Bill C-13 (Historical)

Assisted Human Reproduction Act

An Act respecting assisted human reproduction

Assisted Human Reproduction Act

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the motions in Group No. 2 concerning Bill C-13, formerly Bill C-56 which in turn, as the hon. member for Drummond will recall, once was Bill C-47.

It is especially difficult to speak on this kind of issues since, as we know, the debate raises so many questions. Given that the motions in Group No. 2 which we are debating deal with prohibited activities, I would like to remind the hon. members that the Bloc Quebecois would have liked to see the bill divided in two. There is basically not much rationale. One could ask: Why do we, in the Canadian Parliament, get to vote on a bill concerning the provision of services in health care institutions?

The reason the government claims that Bill C-13 is legitimate is because it criminalized a certain number of practices. I moved a motion a few months ago calling on Parliament to split the bill. Today, from what I have heard, several political parties, including the Liberals even, realize that the Bloc Quebecois was absolutely right. You might say that this is not the first time that the Bloc Quebecois has enlightened this House. No it is not, nor will it be the last. Nonetheless, it would be better if we could say, “Yes, let us stick to criminal law, for which the federal government has a responsibility.

The public was quite astonished between Christmas and New Year's when Clonaid tried to have us believe—it still has not provided any evidence—that cloning was possible.

The Bloc Quebecois has had a longstanding interest in reproductive technologies. I am especially pleased to point this out because my colleague, the member for Drummond, is in the House today, and this House should applaud her. As early as 1995—and I call on the Alliance members to join in the applause as well—and in 1997 and 2000, the member for Drummond introduced a private member's bill. This took some foresight. The Baird Commission had produced its report. We knew that because one couple in five had fertility problems, technological and medical solutions to those problems had to be explored. The member for Drummond, relying only on her courage and her science, introduced a bill. There happened what happened. Unfortunately, the government did not cooperate as much as it should have and at the time we did not have a system whereby all bills were automatically deemed to be votable as soon as they were introduced by any one of our colleagues.

It is pretty sad to think that if we vote on this bill, the Bloc Quebecois will be torn. We do want provisions included in the Criminal Code as soon as possible. We are talking about cloning but there are 12 other prohibited activities in the bill. But at the same time, can we accept the creation of a regulatory agency, which will interfere in areas of great sensitivity for the provinces?

I will give a few examples. As we know, the Government of Quebec is one of the best governments ever to have been in power since the quiet revolution. This government run by Bernard Landry listed the pieces of legislation that would be inconsistent with the agency, if it were to be established.

Of course, we could talk about the regulations. These are more important than the bill itself. I will come back to this. Let me however set out the inconsistencies between the bill and existing legislation in Quebec.

In Quebec, we have chosen to consider pregnancy as an altruistic act. Wanting to help someone have a child or to do so ourselves is an altruistic act.

It is out of the question for this act to become a business transaction, for a monetary value to be placed on it.

As it stands however, the bill provides for the reimbursement of certain expenditures incurred in connection with the pregnancy, if receipts can be provided. This is fundamentally inconsistent with a philosophy of intervention found in the Quebec civil law.

Another inconsistency has to do with the fact that, as we know, the Quebec government has legislation respecting health and social services. It would pretty strange for it not to, given that the provincial governments are responsible for providing health care services.

What would it mean if the bill were passed? The fact that a power currently vested in our Minister of Health and Social Services, namely the power to designate institutions for the exclusive delivery of certain services, would be taken over by the regulatory agency should certainly be of concern to my hon. colleagues. That is in section 112. It is unacceptable for the federal government to act this way.

The regulations would prescribe not only the conditions under which gametes are to be preserved, but also the qualifications of health professionals to carry out insemination procedures.

This is a matter of interference, and what is the most upsetting to the Bloc Quebecois. If, tomorrow morning, we learned that a public or private laboratory in Calgary, Montreal, Quebec City or the Maritimes had been involved in experiments with the potential to lead to therapeutic or human cloning, there would be nothing in place to deal with it. Neither the Minister of Justice nor the Minister of Immigration would have any recourse, because there is none in criminal law.

At the same time, however, what can we expect of a regulatory agency? We are faced with a problem on which all MPs need to reflect. The member for Trois-Rivières is extremely eloquent on this point when he talks of it in private—and only seeks an opportunity to do the same in public. The problem is that the federal government wants to use health for nation building. The Romanow report is very clear on this.

It is not possible to accept the creation of a regulatory agency with considerable powers, including those concerning professional qualifications of people who are governed by regional bodies of the Government of Quebec.

To repeat, a minimum of 14 acts are incompatible with the creation of this agency proposed by the federal government.

That said, I would like to take this opportunity to say that I personally believe that research has a role to play here. The bill states that therapeutic cloning and cloning for reproduction are prohibited.

Why? It is because we want to promote the extremely important value that each of us is unique. If we put out a call in the Greater Montreal or Greater Ottawa region for someone like the Minister of Immigration, we would not be successful. Each person is unique. We have our own values and personality, and this is especially true for the Minister of Immigration. But I would not want to say too much about his personality for fear of violating the charter even if, in some respects, the Minister of Immigration is likeable.

That said, why are we opposed to cloning? It is because we cannot imagine that parents can raise children who are their exact copy and that, in terms of personal development, a child could be their exact copy. It is not possible.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Motion No. 24 adds a new prohibitive activity. This is very important. This comes down to the essence of the bill. The whole controversy on the bill has to do with the so-called existence of surplus embryos not necessary for reproductive purposes. If there were no surplus embryos, then there would be no debate about embryonic stem cell research. How do we deal with this?

