In this, he is supported by the hon. member for Oakville who argues that the 27 motions in Group No. 2, relating as they do to “prohibited and controlled activities”, go to the very heart of the debate on assisted human reproduction. She contends that 10 minutes per speaker to address the full gamut of motions is insufficient.

The Chair is aware of the limits that members have to deal with at report stage; until now, I have based my decisions on report stage on the note to Standing Order 76.1(5) and I have tried to abide by the guidelines set out in my statement of March 21, 2001.

However, it cannot be denied that there is always an element of subjectivity in making these decisions.

As Marleau and Montpetit specifies, “Motions are grouped according to content if they could form the subject of a single debate”.

In reviewing the motions now in Group No. 2, I have concluded that the group can be split into two groups: the first relating to motions respecting activities that members seek to prohibit; and the second relating to motions respecting activities that members seek to control.

Accordingly, the debate at report stage of Bill C-13 will proceed with the motions originally placed in Group No. 2, regrouped as follows: in new Group No. 2, motions relating to the prohibition of activities: Motions numbered 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20 to 24, 26, 27, 40 and 47; in new Group No. 3, motions relating to controlling activities: Motions numbered 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 36, 39, 44, 45, 46, 49, 51 and 95.

Subsequent groups are re-numbered accordingly. Thus, the House is now debating, ipso facto, Group No. 4, with new Groups Nos. 5 and 6 to come.

A revised voting table will shortly be available with the Clerk.

I thank hon. members for their representations on this subject.

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3:20 p.m.

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you for your ruling. I believe this will be very helpful to members of the House.

At the end of your comments though, I think you mentioned being on Group No. 4. It is my understanding that we are still on Group No. 3 report stage motions.

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3:20 p.m.

The Speaker

Yes, but the number changed. That is what I explained in the ruling. The number changed because I split the other group so we have another number. That group has been re-numbered and is now Group No. 4. I said ipso facto. It is just one of those marvellous things. It is not quite high tech but it is close. It was Group No. 3 but because Group No. 2 was split and now we have a new Group No. 3 all the other numbers were bumped. It is very confusing, especially for your simple Speaker, but he is doing his best. That is why we are now on Group No. 4. Do not panic.

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3:20 p.m.

Bloc

Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC

Mr. Speaker, your ruling has given rise to quite an uproar. Perhaps, with your friendly leadership, we could go over the motions again and you could explain to us your ruling.

With respect to Group No. 3, which was debated prior to oral question period, the Bloc Quebecois wanted to vote on a certain number of motions.

I would like to know the exact makeup of the groups based on your ruling, so that all members will know when they may vote on a motion.

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3:25 p.m.

The Speaker

Former Group No. 3, which was debated before oral question period, has not been changed. It is exactly the same group, the same motions, with no change, except that it is now Group No. 4.

I have created another group, dividing Group No. 2 in two. Now there is the former Group No. 2 and a new group, No. 3. The former Groups Nos. 3, 4 and 5 have been renamed 4, 5 and 6. Terrible, but there you are.

So there are no changes to the divisions in the House, except for the one on the new group, Group No. 3. Details are now available at the Table.

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3:25 p.m.

Bloc

Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC

Mr. Speaker, when we have run out of speakers on the group that was debated before oral question period, are you going to do as usual, that is call on the House to indicate which motions we wish to see agreed to on division or by a vote?

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3:25 p.m.

The Speaker

Yes, I understand. I was not present in the House for the entire debate, but the vote on Group No. 1, which was put to the House before oral question period, was deferred. The question on Group No. 2 has not been put. The debate on it will therefore continue later.

The motions before the House now are Group No. 4, which was formerly Group No. 3. We can continue the debate under more or less the same conditions as if I had not ruled on this point.

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3:25 p.m.

Bloc

Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC

We are debating Group No. 4?

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3:25 p.m.

The Speaker

Yes, it is now Group No. 4, but is the same group that was being debated before oral question period.

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3:25 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Jason Kenney Canadian Alliance Calgary Southeast, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in debate on old Group No. 3 which is now Group No. 4. You are, as always, ingenious in the Chair, sir, to have resolved this problem in such a fashion.

I would like to commend my colleague from Mississauga South for having raised this matter so that we can address the very substantive amendments before the House in Groups Nos. 2 and 3.

Group No. 4 deals with the agency created by Bill C-13, the agency created by Parliament, which would report to the Minister of Health in implementing the bill. Because the bill is such a matter of great importance, the agency would be endowed with very significant powers, powers over life and death and how they define and apply the statutory principles of Bill C-13.

