Assisted Human Reproduction Act

An Act respecting assisted human reproduction

This bill was last introduced in the 37th Parliament, 2nd Session, which ended in November 2003.

Sponsor

Anne McLellan  Liberal

Status

Not active, as of Nov. 7, 2003
(This bill did not become law.)

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

Speaker's RulingClimate Change Accountability ActPrivate Members' Business

May 12th, 2008 / 11:05 a.m.
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Liberal

The Speaker Liberal Peter Milliken

There are four motions in amendment standing on the notice paper for the report stage of Bill C-377, An Act to ensure Canada assumes its responsibilities in preventing dangerous climate change.

The Chair does not ordinarily provide reasons for its selection of report stage motions in amendment. However, in light of the point of order raised on Thursday, May 8, 2008 by the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh and the subsequent intervention of the hon. deputy government House leader, I would like to convey to the House the reasoning involved in considering these motions.

In his submission, the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh described the particular circumstances surrounding the committee consideration of Bill C-377.

During its consideration of the bill, the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development presented three separate reports. In the first of these reports, presented on April 14, 2008, the committee described procedural difficulties it had encountered in the course of its study of Bill C-377 and recommended some action that the House might wish to take.

On April 29, 2008, in its second report relating to this bill, the committee reported Bill C-377 with eight amendments. On the same day, the committee presented a third report. This report explained that having begun its clause by clause study on March 3, 2008, prolonged debate on clause 10 of the bill resulted in an impasse; and that as no further progress seemed possible, the committee turned to the consideration of a motion, the effect of which was to deem adopted the remaining parts of the bill and to agree that the bill be reported to the House without further debate or amendment. This motion was adopted on division by the committee.

The hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh also referred to previous Speaker's rulings where motions in amendment at report stage were selected on the basis that members involved did not have the opportunity to present motions during the committee consideration stage. Specifically, he cited a ruling given on January 28, 2003, regarding Bill C-13, An Act respecting assisted human reproduction, and a ruling given on November 6, 2001, regarding Bill C-10, An Act respecting the national marine conservation areas of Canada.

In his intervention on Friday, May 9, 2008, the hon. deputy government House leader also reviewed the sequence of events surrounding the committee consideration of the bill and referred to the two rulings just cited. He went on to argue that, in his view, the committee's decision to report the bill back to the House prior to the May 7, 2008 deadline represents a conscious decision of the majority of the committee not to make full usage of the time remaining and thus to forego further opportunities to propose amendments at the committee stage. On this basis, he concluded that the motions at report stage should not be selected.

Four report stage motions have been submitted. These motions are identical to committee amendments which were not considered due to the impasse, as described in the committee's report and the adoption by the committee of the motion to report the bill. The motions relate to clauses of the bill which were deemed carried at the committee stage, quite clearly as a way out of the impasse.

The Chair is now faced with the matter of selection. The note accompanying S. O. 76(5) reads, in part: “The Speaker ... will normally only select motions which were not or could not be presented [in committee].”

Having carefully reviewed the sequence of events and the submissions made by the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh and the hon. deputy government House leader, the Chair is of the opinion that we are facing very exceptional circumstances. The committee recognized that the impasse was significant and wanted to bring that situation to the attention of the House. It did so in a report which states in part:

Given the impasse, the Committee opted not to consider the remaining clauses and parts of the Bill....

Therefore, I am satisfied that these motions could not be presented during the committee consideration of the bill, and accordingly I have selected them for debate at report stage. Accordingly, Motions Nos. 1 to 4 will be grouped for debate and voted upon according to the voting pattern available at the Table.

I shall now propose motions numbered 1 to 4 to the House.

HealthOral Question Period

November 5th, 2003 / 2:40 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Rob Merrifield Canadian Alliance Yellowhead, AB

Mr. Speaker, an important vote on human cloning will be held tomorrow at the United Nations. There are 65 countries that will be supporting a resolution that would ban all forms of cloning. However, there are 23 countries, including Canada, that will back a weaker proposal that would allow therapeutic cloning.

It is strange that the government would be supporting therapeutic cloning at the United Nations, even though Bill C-13 aims to ban human cloning.

Why would the government be supporting a resolution that does not reflect its own legislation?

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 28th, 2003 / 6:20 p.m.
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Liberal

Marlene Catterall Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON

Mr. Speaker, just to clarify, there are two motions on Bill C-13. The first is a procedural motion and I believe there is consent to apply. There will be a standing vote on the second motion on third reading of the bill.

I would ask that you seek the consent of the House that those who voted on the previous motion be recorded as voting on this motion now before the House, with Liberal members voting yes.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 28th, 2003 / 6:20 p.m.
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The Speaker

The House will now proceed with the taking of the deferred recorded division on the previous question at the third reading stage of Bill C-13.

Assisted Human ReproductionStatements By Members

October 28th, 2003 / 2 p.m.
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Liberal

Judy Sgro Liberal York West, ON

Mr. Speaker, for too long Canadian women and their children have waited for Parliament to pass legislation on assisted human reproduction and genetic technologies.

Bill C-13 is the result of more than a decade of careful consideration and consultation that is designed to protect the health and safety of women and the children born to them through assisted human reproduction.

This legislation is all about hope: hope for couples struggling with infertility and hope for Canadians with disabilities such as Parkinson's, MS and leukemia. And let us not forget the children born with juvenile diabetes, who would benefit from research into the use of stem cells to treat these diseases. An open letter released on October 25 by 65 leading health care experts calls on Parliament to pass Bill C-13.

As parliamentarians, we have a responsibility to put in place a framework to regulate aspects of reproductive technology and to act now in the best interests of hundreds of Canadian families who have waited so long for this to happen.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 27th, 2003 / 4:20 p.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House of Commons to provide all hon. members with what I believe to be a summary of some of the substantive reasons why I do not support Bill C-13.

First, the bill does not ban all forms of human cloning. Dr. Ronald Worton testified before the Standing Committee on Health and said that many of the definitions are in error or problematic from a scientific perspective.

In addition, we had the opinion of Dr. Dianne Irving, formerly of the University of Georgetown in Washington, who stated that the bill mixed up medical and science definitions. She also said that Health Canada had made an amendment to a definition to add the reference to a deployed chromosome from a single living person or a previously deceased person.

The bill says that no person shall knowingly create a human clone. However, human clone is a defined term in the bill. It says that a human clone is an embryo, not someone walking around the streets. It is an embryo that contains, as a result of the manipulation of human reproductive material or an in vitro embryo, a deployed set of chromosomes obtained from a single living or deceased human being, fetus or embryo.

This is suspiciously complex--members would agree--and it begs the question, why does it not say that a human clone is simply an embryo which is genetically identical to another living or deceased human being or human embryo? That is very straightforward. Why is it so complex? Why does it have so many adjectives and conditions?

Dr. Irving identified four methods of human cloning which are not covered by the definition because of that word “single”; getting cells from a single person rather than from one or more. The United States legislation uses the phrase “one or more” because there are proven techniques which use cells from more than one person.

If we do not ban all forms and techniques of human cloning, then we really miss all of them. All they need is one.

Dr. Irving lives in the U.S. and was called as a witness two days prior to the U.S. Thanksgiving and could not appear as a witness when called. No one has ever challenged Dr. Irving's opinions that the bill does not ban all forms and techniques of human cloning for any purpose.

