JUST Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA JUSTICE ET DES DROITS DE LA PERSONNE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, December 12, 2001

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. Andy Scott (Fredericton, Lib.)): Good afternoon.

I call to order the fifty-seventh meeting of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

This afternoon we will begin consideration for the second time, I believe, of Bill C-217, an act to provide for the taking of samples of blood for the benefit of persons administering and enforcing the law and good Samaritans, and to amend the Criminal Code.

I believe the testimony from the last time, Bill C-244, was brought in on March 21, 2000. We heard from Mr. Strahl on April 6 and we heard witnesses on June 13, and that testimony has been adduced and is available to members.

We have the sponsor of the bill, as is the custom of this place, to speak to his private member's bill. With that, I will call on Mr. Strahl.

Welcome.

Mr. Chuck Strahl (Fraser Valley, PC/DR): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It is a pleasure to be here today. I realize this is one of the busiest committees in Parliament, and I'm aware of the number of meetings you mentioned that you have already been through. I realize you have a very busy schedule, so I thank you for hearing this presentation today.

As you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, this bill has been before the committee in the last Parliament. It was caught in the election cycle and was therefore dropped. It did come back, and it has now made its way here to your committee, after passing second reading in the House. I don't want to reiterate my entire speech from the House; that's part of the record, so I won't do that to you again.

Today, I want to cover four items about this legislation, just to assure the committee that it is my intention to produce the best legislation possible that will help front-line workers and emergency workers who face this health problem of having to deal with contaminated blood or bodily fluids in the course of their work.

I've said to both the minister and to the parliamentary secretary, and, again, to this committee, and in the House, that it is not my objective to make sure that this proposed legislation goes through with every jot and tittle intact. I would, however, ask the committee to seriously consider how to perhaps help improve the legislation to make sure it is charter proof and to make sure it gets the job done to look after those in the public safety sector.

First of all, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to explain again how this legislation came about. It came about, originally, from a letter I received from someone in my riding who told the story of his eldest son. The story goes like this, and I quote directly from the letter I received:

...my eldest son was involved in an incident at work (Canadian Tire in Abbotsford) a few weeks ago which has raised a large question for me. He helped apprehend a would-be shoplifter and in the scuffle some blood from the accused came to be on my son. My son is now on medication from the AIDS Prevention Society (St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver). We won't be able to test him to see if he has contracted any disease until after three months. However, all it would take is for the accused to take a blood test to see if he has any such disease (he's a known heroin addict to the RCMP in Abbotsford). The accused refuses to take such a blood test and the law, I've been told, supports him in his refusal. Here again is a case where the victim is being punished and the accused's rights take precedence over the victim's rights. What can we as a family do? What, as our MP, can you do to help us, to help my son?

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Mr. Chair, that started the process of this legislation, which is about trying to find a way to help those who have put themselves at risk, the heroes of society, Mr. Chair, who in turn become victims because they have helped.

I would like to mention, Mr. Chair, that in our audience today, is Isobel Anderson. Constable Anderson went through a similar experience where she was traumatized and injected with a syringe full of a potentially lethal substance of some sort, Mr. Chair, and she also went on a treatment program.

Mr. Chair, in her case, the person who had infected her, or potentially infected her, offered to give a blood sample in return for a hamburger, because he was a street person, a homeless person. For the price of a hamburger, so to speak, he determined the course of her medical treatment for months and months to come. Thankfully, that blood sample turned out to be negative.

Mr. Chairman, it just shows how desperate this situation is and how it shouldn't be up to offering a hamburger or offering something to get someone to give a blood sample. It should be something a police officer, or an emergency care giver, is entitled to.

In conclusion, I would mention that just recently I met this fellow who was covered in blood and went on this extensive AIDS prevention treatment. I happened to bump into him at a restaurant in Chilliwack, and of course he is all grown up now—this is several years ago—but he did tell me that he has tested negative. There have been no after-effects, and in a sense it's a good-news story in that he is healthy, although he did go through all the trauma of months of treatment to get to that stage.

The second thing, Mr. Chair, is what does the legislation do? Bill C-217 would help people like Isobel or Tim, the fellow I mentioned in my story. It helps those Canadians who, whether by their professions or out of the goodness of their hearts, sacrificially give to help others. It gives them, people in public safety and occupations, the ability to have the knowledge to make informed decisions on treatment, and I believe it should be a concern for the government. It is a security issue, the security of the person, and it helps to determine their course of treatment.

