Bill C-13 (Historical)

Assisted Human Reproduction Act

An Act respecting assisted human reproduction

Assisted Human Reproduction Act

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

moved:

Motion No. 29

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

“such services, except for medical or legal counselling services received in support of informed consent.”

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

moved:

Motion No. 28

That Bill C-13 be amended by deleting Clause 6.

[Jeannot Castonguay, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Madam Speaker, my remarks will deal specifically with cloning and research, which are very critical to this debate. I think that it is important to look at what we want to accomplish with Bill C-13, which, in fact, does not take half measures in regard to cloning.

Bill C-13 prohibits all human cloning. In fact, it prohibits all types of cloning, be it reproductive or therapeutic. Different types of cloning have been mentioned. Bill C-13 prohibits all cloning methods that could be used to create a human clone. No matter what the objective or the method, this legislation prohibits the creation of a human clone.

I think that we must be extremely clear that human cloning is out of the question, no matter what the method or the reason behind it.

Bill C-13 sends a warning to the Raelians, who were in the news over the holidays. Obviously, they are being sent a very clear message: Canada is opposed to human cloning, no ifs, ands or buts.

Once Bill C-13 is adopted, the government will be able to crack down on any human cloning experiments, which is why it is important for this bill to become law. Currently, these people can pretty much do as they please.

By prohibiting cloning, we are banning any activity involving reproduction or research that would contribute to this objective.

We consciously avoided banning specific cloning methods knowing that if we did, scientists would find other methods for cloning that we would not have anticipated. This would leave the door open for cloning. Once again, this bill prohibits cloning. That is why we did not go into detail to define all the methods. We are simply providing a generic definition and eliminating any possibility of cloning.

Motion No. 40 is superfluous. All cloning methods including somatic cell nuclear transfer—so-called therapeutic cloning—are banned under Bill C-13. I think it is important that this also be very clear.

Furthermore, some of the proposed amendments would have unintended and perhaps harmful consequences. I will give you some very specific examples.

Motion No. 14 would endanger the lives of Canadian women. In fact, without the possibility of creating embryos in order to improve assisted reproduction technologies, women themselves—our wives, sisters, neighbours or friends—will be the research subjects. Do we want to them to be guinea pigs? I think not.

As for Motion No. 23, which would ban transgenesis, this would have the effect of immediately, and permanently, putting an end to the efforts of numerous Canadian researchers and laboratories to develop therapies for the treatment of a number of dread diseases, among them cancer and Alzheimer's. Do we really want to put an end to this promising research? I think not. I think that is absolutely not what we want to do.

Motion No. 26 would ban such things as sperm motility testing. As we know, this test is often able to explain why a couple is infertile. Without that test, the woman is subjected to treatments that have no chance of being successful. Do we want Canadians to be treated needlessly? I do not think Canadians want that.

I repeat, Bill C-23 bans all human cloning, regardless of method or form. It prohibits all human cloning, without exception, as well as protecting the health and safety of Canadian women who wish to use assisted reproduction procedures.

I believe that, regardless of what we are hearing said on all sides, there is no question of allowing human cloning in this country. That is why banning any type of cloning makes it impossible for someone at some point to find a way to get around this, because only certain methodologies have been defined.

Let it be clear to everyone: with Bill C-13, all forms of human cloning will be banned.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise to address the Group No. 2 amendments at report stage of Bill C-13. There are many good amendments in this section that would go a long way toward improving the bill.

In particular, I wish to draw the attention of the House to my own amendment, Motion No. 17, which would have the effect of prohibiting destructive research on human embryos. If my amendment were to be adopted as clause 5(d.1) of the bill it would read, “No person shall knowingly experiment on or harvest an embryo”. This means that no researcher or biotech company could take an embryo, even a so-called spare embryo, and destroy it in the name of science.

This amendment may seem like a radical overhaul of the bill, much of which is concerned with the regulation of this kind of research. I would submit that this amendment would help bring the bill back to its central purpose, which is not to allow the biotech industry unfettered access to genetic material to manipulate but rather to help infertile couples to conceive. There is absolutely no need for this bill to open the door to destructive research on human embryos that would in fact result in the death of living human beings.

Up until now Canada has had a moratorium on the funding of this type of research. If the bill were to pass unamended the signal would go out to companies and laboratories that it is now open season for embryos and for the first time taxpayers' dollars would go toward funding this destructive research. Let us as parliamentarians reject taking this dangerous downward step on the notorious slippery slope of genetic experimentation.

I oppose any embryonic stem cell research that results in the destruction of a human embryo for at least three principal reasons: first, it is unethical; second, it is unnecessary; and third, it would have grave and perhaps unforseeable unintended consequences.

Destroying the human embryo is unethical and immoral because at the most basic level this is deliberate destruction of human life, admittedly nascent human life but human life nevertheless.

I believe that human life is a continuum which extends from conception to death and that the deliberate destruction of innocent human life is an intrinsically evil act. What embryonic stem cell research means, even on spare embryos, is that we take an embryo that has been created as part of an attempt by a couple to conceive a child and decide that this embryo, this tiny male or female human being with a unique genetic identity of its own, is not worthy of life or even of a decent, dignified death, but that it is merely raw material for genetic research, for commodification.

We take other embryos, the brothers or sisters of the one we are researching on, and implant them into the womb of a mother with the hope that they will become children. However, the embryo that is left over we do not treat as human, but as a mere object worthy of nothing but disposal.

Some will object that surely it is absurd to treat an embryo, a tiny clump of cells they would say, that can fit on the head of a pin and treat those cells as a fully human being. I would follow that great moral authority, Dr. Seuss, who in Horton Hears a Who , which many of us who have children or once were children remember, says that a person is a person, no matter how small.

The size of embryos does not matter. They are all human. I submit that is scientifically undeniable. They are the offspring of human parents. They could be of no other species but homo sapiens. Understood either scientifically or philosophically, they are living human beings. Every single one of the 301 members of the House was once an embryo, no bigger than the head of a pin.

As I said in the House last May when we debated this bill at first reading, a human embryo is a living human being. Human life is a continuum and that continuum begins at the moment the ovum is fertilized by the spermatozoa. That moment is the beginning of a unique unrepeatable human life. The question we must ask ourselves in this debate is, what dignity and what worth does that unrepeatable human life have? I suggest that it has an intrinsic dignity and worth that we cannot deny.

Many religions, not only Catholicism and other Christian faiths but Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and many others, teach that from the moment of conception the physical embryo co-exists with the spiritual soul. But even if we do not believe that all life has the sanctity of a soul, surely we can all agree that human life has at least some intrinsic dignity. We are all part of the human family. We share a common ancestry. We are all brothers and sisters in this human race whether we are athletes or parliamentarians; mentally handicapped people; patients on respirators; tiny, helpless infants; tiny, helpless pre-born infants; or indeed the most nascent human beings, tiny embryos.

If we accept that human life in the laboratory does not enjoy the dignity of our common humanity but can be used as a mere raw material for scientific research driven by multinational biotech companies, then we undermine the dignity of all human life. We diminish the dignity of the severely handicapped, the sick, the elderly, and those who some cultures and political ideologies have taught to be racially inferior. If these living human beings do not have intrinsic worth and dignity, at least in the eyes of some, then what is to prevent them too from being used simply as objects for research. For all of these reasons I believe embryonic stem cell research to be gravely unethical and immoral.

I believe the evidence is overwhelming that this research is unnecessary. There may be some members in this House who do not share my conviction about the absolute dignity and worth of the nascent life of the human embryo, but still feel that it has some dignity and worth, and should not be used and abused arbitrarily in the name of science. That is part of the reason why this bill seeks to limit embryonic stem cell research, to so-called spare embryos left over from attempts at in vitro fertilization. It is why the bill seeks to prohibit the creation of embryos by cloning or other means solely for research purposes.

That is why we have asked the scientific community to justify why it believes it is necessary to use human embryos for its research. That is why we have sought amendments at committee and here at report stage that would require scientists seeking access to embryos created ostensibly for reproductive purposes to make a compelling case as to why they need access for those embryos and why the science to be done with those embryos could not similarly be performed with non-embryonic, that is, adult stem cells, as a moral and ethical alternative, not requiring the destruction of life.

