spread of communicable diseases and to protect public health, these provisions will have to be applied, but only if necessary.

The bill enables the minister to make regulations in the event of a health emergency and to order that measures be taken to ensure compliance with the act. In brief, that is where we are going with Bill C-42.

Earlier, I was speaking about the history of the Quarantine Act, adopted in 1872. Naturally it should be updated because, as we know, at that time most travel was by ship, especially the longest trips. People also got around by horse, on foot, by canoe and so forth, but transatlantic travel at the time, for example, was all by ship. Naturally, travel was slower. We are talking about weeks and weeks of travel. Today, the same distance can be covered in a matter of hours by plane. Even if we do travel by ship, it does not take as long as in those days. This is also obvious.

Consequently, the spread of communicable diseases was often more localized. It took longer for diseases to spread. There was less movement of people and goods, and it was much slower than today. The invention of air transportation completely changed our way of travelling. Travel is now much more frequent and quicker as well. The movement of people and goods from one area to another has increased considerably. That is the difference between our era and the era in which the act was written, about 1872.

Thus, updating the Quarantine Act is totally appropriate. We all agree on this.

Canada, Quebec and the provinces are not immune to the outbreak of diseases.

In 2003, the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) really hit us. This is a painful memory, but we must still remind people about it. There were victims. Reports that were released after this tragedy clearly indicated that improvements had to be made at borders and all across the country to deal with the threats to public safety.

The World Health Organization also got involved because of the outbreak of SARS world wide. In Canada, we must put restrictions on everything that is related to these communicable diseases, but this is unfortunately not the case in all other countries. If all countries do not have measures that are as restrictive as ours, we must be even more vigilant and rigorous to deal with the fallout. I think particularly of China, which flatly denied the existence of SARS on its territory and the fact that there were victims. It took a ridiculous amount of time before China finally admitted that it had had cases of SARS. This does not help at all to maintain public health on its territory. Unfortunately, diseases always manage to spread to other countries.

Avian influenza also poses a threat. In Quebec, the health care and agricultural communities have taken steps to address this threat. I would remind the House that Quebec's department of agriculture, fisheries and food, in cooperation with Quebec's poultry producers' federation, has implemented quota and containment measures for poultry. Obviously, this is not always easy for certain producers. It causes problems for those who are accustomed to raising their poultry outdoors. However, public health and our collective well-being prompted authorities to act before any harm is caused. Quebec has been lucky so far. It is called prevention. All of Quebec's authorities—whether in health care, agriculture or other affected sectors—are working hard to ensure the protection of public health.

“Preparing for an influenza pandemic and other public health risks remains a priority. The enactment of the new Quarantine Act represents a huge step forward in this task”. This is what Dr. David Butler-Jones, Chief Public Health Officer, said on the matter. Dr. Butler-Jones is quite right. We were almost backward, since the act had not been updated in so long. It was time to take action.

The West Nile virus constitutes another threat. Other infectious diseases could emerge and strike us. This is why it has become so crucial that we enforce public health measures at our exit and entry points.

The update to the Quarantine Act provides for the screening of travellers by customs officials or detection devices. It also provides for the referral of travellers to a quarantine officer who may conduct an initial health assessment, order a medical examination, vaccination or other prophylactic measures, order travellers to report to a local public health authority, or detain any person who refuses a medical examination, vaccination, and so on. It also ensures the inspection of conveyances such as airlines and cargo ships, and orders decontamination, disinfection, and so on. Finally, it provides that passengers and conveyances may be detained until there is no longer a risk to public health.

The new powers also include diverting an aircraft to another landing site, establishing a quarantine station at any place in Canada and preventing the entry into Canada of persons or cargo from certain countries to prevent the introduction and spread of diseases. We have truly adapted to the new reality. We hear a lot about economic globalization, but the fact that people—and goods—travel more and more and that all borders are now open has significantly increased the level of risk with regard to the spread of diseases.

There is no need to panic and to become completely paranoid. Nevertheless, this kind of legislation helps us put in place the tools we need to protect public health, as I have been saying from the outset.

As my colleague from Joliette mentioned earlier, Bill C-42 gives effect to a specific section, namely section 34, which sets out the obligations that apply to the operators of certain conveyances in terms of informing quarantine officers of known or suspected risks of disease spreading on board their conveyances. This means ships, aircraft, trains, all motor vehicles, trailers and containers entering or leaving the country.