Research is going on now to perfect the process to cryogenically store women's eggs. If we could store women's eggs, it would not be necessary to fertilize them once they were harvested from women. The eggs would only be fertilized to the extent necessary for in vitro fertilization. There would not be one surplus embryo ever. We would never have “to throw them in the garbage”, to quote the minister. We do not throw them in the garbage. They are human beings and they die a natural death. Humans do die, and I am not going to stand here and suggest that somehow they do not. Motion No. 24 says that if the science is perfected to store ova then we shall not freeze embryos. Freezing embryos is wrong. Cryogenic freezing of embryos is an awful thing because it dooms half of those human beings to death. Only half of cryogenically frozen embryos will survive the thawing process.

Dr. Françoise Baylis has told us many times that about 500 embryos are presently in storage across Canada. About half of those so-called surplus embryos might be available for research purposes. However, of those 250 frozen embryos, only 125 will survive.

She then goes on to tell us in many articles and in many representations before UNESCO and other places, that of those 125 embryos, only 9 will produce any form of viable stem cell line. Of those nine, only half, maybe five, will actually meet the quality standards required by research.

Do members realize that we would have to destroy 500 embryos to get 5 viable stem cell lines. It is a fallacy when people say that by donating embryos they can be used to help cure people's diseases. That is such a leap that it has no credibility. If one embryo is donated there is 1 chance in 100 that it will actually provide a viable stem cell line that will meet the quality for research purposes. Even then, who knows what the research is for. They would need 100,000 different stem cell lines.

Dr. Françoise Baylis has said very clearly that there are not enough embryos presently in Canada to sustain meaningful research. To back it up, she made application to the Canadian stem cell network telling it that an inventory had to be done to find out whether enough embryos were available to do meaningful research.

Wait a minute. We have a bill before us that would guide research on embryos. Why would we have a bill that seeks to regulate research on human beings without even knowing whether there are enough embryos available to sustain meaningful research? This is backwards. It is another fatal flaw of the bill. That work should be done in advance. We should not be going through this if there are not enough embryos.

I have no doubt in my mind that pre-existing embryos prior to Bill C-13 coming into force will not qualify for the concept of informed consent. People who donated those embryos for research did not know all the facts. They did not know that half of their embryos would not even survive the thawing process. They were not told that they could give up their embryos for adoption. They were not told that the woman would be drugged to the max to harvest the most eggs possible.

This is a women's health issue and then the government turns around and says, by the way, we do not care if it is a women's issue, a health issue, a social or an economic issue, we will not permit women to have at least 50% representation on the board of directors of the agency that is going to make decisions affecting women. How bizarre and how hypocritical to say no to gender balance on a board of directors affecting women's health issues and then on the other hand say there is gender analysis and so on.

If anybody talks about gender issues in this place and if they are going to support the bill, if they are going to support the removal of gender balance on the agency, then they are contradicting their own principles. It is about time for this: If we say we are going to respect gender balance and gender equity, it should be in this bill, and in any bill. There is no bill more important than this one for protection of the health and well-being of women, but the motion by the government is to eliminate the committee's decision that there should be gender balance, at least on the board of directors. Why is that? What is the agenda of those who are pushing the bill?

Watch out if I get excited, Mr. Speaker.

There is another aspect: therapeutic cloning. It sounds pretty good to me, but its real name is somatic cell nuclear transfer. I have a motion in this group which states “for greater certainty”. We want to make absolutely sure there is no somatic cell nuclear transfer, no therapeutic cloning. The reason is that this is the basis on which Dolly the sheep was created, by using that process. The research community is saying it needs to use somatic cell nuclear transfer, therapeutic cloning, because it quite frankly cannot get over the problem of immune rejection by using embryonic stem cells. That community says that if it is allowed to take an embryo, suck out the DNA of that embryo to make it neutral, then take a cell from a prospective patient and put the new DNA in there and give it a few chemicals and a little electrotherapy, it will start to divide and then there would be stem cells that are compatible with the patient's.

Dr. Françoise Baylis has come out totally in favour of therapeutic cloning, i.e. somatic cell nuclear transfer. Dr. Bartha Knoppers came before committee. She has written articles and has sent them to all members of Parliament, saying that researchers want to have somatic cell nuclear transfer.

Seven days after this bill was tabled in the House, Dr. Alan Bernstein, president of the CIHR, was on a TV program. I have the tape. It was a business program. He was talking about the importance of commercialization of genetic technologies and why we should have somatic cell nuclear transfer. That was just one week after the bill was tabled, and his agency is the one that is going to determine which research is done.

Dr. Ronald Worton came before committee and said we had better provide some flexibility in the bill so that the research community could do some therapeutic cloning. I was in a TV debate with him on CPAC. I asked him the question directly: what is the difference between therapeutic cloning and just cloning as people would understand it? He had to admit that there is no difference. The only difference is that when therapeutic cloning or somatic cell nuclear transfer is done, we stop the process. We kill the human being and take out the stem cells. That is the only difference.

Mr. Speaker, if we had an ova, a woman's egg, and I took a hair or a cell of skin from you, I could take the DNA out of that woman's embryo and I could take the DNA out of your skin cell and put it in the embryo. I could then implant it into a carrier, a woman. If we did not do anything and that embryo took, we would have another Speaker. Every cell in the human body contains the entire DNA of a person.

