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Bill 62 – Emergency Health Services Amendment Act (Committee of the Whole)

Ms Blakeman:

Thanks very much. Well, yes, it was me that raised concerns about this bill. There were two sections in particular that flagged it for me. The first was, as a number of people have already noticed, section 3, which is amending section 40 in the Emergency Health Services Act, which basically overrides the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the Health Information Act. As soon as I see that in another piece of legislation, the warning bells go off for me.

The second thing that flagged it is the list of information that an ambulance attendant may disclose to a peace officer. It starts with the name of a patient or another individual, the date of birth, and then information about the nature of the injury. And that was enough for me. I did, of course, read through the rest of the list, but that was enough for me because that is where you have personally identifying health information. You can tell who this is about. When that information is disclosed – it’s given from one person to another person about a third person – that third person should have the ability to have all of the protections and processes that have been built into the Health Information Act available to them.

What this act does is take those away or take some of them away. Granted, the person may not be conscious, and therefore, you know, they may not be able to give permission to disclose personal health information about them between a second party and a third party. In some other instances outside the scope of this act that would be the end of it. Nobody is going to talk about that information. But it also includes some other processes about that individual’s ability to go and find out what was said, to correct information about what was said, et cetera, et cetera. By overriding the act that gives them those processes and those protections, you’ve now taken that away from those individuals.

That’s when I go: no, no, no. The minister talked about how there are checks and balances in the justice system and none of those have been taken away. Well, I’ll argue a bit with that because in fact we ended up with a privacy information act and a Health Information Act because those checks and balances were not there. People readily disclosed other people’s personal information all over the place because they could. There were no checks and balances.

So we put those checks and balances in place, and they are called the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the Health Information Act. That’s what they were. So it’s not acceptable to me to then have a bill that comes in and goes: “Well, no. Sorry. We’re going to skip around that. We’re going to remove it.” That, in effect, takes away those very checks and balances that supposedly are there. This is people’s personal health information that we’re talking about.

I’ve talked about the consent issue. I’ve talked about the other processes that should be available to someone that would be removed because of the overrides that are allowed here, that it goes around the oversight. I talked about processes other people – I think the Privacy Commissioner talks about that oversight that is in place.

I want to shift gears a bit here and talk about another piece of this. This is basically going to one kind of a professional and asking them to give over information that is very important to another profession. We have medical personnel, first responders in many cases. That’s what we’re talking about here. They are not trained investigators. You know, they don’t go to school and take classes on how to collect certain kinds of information, where to keep it, how to protect it, when you hand it over, all of those things. They are not investigators. They are not corrections personnel. They are not military personnel. They are not police. They are not trained to be investigators in matters that are going to end up in a criminal court. They are medical personnel.

So the argument that this information that they collect and will be asked to hand over is critical to how the justice system works just does not sit right with me. I would tend to say that if you have situations where something will not go forward, as the Minister of Justice was saying, because this information was not collected, then I would say: figure out another way to do this. But to go to a different profession and say, “We absolutely have to have you do all of this research, this investigation, and hand over that information, and it’s critical for – what’s it called? – the provision of justice” seems to me to be wrong.

I can’t think of any other area where you would be going to one kind of a professional and saying: “We really need you to hand over information. You don’t understand why it’s being collected or how it’s going to be used, but it’s really important, and it’s going to be used in a court of law, and you’ve got to do it and hand it over to us.”

I think there’s a flaw here in expecting one group of professionals to essentially do the work that another group of professionals are highly trained to do with a great deal of attention to detail and the specific manner in which they are supposed to do things. To me those two things don’t go together. If it’s that critical and it’s got to stand up in court and you’ve got a whole group of people that have been trained to do this, to then say, “Well, we’ll get these people to do it, too,” just does not make sense to me.

I think that there is another problem that needs to be addressed if we’re all depending on this information. A little in the same way that the threat of power outages is getting a little old with me as to why we have to do certain things with our electricity system – you know, every time somebody wants to get something, they threaten that if we don’t do it, it’ll be a power outage. It’s just gotten old with me. As soon as somebody threatens me with that, it’s old. I’m sorry. I’m getting to that point when somebody says: this is vital to investigation and to stopping gangs.

I understand that this is a critical problem. I understand that gangs are really causing us problems in our remand centres and in our correction institutes and in our court systems. I live in Edmonton. I’ve listened to this stuff long enough. I can read the news. But as an average citizen I’m thinking that there’s a larger problem if that is the threat that is constantly being used against me. As a legislator when people say, “This has got to happen in order for us to be able to deal with the gang problem,” it’s just wearing a bit thin. It may well be true. The minister may be able to get up and give me facts and figures on it, but just as somebody off the street it’s wearing a bit thin.

Once again, when I look at this piece of legislation, I’m not willing to support it. I’m not willing to support it because it does not honour the purpose and intent of two pieces of legislation that we put in place to protect people’s personal information. To me this looks like it’s going around it because it’s easier to do that than to address the problem in another way. I will not accept taking a step back from protecting people’s personal information, particularly their health information, because it’s easier to do that than to do something else. I just think this is one beachhead we’ve got to protect. We’ve got to take a stand here. We can’t let this be eroded. Now, you know, Mr. Chair, I’m on this side. I’ve got eight colleagues here and two more and then two independents. I’m not going to win this one.

Mr. Liepert:

Nor should you.

Ms Blakeman:

There are 70 people on the other side. They’re going to win it. I don’t agree with the minister of health’s assertion that I shouldn’t win this. I think I’m right on this one. He disagrees with me. You have more votes, and you’re going to win this. I still don’t think it’s right that you’re going to win this, but you’re going to win it. That’s what the 70 votes are for.

I still think it’s wrong what’s being done here. I think it shows a willingness to take an easy way out rather than to continue to address the complexity of this issue. It is complex, and it’s not easy. That probably also means that it’s expensive. I still do not see that to be a reason why we take a step back from the legislation that we’ve put in place and the officers that we’ve put in place to be standing up and protecting people’s personal and private information.

It’s just not good enough for me. I do not see a compelling reason that’s been presented from any of the other speakers that I’ve heard or that I read in Hansard. I don’t see the compelling reason that would make me take a step back for protecting people’s personal health information, so I’m not willing to support it.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.