It would work like this. The Blood Samples Act compels any person who, either accidentally or deliberately, contaminates a good Samaritan, a health professional, an emergency professional, or security professional with his or her blood or other bodily fluids to submit a sample of his or her blood for analysis to determine the presence, if any, of HIV, hepatitis C, or hepatitis B.

Bill C-217 enables a judge—and it would take a judge—to order the taking of a blood sample from any person who has accidentally or deliberately contaminated any of these people. The person's blood would be tested for HIV, hep C, or hep B, and the blood test analysis would only be shared with the individual from whom the blood sample was taken, the affected person, a qualified medical practitioner conducting the test, and the police officer responsible for executing the warrant. Blood test analysis would only be used for medical treatment. In other words, Mr. Chairman, it can't be used in any kind of a prosecution, in any kind of a DNA testing; it can't be used for any other purpose than to help these professionals determine the course of their own medical treatment.

I realize this legislation raises some questions. I did listen, obviously, to the speeches in the House, and I urge you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, to consider these questions as you examine this legislation.

First of all, does the blood testing offer a practical benefit to the emergency worker or the good Samaritan? That's the first question. In light of that, I would urge you to talk to witnesses who have gone through the experience, some of whom testified before the committee the last time, and ask them whether this information offered benefits—either practical, emotional, or other—to them that helped them make an informed choice that actually determined their own personal health in the following months.

I urge you to look at the medical studies that show how this information benefits making that informed decision about health. I urge you to talk to the hospitals, many of which have written to me in support of this bill.

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If I haven't already, Mr. Chairman, I'll make sure you have a full list of those who have written to give their support in principle for this bill.

Many hospitals and many medical associations across the country have supported it. I urge you to talk to them to ask them specifically why, if mandatory blood testing doesn't benefit victims of crime, many of them have in place a protocol that asks the source individuals in their own hospitals to give a blood sample? In other words, Mr. Chairman, they like it in hospitals. I think it should apply also to emergency workers.

I also would urge you to examine the resolution adopted by the CMA, the Canadian Medical Association, in 1998. It passed a motion at that time stating:

That the CMA recommends that all patients undergoing any procedure where a health care worker could be accidentally exposed to that patient's bodily fluids be required to sign a waiver that would allow appropriate testing of that patient's serological status for HIV and Hepatitis if such exposure should occur, while ensuring patient confidentiality.

Mr. Chairman, that of course goes much further than my bill proposes, but it does point to how the medical association does see a need just to have information in order to determine proper medical treatment.

The second issue the legislation raises is, does Bill C-217 violate the charter? This is going to be part of the interesting testimony, I'm sure. There are procedural steps built into the process, into the legislation, I believe, that are sensitive to the legal rights of individuals who may be required to give a blood sample. For example, a judge is the only individual who can order a blood sample to be taken, and only after weighing certain criteria. It is going to be difficult to get this, Mr. Chairman, but it's not going to be impossible. It will be difficult, and it should be difficult, because charter rights are not easily transgressed or put on trial here. A person still maintains the right to refuse the taking of a blood sample, but, Mr. Chairman, it is all about an emergency professional's right to an informed choice about his or her health.

I would urge everyone to consider the good Samaritan's right to the security of the person and the threat posed to the body by an infectious disease. I would urge the committee to remember or consider that there are currently three other provisions of the Criminal Code that authorize the taking of blood samples. So although this is provocative, it is not unheard of to authorize the taking of blood samples.

I would consider the principles of fundamental justice when you're considering this legislation. I would consider the section 1 justification of the charter as well, that is, the right not to be deprived of your charter protection unless it is in society's interests. Again, I would argue—and I believe you'll hear this in testimony from the witnesses and see it in rereading the old testimony as well—that it is a balance between society's right to be protected and the right to know and the integrity for someone of his or her own personal body.

Mr. Chairman, to reiterate, I am interested in charter-proofing this legislation if we can find some way, either through amendment or through clarification or regulation, to make this charter-proof or as close to charter-proof as possible. Let's find a way to do that.

Third, the last issue, really, Mr. Chairman, is the technical requirement: does Bill C-217 deal with a criminal offence? In other words, is there a connection with criminal law? That is something this committee will have to determine.