We cannot permit it. We cannot permit somatic cell nuclear transfer now or ever. That is why there is this motion in Group No. 6 about the regulations, which we will not see for two years until after the bill gets royal assent, but the bill also says that any other regulations that come after that, new regulations or amendments to existing regulations, are not going to go before Parliament. That is their hole, that is the back door, and that is where the research community that is controlling Health Canada is going to get somatic cell nuclear transfer so it can clone human beings and drive their agenda, not Parliament's agenda.

It is wrong, Mr. Speaker. For those reasons, and I could give many more, I appeal to members. I wish I had a couple of hours to speak on this. Today I asked a number of members if they would simply come to the House to second a motion of mine so that it could get to the floor. The response was no, they did not understand it. Ninety-nine per cent of the members of Parliament in this place probably do not have a comfort level with this bill.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my seconder, the hon. member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot. Group No. 2 deals with prohibited activities in Bill C-13. It is, arguably, the most important part of Bill C-13 because it deals with an issue, which I think all members would understand, the issue of cloning and whether cloning should be a prohibited activity in Canada.

We know there have been a number of claims that cloning has occurred by the Raelian group, under the company Clonaid. We have no proof of that but we do know the technology exists. In animals, for instance, cloning has been successful in only about 1 out of 200 cases. Ninety-nine cases on average are aberrant or deformed in some very major way.

On that basis alone we can imagine why it is so important for us to ban cloning in Canada. Bill C-13 does not ban cloning. Bill C-13, on the most important aspect of reproductive technologies and related research, does not ban cloning fully, finally, full stop.

There is a provision in the bill that prohibits cloning but we had a royal commission 10 years ago which recommended banning cloning. We had a draft piece of legislation which had a definition of cloning. We had witnesses come before us saying that the definitions were incorrect because they were scientific definitions or medical definitions when they should have been the reverse.

Dr. Dianne Irving presented a complete analysis of the bill. It was translated and provided to all members. It clearly outlined the deficiencies in the terminology of the bill. Two days before the committee finished its committee stage amendments, Health Canada came forward with a new definition of cloning. Can anyone imagine that after 10 years of this subject being on the table, we now want to change the definition of cloning?

Dr. Irving looked at the new definition again. The new definition says that a human clone is an embryo that is a result of the manipulation of human reproductive material or an in vitro embryo contains a diploid set of chromosomes obtained from a single, and that is very important, living or deceased human being, fetus or embryo.

This changed definition now at least addresses what Dr. Ronald Worton said during the review of the draft legislation which was that the terminology was all wrong. However it took the last two days of reviewing the bill at committee for Health Canada to finally admit that it had errors in definition. Can anyone imagine after 10 years still not knowing what the proper definition of cloning is? It is still wrong.

This new definition does prohibit somatic cell nuclear transfer. It does prohibit GLCNT, another form. It prohibits twinning. It prohibits simple as well as demethylated parthenogenesis. If members are going to understand all this they will have to do as I did and invest in a medical and scientific dictionary and thesaurus.

The addition of the word “single” in the definition of clone does not cover all forms of cloning. It does not cover pronuclei transfer. It does not prohibit that kind of cloning. It does not prohibit the formation of chimera and backbreeding. It does not prohibit mitochondria transfer. If we do the work and ask the experts, they will tell us that cloning is not just like Dolly. We take a cell from an adult. We put it in a female egg. We get that DNA and it grows up to be a sheep. It is not simple. There are many examples.

Parthenogenesis. If we were to follow advanced cell technologies in the U.S., scientists took a woman's egg before it entered the process of meiosis, which splits it from 46 chromosomes down to 23. They captured it at 46, interfered with the reproductive process and took it out. They put it in a dish, treated it with chemicals, treated it with a little electrotherapy and tricked this female reproductive egg into believing that it was fertilized and it started to split. It was to become a being. In that case it was an animal.

The technology is that we do not even need a sperm and an egg. It can already be done with just an egg. We have more witnesses to tell us that we cannot do this.

Bill C-13 does not ban cloning, period. We should have had a bill before this place that banned cloning in all its forms and in all its techniques, a full file total ban on cloning; on genetic alteration; on surrogacy for profit; on purchase and sale of human reproductive material. That bill would have passed in the House in one day at all stages and gone through the Senate. We could have had cloning prohibited in Canada with all of the rest of these prohibited activities in one day.

We can still do that. The health committee recommended splitting the bill. The bill is an omnibus bill. It puts upfront the ban on cloning, which it still does not do, then it tacks on to the end regulating fertility clinics, regulating research in Canada and setting up a brand new bureaucratic agency without any expertise and without any teeth to do the job of Parliament. The bill also says that if we change any regulations down the road, Parliament has no right to look at those regulations.

What is happening in this bill, like every omnibus bill, is that it buries a lot of the dirty laundry in the back and puts members in a quandary. I want to vote for banning cloning but if I vote in favour of the bill to ban cloning, I am also voting in favour of doing a bunch of things are wrong. We say prayers at the beginning of every day in this place and we finish off by saying “Give me the wisdom to make good laws”.

The bill in its present form, I regret to say, is not a good law. It is not a good bill. It has more flaws than I can imagine. I thought of many ways to deal with it. Should we maybe refer it back to committee to correct the severe deficiencies that have been identified in report stage debate?

I have not seen members of the government who sponsored the bill come forward to defend the bill or to say why they will not support report stage motions. It is just no to everything. Members of Parliament will have to make a decision. I will have more to say about that later.