For that reason, the Standing Committee on Health sought, I believe through unanimous consensus, in its report to the draft bill which preceded this legislation, to have that agency report, not to the minister but rather to Parliament.

Let me quote from the submission made recently to the Standing Committee on Health on Bill C-56, now Bill C-13, presented by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. They say in their submission that:

The Committee’s recommendations for a Regulatory Body that is a “semi-independent agency, directed by a Board that reports directly to the Minister of Health, and with mechanisms that ensure accountability to Parliament” seems to achieve a good balance between independence and accountability. In establishing the Agency, the Bill appears to have overlooked reporting to Parliament, or is it assumed that the Minister will report to Parliament? Given what is at stake in the assisted reproductive technologies and related research, accountability to Parliament would seem essential.

I concur with the Conference of Catholic Bishops and with the Standing Committee on Health in its full report. These powers are too great simply to be endowed to an agency which reports to the minister and not to Parliament. I regret that amendments to this effect were not accepted by government members when put by my colleague from Yellowhead at clause by clause at committee. I further regret that such amendments have not been deemed acceptable by the Chair at report stage here. However we in the official opposition will continue to work for greater accountability on the part of the agency.

Let me address some of the specific motions that are before the House in this group.

First, the minister has brought forward Motion No. 52 which seeks to undo amendments made at committee making mandatory counselling with respect to surrogacy. Clause 14(2) of the bill, as currently worded, states:

Before accepting a donation of human reproductive material or of an in vitro embryo from a person or accepting health reporting information respecting a person, a licensee shall

(a) inform the person in writing of the requirements of this Act respecting, as the case may be,

(i) the retention, use, provision to other persons and destruction of the human reproductive material or in vitro embryo, or

(ii) the retention, use, disclosure and destruction of the health reporting information;

(b) ensure that the person [that is to say, the surrogate] receives professional counselling services in accordance with the regulations;

Motion No. 52, in the name of the health minister, seeks to eliminate this provision which would ensure informed consent. I cannot understand why the minister would be against a statutory requirement that potential surrogate mothers must be informed of all risks associated with the procedure by the licensee. It makes no sense to me at all, particularly when one reads in the preamble of the bill that one of its objectives is indeed at subsection 2(d) of the bill, which states:

the principle of free and informed consent must be promoted and applied as a fundamental condition of the use of human reproductive technologies;

If parliament is saying that informed consent must be promoted in the preamble then we ought to be consistent and require licensees to provide that information before surrogates can offer their consent.

There are number of technical motions in this grouping, Motions Nos. 53, 55 and 60, with which I have no objection. Motion No. 61 seeks application of the Official Languages Act, which of course is a standard statutory measure. Motion No. 64 has minor wording which I do not oppose.

I support Motion No. 71 in the name of the health minister which seeks to eliminate an amendment by the committee which says that, at clause 26(2.1):

The membership of the board of directors [of the agency] shall be appointed in such a manner as to maintain a minimum of 50 per cent representation by women.

On liberal bases, I find offensive the idea of assigning gender quotas or quotas of any other nature in a bill. I believe, and I think most Canadians would agree, that people should be appointed based solely on merit and their competence and not on what their gender or ethnicity happens to be. I believe my colleagues in the official opposition will support the minister's amendment to say that appointments should be based not on arbitrary criteria like that but in fact on merit. It would be a very dangerous precedent if this motion found its way into the bill because it would then become a Trojan horse for all sorts of other quotas, very brazen gender quotas, in bills. It would undermine the principle of merit in government appointments.

I want to dwell on Motion No. 72 that would undo the requirement of board members of the agency to come under conflict of interest rules. This is very interesting. My colleague for Haliburton—Victoria—Brock spoke to this. He said he could not understand why the government would be opposed to a provision preventing agency appointees who have a conflict of interest such as an ownership for instance in perhaps a laboratory that performs technologies regulated by the agency or perhaps a pharmaceutical company that produces material used by practitioners who are regulated by the agency. It makes very little sense to me. The current provision which the Minister of Health seeks to eliminate can be found at clause 26(8) of the bill. It states:

No member of the board of directors shall, directly or indirectly, as owner, shareholder, director, officer, partner or otherwise, have any pecuniary or proprietary interest in any business which operates in industries whose products or services are used in the reproductive technologies regulated or controlled by this Act.

That seems fairly straightforward and sensible. I believe it was an all party consensus to include the conflict of interest provision. I believe my colleagues in the official opposition will vote against elimination of this provision prohibiting conflict of interest.