You will, I'm sure and I hope, get testimony from the justice department officials, who will give their opinions on it. I urge you to talk to other legal experts and to review the testimony from other constitutional experts, even from the last Parliament, who spoke on this bill. But again, Mr. Chairman, this does involve amendments to the Criminal Code and I believe it does qualify under that technical requirement.

Finally, there will be questions asked about whether this deals with federal or provincial jurisdiction. Some people will argue that this is strictly a health issue, that governments like Ontario's are currently dealing with this as a health issue and that's where it should best be left. Although I encourage the provinces to proceed with that provincial health aspect of it, I would also ask this committee to consider that this bill does amend the Criminal Code and does create a new criminal offence.

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I believe if we're going to be serious about offering the protection this bill tentatively provides, we should think in terms of a Canadian response to a Canadian-wide problem. I don't believe we should have ten different jurisdictional bodies with different parameters, different requirements, and different codes of privacy and so on. I believe it deserves a Canadian response, and I would urge the committee to consider whether this is the best way to proceed with it.

I believe it is the best way and that it's not just a health issue, because this will work hand in glove with the legislation proposed by Ontario and other provincial governments. They are going to ask for this information in providing for privacy and so on, but have no Criminal Code impetus to make sure it happens.

On balance, Mr. Chairman, I urge the committee to consider it and to ask those questions. I'm sure you will, as a very thorough committee, do the work that needs to be done. By all means, propose or accept amendments. I know I don't have to tell you to do that. I know you do that all the time. I will just let you know again that I don't have a proprietary interest in it in the sense that it will hurt my feelings. If we can amend this thing into being, I think we will have done a good thing. There are dozens, if not scores, of organizations that will thank us for this, and I urge you to talk to some of them in your preparations for this decision.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Strahl.

For seven minutes, Mr. Cadman.

Mr. Chuck Cadman (Surrey North, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I really don't have any questions. Just by way of a comment, I'd like to congratulate Mr. Strahl for persisting with this. As the chair knows, I sat through the hearings on this bill in the last Parliament.

I'm just referring to my notes, and I think just about everything I was concerned about was answered at that point. Again, I'm glad he chose to bring this bill back to us, and I must comment on his luck at having the bill drawn. Some people go through an entire Parliament without getting anything drawn and he gets an opportunity to get a bill back for a second time.

The only question I would have is whether this bill is identical to the form it took in the last Parliament, because there were some issues being raised about charter arguments. I was just wondering if you had done anything with this version to alleviate some of them.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: No. It's exactly the same bill, word for word. There is only one thing that may be somewhat different, and it is something that would take examination of the evidence perhaps. There was a constitutional expert, Gerry Chipeur, who gave testimony last time before the committee. At the time we were right in the midst of a court challenge to the gun registry program, if you remember. The Supreme Court had not yet ruled on whether the federal government had the right to propose a law that dealt with property rights.

That debate was ongoing, the court was about to rule on it, and Mr. Chipeur made the argument—and you may want to get him or some other constitutional expert back—that if the court ruled that the federal government did have jurisdiction, that would strengthen the case for this bill. In that traditionally provincial realm, if there was an overriding societal concern, could the federal government impose laws that dealt, in that case, with property rights?

Of course, the court did rule that way. It did recognize the federal government's right to have firearms legislation. Mr. Chipeur felt at that time that it strengthened the case for this bill. Now it may be worth getting him or someone else back to see whether he thinks that's still the case, because at the time we were within days of that ruling and he said that might be a consequential argument about why the bill would meet that charter and federal test. Other than that, though, it's exactly the same bill.

Mr. Chuck Cadman: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't have any other questions, unless Mr. Sorenson has something.

The Chair: Thank you.

Monsieur Bellehumeur for seven minutes.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Bellehumeur (Berthier—Montcalm, BQ): The question I had has already been asked. I wanted to know whether Bill C-217 was exactly the same as Bill C-244, I think, and you said it is. I remember quite a few witnesses were against Bill C-244, because it was going to far, the meaning was too broad. In the end, they did not wish for the bill to pass. I remember that the Ottawa Association of Defence Counsels, the World Medical Association, Health Canada, the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the Canadian Legal Network and the Canadian coalition of organizations representing people who had been affected came to testify.