There are some housekeeping motions here on which I will not spent my time but I do want to go into Motion No. 24.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

moved:

Motion No. 18

That Bill C-13, in Clause 5, be amended by replacing lines 6 and 7 on page 5 with the following:

“(e) perform any procedure or provide,”

Motion No. 20

That Bill C-13, in Clause 5, be amended by adding after line 20 on page 5 the following:

“(g.1) transplant a sperm, ovum, embryo or foetus of a human being into a non-human life form;”

Motion No. 21

That Bill C-13, in Clause 5, be amended by replacing lines 21 and 22 on page 5 with the following:

“(h) make use of any human reproductive”

Motion No. 22

That Bill C-13, in Clause 5, be amended by replacing lines 27 to 31 on page 5 with the following:

“life form;

(j) create a hybrid for the purpose of reproduction, or transplant a hybrid into either a human being or a non-human life form; or

(k) clone a human embryo for research or human reproductive purposes.”

Motion No. 23

That Bill C-13, in Clause 5, be amended by replacing lines 27 to 31 on page 5 with the following:

“life form;

(j) create a hybrid for the purpose of reproduction, or transplant a hybrid into either a human being or a non-human life form; or

(k) combine any part or any proportion of the human genome with any part of the genome of a non-human species.”

Motion No. 24

That Bill C-13, in Clause 5, be amended by replacing lines 27 to 31 on page 5 with the following:

“life form;

(j) create a hybrid for the purpose of reproduction, or transplant a hybrid into either a human being or a non-human life form; or

(k) cryogenically store embryos once ova storage techniques are perfected to at least the same survival rate of stored in vitro embryos.”

Motion No. 26

That Bill C-13, in Clause 5, be amended by replacing lines 28 and 29 on page 5 with the following:

“(j) create a hybrid or transplant a hybrid into”

Motion No. 27

That Bill C-13 be amended by adding after line 37 on page 5 the following new clause:

“5.1 No person shall create human reproductive material by the process of parthenogenesis or a similar process.”

Motion No. 40

That Bill C-13 be amended by adding after line 23 on page 7 the following new clause:

“9.1 For greater certainty, therapeutic cloning, also referred to as “somatic cell nuclear transfer”, is prohibited.”

Motion No. 47

That Bill C-13 be amended by deleting Clause 11.

Mr. Speaker, in Group No. 2, 13 of the 14 motions are mine and I would like an opportunity to comment at least to the extent of explaining the intent of each motion. Unfortunately, the rules only permit me 10 minutes. Therefore, I would ask for the unanimous consent of the House to allow me a 20 minute speaking slot.

[Jason Kenney, Canadian Alliance, Calgary Southeast, AB]

moved:

Motion No. 17

That Bill C-13, in Clause 5, be amended by adding after line 5 on page 5 the following:

“(d.1) experiment on or harvest an embryo;”

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

moved:

Motion No. 13

That Bill C-13, in Clause 5, be amended by replacing lines 29 and 30 on page 4 with the following:

“(a) create a human clone by using any technique, or transplant a human clone into a human being or into any non-human life form or artificial device;”

Motion No. 14

That Bill C-13, in Clause 5, be amended by replacing line 32 on page 4 with the following:

“purpose other than human reproduction”

Motion No. 16

That Bill C-13, in Clause 5, be amended by replacing lines 35 and 36 on page 4 with the following:

“(c) create an embryo from a cell or part”

[Carol Skelton, Canadian Alliance, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today and contribute to this important debate on Bill C-13. The bill is attempting to address the vast and complex issues surrounding assisted reproduction. I was one of the few members of Parliament who reviewed the legislation and listened to a range of witnesses. The witnesses represented a broad spectrum of concerns and came from all parts of Canada. I think it was important that we took the time to hear people's opinions on this proposed piece of legislation because of its direct effect on the lives of all Canadians.

Of course none of us would be here without reproduction. Many things have changed over time, and it was time that our laws attempted to address the myriad of issues. As we consider the use of more and more assisted reproduction techniques and methods, we face a number of ethical, moral and religious considerations. As I said before, it was important to hear from all these stakeholders. I think the committee did a good job of doing this, considering the timeframe and competing priorities.

Just to give the House an idea of the level of importance we place on the legislation, it should be noted that we did not have hearings into the Romanow report or the Kirby report because the Liberal members thought this bill was more important.

The members of Parliament for Yellowhead and Mississauga South have worked extremely hard to have a number of their concerns addressed. I would like to speak to a number of their amendments in a general way because I feel they all touch on a common set of concerns and themes.

Let us take Motion No. 92, for example, which calls for transparency and accountability. It also calls for public consultation on draft agreements and for the text of such agreements to be made public. I cannot blame my colleague from Mississauga South for wanting to bring transparency and accountability to the process, especially after witnessing the Liberal record.

When we look at the issue of the registry that would be required to track and monitor things such as semen donations, we can only think of the fiasco we have seen with the firearms registry. The government is wasting more than $1 billion by attempting to register law-abiding Canadians instead of focusing on criminals. I could definitely argue the merits, if there are any, of the firearms registry, but I will focus on the paper side of it for the purposes of the bill. The RCMP has said that almost all records in the firearms registry are incorrect or incomplete and cannot be considered reliable. What would happen if this were the case in a semen donation registry? Are we able to avoid repeating our mistakes?

I think a registry for semen donations is important for a number of reasons. As I highlighted last fall during question period, semen is a recognized carrier of the HIV virus. For public health reasons, we need to be able to trace a donation from beginning to end. We need to be able to assure donation recipients that all donations are screened and safe. As a former coordinator for Canadian Blood Services, I know how important it is to track donations from beginning to end, how important it is to be able to tell donation recipients just what they are putting into their bodies and that it is safe.