Despite the assertions of armchair media, Bill C-13 does not ban all forms of cloning and therefore the bill, as it stands, does not ban human cloning at all.

The United Nations is currently debating a resolution to ban all forms of human cloning for any purpose. Canada is not supporting that resolution. There is an alternative resolution sponsored by the French and the Germans to ban cloning for human reproduction purposes and to permit human cloning for research and experimentation. Not only is Canada supporting this limited ban on cloning, we are actually a co-sponsor of that resolution before the UN.

Canada, therefore, has one position at the UN and a different position in Bill C-13 which is totally unacceptable.

Alternatively, we could say that the UN position is in fact precisely the same as in Bill C-13 which is that Canada supports human cloning for research and experimentation. This is also unacceptable. Never has Health Canada said that we would support human cloning of any type and yet we have that same resolution being supported at the UN.

Based on the unrefuted testimony and opinions of Dr. Worton and Dr. Irving, it is clear that Bill C-13 would ban human cloning for reproduction but would permit human cloning for research and experimentation. This is unacceptable.

As an aside, a human clone is arguably a human being. The definition in the bill of a human clone is that it is an embryo. By logic, that means that human life begins at conception, that is, when there is an embryo. This will make for an interesting debate when the question of when human life begins is again before the House.

As I indicated, medical and scientific definitions are a problem. One of them was chimera. It has been changed from the established medical and scientific definition without disclosure of that fact. That is unacceptable.

Chimera refers to the combination of human and non-human life forms. The medical and scientific definition states that it is the implantation of human reproductive material into non-human life forms or the reverse, that is, implanting non-human reproductive material into humans.

The bill itself has a definition of chimera which is different. It refers to the implantation of non-human reproductive material into humans but does not include the reverse. As a consequence, the bill would in fact permit the implantation of human reproductive material into non-human life forms creating animal/human hybrids.

Dr. François Pothier of Laval University told a parliamentary round table that he can see animal/human hybrids being granted personhood status in the future. Can hon. members imagine an animal/human combination being granted personhood status? How bizarre; how scary. Permitting animal/human hybrids for research has never been a stated objective of the bill. I believe that this is a sleight of hand in drafting and assumes that no MPs would ever have picked up this difference when doing their homework.

The next area I wanted to comment on is the fact that there are insufficient surplus human embryos from fertility clinics to sustain meaningful research. Dr. Françoise Baylis testified that in Canada there were less than 10 surplus human embryos that would meet the research quality requirements. She concluded that there were not enough embryos available for meaningful research in Canada and last November she announced a research study to more thoroughly survey the fertility clinics in Canada.

Her application for funding was pending approval from the Canadian stem cell network which the government funded. To date, we have heard absolutely nothing on the study because it would prove that the only way to get enough embryos to sustain meaningful research is to permit human cloning for research and experimentation, as is done in the UK, which is also, incidentally, a co-sponsor of the partial ban resolution at the UN.

The UK has already killed 40,000 embryos in doing embryonic stem cell research and there is not one shred of positive evidence coming out of its research. The only way it got that many embryos is that its legislation permits it to clone human embryos and create them for research purposes, which is apparently contrary to the position of this government in Bill C-13.

The definition of human clone in Bill C-13 does not cover all forms of cloning. To allow this to proceed would violate the ethical guidelines for research on humans as laid out in the tri-council policy statement which covers all medical science and research professionals in Canada. It is also contrary to the position of the Royal Commission on Reproductive Technologies.

Members cannot say that there are no guidelines on cloning because there are. The only difference is that in Bill C-13 there are criminal sanctions. In the ethics of medical science and research professionals, the only sanctions would be the professional sanctions, possibly to lose status in the profession.

The next item is the fact that the bill will not improve the accessibility or safety of fertility treatment. One of the fundamental principles of the bill is that human reproductive materials are not commodities to be commercialized. The bill specifically prohibits the purchase or sale of sperm, eggs or embryos.

However, Canada has a shortage of sperm for fertility treatments and a Health Canada spokesperson testified before the health committee that today we import about 30% of our sperm from other countries, including the U.S., and some of it even comes from U.S. prisons.

By cutting off the ability to purchase sperm through imports or through for profit sperm clinics in Canada, the accessibility of fertility treatments in Canada will actually decline. If we do not have enough sperm and we have to import it today, but we cannot import it after Bill C-13 becomes law, we will not have enough sperm to provide for the demand of fertility treatments.

Health Canada has a solution. The solution is to establish an altruistic system like blood donation. However, it did not disclose this fact or explain why it thought it would be successful. Basically, it thinks people would donate out of the goodness of their hearts to help others with fertility problems.

If there are no commercial transactions permitted then how can researchers get surplus embryos from fertility clinics without some sort of compensation? Health Canada had a response to that, too; however, it said it had not figured it out yet. How do we get things going from fertility clinics into the hands of third party researchers? Its response was that it had not figured it out yet, but it would work it out and deal with it in the regulations.

Non-embryonic stem cells can in fact do anything that embryonic stem cells can do. In June 2002 Dr. Catherine Verfaillie of the University of Minnesota Stem Cell Institute published verified research that non-embryonic stem cells can do anything that embryonic stem cells can do. In fact, Dr. Pothier, who I mentioned earlier from the University of Laval, said that despite the ethical and immune rejection problems of embryonic stem cells, researchers want to use them because there is no money in non-embryonic stem cells.

The only reason they want the embryonic stem cells, in my view, is the commercial benefit. Researchers get their money from private interests substantively, from biotech firms and pharmaceutical companies. They want to use the embryonic stem cells because they are subject to immune rejection problems which require lifelong immune rejection drugs. Dr. Pothier was honest with the roundtable. There is no money in non-embryonic stem cells.

The final area that I want to comment on--and it was a theme that I thought was quite appropriate because it happens far too often in this place--has to do with the notion that some people think that MPs are nobodies.

The Standing Committee on Health reviewed the draft bill and made 34 recommendations. It asked for a response from the government within 150 days and there was no response forthcoming. The fact that there was no response makes me ask, why? The answer is because somebody thinks that MPs are nobodies.

The committee made three substantive amendments to Bill C-13 during clause by clause study. However, at report stage, the minister had her own motions to reverse all three and they passed. As a consequence, all of the work of the committee was effectively dismissed as wasted time. Why? Because somebody thinks that MPs are nobodies.

The definition of human clone is faulty and actually permits certain forms of human cloning. Health Canada did not think anybody would pick it up in the scientific definitions. Why? Because somebody thinks that MPs are nobodies.

Bill C-13 would change the medical definition of chimera to only prohibit the implantation of non-human life forms into humans but not the reverse. Nobody thought that MPs would catch that. Why? Because somebody thinks that MPs are nobodies.

Either Canada has one position at the UN and a different position in Bill C-13, or in fact the position at the UN to allow cloning for research and experimentation is identical to what it is in the bill. I agreed that it is the truth. Either way, it is unacceptable.

Nobody thought that we would find out about what we were doing at the UN, that we had a different position than what was being told to Parliament. Nobody thought we would find it. Why? Because somebody thinks that MPs are nobodies.

The bill has 28 areas in which regulations must be promulgated and details that are significantly important to the bill in order for members of Parliament to know what they are voting on. The bill has so many blanks in it because the detail will be in the regulations. This is the way we always do it. Why? Because somebody thinks that MPs are nobodies.