I suggest that this bill does not do enough to ensure that human embryos are only used as a last resort and that there are no other substitutes which can function as well. The evidence has shown to the contrary, that there are almost no cases where it is necessary to use embryonic stem cells for therapeutic purposes. In fact, almost all of the promising research on stem cells to date has involved adult stem cell lines.

I particularly commend my friend opposite from Mississauga South for his compilation of research on this question into an informative booklet which summarizes the overwhelming science on this. I commend him and my colleague from Yellowhead and others for their insightful questioning at the Standing Committee on Health where they drew out of the many expert witnesses the undeniable fact that adult stem cells, non-embryonic stem cells, have furnished much greater and clearer scientific advantages than the putative ones attributed to embryonic stem cells.

Dr. Leon Kass of the University of Chicago, the chairman of the U.S. presidential advisory commission on bioethics and the author of what is probably the leading accessible text on this question Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity , has said:

One of the regrettable things about the stem cell discussion, if I may say so, was the hype that the proponents used, taking advantage of desperate people's desires for cures and seeming to promise them cures overnight or just around the corner.

He goes on to say:

But truth to tell we don't even have animal examples of anything remotely resembling a cure for any of these diseases. And this would not have been the first time. Fifteen years ago it was fetal research which was supposed to solve all of these dilemmas and help the lame to walk and the demented to think again. So we've got to be very cautious.

Dr. Kass should make us reflect, do we really need to be destroying embryos, the earliest stage of human life, to develop treatments or are there alternatives? Almost every week it seems there are articles confirming the promise of non-embryonic stem cells and articles saying that research into embryonic stem cells has been disappointing, has not lived up to the expectations and hype of some, a minority in the scientific community.

Adult stem cells have already been used to develop promising therapies for Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, cancer, diabetes and spinal cord injuries. Hundreds of patients have already benefited from these technologies which have no ethical complications and do not involve destroying human life in any way, shape for form.

Meanwhile, how many people have benefited from treatment from embryonic stem cells? Precisely none. Even in lab animals, results with embryonic stem cells have been extremely disappointing. Embryonic stem cells transplanted in animals have caused tumours or have been rejected by their hosts, so there are many dangers that would have to be overcome before we could even dream of human trials using embryonic stem cells, which this bill seeks partially to recognize in statute and which my amendment, Motion No. 17, seeks to prohibit.

Given these results and given the tremendous promise of adult stem cells, surely it makes sense for members of Parliament who have any qualms about the ethics of destroying embryonic human beings to insist that adult stem cells be used exclusively until we have fully exhausted their enormous potential. Adopting my amendment would lead to Canadian science directing itself on this more promising and less ethically troubling path.

Finally, allowing embryonic stem cell research would inevitably bring about unintended consequences. Let us consider just as few. The bill as it now stands would allow research on embryos left over from in vitro fertilization. Once this research is allowed there would be a demand from researchers and companies to participate, to have a piece of the embryonic research action and funding. However, at the same time, improving IVF technology would result in fewer and fewer left over embryos being created.

Therefore, undoubtedly, if we were to allow this research now we would see lobbyists before us in a few short years asking us to open the doors a bit wider to allow the creation of embryos for research purposes or to allow so-called therapeutic cloning. Once we open the door to therapeutic cloning, reproductive cloning is of course a very short step behind.

If we are truly concerned about the possible science fiction consequences of genetic technology of animal-human hybrids, human cloning, or attempts to create a genetic super race, then let us stop higher up the slope and not resist further steps down, steps that could slip beneath us as we slide inexorably toward the brave new world foreseen by Aldous Huxley.

I suggest the natural stopping point is to prohibit any research that would destroy human life. As I have argued, it is unethical, it is unnecessary, and it would have grave unintended consequences.

Many of my colleagues, principally in my party, fought long and hard in committee at the draft report stage when the initial draft legislation was introduced by the previous health minister.

Since Bill C-56, now Bill C-13, was introduced and brought before the health committee, they have also fought vigorously for a three year moratorium as a modest measure to allow the scientific community to fully expend the enormous scientific opportunities and possibilities posed by non-embryonic stem cell research before crossing that moral Rubicon of destroying life for utilitarian purposes. They sought this three year moratorium in motions at committee put forward by my friend from Yellowhead, who has done a yeoman's job on the bill, but unfortunately members of the committee, principally in the government, voted against the moratorium.

That is why I sought this amendment, which is admittedly more restrictive than the stated policy of my party. I bring it forward not as an initiative of my party but of myself, because I submit that for legalizing a practice which involves an ethically questionable and clearly immoral technique of destroying a nascent human life, the onus is on the proponents of that sort of research to demonstrate that the putative benefits of that kind of morally offensive action are significant to society.

And even if they were, let me address this. While I believe that there are actually many supportable provisions in the bill, while I appreciate that many measures of the bill would in fact create legal parameters, where none now exist, on the manipulation of human life for commercial and other purposes, nevertheless, lying at the heart of the bill is a very basic but tremendously profound metaphysical error. The bill reflects a misunderstanding of the nature of man and his dignity. When I say man I mean, of course, the species Homo sapiens.

I submit that my amendment reflects this conviction that every human being, in theological terms as expressed by I think all of the great religions, is created in the image and likeness of God. That is religious language to express what secular Liberals would regard as the notion that every human being possesses an inviolable dignity, a dignity that is not granted by the state, not endowed by a court, not given by majority consent, and not recognized arbitrarily by scientists or even by parents who are in a physical sense the co-creators of that life. However, there resides in that life by the virtue of its very humanity an inviolable, inherent and inalienable dignity. For us in this place to begin to pass legislation which seeks to alienate that inalienable dignity crosses a moral Rubicon, the consequences of which we cannot possibly foresee.

I submit that we must learn from the lessons of the last century, the “century of tears” as some have called it, the most horrific period of which of course was the Nazi regime, which began and ended in an effort to manipulate human life for utilitarian purposes, to seek to improve the quality of life of those fully grown human beings deemed perfect, at the expense of those deemed imperfect.

When the state begins, as we might in this bill if we defeat this amendment, to deem some human lives as possessing that inherent dignity and others without it, others that are subject to this kind of utilitarian experimentation, I submit that we are on a slippery slope to very great danger.

I therefore seek support for my Motion No. 17, which would radically improve--

[Monte Solberg, Canadian Alliance, Medicine Hat, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise this morning to address Bill C-13. It is my first chance to speak to the legislation. As my colleague who spoke just a moment ago pointed out, it is important legislation, legislation about which many Canadians feel very strongly. We have to be sensitive to different points of view when we talk about this particular issue.

The issue addresses a number of different aspects and there are a number of aspects to this issue. This has to do with human cloning. I want to say at the outset that the Canadian Alliance opposes the idea of human cloning. We see it as an affront to human dignity. I think most right thinking Canadians believe the same thing, which is that we should not trifle with something like human cloning.

It also deals with the issue of stem cell research. It draws a distinction between adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells, or at least it has to do with that issue. My party believes that we should draw a distinction between adult and embryonic stem cells.

Before I get into some of the particulars of the motion, I want to ask you, Madam Speaker, to consider for a moment what it would be like to be the technician in the laboratory who has to dispose of an embryonic stem cell. Let us say that it is a stem cell that arose as a result of in vitro fertilization. Let us say the legislation is now in place and at the end of 14 days you are charged with disposing that embryonic stem cell. I wonder, as you go to place that embryo in a disposal container of some sort, if you would for a moment feel some hesitation about doing that, or perhaps you would feel a twinge of regret at having to do that.

If people are in that position, are thinking about this and find that perhaps they would at least hesitate for a moment, I think it is quite appropriate to ask on what grounds they would hesitate. Why would they feel any regret at all about doing that? Perhaps they have been raised to believe that there is absolutely no scientific evidence to suggest that this is anything but a mass of cells. However, if for a moment they feel that regret or they hesitate and perhaps do not even understand why, then I think it is appropriate to ask themselves why they feel that regret.

I think a lot of people would suggest that it might be something niggling at their conscience if they are in that position. There would be some twinge of conscience that would cause them to feel that regret. If in fact that is the case, even as we do a kind of mind experiment and ask ourselves what it would be like to be in that situation, then I think we have to wonder whether what we are doing is correct.