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Did you meet with those organizations which were not in favour of your bill, following their testimony, to see if you could, eventually, improve the legislation, taking their comments into account? This is my only question.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Strahl.

[Translation]

Mr. Chuck Strahl: I'd like to thank the member for his comment and for asking the question.

[English]

I didn't meet with him. Perhaps I should have. I think I got caught perhaps in that same framework of the election that caused the bill to disappear the first time.

What we did is we just garnered support for the bill from where we could. We did get support from, I would think, in excess of 100 national and regional organizations from coast to coast. They tended to be from those people in the industry who would be most affected. They tended to be from the Canadian Police Association, the hospitals, the paramedics, the firefighters, and so on. Because they are affected by it, they want something like this to go forward, and that's why you had the broad support for that.

You struck the nub of the issue, namely, that may be so, but is it going to be charter friendly. Is it going to pass that test? I think it's important to remember that lawyers especially, I would argue, are always concerned that it's not going to pass the test. On almost every piece of legislation, they warn it will be challenged in the courts. But virtually every piece of legislation now is challenged in the courts. It's something we have to almost accept. My hope is that when you have them as witnesses they will come up with proposals as to how to improve it and how to charter-proof it, in their opinion. If not, there does come a time, as with all legislation, whether it's Bill C-36 or a private member's bill, when it will be challenged. We just have to accept that and determine whether it is in society's interest, in the opinion of Parliament, and then let the courts make the final decision on whether or not it is acceptable.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Strahl.

Mr. Hill.

Mr. Jay Hill (Prince George—Peace River, PC/DR): Thank you.

Like my colleagues from the Canadian Alliance, I commend you for bringing this forward and being persistent with it.

From the testimony you provided, both this time and in the previous incarnation of this bill, it's clear that there is substantial support, I would say, for it across the country, especially from those individuals who are called upon to do this type of work every day and put their lives at risk because of their occupation.

My question has to do with the issue of time. Have you been able to address the concerns that were expressed last time regarding a situation where the justice would rule that an individual will have to allow themselves to give up a blood sample and then there would be an appeal process? By the time all that was gone through, there would be a sufficient delay so that the individual would know whether they were infected or not anyway. It's the time element.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: There is really no way of getting around that. That time element is a problem, because often doctors will recommend that you start a course of preventive treatment right away—within 24 hours.

What will happen, I believe, when a bill like this is on the books...often when someone says, “Would you give a sample, because if not, I'll have to go to the judge”, people will say, well, fine. If someone is willing to give it up for a hamburger, for example, which is ridiculous, when you think of someone's life at stake, I think most of the time people will just say, okay. It's like giving a breathalyzer sample. You could take it to court, but you just say, well, it's just what's expected. I think that would become the norm.

Secondly, even if it does take a little bit of time.... It has to take some time. You have to at least allow that it may take some time, because you have to have protection for that individual as well. You have to say this isn't just slam, bam, hold the guy down and somebody comes along and yanks a blood sample out of him. You have to allow protection for that person.

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So there will be cases when it will take a while, but even if it takes a while, as happened in Isobel Anderson's case, for example.... She started the treatment, and the treatment absolutely devastated her, laid her right flat. She was unable to care for her family, unable to go to work, and obviously unable to look after her own bodily needs. But within a few days....

Even if it takes a few days, if that's how that AIDS cocktail hits you, even if you can stop the treatment then, it's not only a welcome relief, but it changes your life. It changes not only your medical treatment, but also probably the level of intimacy with your partner and your children. I mean, it's a life-changing thing. So even if it does take a few days, and even if you've already started it, it will determine your course of treatment over time.

All the witnesses I've talked to say that you just cannot imagine both the emotional and the personal relief when you get the blood sample back that says it's negative.

Mr. Jay Hill: Those are all the questions I have, Mr. Speaker—I mean, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Gee, one more time and I'm going to call for a vote here. I love Kingston, but I like Fredericton better.

Go ahead, Mr. Owen.

Mr. Stephen Owen (Vancouver Quadra, Lib.): Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Strahl, for your persistence in bringing this forward. It is an important matter to all of us and to all Canadians. It could perhaps more easily have gone by the wayside if you hadn't kept it moving. Certainly we are very content on the government side and anxious to have had you come back before us and to hear witnesses in a more fulsome way than was possible when this came before the committee before. So that's all very much to the good.