We are not nobodies. We should never be treated like that by anyone. We are entitled to have our questions answered and to be respected for our work. The House of Commons starts off each day with a prayer that we make good laws and wise decisions.

To conclude, let me assure all hon. members that I have spent two years doing my homework on Bill C-13 and it is my opinion that the bill is not a good bill but a fatally flawed bill.

Furthermore, since the government has closed the door on any consideration of amendments, I believe that the wisest decision is to defeat Bill C-13. We can and should do a better job on behalf of all Canadians.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 27th, 2003 / 4:05 p.m.
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Progressive Conservative

Greg Thompson Progressive Conservative New Brunswick Southwest, NB

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-13. In fact I am one of the few members of the health committee who is in Ottawa today. The committee is on a cross-country tour on the pharmaceutical industry. I wanted to be here for this debate, as did other members, but sometimes I guess it is a question of one's priorities. As I have not spoken at third reading, I thought it important to be here.

This is an example of how a bill can go wrong. From the very beginning there was quite a bit of enthusiasm for this bill. This stems back to the royal commission on reproductive and genetic technologies about 10 years ago. Legislation concerning this subject has been before the House many times under different Parliaments and has yet to be passed.

There is a level of support for some clauses of the bill, those which pertain to reproductive technology. I do not think there is any question that there is support in the House for that. Our concerns are with some of the darker sides of the bill, which have been addressed by members today and which have to be acknowledged by the government.

It is the heavy-handedness of the government which put itself in the position of playing cat and mouse on the bill in terms of whether or not the bill will actually survive a vote on the floor of the House of Commons. There are many members on the government side not to mention on this side who are clearly upset with the direction the legislation is taking.

Many members will remember Hubert Humphrey, a famous American politician of a generation of politicians just slightly ahead of us. In fact at one time he was vice-president of the United States. He had an expression that the true measure of a government was how it cared for the elderly, the poor, the disenfranchised. I am paraphrasing, but basically he was saying that how a government looks after those people who need looking after is the true measure of a government. If that test is applied to this bill, it is a flawed piece of legislation.

It reminds me very much of the 1989 abortion bill that was on the floor of this House, Mr. Speaker, just shortly after you and I entered this place in 1988. I may be wrong, it may have been 1990, but somewhere in that timeframe we came into the House on a very contentious piece of legislation which many of us thought was flawed. We had an opportunity to vote on it.

My position always has been that I would never support any legislation that would basically destroy human life. I would only support abortion if the life of the mother was clearly endangered. Members of Parliament were under a lot of pressure to pass that legislation. Despite that pressure I stood and voted against the government on that bill and I have never regretted it.

On this bill, truly we are looking at just about the same dilemma. We do not want to deny the advancement of science which is really what the bill is founded on. It is a very wide-ranging bill. I will get into some of the banned practices later. Some members have mentioned them and maybe there is no need to go over them precisely.

It is interesting to note that nowhere in Bill C-13 is there an acknowledgement that its purpose is to stop infertility. That was supposed to be the focus of the bill. There is no mention in the bill of genetic testing of embryos and fetuses or how that would impact upon people with disabilities. There is nothing in the bill prohibiting the patenting of human genes. Therein lies the problem. The bill leaves openings big enough to drive a Mack truck through, as was mentioned by the member for Scarborough Southwest.

If we go through the minute detail of Bill C-13, the question becomes does it in fact prohibit cloning? I do not think any of us here in the House could claim to be experts on this subject, but there is no question in the minds of many experts that the bill would not stop cloning. It does not prohibit the very thing it says it would prohibit. The member pointed that out as well as he stepped through some of the details of the legislation.

Where does that leave many of us? None of us wants to be perceived as stopping the advancement of medical science. We know there is a balance between ethical concerns, moral concerns, philosophical concerns, religious concerns and so on against the advancement of medical science. We have to be sensitive to those concerns that haunt many of us.

I was stricken with cancer a number of years ago. I am probably one of the few members in the House who has had a stem cell transplant which basically translates into a bone marrow transplant. Through the advancement of medical science, individuals do not have to wait for a perfect match within their family where the risk is somewhat diminished versus the risk involved with someone outside the family. Over the last number of years stem cells can be harvested during the chemotherapy process when one becomes “cancer free” and has no cancer cells in the body. I am abbreviating much of the procedure because it is very complicated and I cannot pretend that I understand all of it.

I am here because of that advancement in medical science. My stem cells were harvested. Once I went through the bone marrow transplant, those stem cells were put back into my body thereby reducing the possibility of cancer reappearing. I am the recipient of that huge advancement in medical science in that particular area.

Some members may say that I should be the last person to object to some of the advancements that might take place because of the experimentation on the embryos. What concerns us is the ethical dilemma that we are in where these embryos, which are basically the beginning of human life, will be destroyed in the process.

Our party will have a free vote on this issue. I will be voting against it because of some of the concerns I have just outlined. Bill C-13 is flawed legislation. The government has had 10 years to get it right and it is not right yet.

I want to thank some of the government members opposite on the good work they have done on that, particularly the member for Mississauga South and others, including the member from Scarborough who just spoke.

I will conclude with that. I have appreciated the opportunity to put a few words on the record.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 27th, 2003 / 3:55 p.m.
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Liberal

Tom Wappel Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address the House on this very important bill. I have talked about the bill before, but unfortunately I ran out of time. Therefore, I want to make a couple of comments on a couple of specific issues.

I want to begin where the hon. member for Wild Rose left off. He was talking about definitions and what we were talking about here. I just want to remind everybody that there is a definition of the word embryo in this statute, and I will read it.

--“embryo” means a human organism during the first 56 days of its development following fertilization or creation...

That means that by the very terms of the bill, by the very words of the bill, it is confirmed that an embryo is a human being. It is right in the act, so what are we talking about?

Of course it is a very complicated bill. There are many things in it. It has been partly drafted by lawyers, partly drafted by doctors and partly drafted by bureaucrats. However, there are many important fundamental considerations that must be addressed when we are talking about the bill. One is what are we doing when we are talking about experimentation on embryos, which by definition are human? It strikes me as utterly macabre to be talking about legislating permission to experiment on humans. Ultimately, that is exactly what we are talking about.

Experimentation on humans has occurred before, much to the distress of the world community. It is a question of where in the development of the human being this experimentation would take place. Here we are trying to have a regime where it will be possible to experiment on human organisms from the time they are conceived up until a certain defined time. That to me is something that we must not rush into.

I am heartened in my resolve by a survey which was recently conducted. The survey results were released on October 21. I would like to talk to members and to Canadians about the results of that poll.

I for one am a person who does not believe that we should legislate by polls, because after all if we legislate by polls, we do not need to be here. Everybody could ask the questions by polls and the legislation would occur. However, it does give us an opportunity to find out where Canadians stand on questions. I do know that whatever government is on this side of the House at any time, it will always stand when polls are favourable and say “The polls show that our policies are favourable to Canadians”. Of course the polls are ignored when they are not favourable.

Be that as it may, this poll was conducted by Léger & Léger. It was conducted between October 6 and October 13. It has a maximum margin of error of 2.5%, 19 times out of 20. The poll asked 1,500 Canadians a question. Basically they were asked if they thought it was acceptable to use human embryos for stem cell research or if they thought it would be preferable to use other sources of stem cells which did not involve loss of life or harm. The results are pretty clear. Only 21% thought it was acceptable to use embryonic stem cells, 33% said that it was not acceptable, while 37% said that it would be preferable to use other sources. What does that mean? It means that 70% of the people polled favoured ethical alternatives to embryonic stem cell research.