For thousands of years people have wondered why some actions feel right to them, some actions feel wrong to them and why their consciences bother them when they do certain things. People have thought about this for a long time. People like Plato, completely outside the Judeo-Christian tradition rather obviously, spoke about divine laws that operate on all mankind at all times, as did Cicero and other great thinkers. Of course that tradition is carried on in the Judeo-Christian tradition as well.

I want to suggest that if people go through that thought experiment to which I have just referred and sense that they might feel some level of regret, then maybe they understand why the Canadian Alliance has deep concerns about legislation that would allow research on embryonic stem cells, stem cells that were perhaps created initially for use in in vitro fertilization. If they were not used for that purpose, they could then be used ultimately, according to the legislation, for research.

A lot of us have deep concerns as we go through a thought experiment like the type I proposed. We wonder whether it is correct. We wonder if there is not some spark of dignity in that embryo. If we wonder at all about that, then it is incumbent upon us to put restrictions in place that prohibit the use of embryonic stem cells for research.

I want to draw a line here between embryonic stem cells and non-embryonic stem cells, or what a lot of people call adult stem cells. There is nothing at all morally troubling about using adult stem cells for research because there is no potential life that is being destroyed or, if we take a different perspective, life itself that is being destroyed.

We are urging the government to do a number of things. As we pointed out in our minority report, we would like the government to show respect for the human life that we believe is in a human embryo. We would like the government to put the emphasis on adult stem cell research, and there is more than just a moral reason for doing that. There is a reason that has everything to do with how effective treatments are today.

To this point, there has never been a single person who has been helped by embryonic stem cells when it comes to improving their health. Adult stem cells are used routinely, whether it is for leukemia or multiple sclerosis. A whole range of different diseases are treated by adult stem cells, and that is fine. We have no problem with that. We support that. We believe strongly that we need to find ways to help people. However. as of yet, the use of embryonic stem cells has not led to any kind of cure or help for people who are struggling with disease. That is one reason that we are very concerned about the legislation and why we would like to see some changes to it.

I want to speak now specifically to some of the motions that are being proposed here. I want to note that we in the Canadian Alliance support Motion No. 13. We like the idea of seeing some tighter language on the cloning prohibition. Back in September 2001, the Canadian Alliance asked for an immediate ban on human cloning. Why we needed that became apparent during the recent press conferences where the Raelians were suggesting that they had actually cloned a human being. People were horrified. Whether they did I am not certain, but suffice it to say that public reaction indicated that this government should have acted a lot faster than it already has when it comes to the issue of human cloning.

With regard to Motion No. 14, the bill's existing clause would allow the creation of embryos for purposes of improving or providing instruction in assisted reproduction procedures. We oppose the creation and use of embryos for research procedures. We think that denies the dignity of that human life. We do not think life should be created in order for it to be destroyed later.

With regard to Motion No. 16, the current wording of the bill prohibits an embryo from a cell or from part of a cell of another embryo for the purpose of creating a human being. The amendment removes for the purpose of creating a human being to ensure that there is no creation of embryos for any purpose, not merely that of creating a fully human, mature being. We believe that if people have gone through that thought experiment that I proposed a few minutes ago, if they felt hesitation at destroying that embryo, then perhaps somewhere in their mind they believe that there is a human life at stake.

Therefore, for all the reasons that I have laid out, we have some obvious concerns about the legislation. From the thousands of petitions that have come in, I think many people in this country feel the same way. They oppose human cloning unconditionally.

However, on the other hand, they have concerns that go beyond that. They want to see some importance attached to human embryos, period. They are concerned that we are being too cavalier with human embryos. They believe and I believe that these are human lives and that they should be protected.

For those reasons, we are supporting a number of the motions today because they all take us toward more protection for human embryos which we believe is critically important. Overall, we will be opposing Bill C-13, or at least certainly I will, speaking on behalf of myself and my constituents.

[Rahim Jaffer, Canadian Alliance, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak to the Group No. 2 amendments to Bill C-13, an act respecting assisted human reproductive technologies and related research.

First, this is my first opportunity to speak to this bill in any form. I would also like to thank my colleague, the member for Yellowhead, who has shepherded the bill through its many stages on behalf of the Canadian Alliance.

Group No. 2 amendments encompass Motions Nos. 13, 14, 16, 17, 20, 22 to 24, 26, 27, 40 and 47. I will address each in turn in what time is allowed.

Let me assure the House that the Canadian Alliance supports these amendments because the government brought in a flawed piece of legislation. The opposition knows this, as do Liberal members across the aisle. In fact, with the exception of Motion No. 17 which was brought forth by the Canadian Alliance member for Calgary Southeast, all these motions we are discussing today were brought forth by the Liberal member for Mississauga South.

Unfortunately, although all parties recognize the necessity of rectifying the government's flawed piece of legislation, the arrogance of the Prime Minister and his whip makes them believe that they do not have to take Parliament seriously.

Whenever a Liberal backbencher gets uppity and propose reasoned amendments like today, what is the Prime Minister's response? It is a vote of confidence. In other words, he is saying to Liberal backbenchers to vote how he tells them or he will force an election and not sign their nomination papers.

The Prime Minister flouts this institution and he flouts democracy. The Canadian Alliance is willing to take a stand and challenges the Prime Minister to allow his MPs to vote freely on the bill and this group of amendments.

Speaking of the Group No. 2 amendments, I will start by saying that I will deal with the motions thematically and not numerically as some of my colleagues have chosen to do.

The major themes within these motions are human cloning, the creation of embryos for research purposes and transgenics, the science of mixing human and animal DNA to create hybrids.

Motions Nos. 13, 22 and 40 deal with cloning.

First, Motion No. 13 expands the prohibition on the creation of a human clone in paragraph 5(1)(a) with the addition of “by using any technique”, to achieve greater clarity. It also specifies that no one shall transplant a clone into any non-human life form or artificial device. This is important because the current wording only prohibits transplanting a clone into a human being.

The Canadian Alliance supports Motion No. 13 because we will support any and all efforts to close possible loopholes in the prohibition on cloning.

Motion No. 22 expands upon the provisions already in the bill, preventing cloning for research purposes. The amendment simply expands the definition to include a ban on cloning of embryos for research or reproduction.

Motion No. 40 also deals with cloning. It adds specific prohibition on therapeutic research cloning. The bill already bans both reproductive and research cloning but for purposes of certainty this amendment should also be passed.

I will also try to deal with Motions Nos. 14, 16, 17 and 24 regarding the use of embryos.

We support Motion No. 14 as it amends a very important aspect of the bill. Currently the bill's existing clause would allow creation of embryos for purposes of improving or providing instruction in assisted reproduction procedures. We oppose the creation and use of embryos for research purposes. This is simply wrong.

Like Motion No. 14, Motion No. 16 strengthens the prohibition against creating embryos. Current wording of the clause in the bill prohibits creating an embryo from a cell or from part of a cell of another embryo for the purpose of creating a human being. The amendment removes “for the purpose of creating a human being” to ensure there is no creation of embryos for any purpose, not merely that of creating a fully mature human being.

Motion No. 17 is the one that I mentioned earlier. The amendment moved by my colleague from Calgary is well thought out and reasoned, and I would encourage the government to support it. Basically this clause adds a prohibition on embryonic research: no person shall “experiment on or harvest an embryo”. The current wording in the bill says that embryonic research can be undertaken under licence if the agency is satisfied that such research is “necessary”.

Embryonic stem cell research is ethically controversial and it divides Canadians. It ultimately results in the destruction of the embryo. For many Canadians, this violates the ethical commitment to respect human dignity, integrity and life. It is unnecessary as adult stem cells have been proven to be a safe alternative to embryonic stem cell research. They are being used today in the treatment of Parkinson's, leukemia, MS and other conditions.

Motion No. 24 is very important as it puts time limits on embryo storage.

Finally, I will deal with the remaining Motions Nos. 20, 23, 26, 27 and 47 which deal with transgenics and the mixing of human and non-human DNA to create hybrids.

Motion No. 20 is another reasoned amendment to this bill as it deals with the almost science fiction premise of mixing humans and non-humans, something I would have hoped the minister would have considered before rushing this bill out. Unfortunately, as is usually the case with the government, she did not. Motion No. 20 prevents the transplantation of sperm, ovum, embryo or fetus of a human being into a non-human life form.

Motion No. 23 is another motion that seeks to prevent the mixing of human and non-human DNA by adding a new prohibited activity, transgenics, combining any portion of the human genome with any part of the genome and non-human species. This motion is in conjunction with Motion No. 47 which I also hope is passed.