Let me turn finally to some of the measures which ought to have been included in this section on the agency but were not because the government voted against such amendments put forward by the official opposition at committee stage.

For instance, we believe that the mandate of the agency should include the protection of life. It is very peculiar that at clause 22 of the bill we sought an amendment to say--

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3:35 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)

I am sorry, the hon. member has run out of time. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot.

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3:35 p.m.

Liberal

John Bryden Liberal Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot, ON

Madam Speaker, I will come straight to the point. In this legislation the government has moved an amendment, Motion No. 72, which eliminates a change that the committee in its wisdom put in the bill. The committee in its wisdom inserted in the bill a clause related to the Assisted Human Reproduction Agency of Canada, which is the key agency created by the bill. The committee in its wisdom wanted to ensure that the board of directors would be free of any kind of conflict. Therefore the committee inserted a clause, section 26(8) which says:

No member of the board of directors shall, directly or indirectly, as owner, shareholder, director, officer, partner, or otherwise, have any pecuniary or proprietary interest in any business which operates in industries whose products or services are used in the reproductive technologies regulated or controlled by this Act.

I would submit that this is a very necessary amendment that the committee has inserted because I would point out that section 24(1)(a) and (b) describes the role of the Assisted Human Reproduction Agency of Canada. Subclause 24(1)(a) states:

exercise the powers in relation to licences under this Act;

Subclause 24(1)(b) states:

provide advice to the Minister on assisted reproduction and other matters to which this Act applies;

These are two powers and duties of this agency that would create an atmosphere of conflict of interest if there were persons on the board of directors who have a pecuniary interest.

It is very clear I think that a lot is at stake in the new technologies that are being dealt with by this legislation and the licences that may be permitted by this legislation. In other words, money will be involved, lots of money. It was prudent on the part of the committee to insert a clause that basically stated that the board of directors of the agency should not have any potential conflict. It was a very good clause.

I am at a loss as to why the minister should have taken that clause out. I am totally at a loss. I suggest the minister should review that clause. She should put it in or we should vote that clause down.

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3:40 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

James Lunney Canadian Alliance Nanaimo—Alberni, BC

Madam Speaker, it has been an interesting day so far but, my goodness, I have to protest the confusion related to these amendments. We started this morning with 107 proposed amendments. We were not allowed to see them until the very first thing this morning. Then the Speaker ruled a bunch of them out of order and so on. Then they were grouped and regrouped. Frankly, for members to debate intelligently on some of these amendments, it takes a bit of time to read and understand what is the intent of each amendment. Surely there has to be a better way of conducting business in the House rather than leaving members to scramble, as we have had to.

Having said that, we are now involved in debate on what was Group No. 3 of these amendments which now has been renamed Group No. 4, and indeed there are some important amendments to be considered here. The majority of them deal with the regulatory agency.

For those just tuning in to this debate, Bill C-13 is the bill relating to reproductive technology. It is a very broad bill and contains a lot of areas of concern to Canadians, such as the cloning of human beings, which most Canadians agree is not a way they want to go, therapeutic cloning, chimera and the importing and exporting of human gametes.

When we talk about chimera, what on earth do we mean by that? We are talking about the mixing of human and animal reproductive materials or the mixing of human and animal genes. We might ask why anybody would want to go there.

There are a lot of very important issues related to this bill. The Raelians are now claiming to have cloned I think three or four human beings. One wonders where on earth they are going with this. Obviously most Canadians are concerned about this and we want to see appropriate legislation brought in to prevent this kind of thing happening, but we also want to ensure that we get the legislation right.

With Canada dealing with this matter later than other nations, we have the opportunity to do it right. We have information that other nations did not have and the obligation is on us to ensure we use that information to create the best law to protect Canadians and to ensure that the offspring of this reproductive technology are the focus and not just a consequence of the act.

One of the first amendments in the renamed Group No. 4 is Motion No. 55 brought forward by the member for Mississauga South. The motion deals with the forms that the regulatory agency shall use. It also deals with detailed information. I will quote part of it. Subclause (2) of the motion reads:

The information referred to in subsection (1) shall specifically include

(a) details on the option to give embryos up for adoption; and

(b) the facts related to what percentage of embryos donated for embryonic stem cell research are likely to produce stem cell lines that would meet the research quality requirements.

This raises the question of embryonic stem cells and how these will be used in research. The motion raises one of the fundamental concerns that many of us on committee had, which I want to address briefly.