That is an important statistic because once people are educated to what it is we are talking about, they realize that they do not want to go down that dark road where we authorize the permission to experiment on human organisms. That is a very dangerous path which we must not follow.

There are numerous problems with this bill and one of them, which I would like to talk about, is the position of the government that says that the bill bans cloning. This comes up because there is a discussion going on right now in the United Nations. The United Nations delegates are considering whether there should be a resolution to ban cloning. One of the discussions is, should the ban apply only to reproductive cloning, or should it apply to therapeutic cloning or should it apply to all forms of cloning?

I do not know this for a fact, but it would appear as if the Canadian position at the United Nations is to favour a resolution which would ban only reproductive cloning. If that is true, it goes contrary to the stated position of the government in the House of Commons. On Monday, October 6, during question period, the Minister of Health was asked about this issue and about what was going on in the United Nations. I will quote her answer directly. While speaking about Bill C-13, she stated, “we ban all forms of human cloning”.

A supplementary question was asked and the Minister of Health answered, “Bill C-13 bans all forms of human cloning for any purpose, howsoever done”.

That is pretty darn clear. That is the same minister who, when she was minister of justice, indicated that there was no possibility there could be any interpretation of the definition of marriage other than that it was the union of one man and one woman. Wrong once, it is certainly possible to be wrong twice.

The definition in the bill of human clone states, “an embryo”, and that is a human organism:

--that, as a result of the manipulation of human reproductive material or an in vitro embryo, contains a diploid set of chromosomes obtained from a single - living or deceased - human being, foetus or embryo.

In my view this definition would cover a number of things, but would it cover everything, which is what the minister has told us it would cover in her answer. In my view, by using the word “single”, it would not cover pro-nuclei transfer. It would not cover the formation of chimeras and back breeding. It would not cover mitochondria transfer. It would not cover DNA recombinant germ line gene transfer or eugenics. All these kinds of cloning techniques have been described in several articles that we have been sent and, of course, that the committee has considered. To say categorically that all forms of human cloning have been banned, in my respectful opinion, is at best a mistake. I could go on.

It becomes a very complicated process to discuss this in medical terminology. However, suffice it to say, although I am not a doctor, I am a lawyer and I know that if definitions are not nailed down six ways to Sunday, someone will drive a Mack truck through that definition. We will see things happen that we did not anticipate and it will be too late to close the floodgates.

I urge the House to consider very seriously whether it wishes to pass this bill at this time. I am thankful for everyone's attention.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 27th, 2003 / 3:45 p.m.
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Progressive Conservative

Gary Schellenberger Progressive Conservative Perth—Middlesex, ON

Mr. Speaker, I will not take my full three minutes, but there is one thing I would like to say again on Bill C-13, the assisted human reproduction act. I wonder if it might not be prudent for the government to allow for a free vote on the bill as it is a conscience bill. That is all I want to say.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 27th, 2003 / 1:50 p.m.
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Progressive Conservative

Gary Schellenberger Progressive Conservative Perth—Middlesex, ON

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-13, the reproductive technologies act. I have my reservations about this particular bill primarily because of the cloning aspect that might be perceived here.

Bill C-13 seeks to prohibit or control reproductive technologies such as cloning and establish a new federal agency to regulate and license fertility clinics and biomedical research involving human embryos. A bill solely addressing reproductive technologies would have easily passed over a year ago. However, since the vast majority of MPs would have voted to ban human cloning, it was thought that the bill would piggyback the ethically sensitive issue of destroying human embryos and still get passed.

Having underestimated the significant public backlash, the bill became the subject of intense public scrutiny. Initially, the concern was the ethics of destroying human embryos to harvest stem cells for research, but as time passed, many other weaknesses of the bill were discovered. I know a lot of those weaknesses have been discussed here today and I would wish that people would look into them even more.

Members should consider the following weaknesses. Despite the fact that Health Canada has already corrected one error in the definition of a human clone, the bill still does not ban all known forms and techniques of human cloning. I know, through much of my political career, that definitions are very important. One must look at all the definitions that could be described in this bill.

The bill would permit the implanting of human reproductive material into non-human life forms. The biomedical definition of chimera involves the implantation of reproductive material from a human into an animal or from an animal into a human; however, the definition in the bill only refers to the latter. I have friends who have had pig valves implanted in their hearts. I know that has been a very positive thing in life and in how things carry on, so I do understand that particular part.

Experts have estimated that there are less than 10 embryos available in Canada that would meet research quality requirements. The number of surplus embryos is not expected to increase since medical technology has improved. Comparatively, the U.K. has destroyed 40,000 human embryos without any positive research results.

The conflict of interest provisions are so weak that they would allow biotech and pharmaceutical companies to be represented on the board of the agency that would approve and licence research projects.

Significant clauses of the bill have been qualified by phrases such as “as per the regulations”. There are 28 areas in which regulations must be developed and these will not be known until at least 18 months after the bill has passed. Effectively, MPs are being asked to vote on a bill without knowing the full intent. Furthermore, MPs will not be permitted to approve regulations.

The Royal Commission on Reproductive Technologies and the health committee both recommend that paid surrogacy be prohibited. The bill would permit surrogates to be reimbursed for lost employment income if they get a doctor's certificate.

The bill ignores women's health issues by not establishing reasonable limits on the amount of drugs used by them or on the number of ova that can be harvested, or embryos that can be implanted.

The bill prohibits the purchase or sale of human reproductive material, but Health Canada does not explain how researchers would get embryos from for profit fertility clinics without paying compensation.

The bill does not establish uniform disclosure or informed consent practices to be used by all fertility clinics. Such disclosure would protect the interests of the infertile.

The health committee urged that the bill state what constituted necessary research. Specifically, the committee recommended that research on human embryos be permitted only if it could be demonstrated that that was no other biological material that could be used to achieve the same research objectives. The bill rejects the recommendation and delegates the decision to the federal agency.

The health committee made 30 such recommendations on the draft bill. The report received no response and most of the key recommendations are not reflected in Bill C-13.

The health committee heard from about 200 witnesses and received over 400 written submissions. As a result of that work, the committee passed three substantive amendments to the bill. At report stage, all three amendments were reversed, with the effect that the work of the health committee was virtually ignored.

I can relate to that particular situation. I have seen it happen with various other committees. I am a member of a couple of committees that have worked very diligently on various pieces of legislation. Being in the--

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 27th, 2003 / 1:40 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Inky Mark Canadian Alliance Dauphin—Swan River, MB

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate on Bill C-13, the assisted human reproduction act.

The recent history of the government has shown that the government likes to divide Canadians. We are already divided on lines of urban and rural demographics, and by regions. We are even divided on moral lines as witnessed by the proposed legislation regarding same sex marriage and some of the debate that has taken place in this House.

It is unfortunate that we spend so much time debating issues that divide this country.That is a question that this government and future governments need to address.

I believe this House is an instrument that should unite Canadians. If we cannot do the research and come to common sense positions, we should certainly not bring it into this House where it divides the country even more.

The other point I would like to make is that the work of the committees needs to be listened to by governments, not only today but down the road. There is no point in spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers' money, listening to witnesses and travelling across the country, only to end up with legislation that does not reflect at all the views of Canadians, the experts of this country.