Motion No. 47 deletes clause 11 on transgenics, corresponding to Motion No. 23, moving transgenics to prohibited activities. As the two motions come hand in hand, we will support them as a group.

Yet another motion dealing with the combining of animal-human hybrids is Motion No. 26 and I have dealt with that.

Motion No. 27 is very important. It adds a prohibition on reproduction and links as well with Motion No. 26.

Once again as I wrap up, I would just like to emphasize that the government needs to allow MPs to vote freely on this bill. This is a very important moral decision for all MPs and they must be allowed to vote their conscience and their constituents' wishes.

As an example, even in my own office I have had many people write to me with their concerns on this issue. They believe that science should have a role in trying to make life better for people with debilitating diseases. However they are concerned as well for the protection of the sanctity of life and what sort of measures this place can put in place to move forward with science but with the respect for life. That is something about which all MPs should have a say.

We should have that vote and we should be able to vote freely. I think most Canadians would only expect that from Parliament, so I hope that will be considered as we continue to deliberate on this bill.

Business of the House

[The Speaker]

I wish to inform the House that after further examination a correction has been made to the voting pattern in respect of Motion Nos. 23, 24 and 26 in Group No. 2 of Bill C-13. These motions will now be voted on separately and copies of the revised report stage chart are available at the table for perusal by all hon. members.

Assisted Human Reproduction Act

[Peter Goldring, Canadian Alliance, Edmonton Centre-East, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I believe it is very appropriate that we take the time to wish the men and women of the Canadian navy from the HMCS Iroquois well following the tragic crash into its deck this morning of a Sea King helicopter. I hope they arrive back in Halifax soon to be with their friends and their families. Our wishes and our prayers are with them too.

Defending Canada's interests and freedoms has a toll, the price of peace can be very high. This should remind us all of the increased cost as lives and health are at risk in dated equipment. Today it is a 40 year old Sea King helicopter. Yesterday it was an under armoured and under gunned Sherman tank put up against Tiger tanks in World War II.

Perhaps this bill being discussed today has relevancy to this. Imagine the injured, the wounded, the high toll of World War II and what advances will be made by stem cell research over the next years, and how that could have aided our past generations of wounded from World War II.

I am pleased to speak to Bill C-13 today. It should be noted that we support a number of aspects of the bill. We fully support bans on reproductive and therapeutic cloning, animal human hybrids, sex selection, germ line alteration, the by and selling of embryos and paid surrogacy. We also support, with changes, an agency to regulate the sector.

We oppose 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 we tabled a motion at the health committee calling on the government to immediately ban human reproductive cloning. The Liberals deferred a vote on the motion. The preference was to deal with cloning in a comprehensive reproductive technologies bill. However Motion No. 13 seeks to clarify the bill's current cloning prohibition.

What the bill says is that 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 gene must be preserved and protected. We support the recognition that the health and well-being of children born through assisted human reproduction should be given priority.

In fact the health committee came up with a ranking of whose interest should have priority in the decision making around assisted human reproduction an related research: children born through assisted human reproduction; adults participating in assisted human reproduction procedures; and researchers and physicians who conducted assisted human reproduction research.

While the preamble recognizes the priority of assisted human reproduction offspring, other clauses 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 the biological parents. The bill's preamble does not provide acknowledgement of human dignity or respect for human life.

The bill is intimately connected with the creation of human life and 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 that the preamble and the mandate of the proposed agency should be amended to include reference to the principle of respect for human life.

We have several concerns with stem cell research. The first would be that embryonic research is ethically controversial and divides Canadians. Embryonic stem cell research inevitably results in the death of the embryo, early human life. For many Canadians this violates the ethical commitment to respect for human dignity, integrity and life. An incontestable scientific fact is that an embryo is an early human life. Complete DNA of an adult human is present at the embryo stage. Whether that life is owed protection is what is really at issue here.

Embryonic research also constitutes an objectification of human life, where life becomes a tool which can be manipulated and destroyed for other even ethical ends. Adult stem cells are a safe, proven alternative to embryonic stem cells. Sources of adult stem cells are 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. Embryonic stem cell transplants are subject to immune rejection because they are foreign tissues. Adult stem cells used for transplants are typically taken from one's own body.

Adult stem cells are being used today in the treatment of Parkinson's, leukemia, MS and other conditions. Embryonic stem cells have not been used in the successful treatment of a single person. Research focus should be on this 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 be permitted only if researchers could demonstrate that no other category of biological material could be used for the purposes of the proposed research.

During the committee's review of Bill C-13, members tried to restore the spirit of this recommendation with an amendment specifying that healing therapies should be the object of such research. No embryonic research should be done for the development of cosmetics or drugs or for providing instruction to assist human reproduction procedures. The committee rejected this amendment and the Speaker rejected it coming forward for the report stage debate.

Bill C-13 specifies that the consent of the donor of human embryos is required in order to use a human embryo for experiments. The bill leaves it to the regulations to define donor. There are two donors to every human embryo, a woman and a man. Both donors, parents, should be required to give written consent for the use of a human embryo, not just one. Motion No. 17, put forward by our party, calls for a complete prohibition on embryonic research.

[David Anderson, Canadian Alliance, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be here to speak to Bill C-13. I have had the opportunity to speak to the bill a couple of times before but today I will speak specifically to the Group No. 2 amendments.

A number of the amendments which we are dealing with today have to do with stem cell research and embryonic stem cell research. I want to explain what stem cells are, where we can find them and some of the roles they can play in medical research.

Stem cells are the master cells that we find in every tissue of our body. These cells continue to reproduce throughout our lives. They can be manipulated in the laboratory to produce different kinds of cells and tissues. Scientists have found that stem cells have some very valuable possibilities for them in terms of medical research.

At the present time stem cells can be obtained from many different places and from different organs and tissues. Blood, bone marrow, skin, brain tissue, muscle and fat all contain stem cells.

Adult stem cells are cells that have reached a certain degree of maturity. They can be specialized stem cells. They can be taken from various tissues and organs including placental tissue and umbilical cord blood. Over the years scientists did not realize the advantages of using those placental cells and the umbilical cord blood. However in the last couple of years they really have moved on research in that area.

Embryonic stem cells are taken from embryos. I will talk a little today about adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells. A consequence of using embryonic stem cells is that, by necessity, the embryos die when the embryonic cells are removed. That is in contrast to the adult stem cells which can be taken from living human beings without hurting or damaging the person.

Adult stem cell research is really exciting and is an essential frontier in medicine, especially for those who are suffering from degenerative diseases such Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis. It also is thought that there is a potential to treat Alzheimer's through adult stem cell research. Another area in which stem cells have some tremendous potential is in the tragic spinal cord injuries. Hopefully a cure will be found for that condition.

We often hear announcements of medical breakthroughs in the use adult stem cells, which include those cells taken from umbilical cords, placental tissues and other tissues. There is a great benefit to adult stem cell research. We see it is has a significant impact in a number of areas.

Bone marrow transplants are an example of stem cell research and has been very successful over the years. Parkinson's disease is another area. Canadian neurosurgeon, Dr. Michael Levesque, is treating a patient with stem cells taken from that patient's own brain. It has had a tremendous positive effect for that patient.

There have been cases dealing with multiple sclerosis, four of them in particular in an Ottawa hospital. Researchers have been able to use stem cells taken from patients' own bone marrow. They have helped with a significant improvement in the condition of multiple sclerosis.

We may not think Crohns disease would be an area where this research would be useful. American patients have been treated successfully with their own stem cells and have received some relief from that terrible condition.

There have also been other blood diseases that over the years people have got some relief from by using adult stem cells.

This new data is being incorporated in the consideration of which avenues to take in stem cell research. There are researchers who would like to focus on embryonic stem cell research. I want to point out some of the scientific risks in embryonic stem cell research.

First, in spite of all the noise and hoopla that we have heard on the TV and read in the newspapers over the last few months, there has never been a successful case using embryonic stem cells. Regardless of those results, we often hear of people pushing for the use of embryonic stem cells. They want them to be used and developed, but there are some real problems with using embryonic stem cells.