In the case of assisted human reproduction, we need to know who provided that donation. Those children who are the product of such techniques have a right to know who gave them life. We have to allow those children to know where their DNA, their foundation, was built. Now we may require further legislation to properly address those related concerns and obligations, but critical to all of this is an accurate registry. This is why we need transparency and accountability in the process.

Hiding government business in arm's length agencies to avoid the access to information legislation does not do this. The Canadian Blood Services, the agency created after a deadly national blood scandal, is not subject to ATI provisions. This makes it less accountable and less transparent in the eyes of most Canadians. While I am confident it does the best job it can, I also would like to see it being more open and accountable for its actions.

Openness is an important part of any democratic system. As I mentioned earlier, my colleague from Mississauga South is also asking for more public consultation and disclosure with his motions on the bill. Public consultation is a delicate issue for every level of government. Some argue that we are elected by the public to act on their behalf and that this is enough consultation for them. In fact, they often argue that public consultation is merely an abdication of responsibility, a way for elected people to achieve their goals without actually doing it themselves. They also state that public consultations provide a false sense of hope and only serve to delay the inevitable.

Others argue that electing a government representative does not mean that opinion should be sought only once every four years. They argue that a democratic system requires a consistent dialogue between voters and the person they elect. They reasonably argue that success on election day should not be interpreted as a blank cheque for four years.

Personally I like the idea of public consultations, with one big condition. Public consultation should be held only if there is an honest and genuine willingness to alter the proposal. Nothing disturbs me more than witnessing the sham of public consultations.

We see the Liberals take their budget road show across Canada ahead of the budget, but somehow what we hear from Canadians never seems to show up in the budget. Unfortunately, I have often witnessed this in parliamentary committees too. We parade a number of witnesses through the process and we debate the issues among ourselves. Then we send it to the clerk for final revision and what comes back in the final report is something none of us saw in the first place. If people are not willing to accept the input of others, they should not pretend that they are. When we are dealing with the legal, moral, ethical and religious components of assisted human reproduction, we have an obligation to seek public input, guidance and opinion.

I would like to take the remainder of my speech to discuss an issue I briefly touched upon before. This is the issue of donor identity. Many couples have trouble conceiving their own children. There are a number of reasons why, but they are not the issue here. The issue is the way they get around the obstacle. Whether it is by semen or egg donations or through a surrogate parent, a growing number of children enter the world as products of such methods.

Many couples, even those who can create their own children, decide to adopt children, and I could tell many stories of wonderful adoptive families that I know. I admire their courage and their ability to share their love with others. Nonetheless, all these children share something in common. They were given life by someone other than the people raising them.

Before I continue, I want to stress that I am not for a minute suggesting that these children are in any way incomplete or different because they may not know who their biological parents are. I just think they have the right to know who their parents are if they wish to.

The anonymity of semen or egg donations may encourage people to step forward more readily than if they had to disclose their identity, but is that necessarily good? We are finding that more and more medical problems are genetic. Knowing who one's biological parents were would be essential in fully understanding one's medical history. Most important, and this is the main reason I would like donors identified, is the issue of medical solutions. We know that when it comes to life saving bone marrow transplants it is difficult to find a match. We also know that a match most often comes from one's immediate family. Thus, knowing the donor parents would facilitate these potential life saving medical procedures. I therefore support the proper tracking and identification of donors to allow these children access to important medical information.

In closing, I would like to say that I support all initiatives that are being taken to make this bill more open, accountable and transparent. I also support the greater inclusion of public input on issues such as this and applaud my colleagues for bringing forth such matters.

[Andy Burton, Canadian Alliance, Skeena, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today as this is my opportunity to speak to Bill C-13, the reproductive technologies act, which is being debated currently at report stage.

The bill has sparked a good degree of concern from constituents in my riding of Skeena. I have received numerous letters, phone calls and e-mails expressing various degrees of concern for the details contained in the bill.

I would like to begin by outlining the concerns of my constituents, the concerns expressed by my party, the Canadian Alliance, and my personal concerns with the bill.

I do not disagree with everything in Bill C-13. There are in fact areas that I do support. I fully support bans on reproductive or therapeutic cloning, chimeras, animal-human hybrids, sex selection, germ line alteration, buying and selling of embryos and paid surrogacy. I also support an agency to regulate the sector, although we do want changes.

The Canadian Alliance opposes human cloning as an affront to human dignity, individuality and rights. We have repeatedly spoken out against human cloning, urging the federal government to bring in legislation to stave off the potential threat of cloning research in Canada.

In September 2001 we tabled a motion at a health committee meeting calling on the government to immediately ban human reproductive cloning. The Liberals deferred a vote on the motion. Their preference was to deal with cloning in a comprehensive reproductive technologies bill.

I would like to address what exactly the bill itself says. The preamble states:

--the health and well-being of children born through [assisted human reproduction] must be given priority...human individuality and diversity, and the integrity of the human genome, must be preserved and protected.

We support the recognition that the health and well-being of children born through assisted human reproduction, or AHR, should be given priority. In fact the health committee came up with a ranking of whose interests should have priority in decision making around AHR and related research: one, children born through AHR; two, adults participating in AHR procedures; and three, researchers and physicians who conduct AHR research.

While the preamble recognizes the priority of AHR offspring, other sections of the bill fail to meet this standard. Children born through donor insemination or from donor eggs are not given the right to know the identity of their biological parents.