It is so unfortunate that too often to talk about divisive issues in this House rather than issues that unite this country.

Again, this is one of those social-moral issues that the country wrestles with from time to time. We know that on the science side there are advantages and benefits to research. At the same time there are moral issues that need to be addressed by this country. We cannot just throw them into one pot and hopefully make a decision that makes all Canadians happy because that will not take place.

Maybe the first way to deal with this is to call for a free vote in this House. That way members of Parliament can represent their constituents. There are 301 constituencies in this country. We all come from different regions and locations. The makeups of our ridings are different in nature.

Our constituents have the last say. Certainly, in a represented democracy that is the key. The constituents sent us here and they should have a say in terms of how this country is run and the kind of legislation we should put in place.

Bill C-13 seeks to prohibit or control reproductive technologies such as cloning and establish a new federal agency to regulate and license fertility clinics and biomedical research involving human embryos.

A bill solely addressing reproductive technologies would have easily passed over a year ago. However, since the vast majority of MPs would have voted to ban human cloning--which I am sure would have taken place in this House--it was thought that the bill could piggyback the ethically sensitive issue of destroying human embryos and still get passed. Having underestimated the significant public backlash, the bill became the subject of intense public scrutiny. That is the conflict we have today.

Initially, the concern was the ethics of destroying human embryos to harvest stem cells for research; however, as time passed, many other weaknesses of the bill were discovered.

Despite the fact that Health Canada has already corrected one error in the definition of a human clone, the bill still does not ban all known forms and techniques of human cloning. I can assure the House that the people of Dauphin—Swan River do not support human cloning. The majority of my constituents do not support Bill C-13.

The bill would permit the implanting of human reproductive material into non-human life forms. The biomedical definition of chimera involves the implantation of reproductive material from a human into an animal or from an animal into a human. However, the definition in the bill only refers to the latter.

Experts have estimated that there are less than 10 embryos available in Canada that would meet research quality requirements. The number of surplus embryos is not expected to increase since medical technology has improved. Comparatively, the UK has destroyed 40,000 human embryos without any positive research results.

The conflict of interest provisions are so weak that they would allow biotech and pharmaceutical companies to be represented on the board of the agency that would approve and license research projects.

Significant clauses of the bill have been qualified by phrases such as “as per the regulations”. There are 28 areas in which regulations must be developed and these will not be known until at least 18 months after the bill is passed. Effectively, members of Parliament are being asked to vote on a bill without knowing the full intent. Furthermore, MPs will not be permitted to approve regulations.

The Royal Commission on Reproductive Technologies and the health committee both recommended that paid surrogacy be prohibited. The bill would permit surrogates to be reimbursed for lost employment income if they get a doctor's certificate.

The bill would ignore women's health issues by not establishing reasonable limits on the amount of drugs used by them or on a number of ova that could be harvested, or embryos that could be implanted.

The bill would prohibit the purchase or sale of human reproductive material, but Health Canada has not explained how researchers would get embryos from for profit fertility clinics without paying compensation.

The bill would not establish uniform disclosure or informed consent practices to be used by all fertility clinics. Such disclosure would protect the interests of the infertile.

The health committee urged that the bill state what constituted necessary research. Specifically, it recommended that research on human embryos be permitted only if it could be demonstrated that there was no other biological material that could be used to achieve the same research objectives. The bill would reject the recommendation and delegate the decision to the federal agency.

Let me close by saying that the health committee made 36 recommendations on the draft bill. Its report received no response and most of its key recommendations are not reflected in Bill C-13. In other words, why did we waste all that money doing the work that the committee did? The government still refused to listen to the committee. We will certainly oppose the bill.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 27th, 2003 / 1:30 p.m.
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Bloc

Suzanne Tremblay Bloc Rimouski-Neigette-Et-La Mitis, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak on this matter, because it is an extremely important issue in the current context. If we had more time, we could give the complete background of this issue.

Since we first came here in 1993, the Bloc Quebecois has many times very simply asked the government to pass a legislation regarding assisted human reproduction. We have asked the government to legislate within its jurisdiction, that isunder the Criminal Code, in order to allow provinces who wish to do so to deal with the administrative aspect of this issue once the federal government has decided to pass legislation in the area of assisted human reproduction.

Last spring, the Minister of Health finally decided to introduce Bill C-13. At one point, we asked her to split this bill, to settle the issue of the criminal aspect and to submit the issue of regulation to more extensive debate because there was no unanimous agreement on it, far from it.

So far, the minister has refused to split the bill in two. While we agree with some of the measures contained in this bill, the Bloc Quebecois members will be forced to vote against it. They will oppose the bill for numerous reasons.

Last spring, when we had a PQ government in Quebec, Mr. Legault was health and social services minister. He had clearly indicated his position. He said that in the present context of extremely rapid evolution in reproductive technologies and practices, the Quebec government agreed that there was a need to ban unacceptable practices such as human cloning. He wanted the government to act in this area.

The government went still further by saying that, unfortunately, it did not accept Bill C-13 because, once again, the federal government had not seen fit to stop where its jurisdiction left off. It was getting involved in areas under provincial jurisdiction. For ten years now we have been repeating this, and for ten years now the government has been turning a deaf ear. It acts as if it did not realize it was going beyond its limits. Then, it acts all surprised and describes the Bloc Quebecois as being opposed to everything. The Bloc is not against everything, but it is for defending the interests of Quebec. It is for defending the jurisdictions of Quebec and against the federal government's sticking its nose into our business. We have said this often enough, but the government does not want to understand.

For a variety of reasons, then, other colleagues will be rising this afternoon to speak out according to their conscience. Some others have already voiced their opinions and some of them will also be voting against the bill. I trust it will have the time to die on the order paper. This is an unacceptable bill as far as provincial jurisdictions are concerned. It represents a fundamental lack of respect for provincial areas of jurisdiction.

When we had a PQ government, perhaps the government across the way did not find it surprising that there was opposition to this bill. It told itself that this was not surprising, that sovereignists were totally against this bill because it was a federal bill.

Now, since April 14, we have a government in Quebec that has more of a federalist leaning, one that is a member of the same Liberal family as the one here. Yet this past October 8—not that long ago—the Quebec health and social services minister totally rejected Bill C-13. To have done the same as the Bloc Quebecois, and to reject this bill, he too must be a nasty separatist.

Our new branch office in Quebec City, which stands up for Quebec's rights, has also decided to stand up against Bill C-13. We made a commitment to the people of Quebec that we would come to Ottawa to defend the consensus in Quebec. What a wonderful consensus. This is what the health minister himself says, and I quote:

We have sent a clear signal to the federal government that we are very concerned about certain aspects of the bill, which we see as a clear encroachment on provincial jurisdictions.

What I think is interesting in what the minister is saying, is that he is using a word that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs like to use a lot, the word clear. He said that he sent a clear signal to the government that it was clearly encroaching on provincial jurisdictions.

The federal government must wake up and realize that, as far as we are concerned, it will not get very far with this bill. Even the Quebec minister himself would like the bill to die on the order paper, and would prefer that the bill not go forward, because it is far from ready and because, in terms of regulation, we already have a great deal of it in Quebec. We have a number of bills on this topic.

What did Minister Legault say last spring? He said that in Quebec, thought about assisted human reproduction and the development of related techniques began 15 years ago. He said that legislative and administrative measures, both for research and service delivery, had been implemented.