I think your presentation was very helpful in laying out the range of issues. Certainly we want to look at the charter. Even though it's true, as you say, that most new law that touches on people's lives is now challenged under charter grounds at some point or other, that doesn't mean from the Attorney General's point of view, or the Minister of Justice's point of view, acting as Attorney General, that she can put forward a bill, or support a private bill going forward, if she has doubts about its charter legality. In fact, she has a responsibility, a constitutional responsibility as the legal adviser to Parliament as well as to the government, to oppose bills that she thinks might violate the charter.

All that being said, I think you've set out some of the really important tests. Is the section 1 test rational? Is it the least intrusive possible? Is it proportional to the risk? It is really a matter of risk management in the sense that you look at the likelihood of something occurring and then you look at the consequences of something occurring. If it's likely at all that it happens, if you have potentially catastrophic consequences, then of course that would justify greater intrusion into what otherwise might be privacy rights or security of person rights under the charter.

So I guess we'll be looking at that range of issues. How often does this happen? How often have there been cases of infection of front-line workers or people acting as good Samaritans?

The hospital parallel that you've mentioned I think is a very important one, from both sides of it. One side—and I think you've mentioned this to me before privately—is that a hospital is a much more controlled environment, so they're not exactly comparable. On the other hand, surgeons working with needles and often metal wire and broken bones and such are exposed to the risk more often.

The timeliness is important—the nature of how intrusive it is for the source person in terms of sharing of private information. Can we put that firewall that you've mentioned around it effectively? I think those are all important issues.

The one that hits me today that you've mentioned, with the constable, is the mental element, combined with the very intrusive nature of the drug cocktails that are taken and the disruption to their life physically, as well as the emotional strain.

I thank you for being here. I think you've laid out the issues well. We will have a more fulsome chance to look into this matter.

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Perhaps I can just conclude with one question, if you know at this stage, about the number of cases of infection of the group of people you're describing as front-line workers or good Samaritans. Is this something that happens often or has happened often, or is it more that it doesn't happen very often, but the consequences of it happening—physically, mentally, potentially catastrophically—are so great?

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Thank you.

On the question, I have asked several of the national organizations to start to try to determine that. What they have is just reams of anecdotal stories. They can give you a sheaf of papers from dozens of ambulance workers, for example, who often have had so many contaminations that they've given up. They just say, “This is my tenth needle stick injury this year. Either I'm going to live on this AIDS cocktail or I just have to take my chances.”

Of course, you seldom catch HIV or AIDS from it. The problem is not how often you're infected. I would say the more interesting statistic is how often they take treatment. As you mentioned, the trauma is the treatment, and whether or not you should take it is.... Only a few people get HIV or AIDS, but a lot of them take the preventive treatment unnecessarily because they just never know.

What often happens is they're trying to put an IV in someone in a drug-induced coma or seizure. So the paramedics are trying to hold this guy down. He, of course, has no idea what he's doing. He's convulsing. So they're trying to put the intravenous in while they're driving down the road to save this person's life. The needle is going in, the needle is coming out, it's going into them, it's coming out. On about the fourth try, while his arm's flailing around, they finally get the thing in there long enough to start the drip.

As they say, you get to the other end and you look at yourself. Now what do I do? The stories are so consistent that you would almost swear it was the same author, because what happens is they say, “Oh my goodness. What if I get AIDS?” I'd say that's the first comment. Then they say, “What should I do with my family?”—each time. You just don't know what to say. They say, “I can't be intimate with my spouse for six months or a year while I go through this treatment”, or “I don't know, when I kiss my kids.... What do I do? What precautions should I take?”

It's the same story. I hear the same story dozens of times. It's the same traumatic experience they all go through.

So they take the treatment because they have no choice. They take the treatment because they feel it's either this or their family. They put themselves through it. It often knocks them out of work. I've seen quite a few people say, especially after needle stick injuries, that after so many needle stick injuries, you give up. You can't live on a cocktail like that. So you just hope you don't have it and you really hope you don't give it to your family.

I just don't think that's fair. I think you should be able to say that for the one in 500 people who actually have the disease, that one should take the cocktail. For the other 500 cases where the guy is clean, nobody should be forced to go through this treatment, nor should you feel like you're putting your family at risk.