One problem is that embryonic stem cells often appear to be subject to completely random and unacceptable growth. In certain situations they have been implanted in people and all of a sudden there has been the growth of a tumour that doctors cannot explain. The embryonic stem cells have mushroomed and ballooned and have caused the condition to get worse rather than better. Adult stem cells seem to be a lot more predictable in responding to growth factors and hormones that function to redirect their development.

Another real problem with embryonic stem cells is that they have been found to often grow into the wrong type of cells. Scientists have not been able to direct them in the way they would like to and in some cases they have found things like hair and teeth cells growing in the brain of patients who have received treatment of embryonic stem cells. This is strange but it is true. I do not think that any one of us would enjoy or like to have that situation happen to us or anyone that we hold near and dear.

However, there is an even bigger problem with embryonic stem cells. There is an issue of rejection. When we introduce foreign materials into our body of course, our bodies reject them. One of the main problems that we have had with embryonic stem cells is that throughout the patient's life he or she will need to take anti-rejection drugs. These stem cells cannot be absorbed from someone else.

It is clear that the focus of research really should be in the adult stem cells. There has been some good success with that and it is an area that we really need to focus on and try to develop.

One other thing the bill does not directly do is address the value of human life and lay out a framework for valuing and cherishing human life. I have talked before about the fact that we all recognize now that human life begins at conception. When the DNA package is put together, we understand that human life has begun. There has been a lot of debate on that over the years but really that debate has subsided and scientists and the general populace believe that when that DNA package is put together, we then have a human being.

The question then becomes what value do we give to that human being? I spoke about that before. We need to engage in the discussion on what value we will give to that DNA when put together. Many of us believe and know it is a human being. We have to decide what we will do with it then. Will we take it apart and allow it to die? Will we treat it as though it is something unique and we want it to develop and grow?

That actually brings me to the Group No. 2 amendments. I do not have time to speak to all of them but I want to speak to one specific motion, Motion No. 17 proposed the member for Calgary Southeast. The member has brought forward a clause that would prohibit embryonic stem cell research. It clearly states that no person shall experiment or harvest on an embryo. I support this motion, and I hope that members in the House will as well.

The current wording in the bill states that embryonic research can be undertaken under licence if the agency is satisfied that such research is “necessary”. I am not comfortable with that. I had a chance to sit in on a couple of health committee meetings with the director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. I am not comfortable with the lack of what I would call accountability.

Scientists felt that they could run with whatever experiments and experimentation they wanted. I felt they were trying to get ahead of this bill so that they could have those experiments in place. By the time the bill would be passed, they would be able to say that they were already doing certain research and that it was not the place of Parliament to interfere with them.

I would like to support the member for Calgary Southeast's motion that we prohibit embryonic stem cell research. This research of course is very controversial. It divides Canadians, as I have said before. There are no benefits to it that we know of as yet. We really need to focus on adult stem cell research.

My main point is that human life begin at conception when the DNA is put together. It is important that the leaders, the people in this House, consider the value that has. It is important that we take a position that we will not take that apart, kill that life and treat it as a commodity. Instead we will treat it with the uniqueness that it deserves.

[Rob Anders, Canadian Alliance, Calgary West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to touch on the broad subject of reproduction and replacement. It has come to the knowledge of many that a Sea King helicopter has crashed on to the deck of the HMCS Iroquois and two people have been injured. That ship, which was intended to be a command ship in the Gulf of Oman, is right now on its way back to Canada because of that.

I would like to touch briefly on the subject of replacement and reproduction. We are touching on that with regard to Bill C-13. We understand when we talk about the bill that replacement and replenishment is important when it comes to human beings, but for some strange reason the government has taken far too long to do the right thing when it comes to our Canadian armed forces, our navy and the Sea King helicopter replacement program. That is a real shame. I just wanted to get that on the record.

I would now like to talk about Bill C-13 and about human dignity and respect for human life. It is ironic, when I think of that as the first touchstone with regard to this speech, acknowledgement of human dignity and the respect for human life, I would like to think that the government does have respect for human life. I am grateful that no sailors died with regard to the HMCS Iroquois crash. Maybe that makes me think about whether or not the government really does have a commitment to those principles when I talk about Bill C-13 and whether or not the government is doing its level best to safeguard the lives of our littlest citizens.

Bill C-13's preamble does not provide an acknowledgement of human dignity or the respect for human life and I think it is very important that it does. There is also no overarching recognition of the principle of the respect for human life in the bill.

Our minority report recommended that the final legislation clearly recognize the human embryo as human life. We would like to have it such that the statutory declaration include the phrase “respect for human life”. We also believe the mandate of the proposed agency should be amended to include reference to the principle of respect for life. Some of our objections stem from the following ideas.

The complete DNA of an adult human is present at the embryo stage. We need to understand and respect that with regard to the bill.

Also, we in the Canadian Alliance recognize that adult stem cells are a safe, proven alternative to embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells can come from umbilical cords, blood, skin tissue, bone tissue, et cetera, and are all perfectly valid sources for us to get stem cells. The adult sources also are easily accessible, not subject to immune rejection and pose minimal ethical concerns. They are not treated as foreign tissues by the body and they are often taken from one's own body, never mind anyone else's. It seems the logical way to go.

Currently, adult stem cells are used in the treatment of Parkinson's disease, leukemia, MS, and other conditions for that matter. Our minority report called for a three year prohibition on experiments with human embryos corresponding with the first scheduled review of the bill.

On a different subject but which is still related to Bill C-13, it does not seem very fair that the bill only requires the consent of one of the donors when it takes two donors to make an embryo. It takes two sets of genetic material. The bill does not recognize that both parents need to be required to give written consent for the use of the embryo, not just one. They have made the embryo collectively.

One of the things that really shook me and made me an advocate for the pro-life position was that I remember the debates that took place with regard to Chantal Daigle. I was a young man at the time, but as that decision was coming through the Supreme Court, I thought it was profoundly unfair that I as a man was deemed discounted from having any relevance or influence with regard to that decision and with regard to the definition in respect of human life. The idea that it was only one person's decision and that we as a society, or that I as a man, had no relevance in the decision with regard to human life struck me profoundly. I was not any more than a very young teenager at the time.

This bill, I feel, replicates that very same mistake. It does not recognize that it takes two people to create a child, not just one, and that the implications and the ramifications of those decisions are far above and beyond just the one individual carrying the child. Just as with regard to our Criminal Code, one rape does not just involve the victim or the criminal, it involves everybody else that it touches as well.

That is the reason we have a Criminal Code. We recognize that we do need to set laws that determine the difference between right and wrong and that set a standard of behaviour for all of us. If we do not have that, then we merely have capriciousness. We have anarchy. We have mob rule. We have a situation where people can do whatever they want so long as maybe it is consensual or reciprocal and is done in the privacy of their own homes or something, as some of those arguments go.

It is not quite that simple. Those things really do have an impact on the quality of life for the rest of us. They do impact the society we live in, the culture we have, our civilization. Therefore it is very important that we take firm stands on these things.

That is the reason we do not arbitrarily say murder is something that is up to somebody to decide whether it is right or wrong. We say firmly, through this place and our Criminal Code and through the police officers who enforce it out in the public at large, that murder is wrong regardless of how it comes about. If a person takes another person's life just because the person is upset or angry with the other person or it was done during some bar brawl or because of some grievance or something like that, it is wrong.

We have certain situations in this country where we do justify the taking of life, for example, in the case of war. Of course we know how serious and grave a situation that is and how long we deliberate before we take on something like that.

It is interesting and it is profound that there are parties in this place that will object strenuously to the use of force to remove somebody like Saddam Hussein and object to the potential harm of innocent life, and I think of our friends in the Bloc and in the NDP. I understand there are sensitivities, particularly in Quebec for example, with regard to the situation of war.

I find it ironic that there can be such concern with regard to people in Baghdad yet when it comes to Canada's littlest citizens, there is not that type of concern about people who may have sat in this place but will never get the chance because of some of this legislation, the way the Criminal Code is set or not set in this place, the grey areas it leaves in the law and the arbitrariness it leaves with regard to the definition of life. As a result there will be people who may never sit in this place.

It is profoundly ironic that some people are very upset about some nature of death but not others. It is interesting.

I want to quickly touch on a few points I wanted to make with regard to this bill. The regulatory agency would not report to Parliament but only to the minister. That is a profound mistake. Also, I believe there needs to be a free vote on this subject and the legislation.