The provisions in Bill C-13 would change the process for designating institutions that deliver certain services exclusively. Under Bill C-13—should it be passed—the way Quebec's Civil Code views assisted human reproduction would be called into question and at least ten of Quebec's laws and regulations on this subject would be ultra vires.

We also have a different concept of access to information and the confidentiality of assisted human reproduction cases. The bill outlines qualifications required for professionals who practice assisted human reproduction and it sets out the authority to manage the storage of human reproductive material in the institutions. In some cases, the bill completely disregards the direction the Government of Quebec has taken in areas that are exclusively under its jurisdiction.

It is important for the federal government to understand that it must legislate criminal matters, because that is its responsibility. The issue of assisted human reproduction cannot continue to be left in a vacuum. The government has to change its mind entirely and get rid of clauses in the bill that encroach on provincial jurisdiction. It absolutely must do this and demonstrate good will.

The government has to realize that no matter what party is governing in Quebec, the moment the federal government interferes in Quebec's jurisdiction, Quebec's ministers and MNAs will stand up and speak out against the federal government for disregarding the Constitution that it signed. Even though we did not sign it, we are asking the government to abide by it.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 27th, 2003 / 1:20 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Rahim Jaffer Canadian Alliance Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-13 at this particular stage. I have had the chance to address it on a couple of previous occasions.

We in the opposition feel that regulation is needed in this field. We have heard that from a number of members debating this topic today. As many of my colleagues have said, there is concern about this because it deals with the creation and death of human life and requires some measure of public oversight on that regulation.

It should be noted that we do support a number of aspects of Bill C-13. We fully support bans on reproductive or therapeutic cloning, chimeras, animal-human hybrids, sex selection, germ line alteration and the buying and selling of embryos. We also support a regulatory body to monitor and regulate fertility clinics, though we want changes to the agency proposed in the bill.

As many of my colleagues have talked about the aspects of the preamble, I will focus specifically on some of the concerns we have with the bill in its current form. 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 interests should have priority in the decision making around the idea of assisted human reproduction and related research.

The three priorities were the following: first, children born through an AHR system; second, adults participating in AHR procedures; and third, researchers and physicians who conduct assisted human reproductive research.

While the preamble of the bill recognizes the priority of AHR offspring, and this is a good thing, other sections of the bill fail to meet the standard. Children born through donor insemination, from donor eggs, are not given the right to know the identity of their biological parents. I will address the issue of donor identity in a moment.

The bill's preamble does not provide an acknowledgement of human dignity or respect for human life. This is obviously a big issue for many people in Canada. 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 that many people have identified.

The committee's minority report recommended that the final legislation clearly recognize human embryo as human life and that the statutory declaration include the phrase “respect for human life”. We believe the preamble and the mandate of the proposed agency should be amended to include reference to this principle of respect for human life. That would help to calm many people's fears because many people do feel that science and technology, reproductive technologies and the continuing on of research in many of these facets for improving Canadian's lives and the conditions of other people around the world is something that is very important. Clearly there needs to be some recognition of the importance of human life so people's fears that this will not be abused in the future can be calmed.

In the area of the regulatory agency, the bill would create the assisted human reproduction agency of Canada to issue licences for controlled activities, collect health reporting information, advise the minister and designate inspectors for the enforcement of the act. The board of directors would be appointed by a governor in council with a membership that would reflect a range of backgrounds and disciplines relevant to the agency's objectives. The bill in this area was amended at committee placing board members under conflict of interest provisions. That is something that is of importance.

At report stage the health minister succeeded, however, in undoing part of that amendment. Licensees remain ineligible to serve as board members but the minister removed the section requiring that board members have no pecuniary or proprietary interests in any business operating in the reproductive technologies field. That is an important change because we have seen over and over again many conflicts of interest, or alleged conflicts of interest, in this government. We would hate to see that happen in an independent body that is obviously overseeing the regulation pertaining to reproductive technologies.

Clause 25 would allow the minister to give any policy direction she likes to the agency and the agency must follow it without any questions. If the agency were an independent agency, answerable strictly to Parliament, such political direction would be more difficult. The entire clause should be eliminated in our opinion.

The Canadian Alliance proposed amendments specifying that the agency board members be chosen for their wisdom and judgment. This was a health committee recommendation in the report “Building Families”. We want to avoid an agency captured by interests and clearly, that would be a good thing. Members must be able to work together to pursue the greater good, not merely represent certain constituencies.

The Liberals rejected their own recommendation when our amendment came up during the review of Bill C-13 at committee. At report stage the health minister succeeded in deleting one of the clauses requiring board members of the assisted human reproduction agency to come under conflict of interest rules. On this point, I believe the health committee had it right. Board members should not have commercial interests in the field of assisted human reproduction or related research.

We can draw on examples here. Imagine an employee or an investor in a biotech company with a financial interest in embryonic stem cell research making decisions for Canadians on the regulations of such research, including the definition of the word necessary, as specified in clause 40. Imagine the director of a fertility clinic making regulations on limits on sperm and egg donations or number of embryos produced for IVF treatments. Such conflicts of interest need to be prevented in this legislation. This change obviously could rise in some of those unfortunate conflicts.

The health minister said that subclause 26(8) would prevent almost anyone from serving on the board, but this was clearly not the intent of the health committee in its spirit.

To move on to the issue of donor anonymity, I know it is something that many of my colleagues have addressed in the House. Although the agency would hold information on donor identity, children conceived through donor insemination or donor eggs would have no right to know the identify of their parents without their written consent to reveal it. Donor offspring would have access to medical information of their biological parents. Some of the concern with this is that donor offspring and many of their parents want to end the secrecy that shrouds donor anonymity and denies children knowledge of an important chapter of their lives.

The Liberals claim to want to put the interests of children first, but in this case think the desires of some parents should trump the needs and interests of children.

In its review of draft legislation the health committee recommended an end to donor anonymity. Even in the minority report, the CA position was that where the privacy rights of donors of human reproductive materials conflicted with the rights of children to know their genetic and social heritage, the rights of the children should prevail.

However, when the issue came up during the review of Bill C-13, the Liberals defeated an Alliance amendment to end anonymity in a close vote. I believe it was six to five on the committee.

The government attaches a higher weight to the privacy rights of donors than to the access to information rights of donor offspring. This is where the Liberals get it backwards. An identified donor is a responsible donor and if all donors had to be willing to identify, then people would donate for the right reasons. Today, one of the main motivations for anonymity is the money factor, which is unfortunate.

There are just a couple of last concerns I would like to address before concluding. One of the issues is with clause 71, which allows the grandfathering of controlled activities until a date fixed by the regulations. This clause would allow scientists to engage in a controlled activity before the act takes effect thereby avoid licensing requirements and prosecution provisions. This could result in a stampede toward controlled activities before the bill takes effect. An example would be embryonic research.

The other issue I would like to address is the chimera issue. This bill prohibits animal to human chimera. That means human embryos implanted with animal cells. However, it does not prohibit human to animal chimera, animal embryos implanted with human cells. The definition of chimera should have been amended to include both human and animal embryos in which cells of other species have been implanted. I believe Motion No. 5 to this effect was unfortunately defeated, at committee.

A Liberal motion passed at report stage would allow the reimbursement for loss of work related income for surrogates when a doctor certified that continuing to work would pose a health risk to the carrier of the fetus. We oppose the motion because it permits the commodification of human life, rent a womb, payment for children, and the health committee also wanted no such payment for surrogacy. This was another issue of concern for many people.