Obviously, if we want to protect ourselves, it must be understood that we do not want to spread to other countries diseases that may be present in our country. I am thinking of our neighbours to the south and any other country that could be affected. Our international reputation would certainly be tarnished if, for lack of due diligence, we allowed a disease to spread from our country to other countries.

The legislation stipulates that the operator must report anything unusual to the quarantine officer as soon as possible. The wording of section 34 stipulates, among other things, that an operator of a conveyance must report to the quarantine officer if he has any reasonable grounds to suspect that any person, cargo or other thing on board the conveyance could cause the spreading of a communicable disease, listed in a schedule of the legislation, explaining which type of disease is involved, or if a person on board the conveyance has died.

As I was saying earlier, as far as cadavers are concerned, when someone dies there is not necessarily a doctor on board or someone who can perform an autopsy quickly enough to determine the cause of death. We have to be certain that the person did not die from a disease that could be contagious and then, having come across our border, infect not just the passengers in the conveyance, but anyone that might come in contact with the cadaver, etc. Diseases do spread and that is where the danger lies.

Section 34 clarifies the obligations of the operators of ships and airplane pilots, namely upon their arrival and during their departure.

As my colleague from Joliette did so well, I want to remind this House that health is a jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces. That is why, although we are in favour of the bill in principle—because disease knows no boundaries—we will be very careful to ensure that this new legislation does not go against Quebec's legislation on public health. We understand that Canada must also comply with the World Health Organization's International Health Regulations by June. There is a deadline. If Canada meets its obligations while respecting Quebec's legislation, we will continue to support Bill C-42.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague for making an excellent speech on a subject that, let us face it, can be rather dull. Since we are debating a health-related topic, I would like to take advantage of the fact that he is very familiar with the chrysotile issue to have him respond to our NDP colleague who said earlier that asbestos—without specifying which kind—is a health hazard. I then said that water could also be a health hazard, because if we are not careful, we could drown in it, but we still need it to live.

Given that it is in his region, even if it is not in his riding, I would like him to respond to the false representation that any use of chrysotile is dangerous.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Joliette for having gone to the trouble of asking a question that is important to my riding. At the outset, I would like to clarify that there is a mine in my riding, in Asbestos, so this question affects me personally.

We may lose sight of the fact that the member for Winnipeg Centre is obsessed with this. Today we are talking about communicable and contagious diseases, and as soon as the member for Winnipeg Centre had a chance, he began to talk about asbestos and criticize this file.

All of these products have to be handled carefully, just like all other dangerous goods, such as chemicals and even fuel. But asbestos is not a disease. Today, chrysotile asbestos is being used very safely. There are laws and guidelines for working with it and handling it that make it absolutely safe for both workers and users.

Obviously, it has to be handled safely. Experts from Quebec will go to other countries where chrysotile asbestos is being used to explain to them how to use it safely. Things are not like they were in the 1950s and 1960s, when people did not protect themselves.

When chrysotile asbestos is used in road construction, as it is currently used in Quebec—not nearly enough, in my opinion, because it should be used more—the workers who spread the asphalt must be well protected just so there are no health problems. Nobody is denying that there have been health problems among workers. Users have also had some health problems related to home insulation.

However, as with all dangerous products, they did not know then what we know now. Today, things are much better. Asbestos has become a much safer product. Moreover, biopersistence studies have shown that it is less hazardous than products being substituted for chrysotile asbestos in Europe and South America. It can be used in sewer drains. It is used a lot in construction. When used safely, it is a real asset in those areas.

[Raymond Gravel, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech of my colleague from Richmond—Arthabaska and I learned a great deal. I also listened to the member for Joliette earlier.

When I hear a speech like that, I wonder about reporting diseases. If we are talking about objects or animals, it is easy enough to kill chickens or other animals. We can seize objects to prevent them from becoming a danger to the public. But when it comes to people, I am always wary of exclusion and rejection. I know that some people can be contagious and that they can transmit diseases.