[Deepak Obhrai, Canadian Alliance, Calgary East, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise again to speak on Bill C-13. This is the third time I have spoken on the bill. My colleagues before me have eloquently elaborated the concerns and problems they have with the bill. I would like to re-emphasize exactly what they are saying, because this is one of those new areas, new science, that we are going into, and it causes a great deal of concern to Canadians and to everyone around the world.

Last time I spoke, I mentioned the news about human cloning that had come at the beginning of the year, which shocked everybody around the world and once again brought to our attention the question of where we are going with this bill and with this technology. This technology has the potential of going in any direction if it is not checked or regulated. As such, by itself, having the bill brought in front of Parliament is a good thing. It is an attempt to regulate this new science that has the potential of either bringing forth a Frankenstein or, as said by my colleague who spoke last, being a huge benefit to humankind.

There is no debate about what stem cells can do and how beneficial they are to people who are suffering from diseases. Therefore, I do not think there is any debate coming along and saying we do not want stem cell research. The issue that comes out here is which direction we should go to. Because this is a new technology, it is better to err in favour of caution than to go ahead and blindly move into this science and then have to face the consequences further down the road. The consequences could be horrendous because we are talking about the science of cloning, the science of human beings, the basic structure of human beings.

Today we are speaking on the Group No. 2 amendments brought forward by the member for Mississauga South. I am glad that he has brought forward these concerns, because, like everyone else in the House, he has listened to the people and as such has brought his point of view forward in these amendments, most of which the Canadian Alliance will support.

We have two issues in his Group No. 2. One is that the member for Mississauga South has brought forward Motion No. 13 which intends to make it absolutely clear, in no uncertain terms, what human cloning is and which direction we will take. The majority of it is saying to proceed with caution, that this is an area where we must tread very slowly and very carefully because of the potential for not knowing what will happen.

My colleague from Calgary Southeast has brought forward Motion No. 17, which says the same thing. He is expressing an absolute concern saying that he does not wish to take the route of cloning, period. That is his motion. It is a motion that I will support. I do not think I want to take the route of cloning.

We do have the issue of stem cell research, adult and embryonic. Right now the adult stem cell research that is going on has a lot of potential. Whose potential? We have not actually evaluated or seen how deep the potential can go.

Perhaps it will answer a lot of the questions we are asking more specifically on using stem cells to assist people who have diseases such as cancer. If we have not yet examined the potential of stem cell research, then why do we want to go into the arena of cloning when we do not know where it is going?

The motion put forward by my colleague from Calgary Southeast which calls for a total ban on this route of embryonic cloning research is fine. We wish to support it. The Canadian Alliance put forward amendments at the committee stage saying that there should be a three year stopgap. In that way we could see in which direction we were going with stem cell and adult stem cell research. Down the road we could slowly and distinctly see its impact and maybe never have to resort to cloning. I am sure the majority of Canadians do not want to go the route of cloning.

Canadians are aware, as are we, that the health benefits of this kind of research are very good and that scientists need these routes and in wanting to go down these routes they have good intentions of assisting in the cure of diseases. Nevertheless, as those who make laws and regulations we need to use caution on this issue because this is one of the sciences that we do not know which way it will go.

I rose to speak to the bill to express the concerns that we have. I hope that when the time comes to vote on the bill, the government will allow a free vote so Canadians can, through their elected representatives, express their points of view on the bill.

[Keith Martin, Canadian Alliance, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak on Bill C-13 and the Group No. 2 amendments. No one can underestimate the importance of this issue with respect to the health of all human beings.

I want to say that unfortunately the bill has been bogged down with a lot of issues surrounding the definition of life and has actually polarized two groups: those who believe in choice and those who really are part of the anti-choice movement and believe that the definition of life begins with the fertilization of an egg. Both sides must have their views respected and certainly both are understandable; however, this detracts from the larger issues, I would say, that the bill could afford all Canadians.

A person may be sick or have amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig's disease, or Parkinson's disease, or diabetes, which is epidemic in our country, and it is easy for those of us who are healthy to say that we should ban and prohibit science on the basis of our moral conviction that life begins at the moment an egg is fertilized by a sperm. Unfortunately, when we do that, we will deprive thousands upon thousands of people, not only in our own country but around the world, of potentially life saving tools, technologies and treatments that will improve their lives and indeed save their lives.

One of my colleagues mentioned this to me because I am of the view that human cloning should be banned. That is generally accepted by scientists, ethicists and the general public, but there is a far greater range of views on and a far greater acceptance of using medical technology, particularly when, at the early embryonic stages, it can provide that information. I will tell members why. When an egg is fertilized by a sperm, what happens in that ball of cells are things that we simply cannot get or understand out of any other science we have today. Cells that are undifferentiated and look much the same have what we call a potential to develop into any part of our body. It is truly an extraordinary time in the life of those cells.

What happens with those cells is that they begin to differentiate into organs. They also move and migrate around various parts of the body. Why this is important is that this kind of behaviour is the same type of behaviour, in many cases, that occurs with cancers. Cancerous cells suddenly become one normal cell and then, for reasons that we do not fully understand today, become cells whose behaviour changes. In the changing of that behaviour, they start to move into various parts of the body and they start to eat and erode away at other cells and other tissues, too often ultimately killing people.

What we can understand and glean from the first fertilization of that egg are behaviours in the cell patterns and a differentiation that we really cannot get from any other source, including adult stem cells, although I will certainly agree that the research in adult stem cells has changed dramatically.

My colleague said to me that he had a gentleman call him up after he heard my comments on television, the same comments I have just made. The gentleman said he was a man who was dying of cancer and he would not sacrifice a single fertilized embryo even if it were to provide life saving knowledge that would save his life from the cancer eating away at his body.

That gentleman is perfectly free to make that comment. However, should we use that viewpoint to prevent or deny other people who do not have that luxury from having the medical knowledge and the tools that could ultimately save their lives? I would submit that we cannot do this.

Bill C-13 really deals with two important areas: assisted human reproduction technologies without compromising the health and safety of individuals, a very worthy endeavour, and prohibiting certain practices, what are known as unacceptable practices, such as human cloning.

I would submit that we should allow the use of embryonic stem cells up to seven days, and many scientists would agree, so that we can glean that invaluable knowledge on the differentiation, migratory pathways and communications that cells have between each other. It is absolutely essential for our ability to combat the cancer that kills so many people in our country and around the world.

On the issue of surrogacy, the bill seeks to provide compensation for costs incurred in surrogacy. We have between 50 and 100 women per year who actually become surrogate mothers, providing infertile couples with a child. The bill states that if an arrangement is made such that the woman receives more compensation than just costs like air fare and such, she will be criminalized to the extent of anywhere between $500,000 and up to 10 years in prison.

Let us imagine a woman who is a surrogate, who is giving of herself in an enormous way in terms of the pain and suffering, the time off work and the effects on her own body. If she has a child for another couple and receives money that somebody deems to be more than just compensation for costs, that woman would be criminalized and thrown in jail for up to 10 years. That is ridiculous. We need regulations because we do not want to commodify human reproduction, and everybody would agree with that, but for heaven's sake, to criminalize a woman or a couple for engaging in this is absolutely unbelievable.

The second point I want to make is what some put under the rubric of the buying and selling of sperm and eggs. Again, nobody wants to commodify that. However, people need to receive fair compensation for the time and effort it takes to make those donations. The extraction of eggs from a woman is not a simple procedure and is not without risks. Surely the person deserves a lot more than the bus fare to get down to the clinic. Those decisions should be made in a reasonable way with guidelines, not laws, that will enable reproductive groups to provide fair compensation to those people who give of themselves so that infertile couples will have the opportunity to have the children they want.

Another point is the issue of identification. The bill seeks to make public, or at least public for the interested parties, the identification of the donor. If this passes, we will see that up to 75% of people who donate sperm or ova will no longer be donors. They will be gone. They will not want to make their identities known.

I believe that the intent of the bill is to ensure that the child born of that conception and the parents of that child should have access to and knowledge of the medical health of the donor. That is perfectly reasonable. That has relevance for the child's future as well as for the parents taking care of the child. There is no reason, however, to make the personal identification of that donor known to any other party. That is not necessary.