I conclude by saying that I hope the Prime Minister will allow a free vote on this issue. It is obviously a matter of conscience for many members and we hope that element of bringing in a free vote in this place will be respected.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 27th, 2003 / 1:15 p.m.
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Miramichi New Brunswick

Liberal

Charles Hubbard LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development

Mr. Speaker, I listened with a great deal of interest to the speeches given not only today but over the months and years that we have been looking at the various aspects of Bill C-13.

I know Health Canada and various other groups have spent a great deal of time putting the bill together, and we as parliamentarians have listened with interest to the points of view of many different groups not only here in the House but also across the country.

I would like to mention three or four main concerns that many people have with the legislation, cloning being one. I am not sure who in our society wants to be cloned. I do not think society would benefit a great deal if I or the hon. member for Prince Albert were cloned. However, within the biological concepts that civilization is now discussing, there is the possibility that humans can be cloned.

We have been hearing about the great need in terms of reproductive technology. We know that many families have difficulty having children. As a result, our best medical people and many of our clinics are working toward the concept that couples who have trouble conceiving will be able to have children as a result of research and work that might be done as a result of Bill C-13.

One of the main concerns the people in my riding have is the matter of embryos. It appears that Bill C-13 does not really define what stage of life an embryo is. We know that an embryo begins at conception but in terms of the definition that we might want to use with the bill, when does an embryo change from one that may be used for scientific purposes to one that has the value of life and is allowed to develop into a human being?

The right to life groups are especially concerned that the embryo, really being the beginning of life, should not be part of any research that is being done. They believe that an embryo is the beginning of human life and should be allowed to continue to develop into a child.

More important, when we talk about producing embryos in terms of the legislation, we have to be concerned about what will become of the ones that are not used. When semen is matched up with an egg, the embryo results and if more than one is produced in terms of a couple wanting to have children, what becomes of the others? Can they be frozen and kept for later on in terms of creating a new life with a surrogate mother?

In terms of the whole concept, I hope we will debate the bill in the House and develop the best possible legislation that we can offer to the Senate. The Senate will then review the legislation at length. Hopefully, through sober thought in the other house, which is part of government, it will make changes that will be brought back to this House so we will eventually produce an act that will enable our country to have a good system of reproductive technology.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 27th, 2003 / 1:05 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

John Williams Canadian Alliance St. Albert, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join in the debate on Bill C-13 dealing with reproductive technology on which many people have waxed eloquently in this chamber on many occasions. I feel it is only appropriate that I add my voice to this very controversial and contentious yet extremely important debate.

It seems to me, when I take a look at the bill, that members of the government have not truly figured out where babies come from. Perhaps they still believe in the stork. They seem to differentiate between the way that we deal with embryos and life before birth and life after birth. I think that is totally wrong on the Liberals' part. I can understand their whole motivation because it seems to be the way that they do things.

Let us start with adults. Before adults, they were children. Before children, they were babies. Before they were babies, they were babies waiting to be born. Before they were fetuses, they were eggs and sperm. It is a fairly simple process of a continuum leading, hopefully once we reach old age, to death and the life hereafter, however we believe in that. The point is there is a continuum from inception all the way through gestation to birth and life.

We all know it has been the government's policy to leave a vacuum and to wait for the courts to fill that vacuum before it acts. Then the Liberals will say that society has moved in a certain direction and they just have to legitimize it through legislation. We have seen that on the same sex marriage issue that is currently being debated in the country.

We could go back a number of years to when the abortion agenda was fought at great length. The debate was heated. Finally the government of the day under Mr. Brian Mulroney said it did not know what to do as it could not come to a consensus, so it left a vacuum and the courts filled it. Today abortion is something that is just a normal occurrence. It happens hundreds of times across Canada each and every day.

Here we are again. The government wants to leave a vacuum in the legislation so that researchers can be allowed to use embryos as if they were just specimens cut from a piece of flesh and do their research and testing as if there were no consequences whatsoever. There are many Canadians who believe that human embryos are life in transition, life in the evolution to being a full born baby. As the previous speaker pointed out, we would never hand over our babies for research. We would never allow our babies to be slaughtered for research, although it did happen once before in history and many people died in order to put a stop to that.

Again here there is the notion that embryos, life in the womb, life before birth, are now going to be used by researchers just as another commodity. That debases all life and if it debases all life, it debases us, those who were elected to lead and make decisions on behalf of all Canadians. If we allow life to be debased, where does it stop? What do we stand on? Where do we stand? Do we believe in the right of every Canadian to freedom or only those who have been born?

The government has refused time after time to provide legislative protection for life before birth. It has always struck me as unexplainable that the day before a baby is born it can be aborted, and that is the end of that, yet if somebody kills it the day after it is born it is murder and subject to life in prison; 25 years and no parole. It is two days apart: the day before birth and the day after birth. What was different? Nothing was different in my opinion.

The government tends to leave human embryos before birth totally without legal protection of any kind whatsoever. The more the government allows this vacuum to remain, the more science starts to use these embryos for research and the more it becomes an everyday occurrence the more we just say “Well it is already here so let it happen”.

What does this place stand for if it is not as the voice of the nation, speaking out not only for those who are alive today but those who are being born today.

It reminds me of something, more on abortion than on embryos. I listened to Cross Country Checkup a few years ago when there was a debate on abortion. I believe it was Rex Murphy who had a panel of young people. One young gentleman said on the radio that life had been tough for him. He had a single mother and he grew up with nothing to speak of, no affluence or prosperity. They struggled along but he said that he was really glad that his mother had decided not to abort him. Even though life had been tough, he said that he would rather have that than no life at all.

Now that abortion has become commonplace, if we do not stop this now, embryos for research will become commonplace.

Do they feel pain? I do not know. I am not in the medical science business. However if they do feel pain and we start taking knives to them and doing whatever else we do to them, I cannot imagine the horrors we would be inflicting upon these embryos. We leave it to science and to the scientists who are performing these research tests to tell us whether they believe that an embryo can feel pain. When it is still at the very early cell state, perhaps not, but I am sure later on the pain actually becomes something that they can feel. I would imagine that it is not something that switches on, on a particular day. I would think it is something that evolves over time during the gestation period, and the concept of pain becomes something that an embryo can deal with.

Where does this human research stop and where does it start? What is allowable and what is not?

Going way back to the dawn of history, I think we realized that life begins before birth and therefore I think it is more in line that we bring in protection for life before birth, rather than allow it to be on the researchers' tables so that they can examine these cells underneath the microscope.

We do not know what is going to happen. We should always err on the side of caution. We should always err on the side of Canadians born and unborn, potentially born. To allow this type of process to become a normal process would be debasing to our society.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 27th, 2003 / 12:55 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Philip Mayfield Canadian Alliance Cariboo—Chilcotin, BC

Mr. Speaker, during the last session I had the opportunity to address the House on what was then Bill C-56. Now I have the opportunity to continue to address this important piece of legislation which is now Bill C-13.

The number of the legislation has changed, but the concerns have not changed. Given that the legislation, when enacted, will govern human biological technology development for perhaps the next 50 years, the government's lack of care, caution and ethical integrity is both astounding and frightening. We know that the legislation goes right to the heart of the issue of what it means to be a human being and the relation of a human being to the state.