The bill's preamble does not provide an acknowledgement of human dignity or respect for human life. Bill C-13 is intimately connected with the creation of human life, yet there is no overarching recognition of the principle of respect for human life. This is a grave deficiency.

Our minority report recommended:

That the final legislation clearly recognize the human embryo as human life and that the Statutory Declaration include the phrase “respect for human life”.

We believe the preamble and the mandate of the proposed agency should be amended to include reference to this principle.

I would like to now move on to the area of the bill of most concern to the constituents who wrote to me from Skeena riding, and that is research using human embryos. With regard to research using human embryos, the bill would allow the experiment under five conditions.

First, only in vitro embryos left over from the IVF process can be used for research. Embryos cannot be created for research with one notable exception: they can be created for purposes of improving or providing instruction in AHR procedures.

Second, written permission must be given by the donor, although donor is singular, and research on a human embryo if the use is necessary, and necessary is undefined, and all human embryos must be destroyed after 14 days if not frozen. We have some concerns with some of those issues.

Embryonic research is ethically controversial and it divides Canadians. As an example, numerous petitions containing thousands of signatures have been tabled in the House calling for ethical stem cell research. Embryonic stem cell research inevitably results in the death of the embryo. For many Canadians this violates the ethical commitment to respect human dignity, integrity and life.

Adult stem cells are a safe, proven alternative to embryonic stem cells. Sources of adult stem cells include umbilical cord blood, skin tissue, bone tissue, et cetera. Adult stem cells are easily accessible, are not subject to immune rejection and pose minimal ethical concerns. Adult stem cells are being used today in the treatment of Parkinson's, leukemia, multiple sclerosis and other conditions. Embryonic stem cells have not been used in the successful treatment of a single person.

Research focus should be on the more promising and proven alternative. Our minority report called for a three year prohibition on experiments with human embryos, corresponding with the first scheduled review of the bill.

Bill C-13 states that embryonic research can be undertaken if the agency is satisfied that such research is necessary. During its review of draft legislation, the health committee recommended that such research should be permitted only if researchers can demonstrate that, “No other category of biological material could be used for the purpose of the proposed research”.

During the committee's review of Bill C-13, we tried to restore the spirit of this recommendation with an amendment specifying that healing therapies should be the object of such research. The committee rejected this amendment and the Speaker rejected it coming forward for report stage debate.

Bill C-13 specifies that the consent of the donor to a human embryo is required in order to use a human embryo for experiments. The bill leaves it to the regulations to define donor. However there are two donors to every human embryo, a woman and a man. Both donors should be required to give written consent for the use of a human embryo, not just one.

With regard to the regulatory agency, the bill outlines the following. It creates the Assisted Human Reproduction Agency of Canada to issue licences for controlled activities. A board of directors would be appointed by the governor in council. The bill was amended in committee requiring board members to have no financial interest in any business regulated or controlled by the bill. The health minister is now trying to remove one of the new clauses which she says would prevent almost anyone from serving on the board. An annual report, though not specified in Bill C-13, is required through clause 74, which adds Bill C-13 to a schedule of the Financial Administration Act. The agency would produce the annual report which would be tabled in the House by the minister.

The concerns that we have with clause 25 are that it allows the minister to give any policy direction she likes to the agency and the agency must follow it without question. If the agency was an independent agency answerable to Parliament, such political direction would be more difficult. The entire clause should be eliminated.

The Canadian Alliance proposed amendments specifying that agency board members be chosen for their wisdom and judgment. This was a health committee recommendation in “Building Families”. We want to avoid an agency captured by interests. Members must be able to work together to pursue the greater good, not merely represent certain constituencies. The Liberals rejected their own recommendation when our amendment came up during Bill C-13 review in committee.

The health minister wants to delete one of the clauses requiring board members of the AHR agency to come under conflict of interest rules.

The health committee got it right. Board members should not have commercial interests in the field of AHR or related research, fertility clinics and biotech companies. Imagine an employee or investor in a biotech company with financial interest in embryonic stem cell research making decisions for Canadians on the regulation of such research, including the definition of the word “necessary” as specified in clause 40. Or imagine a director of a fertility clinic making regulations on limits on sperm and egg donations, numbers of embryos produced for IVF treatment. Such conflict of interest needs to be prevented in this legislation.

The health minister says subclause 26(8) would prevent almost anyone from serving on the board. This was clearly not the intent of the health committee.

With regard to donor anonymity, Bill C-13 states that although the agency will hold information on donor identity, children conceived through donor insemination or donor eggs will have no right to know the identity of their parents without their written consent. Donor offspring will have access to medical information of their biological parents.

Donor offspring and many of their parents want to end the secrecy that shrouds donor anonymity and denies children knowledge of an important chapter of their lives. The Liberals claim to want to put the interest of children first. In this case they think the desires of some parents should trump the needs and interests of children.

In its review of draft legislation, the health committee recommended an end to donor anonymity. The Canadian Alliance minority report said clearly:

--where the privacy rights of the donors of human reproductive materials conflict with the rights of children to know their genetic and social heritage, the rights of the children shall prevail.

This is absolutely essential.

When the issue came up during the review of Bill C-13, the Liberals defeated an Alliance amendment to end anonymity in a close six to five vote.

There are a number of other issues, however, in conclusion, I would like to say that with specific regard to these amendments debated today at report stage of Bill C-13, I will at this time be voting in favour of most of them.