The bill will also put a chill on and do an enormous amount of damage to the ability of organizations that deal with infertile couples to gain access to the material they require. I want to close, if I may, on that point and quote the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society, which is the professional body of fertility physicians. They object to Bill C-13 and its prohibition of payment. I want to quote the society, because it says this very well:

We believe as strongly as anyone else that human gametes are not commodities; they are things to be given freely.

That was said by Dr. Roger Pierson, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Saskatchewan and chair of communications for the society. However, he also said:

But we have to recognize there is considerable nuisance and time involved, and that deserves some form of compensation.

That is the point I want to make on the bill. The bill should not be passed until that is cleared up.

The bill also has to deal with the issue of language, because it is extremely vague. I would like to quote Dianne Irving, professor of philosophy and ethics, who appeared in front of the standing committee and said:

Of all the legislations that I have analyzed--on the basis of the correct science used, the linguistic loopholes employed, and the “genre” of “ethics” assumed--this Bill is probably the most problematic...it is my recommendation that this Bill should not be passed, even with amendments.

I support that and recommend that the government take the bill back and modify it so that it can be a fair bill that does not commodify the reproductive tools we have, a bill that enables infertile couples to have the babies they would like to have in the future, and a bill that does not inadvertently quash good science that could save people's lives.

[Gurmant Grewal, Canadian Alliance, Surrey Central, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the constituents of Surrey Central to participate in the report stage debate on motions in Group No. 2 relating to Bill C-13, the assisted human reproduction act.

This long overdue bill would regulate some activities such as the research involving human embryos and criminally ban others such as commercial surrogacy, non-medical sex selection, and all forms of cloning involving human reproductive materials.

It is imperative that we realize that we are creating legislation that would greatly affect the lives of many present and future Canadians.

The motions in Group No. 2 deal with such important issues as human cloning and the use of human embryos. The bill declares that human cloning, either reproductive or so-called therapeutic cloning, would be illegal. The total ban on cloning would put Canada at the forefront of an internationally contentious issue.

The bill would ban the creation of in vitro embryos for the purpose of research. Yet, it would permit embryos to be created for the purpose of reproduction and any surplus embryos would then be used for medical research, which means their destruction 14 days after conception.

For many years, adult stem cell transplants have successfully been used to treat a variety of diseases such as Parkinson's, MS and Crohn's. Adult stem cells include those collected from the umbilical cord, the placenta, brain tissue and bone marrow.

Embryonic stem cells, on the other hand, are those extracted from an embryo in a procedure that kills the tiny, yet 100% genetic human living being. Despite the hype we may have heard, embryonic stem cells have never been successfully used in clinical trials.

The University of Minnesota Stem Cell Institute researchers showed that adult bone marrow stem cells can become blood vessels. The Duke University Medical Centre researchers turned stem cells from knee fat into cartilage, bone and fat cells.

Last summer, a Montreal woman newly diagnosed with leukemia received a stem cell transplant from the umbilical cord blood of her new infant daughter. Seven months after the transplant the woman was in full remission and considered cured.

Canada is already a leader in adult stem cell research. For example, by supercharging adult blood stem cells with a gene that allowed them to rapidly reproduce, a team of Canadian researchers at the University of British Columbia healed mice with depleted blood systems. One day these adult stem cells may replace bone marrow transplants in humans.

Unfortunately, research using human embryos has not yet led to human healing therapies. We should focus our energies and scarce resources on research that is making a difference now.

In spite of these facts, Bill C-13 focuses on the use of the in vitro embryo and would regulate its use for research and experimentation. Such activity disregards the dignity of human life and reduces its value to that of a commodity.

I will be dealing with Motions Nos. 13, 14, 16, 17, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26 and 27 which all deal with some aspect of clause 5 in the current draft of the bill.

In brief, the proposed amendments call for changes that deal with the elimination of the option to clone a human being through any technique. They propose that the technology should be used for no other purpose than human reproduction including the experimentation and transplanting of an embryo, a sperm, ovum or fetus and that there would be no combining of any human genome with any part of the genome of a non-human species.

The subjects addressed in Bill C-13 are ethically complex and highly controversial. The Canadian Alliance supports some aspects of the bill. Some of the things in it are actually very good. We support the banning of human and therapeutic cloning, animal-human hybrids, sex selection, germ line alterations, the buying and selling of embryos, and paid surrogacies. However, the bill is far from perfect and needs amendments, including those amendments that we are considering today.

Given the great moral sensitivity of the decision, I believe the government ought to allow the conscience of every individual member of Parliament in the House to be freely heard by allowing a free vote on the bill.

The official opposition's minority report called for a three year prohibition on the experimentation with human embryos to allow time for the use of adult stem cells to be fully explored. We recommended that the government strongly encourage its granting agencies and the scientific community to place the emphasis on adult post-natal stem cell research.

We must make changes to the bill before it is voted upon. I hope that all hon. members will be listening to their constituents and voting accordingly on this important bill. I am sure the House is aware that 84% of Canadians are against the cloning of human beings. Let us also remember that medical therapies developed using human embryos may be refused by people who do not believe they are ethically derived. I am sure members are aware of the blood transfusion case in Alberta. Ethical concerns are important and we should look into those ethical concerns as well.

I remind all members that the bill is about improving human health, not destroying it. I am a pro-research person. I believe in research and we must give research a chance. The Canadian Alliance strongly supports research at this end, wherever it is compatible with the dignity and the value of human life. We should not forget that. The Canadian Alliance will strive to protect the dignity and value of human life because nothing is more precious than a human life.

The bill is about the best interests of children born through the use assisted reproductive technology. Along with my colleagues in the Canadian Alliance I will work to protect them. With this in mind I would urge all members of the House to vote with their conscience and to listen to their constituents.

I received many e-mails, phone calls and letters from my constituents asking me how I intend to vote. We should respect human life. It is known that human life exists after conception. We must have a free vote in the House and I would urge all members to vote with their conscience.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the discussion today of the amendments in Group No. 2.

We have been at this a long time. It is important for us to ensure that we expedite the process as quickly as possible to have legislation adopted by the House, ideally before International Women's Day. Obviously it will be hard to do that by March 8, but it would be a strong message to Canadians that this place is serious about putting legislation in place.

A number of individuals have made comments this morning. One in particular suggested that the purpose today was stringing out debate. I hope that is not what we are doing today. I hope we are not stringing out debate for the sake of talking and prolonging an important decision. I hope we are not using tools available to us to kill very important legislation. However that is not to say that we in the NDP support everything in the bill. We have so many concerns that we may end up voting against Bill C-13 at the final stage.

It seems to me that when we talk about the important issue of cloning, we need to be absolutely clear about what the bill says and about the issues at hand. As everyone in the House has said, the issue of cloning must be dealt with on an urgent basis. We have seen too many developments of late, too many reports, around the potential of human cloning to sit back and not take immediate action.

The question before us today is whether the bill is adequate to the task. Does the bill need further amendment? It seems to me that legislation can always be improved. There are certainly problems with this legislation.

With respect to the provisions in Bill C-13 which deal with human cloning, I suggest to hon. members that the bill offers a fairly clear set of recommendations that should accomplish what members have suggested this morning.

We were reminded this morning by the health critic for the Bloc that it was the member for Drummond who began the process that ended in the bill before us today with respect to human cloning. That member brought forward a private member's bill requiring strict prohibitions on human cloning. That bill was sent to committee, was subsequently reviewed and agreement was reached that a broader set of provisions needed to be undertaken to accomplish both the need to prohibit human cloning and address outstanding issues pertaining to reproductive technologies, an area that has been outstanding for 14 years.

I acknowledge the work of the member for Drummond in keeping this issue before the House. The onus is now on all of us to ensure that legislation is adopted as quickly as possible.

I also want to remind members how long this process has been going on and how outstanding this policy area is. Let us remember that it was in 1989 that the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies was struck. That is over 14 years ago. Let us not forget that we have been through numerous stages and procedures in the House trying to accomplish legislation reflecting the recommendations of the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies, recommendations that were presented to Canadians and to the House in 1993. The commission wrote 293 recommendations which gave clear direction to Parliament at that time about required action.

Let us not forget that we dealt with this matter in several forms, including Bill C-47 which was tabled in the House in 1996 and then died on the Order Paper when the election was called in 1997.

Let us not forget that the Standing Committee on Health and the Parliament of Canada have been dealing with this issue now for a couple of years. They have been studying a draft piece of legislation and we now have the final bill before us today. The work of that committee was very important to the process at hand. There are concerns that many of the suggestions made by the committee were not accepted by the government and that the bill falls short in that regard.