I would like to hear my colleague from Richmond—Arthabaska talk about the measures we should take when a person has a communicable disease and it must be reported.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Repentigny for his question and I appreciate his great sensitivity not only to the people of my riding but also to all human beings. He may have been conditioned by his previous career.

Obviously, it is always awkward to quarantine people. Internment is even considered for those who refuse vaccination, for instance. I think that the greatest of respect has to be shown throughout the process. There is no question of excluding anyone. But at the same time, we must never lose sight of the collective good. If someone is suspected of entering the country with a disease, that is what quarantine is for. The idea is not to lock people up in chains, but rather to ensure, using modern medical technology, tests, vaccination and so on, that the individuals are not a danger to themselves or to others.

Sometimes, coming home from abroad, people just want to get home without any hassle. They have a touch of fever, but feel that it is no big deal. For their own protection, however, if they are suspected of carrying the germ of a communicable disease, we have to make sure that they will not die from it. We also have to ensure that they will not spread some disease to family, friends and possibly an entire community. All these actions have to be taken in a very respectful manner, while we ensure that public health is properly protected. That is why we need quarantine legislation. I have a feeling that, if it came to be known that quarantine officers or the people at Health Canada were not showing people proper respect, someone would blow the whistle on them and we would be the first ones to denounce such conduct.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin my remarks by mentioning the beautiful light that shines on this side of the House. This is not a coincidence. The sky is blue and God is a sovereignist. We are going to take advantage of this light to enlighten our colleagues, the members opposite, who form the government. I hope they will be wise enough to listen.

I could not help but smile when I saw that this legislation was coming back here to be amended. Let us not forget that, at the beginning of this session, a bill was rammed through the House, namely Bill C-2. We felt that this issue had not been debated long enough to ensure that this legislation would provide measures that could be implemented, and that it would be responsible and meaningful for our fellow citizens, whom we represent here.

Today, I see that we have to go back to Bill C-12, which was passed in 2005, when I was still a new member in this House. In fact, this bill was my first experience with the legislation here. I had to learn how to debate it in the Standing Committee on Health, along with my colleague, the member for Hochelaga, who was then our party critic on health issues. Even at that time we had serious reservations about the provisions that the government wanted to include in the bill, because we often felt that they were too intrusive or not logical enough to allow for concrete, easy and effective implementation.

We have to be very cautious and serious when we talk about infectious and communicable diseases, about viruses and bacteria that proliferate. We have to take our role seriously. At the time, we deplored the fact that people would be accountable to an authority designated by the Minister of Health, because we felt that this was a somewhat complex process that would prevent the bill from being an effective piece of legislation.

When I saw the bill and saw that there was a move to amend this section, that is, section 34, I thought to myself, “Two years later, people are finally seeing that, once again, the Bloc Québécois was right.” Naturally, it was members of the Bloc Québécois who were the first to oppose that part of the legislation, which called for an authority designated by the minister. We did so because we believed that the bill encroached too much on provincial jurisdictions, especially in the area of health.

In Quebec, our department of public health is very effective and takes great care to protect us against all communicable and infectious diseases. I know that this is not necessarily the case everywhere. A hospital in Vegreville had to close its doors this week. Also, in Loyds, hundreds of patients had to be informed that they had probably contracted HIV or hepatitis, because the doctor had not reported, as one must, these diseases to public health authorities.

It is not enough to simply enact legislation. That legislation must be respected, obeyed and enforced, and we must be able to use that legislation effectively to protect ourselves against what we could call barbarian invasions. Any mention of tuberculosis, west Nile virus or SARS is sure to arouse fear. I would remind the House that the original Quarantine Act was drafted around 1872, if I understood my hon. colleague from Richmond—Arthabaska correctly.

We know that diseases crossed borders with the influx of pioneers who came here to start a life for themselves and become proud citizens of what was then Lower Canada and Upper Canada, in other words, the Quebec and Canada of today.

Infectious diseases did not stop crossing our borders just because we passed this legislation in 1872. In the early 1900s, around 1910 or 1918, right here in Hull, on the other side of the river, a very serious Spanish influenza outbreak killed many people. It decimated entire families. We still see traces of those families today in the names of the hon. members sitting in this House and the people nearby, who live in Hull, in Gatineau. These people probably have in their lineage, among their ancestors, people who died from the Spanish flu. At the time, even though the legislation existed, we did not have the means to enforce or apply it.