The purpose of this bill is to help people who have failed reproduction and have gone through the agonizing ordeal of trying to produce the family they want so desperately. Many of us are concerned that we are asking people who are most vulnerable, because of their desire to produce a family, to also be the ones to make a decision on the so-called surplus embryos or embryos that have been conceived from their bodies and intended to produce children. They are asked to be produced or donate the spare embryos for research purposes.

Although the bill purports to say that we shall not create embryos for research, I am concerned that there is an incentive for industry to do exactly that, to create surplus embryos so they can be used for research purposes.

Although the bill says that we shall not do research on embryos over 14 days old is to forget that those cells were destined to become a human being. Some researchers have said that when we kill an embryo to extract the stem cells and then use those cells they will have a measure of immortality because they can be frozen and cells drawn out of them could be used repeatedly for research purposes,

Today we have options available to us. We know that adult cells taken from our own bodies have the potential to produce the cures many people with serious illnesses are looking for. We can tap into those either from our own bodies or in cases where that is not possible from umbilical cord cells for example.

I am concerned that the bill would put the most vulnerable people, those desperately trying to produce children, in the position of having to release their intended offspring for research purposes. If we were to make informed decisions in the House based on the scientific information available we could avoid putting them in that position.

Motion No. 64 talks about risk factors associated with infertility. This amendment was debated in committee and states:

“the professions respecting assisted human reproduction and other matters to which this Act applies, and their regulation under this Act, and respecting risk factors associated with infertility;”

We feel it would be incumbent upon the agency that would be created to inform Canadians of the risks associated with infertility and that should not be forgotten. This agency, like a good doctor, should be trying to work itself out of business by creating a healthy patient that does not need its services. Risk factors associated with infertility should be a focus for this agency and they should be articulated. This agency should be advancing public knowledge on how to avoid infertility in the first place.

My colleague from Calgary who spoke earlier addressed Motion No. 71. This motion would delete a motion put in at committee specifying the gender of members qualified to serve on committee. I agree with his comments that this is inappropriate. Members should be selected for this committee based on merit and not on their gender or ethnicity et cetera.

My colleague from Calgary and the member for Ancaster--Dundas--Flamborough--Aldershot rightly addressed the issue dealing with conflict of interest in Motion No. 72. The committee was quite concerned about this agency. It felt this agency should not be composed of people related to the industry itself, but rather people from society who have demonstrated an ability to deal with complex issues and who are not necessarily from the industry. The last thing the committee wanted was a club of people with vested interests in the industry to be the ones regulating it and reporting back to the minister and not to Parliament on such important issues to Canadians, and issues that have such profound ethical implications.

Subclause 26(8) that the minister wants to strike says:

No member of the board of directors shall, directly or indirectly, as owner, shareholder, director, officer, partner or otherwise, have any pecuniary or proprietary interest in any business which operates in industries whose products or services are used in the reproductive technologies regulated or controlled by this Act.

That was debated in committee. It is important for Canadians that we do not have a conflict of interest set up by people serving on this regulatory agency with the powers it would have. I am puzzled why the minister wants to take that subclause out. We wonder where she is going with that. I am pleased to hear that members on the other side of the House agree with us that this is not acceptable. We also feel that this agency should report to Parliament not just to the minister.

We also note in this section that the minister would be able to change regulations without reporting to Parliament and make recommendations to the agency.

Therefore we have this relationship between agency and minister and minister and agency where changes to regulations could take place without consulting Parliament, and therefore without even consulting Canadians who might be concerned about the implications of such decisions.

I hope that members will consider seriously that there are amendments here that should be rejected and there are others that should be supported. I hope members will think beyond perhaps what the whip tells them to do and take these matters seriously.

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3:50 p.m.

Liberal

Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC

Madam Speaker, I want to speak to some of the amendments in this group that I think are worthy of support and some that I think would set a dangerous precedent. Some may in fact harm the bill and harm the cause and rights of a lot of people who are involved in using reproductive technologies as well as their children.

I want to speak specifically to the concern that a lot of people have that was mentioned by one of the members earlier, and that is the amendment that refers to mandating the donor's identity whether it be for ova, sperm or embryos. The member made some good points. He said that we need to know the genetic history of those donors so that the child born of such a technology would know its medical and genetic history. This is important and I fully agree with the hon. member.

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3:50 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Jim Gouk Canadian Alliance Kootenay—Boundary—Okanagan, BC

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Given the importance of this subject, and I am sure that the member who is now speaking has something worthy to add to this, I would suggest that it is appropriate that the government have sufficient people to form quorum and it does not.

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3:50 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)

I believe that quorum is every member of the House and not just the government side. However, there is no quorum. Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

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3:50 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)

I now see a quorum. Resuming debate.