The Trudeau government appears to be following the WHO’s instructions to its member countries in preparation for the next pandemic. Photo Credit: iStock.
Lost in the political mayhem on Parliament Hill, unbeknownst to Canadians, the Trudeau government has advanced a piece of legislation. An Act respecting pandemic prevention and preparedness (Bill C-293), which will establish a new authority and decision-making process in Canada for the next global pandemic period. In June this legislation passed the House of Commons without notice and it is currently in the Senate Chamber awaiting further debate at second reading.
Bill C-293 has an expressed purpose to “prevent the risk of and prepare for future pandemics and to promote transparency and accountability in relation to the Government of Canada’s efforts to do so.” The legislation stipulates that the minister of health will appoint an individual from within the Public Health Agency of Canada as a national pandemic coordinator to manage all activities in a pandemic emergency. The pandemic coordinator (who could be Dr. Theresa Tam or one of her colleagues in public health) is to be given a wide scope of authority as set out by an “One Health” approach to pandemic management developed by the United Nations (UN) and World Health Organization (WHO).
To comprehend the reach of Bill C-293 is to understand the One Health approach; it involves much more than what Canadians might expect are health matters. The Canadian legislation describes One Health as a “multisectoral and multidisciplinary collaborative approach that focuses on the human, animal, plant and ecosystem health and welfare interface.” The UN provides a more involved definition: “One Health is an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals and ecosystems. It recognizes that the health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants, and the wider environment (including ecosystems) are closely linked and interdependent.”
Beyond health-related measures that would include vaccination programs and safety measures, the UN identifies a list of activities that are linked to the “health of humans”, to be managed during a pandemic: animal trade, agriculture, livestock farming, urbanization, extractive industries, climate change, habitat fragmentation and encroachment into wild areas (i.e. land use management).
The Trudeau government appears to be following the WHO’s instructions to its member countries in preparation for the next pandemic. In February 2024, the WHO called for countries to “scale up implementing the One Health approach” as “the health of people is closely connected to the health of animals and our shared environment.” The WHO identified the four lead agencies working to advance the One Health agenda worldwide: the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the UN Environment Programme, the WHO, and the World Organization for Animal Health. A primary focus of their work is management of food systems with an expressed purpose to strengthen the global food infrastructure, specifically referencing “agriculture, livestock farming and trade, wildlife hunting and trade, aquaculture, animal products processing, handling, distribution and consumer practices.”
As an aside, there are two congruent areas of activity in Ottawa’s health bureaucracy that have the potential to widen the scope of Bill C-293 even further. The Trudeau government is actively working with WHO officials to have a new Global Pandemic Treaty signed in May 2025 that will centralize authority during a pandemic within the WHO. Also, it is working with WHO officials behind the scenes to have the definition of a global pandemic to include “climate change,” which will permit the WHO to declare a global pandemic for a climate emergency, either a real crisis or a perceived threat.
In the C-293 debate in the House of Commons, Conservatives had concerns with the amendments that essentially empower the minister of health to select a public health official who will have authority over all aspects of government affairs, set apart from any accountability to Canadian parliament. Furthermore, the Conservatives questioned the anxiousness for the government to set in place this authority structure when it has yet to complete a review of what unfolded with the COVID crisis and the pandemic response in 2020- 22. (On this point the Conservatives are calling for a full non-partisan national inquiry into how governments at all levels have handled the response to COVID-19). However, these concerns remained unanswered and, in mid-June, Bill C-293 was bundled in with other legislation to be passed in an arranged series of votes as MPs were running out of the Chamber for their summer recess.
Since the MPs’ vote four months ago, critics of the legislation have honed in on some specific concerns: vagueness in the legislation around definitions of terms; no limit or check on the authority of the pandemic coordinator; no certainty on whether the final authority for the country’s pandemic responsiveness lies within Canada; no recognition of the country’s provincial authority over health care and agriculture; there is reference to undefined authority over Canadians’ land use, including farmers’ operations and the agri-food industry; there is reference to a national and international surveillance network to monitor health status and travel; there is reference to administrators with powers to regulate unspecified commercial activities; there is reference to administrators with powers to regulate communications – in Canada and abroad; and vagueness with the references to “collaboration” with government departments and with international bodies.
Last week the Alberta Minister of Agriculture RJ Sigurdson called out the federal government for “the highly intrusive legislation that unfairly singles out the agriculture and food industry and encroaches on Section 95 of the Constitution, which sets agriculture within the exclusive jurisdiction of the province.” Alberta views the proposed federal legislation as damaging to Alberta’s livestock industry, potentially placing arbitrary restrictions on producers, processors and consumers in a pandemic.
Lisa Miron, a Toronto-based lawyer who has been a vocal critic of the legislation, describes the One Health approach as a “totalitarian approach” that “extinguishes the idea of jurisdiction.” She considers the position of the designated pandemic coordinator in Bill C-293 as vaulted as a “Czar” who is beyond reproach of the country’s elected officials. In essence, the legislation sets down in law a supra-national authority and decision-making process.
In a recent radio interview on the Richard Syrett Show, lawyer Lisa Miron called Bill C-293, the “black box to govern us in perpetuity through emergency powers – it’s a perpetual Emergency Act.” She detailed how the legislation empowers the designated pandemic coordinator with the authority to conduct “sustained collaboration” of all levels of government. This authority extends beyond any jurisdictional challenges and can mandate everything from crop management and expropriation of agricultural land, to production of alternative proteins products. Miron also raised the fact that Canada’s public health officials are now managing WHO health regulations out of a Pan American Health Organization office in Washington D.C. – where they will be taking direction on health and safety measures during a pandemic.
Miron is only one of perhaps a half dozen individuals attempting to raise public awareness on this substantive legislation that the Trudeau government is seemingly attempting to inconspicuously pass through Parliament. Other critics include a group of concerned professionals who have come together to form the World Council for Health Canada (WCHC), an organization with a mission to draw public attention to the legislation’s implications for Canadians’ health care.
Ted Kuntz, who is a member of WCHC and is also president of Vaccine Choice Canada, sounds an alarm that Bill C-293 may actually go as far as eliminate an individual’s ability to have freedom of medical choice and informed consent. In a WCHC media conference recently, Kuntz stated, “It appears that the bill is purposely designed to be vague, to be broad, such that it impacts every aspect of our lives – from our water to our food to our land, to our access to health care, to our ability to travel – all under the guise of either an emergency pandemic or a climate change emergency. What it does effectively is that it delegates the responsibility and authority from us an individual and from our elected representatives in this country, to unelected foreign entities that have an agenda that is completely at odds with individual rights and freedoms.”
Last word to Kuntz, who issues a stark warning – one that he hopes Senators will heed when deliberating on the details of the legislation, “Bill C-293 is a significant existential threat to not only Canada as a country but to our individual rights and freedoms as citizens in this country.”
Chris George is an advocate, government relations advisor, and writer/copy editor. As president of a public relations firm established in 1994, Chris provides discreet counsel, tactical advice and management skills to CEOs/Presidents, Boards of Directors and senior executive teams in executing public and government relations campaigns and managing issues. Prior to this PR/GR career, Chris spent seven years on Parliament Hill on staffs of Cabinet Ministers and MPs. He has served in senior campaign positions for electoral and advocacy campaigns at every level of government. Today, Chris resides in Almonte, Ontario where he and his wife manage www.cgacommunications.com. Contact Chris at chrisg.george@gmail.com.