As far as such epidemics are concerned, we have to think about all these soldiers we send abroad. Often we pay more attention to what is going on over there in terms of equipment, tools and armament, and not pay much attention to what they might be bringing back with them when they come home. This can be very dangerous for them. These days, a number of women take part in these missions. Many of them come back and can also spread infectious diseases to their families and children because they did not receive the necessary care when they were abroad on a peacekeeping mission or, unfortunately, at war.

It is not enough to have laws, we also need the political will to apply them. We have to start resolving the problems in our own backyard. We currently have tuberculosis epidemics in a number of our first nations communities. It is unthinkable that in 2007 there are still people suffering from tuberculosis. That is the direct responsibility of the federal government. It is a responsibility that it neglects far too often and which it has not respected because the epidemic is spreading, not stopping.

In Kashechewan, people may be forced to leave their homes and to be relocated because their water is not potable. However, they cannot do it today because there is no money. If we have billions of dollars to invest in arms, we should at least have a few million to invest in providing safe, healthy housing where individuals can live with dignity and respect. At present, this is not the case. It is much easier to adopt a laissez-faire attitude. Hundreds, even thousands of individuals will suffer from these illnesses, including tuberculosis and other diseases. They will contract them because of unhealthy living conditions. Nothing is being done about that.

The previous government ratified the Kelowna accord. We all voted in this House to honour that accord. However, the government decided otherwise and is not making any further commitments. That is most unfortunate.

First nations communities, Inuit communities, all these communities find it difficult to carve out a place for themselves in our society. It is difficult for them to have access to adequate health care, appropriate education, and affordable, healthy, safe housing. It is difficult for them, but they have been abandoned even though it is our first responsibility to help them. We abandon them, we do not invest in these societies. Why? Why is there constant encroachment, to the tune of millions of dollars, on provincial responsibilities and jurisdictions when we do not even take care of our own responsibilities?

I do not understand. And yet, some small countries who have very little do much more for their citizens. I regularly visit Cuba, because I love the island and the people. Someone will say to me that they do not have a great deal of freedom, but I sometimes wonder which one of us has more freedom. I know that they have first class health care. All Cubans can study as much and as long as they wish. Education is free. Later, the government assigns the doctors it has trained to various countries to work for humanitarian causes. These doctors are very well trained.

Whenever I go to Cuba, I am never afraid of getting sick. I know I will be taken care of. When we went to Taiwan last fall, my travelling companion got a toothache on Taiwan's national holiday. The person I was with had a toothache. We had to go to a hospital because there are no dental clinics. At the hospital, two doctors took care of us. In under 10 minutes, my companion was in a chair and personnel had administered a sedative and something to take away the pain, and all of this happened on Taiwan's national holiday. Of course, thousands of people live there and their hospitals do not have all the equipment we have here. But their government chooses to invest in human resources to provide a standard of care and services that we rarely find here.

That service standard is rare here largely because of our provincial governments. Why do our respective governments not have enough money? Because previous federal governments cut transfer payments. Beginning in 1994, cuts to provincial transfer payments, including payments to Quebec, resulted in the sorry state of our health care systems today compared to those of some small countries that have much less than we do, but that care about their citizens' health.

We support the principle underlying this bill. We are not against it. Obviously, we cannot be against what is right, but today, as we study this bill, we must ask ourselves a question. Will this bill provide enough money to train quarantine officers? Will enough money be invested in training customs agents and all of the front-line staff who meet people at the border?

That was one of the concerns expressed by the Standing Committee on Health in 2004-05. We were not certain that all steps would be taken in order to enforce Bill C-12. After two years, we see that enforcing it is very difficult indeed, and that it was not really being enforced because there were flaws in the bill. In the years to come, we will likely find other flaws in the bill, given that the Standing Committee on Health had considerable reservations about approving the bill, which was adopted on division.

If we all minded our own business, there would likely be fewer bills of this kind to review. For example, despite what the government thinks, Bill C-2 was adopted very quickly, and a number of its sections are still not in force.

Why are we asked to debate bills that seem so important to the government, only to then have it dismiss everything we determined, everything we decided, everything we wanted to be able to give to our citizens as members of Parliament here in this House? We wonder why.