It's just about medical treatment. No one should be convicted or thrown in jail. It's just about medical treatment for people who put their lives on the line for us. I think for those people, that's what this bill is about.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Hill.

Mr. Jay Hill: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Owen's comments reminded me of one thing, and I would just ask the bill sponsor to perhaps comment on it. Obviously it's not in anyone's best interests, certainly not the people you're endeavouring to help with this legislation, to see this become a partisan issue. That having been said, the comment about how many people would have to be in jeopardy to warrant risking going head to head with the charter kind of reminded me that it seems to me that when governments, and this government is an example, develop the political will to forge ahead with something, some legislative initiative they profoundly believe is in the best interests of society.... I've often heard, and I'm sure you've heard, in the House and other places, the argument that if it would just save one life, then it's worth it. That's what I was reminded of when Mr. Owen was making his point about having to have the evidence of the number of people who would be at risk.

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I wonder if you'd care to comment on that, because it seems to me that these are similar to the types of arguments I heard about the intrusive nature of Bill C-68, the gun legislation, for example. Government members, and the Minister of Justice herself, used the argument, if it would just save one life then how can you put a price on that particular individual life? They maintained it was worth charter challenges, and that legislation stood the test of charter challenges. It already has, and there might be more in the future, I don't know. But this was the bottom line on that legislation and the government had the political will to go ahead with it. I don't agree with that, but this being said, they did. Sometimes I think that for legislation like this, if the government had the political will, or Parliament collectively had the political will, which would be even more ideal, perhaps it too would stand the challenges that might be presented.

The Chair: Mr. Strahl.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: That's in part a political decision, you're right. You're going to get both sides of this argument, and we heard it in the testimony and it was in the speeches. I even recognize it. But the first part of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, section 1, says it “guarantees the rights and freedoms set out” in the charter “subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”. So I think the committee's work is to determine whether this is demonstrably justified.

There's no problem to get dozens of witnesses, and I think it would serve an emotional purpose, but I think what the committee has to wrestle with is the question, is this demonstrably justified? Is it going to save some lives? As I mentioned earlier, there aren't hundreds of people being infected this way. There are hundreds of people whose lives are being seriously affected by this, but they don't die. They take a cocktail, and the cocktail does all sorts of things; it makes your hair fall out, it affects your reproductive organs, it causes internal damage. As I say, it can lay you right out, destroy your work, wreck your marriage. It could do all that. At the end you might say, yes, but they didn't die. But the question is, is it demonstrably justified that we ask for a blood sample to save that trauma from hundreds of people? I think it is. But that's one of the tests, as I mentioned, the committee has to deal with: does it pass the section 1 argument? I think it does. I believe it does.

I'm not sure if the chair is interested, but I have any amount, dozens, of personal stories, that I can give to the chair if he thinks it would be useful. Of course, there is also the long list I circulated when the bill was in the House of dozens and dozens of organizations that have also supported it. But if you want to know about lives affected, every one of them will tell you an emotional story of the journey they went through and the trauma it caused them and their family.

The Chair: I'm sure we would accept any evidence you would like to bring to us, and I would invite members to contact the clerk if they would like to take a look at it.

I'm going first to Mr. Myers, and then Mr. Owen, and that's it.

Mr. Lynn Myers (Waterloo—Wellington, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, I wanted to first of all say to Mr. Strahl that it seems to me you've identified a very important area here. I have some first-hand knowledge of this. I trained as a medical orderly for four or five years, putting myself through university. I know what it's like to give needles; I know what it's like to do medical procedures. Certainly there are inherent dangers when you're involved in that kind of work.

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I thought your point was a good one; perhaps it's not as important to know the numbers of people infected with HIV or hep C, or hep B for that matter, but rather the numbers who are on whatever drugs are administered to try to prevent anything from happening. I wondered if you could endeavour to get us those statistics. I think that would be good.

Perhaps further—and this was part of Mr. Owen's position too, I think—you said anecdotal evidence exists on the others. If you could contact those groups who are interested in this area to see what anecdotal evidence they have, that will certainly be useful to me, and I'm sure to members of the committee as well. If you can see what sorts of empirical, hard, statistical evidence exists, what anecdotal evidence exists, in both the numbers of people who potentially were at risk and chose the cocktail, as you put it, and the trauma that comes as a result of taking that path, that would be beneficial.