However, focusing on the amendments at hand under Group No. 2, we are talking about the strength of the bill to prohibit human cloning. It has been suggested that the bill would create a mirage, an illusion, of prohibiting human cloning and therefore needs numerous amendments to strengthen it.

That is not my understanding of this particular section of the bill. I am not sure that the amendments before us today presented in Group No. 2 would do anything in terms of strengthening the bill. In many cases they appear to be redundant to the provisions outlined in the bill.

The bill, under clause 5 listing prohibited activities, is very clear about restricting and outlawing any human cloning. In fact, paragraph 5(1)(a) states:

No person shall knowingly create a human clone, or transplant a human clone into a human being;

The bill goes on to list specific prohibitions with respect to the areas that are listed in these amendments before us today. I want to reference some of those because members will see that we are dealing more with an attempt to string out the bill and prevent its passage than we are trying to improve the bill and make it clearer in terms of prohibited activities.

The bill is clear about prohibitions with respect to the creation of in vitro embryos for any purpose other than creating a human being or improving instruction in assisted human reproductive procedures.

The bill is clear that there would be an absolute prohibition on the creation of an embryo from the cell, or part of a cell, of an embryo or fetus for the purpose of creating a human being. The bill is clear about prohibitions on maintaining an embryo for more than 14 days outside of a woman's body. It is clear about prohibitions in terms of sex selection. It is clear in terms of prohibiting germ line genetic alteration. It is clear about prohibitions in terms of transplanting a sperm, ovum, embryo or fetus of a non-human into a human being.

The bill is clear about prohibitions in terms of using human reproductive material previously in a non-human for the purpose of creating a human being. It is clear about prohibitions with respect to creating a chimera or transplanting a chimera into either a human being or a non-human life form. It is clear about prohibitions on the creation of hybrids for the purpose of reproduction or transplanting a hybrid into either human beings or non-human life forms.

Those are the clear prohibitions in the bill right now. Perhaps there is some fine-tuning that is needed. I would suggest to the member who has introduced these amendments that they are in many cases redundant and that the bill needs to be passed as soon as possible with respect to the urgency we all feel around developments in the area of human cloning.

I would suggest that we do everything we can to ensure that this bill becomes law, that we respect the work of the royal commission, and that we recognize that this is an urgent issue facing the health and well-being of all women.

[James Lunney, Canadian Alliance, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, again I am pleased to enter the debate on Bill C-13, a very important bill dealing with reproductive technology and related research. The Group No. 2 amendments, which are the subject of discussion today, involve a very important section of the bill that deals with matters like reproductive cloning. It deals with the delicate area of research in terms of embryos. There are some extremely important matters to be discussed in this section and the amendments that have been brought forward are very important to the way this bill will be implemented, if indeed it is passed.

The issue of cloning is an extremely important one. We hear a lot about cloning today and in the last few years in particular. There was Dolly the sheep and Matilda the sheep. Matilda, the Australian version, died when not quite three years old. There was a news report just recently that said “Australia's first cloned sheep dies of unknown causes. She appeared to be remarkably healthy” and now she is gone.

Dolly the six year old Finn Dorsett sheep, and the most famous one, was unexpectedly euthanized as she had progressive lung disease. A sheep ordinarily would live 11 or 12 years.

Scientists are alarmed about the dangers of human closing. The bill purports to ban cloning. However the hon. member for Mississauga South very ably addressed his concerns this morning that the scientific terminology was very loose in the bill. In fact there are many procedures now whereby cells can be manipulated and can step around the prohibitions that appear in the bill. The definitions in the current bill related to cloning are not adequate to protect Canadians, as the language of the bill would purport to do.

There is a group of people, the Raelians, running around. We have heard that name mentioned a few times today. The Raelians are a cult and they work through their company called Clonaid. Their vision is to perpetuate human life by creating a clone. Again the hon. member for Mississauga South used the Acting Speaker, the Speaker before you, Mr. Speaker, as an example. He said that if we took one of his cells, extracted the nucleus and put it into an ovum, one could stimulate it electrically and allow it to grow. The so-called therapeutic clone would be to take the immature model of Mr. Speaker and extract an organ, if he needed one, killing the clone in the process. That is so-called somatic nuclear cell transfer or therapeutic cloning.

Scientists, including many of the ethicists such as Dr. Françoise Baylis, Dr. Bartha Knoppers and I believe Patricia Baird as well as our stem cell scientists such as Dr. Worton and Dr. Alan Bernstein, the head of the CIHR, and many others, said at committee that we should open it up for therapeutic cloning. They do not want to close the door.

Frankly, there is very compelling reasons, ethically and morally, why we would not want to do that. I think Canadians would be averse to that as they came to understand the implications of the bill. Also, we feel many members of the House are just beginning to delve into the depths of this. The weighty matters involved with this and the scientific terminology causes some to bail out and take a whatever approach.

The members of committee sat through, waded through and listened to the scientists and experts who tried to help us understand this and work through the tangle. I have to compliment the member for Mississauga South for the efforts he has made to inform himself, as a layperson, on the very profound scientific implications of this bill. In fact he has probably become one of the most reliable experts around here. The work he has done and the book he has produced on stem cells to try and raise the level of understanding on all sides of the House is very commendable indeed.

The Raelians want to take some of their cells, take a human egg and implant some of themselves into this new being. They somehow feel that they would be able to transfer their being into a new clone that would look like them. We have to wonder where people are going with this.

The bill also deals with hybrids. Some amendments in Group No. 2 deal with the creation of hybrids. Motion No. 26 would bring some restrictions. Motion No. 27 and Motion No. 23 address various aspects of creating a hybrid for the purpose of reproduction. Motion No. 23 would add paragraphs into the prohibitions, paragraphs (j) and (k). Motion No. 23 states in part:

(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.

We have to think about the question of chimera. That is another word with which Canadians may wrestle. What on earth is a chimera. We are talking about these hybrid life forms. We have to wonder why would scientists want to take genes, or cells or cell parts from lower life forms and plant those into human beings, just to see what we might get out of it. It is kind of alarming.

Recently the Friendship Group of Parliamentarians for UNESCO met. The subject of the day was reproductive technology and Dr. Françoise Baylis was one of the invited speakers. She is an expert from Dalhousie University. I was rather shocked Dr. Baylis' remarks regarding chimera. She said:

I am asking people to think about chimeras because they represent for us the possibility that we will say one day that personhood right now means that human is a necessary but, for some, not sufficient condition for moral status. Chimeras between the species will force us to ask the question, ‘‘Do you even have to be human to get personhood?’’

What does she mean by this? She also said:

It is fascinating from a moral point of view to understand chimeras, intelligent computers and the world toward which we are moving because we will need to make fundamental value decisions about how to treat other beings.

Is it the purpose of scientists to create some other being? I may be part mouse and part human. Are we talking about something like Greek mythology, some kind of creature with a goat body and human trunk and a head? Where are we going with this? What do we hope to get out of it? Is it possible that she is contemplating that we would create another species with human life, part of it maybe has a human head, human ears and eyes and a mouse body and we will use this for research, but it will not be considered human.

Where on earth are they going with this? Why would we need to go there with the resplendent array of human genetic material we have available to us? There are about six billion of us on the planet. We come in various sizes, shapes, colours and with various racial descriptions. We are pretty well represented in the House of Commons in the type of human beings who are available on the planet. What an array of genetic diversity there is available to us. Why would we need to mix human life with other life forms?

From my knowledge of how viruses work, I am very concerned that this kind of research has the potential to open the doors to the transmission of viral diseases from other life forms that would never have crossed to human beings and offer the potential for catastrophic consequences. We have seen some nasty examples, such as growing human polio vaccine on monkey kidney and monkey brain cells. We ended up with monkey virus, like SV40, being transmitted to human beings. Health Canada right now is looking into whether over nine million Canadians have been infected with a cancer causing virus because of growing a virus on another species to which it would never have had access. Therefore the possibility of spreading disease is there.

The member has raised some excellent amendments in the Group No. 2 motions. They bring some measure of accountability to the bill. I hope all members of the House will look at them seriously and will vote the right way when it comes to voting on these motions. They will tighten up the bill and the definitions and restrict the creation of the mixing of animal and human genes.