I do not know. I only hope that, in the future, we will be more careful. If it is true that Bill C-42 is crucial to the proper enforcement of Bill C-12, through the amendment of section 34, it is also true that there are several other sections of the bill that should be reviewed. In enforcing—

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I am sorry to have to interrupt the hon. member. She will have another four minutes to continue her speech the next time this bill comes before the House.

The House resumed from March 28 consideration of the motion that Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Quarantine Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as the member of Parliament for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, the home for over 50 years of Canada's Emergency Preparedness College, I am pleased to participate in this debate about modernizing the Quarantine Act.

The Quarantine Act is one of Canada's oldest pieces of legislation. The original act was first adopted in Parliament in 1872. It is the only federal statute concerned with preventing and controlling the introduction and spread of communicable disease. The new Quarantine Act received royal assent in 2005 and is now in force. This legislative renewal initiative was a direct outcome of our Canadian experience with SARS.

As a member of the 37th Parliament, I had the privilege of representing the Ontario riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke during the SARS crisis. What I remember most about the debates in the House of Commons surrounding the SARS crisis, was the almost total lack of accountability from the Ontario Liberal MPs during that crisis and from the administration and the minister they were defending.

While I have certainly been pleasantly surprised by the concerns raised by Liberal MPs who are now in opposition, my question is, where were they during the 2003 SARS crisis? The purpose of a quarantine act is to be prepared for an emergency. This is the same reason we have anti-terrorism legislation, to be prepared. Canada witnessed what happens when government is not prepared. This was evident during the SARS crisis. Let us not make the same mistake twice. Our government is getting the job done.

The official opposition was irresponsible when it made the decision to go soft on terrorism. Canadians can only hope that lives will not be lost as a consequence. The bottom line in this discussion is saving lives, protecting the health of Canadians. It was the inability of the former minister for emergency preparedness in the old government who had the statutory authority but lacked a grasp of the importance of the portfolio that led to the travel advisory being issued against Toronto during the SARS episode.

Information was not communicated to the World Health Organization in a timely fashion. The leadership role that the minister in the old government was intended to assume never materialized. The minister responsible for emergency preparedness claimed it was the minister of health's responsibility to call the World Health Organization. The minister of health figured that in an emergency the minister for emergency preparedness was in charge. In the inevitable passing of the buck, Ottawa twiddled its thumbs as Canadians became ill.

It is shocking to hear MPs who are members of the old government now admit just how unprepared Canada was and how disorganized the government was to communicate accurate information to an alarmed populace for an epidemic of any kind, let alone SARS.

I listened carefully as alarmed Canadians were told to turn to no less than 17 sites on the Internet for information on SARS. This information was incomplete and the sites conflicted with one another. Given this kind of experience with a crisis, it is incredible that opposition members would want Canadians to be unprepared for a terrorism act when they voted down their own terrorism legislation. It is all about being prepared.

Canadians listening to this debate will know that it is partisan posturing to suggest that amendments to the Quarantine Act should have been our new Conservative government's first order of business when in fact Bill C-2, our new government's showcase anti-corruption legislation had to be the first order of business.

The people of my riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke and more specifically the people of Arnprior know firsthand the actions of a corrupt government when the Emergency Preparedness College, which had been located in Arnprior for over 50 years, was shut down. It was wrong to close the Emergency Preparedness College in Arnprior and, as events turned out, it was not only the people of Arnprior who suffered because of that bad decision.

In the case of SARS, the cost to the tourism industry in Toronto and the rest of the province of Ontario was in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The SARS fiasco was the culmination of a whole series of missteps by the old regime that began with the political decision to discard over 50 years of tradition and teaching excellence when the politically motivated decision was made to close down the Emergency Preparedness College in Arnprior.

With the college in turmoil, the people who were supposed to be advising the government were ill-equipped to react even if the legislation tools such as we are discussing here today were in place. What is truly unfortunate about that wrong headed decision by the scandal ridden old government to close the Emergency Preparedness College in Arnprior was the price Canadians had to pay when it came time to act during the SARS crisis.

While taxpayers' dollars were made available to large urban centres like Toronto to deal with the drop in tourism as a result of the travel advisory issued against Toronto, the effect of that travel advisory warning by the World Health Organization rippled throughout the province of Ontario. Many businesses, including small businesses involved in the tourism industry located in my riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke were adversely affected.