Mr. Hill made a point about the gun legislation. As a government, we looked at the number of deaths that occurred. You take a look at that kind of evidence and then you react. You say that as a result, we now want to have gun control legislation because we think it will save lives. I think the same case may be able to be made here, but we need that evidence in advance.

Thank you.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Thank you.

The Chair: Do you want to respond, or can I go to Mr. Owen?

Mr. Chuck Strahl: I'll get that to the clerk and she can distribute it, if that sounds good.

The Chair: Finally, Mr. Owen. Then I'll give the last word to Mr. Strahl.

Mr. Stephen Owen: Thank you.

Another area, Mr. Strahl, that would be interesting to look to is the rate of refusal in emergency situations. It's really related, linked perhaps. The number of people who go on the drug cocktails will relate or be linked to the rate of refusal of people to give blood samples, as you mentioned with the hamburger example. It may be that the force of law will just encourage people to step up without too much problem, but are they refusing in large numbers now?

The gun registration example is interesting, and I am pleased to hear that at least some part of the Supreme Court of Canada decision on the gun registration licence was positive for you.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Positive for this bill, anyway.

What we found when we talked to the Paramedic Association of Canada, for example, is that they had all these anecdotal stories and not a lot of statistical evidence. You're dealing with ten provinces, and you don't have to belong to the organization. It's just the people who are in it because they want to be in it and so on, so it's sometimes hard to get the hard evidence. But I've been encouraging people to gather that, because I know the comments and questions we've heard here are going to be asked. People are going to want to know whether this is just something that affected a couple of people.

For example, if you call Isobel Anderson back as a witness, you'll find that even in one precinct of one police unit, the Ottawa police, she'll rattle off a list of people she knows. That's one precinct of one town that has all these cases that one person knows about. One of the witnesses I gave to the clerk was the head of the paramedics association, and he'll have stories of one town, how many cases. In some ways you may have to extrapolate a little bit on that, because it's not mandatory. Nobody gathers the statistics. It's not like you have to report it.

What often happens is that people generally.... I'll give this to the clerk as well, so you can read them for yourself. Some people just say, “I've quit reporting it because I've come to the stage where I realize this is part of my job”. It's like the surgeon I talked to. Of course, being a surgeon, he double-gloves, follows all the procedures, the preventive stuff, all the training, and everything else. He says, “I defy you to do open-chest surgery with bone fragments and problems and trauma and not get cut. You will get cut; you can't help it.”

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Most of the time, those patients willingly give a blood sample and everything's fine. But as he says, you're doing emergency work on a trauma victim and there are fragments and there are problems and all the gory stuff that thankfully I don't have to live with, so to speak. But by asking that surgeon to dive in there.... He says he will get cut from time to time, no matter how careful, no matter how much he gloves. A sharp bone fragment will come through. Then he sits there in the rest of the surgery thinking, “Gee, is that the one?”

Mr. Stephen Owen: I just have a final point on that, Mr. Chair.

One way we might do it, rather than extrapolating from individual precincts and anecdotal evidence, is to look to the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, because of course they will all collect anonymous data on how many of these drug cocktails are prescribed. We might be able to look at it that way.

Mr. Chuck Strahl: Certainly. That's a good suggestion. I'll follow up on that.

Also, Mr. Myers asked a question earlier about the hard numbers. For example, this young guy got his treatment at the Vancouver AIDS hospice, the AIDS society. They're so private with the information. I hope statistically they'll give it, but they are understandably very private; they won't give you any personal information. But maybe they'd give us some numbers, and just tell us which ones are from.... I don't know if they even keep it separate.

This is the problem; they have so many people being treated. I'll check to see if they keep it separate between those who have been treated for accidental needle sticks and those who did it from self-inflicted intravenous use. I'll almost be surprised if they keep it separate, but I'll certainly inquire.

Mr. Stephen Owen: Okay.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Strahl and members. When we reconvene after the holiday, we will continue in the deliberation of Mr. Strahl's bill.

I would remind members that tomorrow morning at 9:30, we'll be meeting to begin the process of the review of mental disorders under the Criminal Code. I expect to see everybody there with enthusiasm.

Thank you very much. The meeting is adjourned.