However, with regard to the entire bill, I must reiterate that I have some very serious concerns which I have outlined here today. Unless and until those concerns have been addressed and the changes are made to the bill, I will be voting against it.

My vote against Bill C-13 will be made in good conscience, knowing that my party, the Canadian Alliance, has done everything in its power to try to improve the bill and knowing the government has once again used its majority in the House to push through what it knows is flawed legislation.

Petitions

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is most appropriate on a day when we will be debating Bill C-13 on reproductive technologies that my petition also has to do with the issue of stem cells.

This petition has been signed by a number of Canadians. We have had thousands upon thousands of Canadians who have signed it. These Canadians concur, as I do, that human life begins at conception.

The petitioners would like to bring to the attention of the House that Canadians do support ethical stem cell research which has already shown encouraging potential to provide the cures and therapies for the illnesses and diseases of Canadians. These petitioners would like to inform the House that non-embryonic stem cells which are also known as adult stem cells have shown significant research progress without the immune rejection or the serious ethical problems associated with embryonic stem cells.

The petitioners are calling upon Parliament to make good laws and to focus its legislative support on adult stem cells to find the cures and therapies for Canadians.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Jason Kenney, Canadian Alliance, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I understand that most of the MPs principally responsible for Bill C-13 and particularly the Group No. 2 amendments could not be here today. Consequently there have been deliberations among the parties as a result of which I believe you would find, Mr. Speaker, if you were to seek it, unanimous consent that the House move directly to private members' business.

Business of the House

[The Deputy Speaker]

The Chair is certainly not being asked to negotiate from the chair. However let me take things in the order they were presented to the chair.

The Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons rose and asked for consent as to whether there was agreement among the parties to deal with Bill C-23 with one spokesperson from the government and then move to another bill, which I believe is Bill C-13.

If understand it, the spirit of this would probably be to allow some opposition critics to retain their 40 minute slots when Bill C-23 is brought forward. However I am not here to negotiate. I am simply here to make the request for the unanimous consent.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the House leader is quite right. There was an arrangement among the House leaders yesterday but it has come to the attention of all parties that Bill C-13 is important to a number of members who are engaged in other parliamentary business. There are some discussions going on that will continue to abide by the spirit of that, and so I would ask that the question be deferred until the House leaders have an opportunity to discuss the minor amendment to that arrangement.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, before moving to the first item, there was an agreement made yesterday, and I am still operating under the assumption that it was made, that after the first speaker has spoken to Bill C-23 that the debate would be adjourned and we would move to Bill C-13. That was an all party agreement that was made yesterday and it is on the strength of that, that we are not calling Bill C-13 first. I understand some members may have a different opinion but if that is the case it would have to be negotiated outside.

For the record, we are moving on Bill C-23 provided that after the first speaker the debate be deemed adjourned and we move to Bill C-13.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I will not interfere in the correspondence between those who have and those who have not been working over recent weeks.

This afternoon we will return to the second reading of Bill C-24, the elections finance bill. We would then call Bill C-20, the child protection bill. We would then move to Bill C-23 respecting a registry for certain offenders. I understand that there would be an interest on the part of some hon. members that after the initial speech by the parliamentary secretary we would adjourn the debate for the convenience of some members.

Tomorrow we will deal with Bill C-13 respecting reproductive technologies. I am still uncertain about one additional item, mainly that of the Senate amendments to Bill C-12, the sports bill. I will get back to hon. members later to see if we can deal with this item tomorrow, but that is still uncertain at this time.

Monday shall be an allotted day. On Tuesday and Wednesday we shall resume the budget debate.

Thursday and Friday of next week will be on legislation that we have before us. I will be speaking with House leaders early in the week to adjust that in view of the tremendous progress made on legislation this day to which the hon. House leader of the opposition in the House referred to earlier.

I wish to conclude by thanking all hon. members for the progress on legislation so far this day.

Canada Elections Act

[Gerry Ritz, Canadian Alliance, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, this is another interesting debate today. It is a bit of a change of pace. Everybody came rushing back to this place this morning all intent on a closure motion that was to have been brought down on Bill C-10, the bill coming back from the Senate on firearms and cruelty to animals.

The government threw us a curve and pulled that one off because it was having trouble lining up the backbenchers on that side, not just the opposition but its own backbenchers, who were saying that they would not support that. It is a bit of an unprecedented thing when we see a closure motion rescinded. It was a bittersweet victory that brought us to Bill C-24 today, the election financing bill.

I watched with some interest as the government House leader threw the curveball, the knuckleball, the Nerfball, the spitball, or whatever it was today, that got us over to this bill. Then he stood up and did a tirade, reminiscent of the old rat pack, of how it was everybody's fault but his. The last time I checked he is the leader of the government that has a majority. He controls the agenda totally and completely. It is at his beck and call, and the cabinet that he serves.

How in any way could it possibly be the opposition shanghaiing this place or withholding this or doing that? How could that possibly be? Yet he stood there sanctimonious as anyone could believe, as hypocritical as anyone could believe--and I see you chuckling, Mr. Speaker. You saw the same act I did.

It would have been a great act to have at a circus. He would have had people coming in and paying money to see that. Without a tear in his eye he was able to do that; without a smile on his face. I guess that is a great attribute that he has after all these years in this place. But it is certainly nothing to do with the opposition.

This particular bill, whether it gets shanghaied or not, has more to do with what backbench members do or not do over on that side and the leadership contests, and problems that they have at this time.