The old administration refused to take responsibility for the situation with SARS and it is to the credit of the former member of the House, long forgotten by his own party and frustrated by inaction, that a concert was organized to let the world know that it was safe to be in Toronto and a safe travel destination as well. It is with this background that I participate in the debate regarding Bill C-42.

The modernization of the quarantine legislation was a first step in a series of legislative initiatives, along with the establishment of the Public Health Agency of Canada and the appointment of the new Chief Public Health Officer to help strengthen Canada's public health system. Bill C-42 is a minor amendment to the new Quarantine Act. It proposes new wording to section 34.

This amendment to the Quarantine Act is a minor and technical one. It does not change the policy objective but corrects the current language used in section 34. Section 34 is a provision that supports advance notification of very important health information to federal officials. It requires conveyance operators to report in advance before arrival in Canada if there is an illness, a public health concern or death on board a conveyance.

This provision enables quarantine officers, nurses and medical practitioners designated by the minister to coordinate an efficient response and to mobilize other key health and emergency responders.

In the event of a large scale outbreak and if necessary, this provision would allow the Minister of Health to better assess whether to order the diversion of a carrier to an alternate landing site in Canada to protect the health and safety of Canadians.

In its current form, section 34 would not satisfy its intended purpose. The problem was discovered when attempting to draft a supporting regulation which was necessary to make section 34 functionally proper.

Unfortunately, this issue created a barrier for bringing the new Quarantine Act into force swiftly and a newly worded section 34 is necessary from a technical point of view.

Today, I stand before members with this bill to be forwarded to the appropriate committee for review.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the hon. member, in view of the fact that there was this technical problem that rendered the bill inoperable and that was identified probably 14 months ago, why has it taken the government this long to make this small technical change that would actually make the bill operable?

At the same time I would like to ask the member to actually fact check her remarks in terms of a so-called previous minister for emergency preparedness in terms of the fact that indeed that was the health minister and the fact that it was indeed the Conservative premier of Ontario standing outside, where there was absolutely no risk of SARS, with a mask around his chin. These kinds of optics actually created the kind of alarm and fearmongering that was very dilatorious to my city of Toronto.

In fact, long before the travel advisories, we knew that the Chinese restaurants in Montreal were empty, that there was a real problem in being able to get the information out that this indeed was a disease that one would have to break into a hospital room in order to get the disease. The problem indeed was that we did not have the science of the incubation period, the mode of transmission, or any of those things at that time when the science was lacking.

I guess I also want to know how the member can stand there when indeed the problem was a lack of communication between the Ontario government and the federal government in terms of whether that was one patient who had gone to two hospitals or two patients who had gone to two hospitals. We were faced with the issue of interference and whether or not data sets would be shared because of somebody worrying about whether they would be the principle investigator on a study. This was a huge problem as we learned from the Naylor report.

We, as the Liberal government, took every recommendation of the Naylor report very seriously. We put in place the Public Health Agency of Canada. We appointed David Butler-Jones as the first ever Chief Public Health Officer. We put in a Minister of State for Public Health. We supervised the first public health network for Canada in which 13 jurisdictions in the country would plan public health together in terms of chief public health officers from all of the jurisdictions, knowing that germs do not respect borders and that we did learn the lessons from SARS.

If we learned the lessons from SARS, put all of these things in place, could the member opposite tell us why it took 14 months for the government to fix this tiny technicality that has rendered this whole bill inoperable?

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin by first answering the question on why it took so long. The first order of business for the government was to put in place legislation so that confidence in government would be restored. We had gone through 13 years of a corrupt government and to this day we still have not found the $40 million that disappeared during the adscam scandal.

Furthermore, with the Hewlett Packard incident at the Department of National Defence, we are still not told what happened to the $100 million. That is why it was so important to have the Federal Accountability Act put in place.

To underscore my comments that the old government of the day was confused was further underscored by the statement that there was no minister of emergency preparedness. Under the Minister of National Defence at the time, the Ontario office of critical infrastructure and emergency preparedness was under the defence department.

Recognizing now that they did not even know there was a minister in charge--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, order.