Having said that, I look at the bill and think, here we go again. Regarding the last number of bills that I have spoken to in this place, the direction might be right but the focus is off, this might be right but this is missing, and there are all these loopholes. I see that again in Bill C-24. I see the public disengaged. There is a huge disconnect now between what government says and does in this place, and what the taxpayers who are paying the bills and for whom we are doing this are actually asking for.

We are asking taxpayers to totally fund the political system in this country. They do to a great extent now, somewhere in the neighbourhood of 40% to 50% with tax rebates and different things that go on. However, we are looking to take that to an unprecedented level with this bill. If taxpayers had a disconnected appetite for politics before, they certainly will have a larger disconnect once they start to analyze what the bill is all about.

This is all about public money, taxpayers' money, paying for the political habits of parties. We are seeing things in the bill that are not covered under allowable expenses at this point. I wish to mention one thing that is inappropriate.

Candidates who ran in an election, and I will use my riding as an example from the 2000 election, who received 15% of the popular vote received their deposit back. It was basically called that. A candidate received half of the allowable expenses as a rebate from the taxpayers. We have all been through that, Mr. Speaker, and you have too. However I see the threshold being lowered to 10%. I think it should go the other way; it should go to 20%. We are talking about public money here. Someone who cannot get 20% of the popular vote in a riding is missing out.

I know the House leader made a comment that none of the Liberals missed by more than 10% so it would not affect them at all. However, in reality, the Liberal candidate got 17% in my riding because 3% belonged to the aboriginal vote. There were aboriginal folks with whom I had become very friendly with who phoned me and said that there was a problem. The polling booths had my picture up with a big X through it along with signs saying “Don't vote Canadian Alliance” and all these wonderful things, which are not allowed but it was done. That is what gave the Liberal candidate the 3% to get above the 15%. It is a dirty way to get it. He will need that money a lot more than I will next time around if he decides to run again because he is fighting an uphill battle with gun control and all sorts of different things that have helped us out in that part of the country.

However, the bill does not in any way address the fundamental problem with political contributions.

There is an unappetizing flavour in the electorate that we are corrupt. We saw that through the HRD scandals, and the advertising and sponsorship fiasco that is still under investigation. There is hardly a file that public works has touched in the last two or three years that is not before the RCMP or that the Auditor General will not have a look at. Everything is suspect. The bill does not address any of that.

We saw polls at the height of the fiasco last spring that two-thirds of Canadians thought that government was corrupt. They labelled us all together and that was unfortunate. We are all here doing a job at, of course, different levels of our capability, but we are still doing a job on behalf of our constituents. We answer to them, not to the public purse, but to our constituents. I do not see the bill addressing that type of fine tuning.

It is all about corruption and kickbacks that we saw throughout the whole sponsorship fiasco. The bill in no way would stop that. It may stop the numbers at times, but it would not limit it and it would not halt it in any way.

We have a majority government that is having a real problem with a corruption label, and an unethical conduct label for some of the frontbench folks. They have the discretionary money and hundreds of millions of dollars that they can put into their pet projects and say that is what government will do because that is what people want, and so on, because it has done some polling. Even the polling would be covered under the bill. We saw the polling cut out of sponsorships and rightly so, and here it is put back into the bill.

We have a backdoor deal going on to put that polling cost into the bill because it is a significant factor. There is no doubt about it. Good polling costs good money. It is being slipped back in at public expense because the government can no longer do it under the sponsorship file because people are looking over its shoulder. There is a bit of sleight of hand which is part of that circus act that the government House leader was doing before.

I cannot see anything but more apathy and low voter turnouts continuing because people are feeling disconnected and asking, how relevant is this place?

There are many days when I have that same concern. I sat in on a committee meeting this morning and I wondered what the heck we were doing. It is just busy work. We get a few people in behind closed doors and let them listen to this, that or whatever. We are not here to be entertained. We are here to do a decent job and I do not need that busy work. I have constituents that I need to call and work on their files because they are having a tough time with Revenue Canada, the GST, or things like that. I do not need that busy work.

There is a member screaming over there to let legislation go through the House. I say to that member to bring forward something worth voting on and we will do it. The Liberals have a majority. They ram legislation through using closure. This is not legislation; this is ripping off the public. It is all about money. It is all about cashflow for political parties. That is what it is all about: $1.50 per vote. I would do very well because I get lots of votes.

It is all about paying off party debt, bringing it forward, and letting the public pay for it. I do not think Canadians want to do that. They are very critical of bills like that.

There are things that are roadblocks to good legislation coming through the House, but not very often are they caused by the opposition parties. A lot of it is the result of the government not being able to get its own house in order. It has very little to do with us. There are so few tools that we have at our discretion to slow things down from the runway that happens here all the time.

The Senate is not sitting right now. The member says it is because we are halting legislation. We did not pull Bill C-13. The government House leader did. We did not pull Bill C-10 today. The government House leader did. Bill C-20, the child protection bill, has been shanghaied for a little while.

We have seen a long term calendar that might go a week into the future and it is subject to change. Let us see some good legislation that we can put through. Let us see a schedule that the government sticks to. Let us see some dates that are locked down so we know what we are working toward, and we can get in here and speak to that legislation.

We spend so much time, two steps ahead and three steps back, and then we get legislation like this that is so full of holes that Canadians do not understand it. They are concerned about big business and unions taking over the political parties. Good and rightly so, but this bill does not address that in any way at all. It would limit the numbers, but it would change them around and would put them in from a different way.

It is more smoke and mirrors. It is legislation that I certainly cannot support and I know my folks at home would expect me to stand up and say this is not good.