It is arguably the most important piece of legislation the House will ever deal with. Members of the official opposition have been mindful of this fact and I would like to acknowledge their hard work, especially on the health committee, in this regard.

The notion of what it means to be a human being sounds quite lofty and academic, but let us accept the fact that the bill is about children, about how people can be assisted in conceiving and having healthy children and about ensuring ethical technology around this important endeavour.

I last spoke about the issue of using adult stem cell research instead of the ethical minefield of embryonic stem cell research. The official opposition supports the bill's ban on cloning. We also support the ban on commercial surrogacy. However, this time I would like to keep my address to just two other important issues, first, the issue of the agency created by the bill and second, the identity of the rights of children born of such technologies. Indeed, the creation and responsibilities of the agency take up half the text of the bill itself and the identity rights of children created through these technologies is given precious little consideration.

The official opposition supports the creation of an agency to oversee any technology related to the assisting of people having healthy children. However there are problems with the relationship of the agency, parliamentarians and the public at large, just to name a few.

There are no provisions in the bill for regular reports by the agency to Parliament, but the agency itself will not be independent. Just like a government department, it will write its own performance evaluation. We know that many of the regular governmental department performance reports are rarely worth very much.

Another problem is that a minister of the crown can at any time give an order to affect any of the agency's powers. This is despite the fact that regulations must be laid before Parliament and can be referred to committee. This is not accountability; it is another expansion of ministerial power and the diminishment of accountability to Parliament.

Another problem is that the configuration of the agency falls under orders in council. That is a problem. We have all the usual concerns regarding this type of governance. Experience has taught us that the government does not have a stellar reputation in this regard.

What will be the ethical framework of the board of directors and the president of the agency? We know their mandate is to foster the application of ethical principles in relation to assisted human reproduction. I have no doubt that they will be scientifically and legally well informed individuals, but how much confidence will the public have if the appointments for such issues as life and death are made by orders in council? My guess is that ethicists will be add-ons to the list of what we call experts and stakeholders. The ethicists' role is crucial, but the government would be hard pressed to recognize an ethicist even if it fell over one. It is a telling sign of the times that we even have ethicists on call to help us with these complex issues.

It is lamentable that we cry “Canadian values”, and then fail miserably sorting out good and evil, necessary and unnecessary, and conflict of interest. What was once understood and recognized as being right and true has deteriorated into a collision of group rights versus individual autonomy. Ethics are based on longstanding tried and true principles, not on day to day polls on human values. It is no less true in the legislation.

We also demanded that any recommendations by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health should be considered seriously by the health minister. We know that the government likes to put most issues of process and accountability out of the reach of parliamentarians and the public through the creation of a myriad of bureaucratic regulations. However, the official opposition demanded that any regulations affecting the health of unborn children be referred to the health committee.

Regulations are only as good as they are achieved by consensus. That consensus includes the Canadian people through their elected representatives. Such consensus cannot be achieved in the dark by ministerial fiat.

These demands from the official opposition in no way undermine the research and science on this issue. The official opposition always supports the goal of health and well-being for Canadians.

As for the rights of the children conceived by the assistance of sex technologies, the goal is still healthy children, remembering that we have come a long way in the medical advancements for physical well-being of children. However, it has always been my contention that the bill does not deal with that other part of our lives that is so important to us. That is our identity.

Life is more than just physical well-being. It is important that the environment for children is both safe and loving and that the parents of children born through these technologies receive the best care in part because of the great effort taken to have them created. However, there is something more. It is our human connectedness to the past.

Many adoptive parents in Canada go a long way to ensure that their children know their heritage if it is different from the non-biological parents. Why do they do that? Because they realize the importance of culture and history as well as the biological roots.

We have whole sections of our society stratified according to their birth and heritage in order for certain rights and privileges. Whole government departments are dedicated to a section of our society because we recognize the importance of history.

Genetic and biological parental identity apparently is important to the government for particular groups of people, such as the aboriginal community, but for anyone with the assistance of this technology, the identity of the biological parents is not allowed to be considered as important. This bizarre and inconsistent policy, I believe, amounts to the commodification not of the child but instead the donors of sperm and ovum.

Sperm and ovum are called reproductive material in the bill. Yes, this material is the constituent entity of the continuation of human life, but we know and celebrate that human life is also the intricate web of relationships, cultures and histories.

We cannot nor do we want to escape the physical reality that there is a mother and a father to every human being who walks this earth. Children conceived by these technologies should have the opportunity to know who their mother and father are.

This is why we on this side of the House do not agree with the anonymity of human reproductive material. Anonymity degrades and commodifies such natural material. In fact, the United Nations recognizes the right for all children to know their biological identity and yes, that means the identity of the mother and the father, whether through birth or what they call “other status”. If the traditional adoptive processes of this nation are starting to recognize the importance of identity, why does this legislation not?

Donating sperm and ovum is not the same as handing over a child. The psychological impact of the two cannot be compared. Donations of human reproductive materials can result in hundreds of children with similar genetic heritage.

I am sure that members from all parties would agree with the United Nations on this particular issue of the right to identity for all human beings. Anonymity should not be an option. The fear is that the supply of donors will decrease dramatically.

Yes, we will no longer get university medical students or will we get donors of sperm compliments of the U.S. prison system. Instead we will get more mature adults who understand the plight of those wishing for a healthy child. The motivation is on completely different grounds. Sweden and New Zealand have both moved to a known donor system. We know that it can be done.

This biological material is not like a pint of blood or a kidney or a heart that means life to a patient. We are all somebody's child and so should those be who are conceived through this technology.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 27th, 2003 / 12:45 p.m.
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Bloc

Michel Guimond Bloc Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-De- Beaupré—Île-D'Orléans, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to speak to third reading of Bill C-13, the Assisted Human Reproduction Act. At the outset, I want to indicate that the Bloc Quebecois intends to vote against the bill. Our Liberal friends opposite are experts at confusing the public and twisting the policies put forward by other parties and the way their opponents vote.

First, for the record and for those who are watching us, I want to make one thing clear. The Bloc Quebecois does support a ban on cloning. However, we will oppose the bill in its present form, unless the government agrees to split it.

My hon. colleague from Hochelaga—Maisonneuve moved in committee to split the bill. The provisions concerning paid surrogacy and cloning would have been dealt in one bill. We would then have been able to support a ban on cloning and paid surrogacy and to forget about creating a new Canada-wide agency to control the operations of infertility clinics throughout Canada.

This is why we intend to oppose the bill if it is not amended. However, people should not try to interpret our opposition as meaning that we agree with human cloning. I wanted to put things in perspective from the outset.

As I was saying earlier, the bill would create a pan-Canadian agency to control fertility practices across the country. We consider that all this is strictly within the provincial governments' jurisdiction. This is another example of the type of federalism that is advocated and preached by the Liberal Party of Canada. This really is riding roughshod over provincial jurisdictions.

The members of the Bloc are sovereignists. There is no ambiguity there. We want to tell this government that the way it is acting only serves to confirm and reinforce the reasons for which Quebec should get out of the Canadian federation. Quite simply, the federal government is not content to stick to its own areas of jurisdictions, as they were set out in the Constitution Act, 1867, when Canada was born. The Bloc Quebecois members consider that this pact does not work any more. This is why we believe that the best way to get rid of this constitutional agreement is for Quebec to achieve sovereignty. We will then be able to take all of our responsibilities and to do as we see fit, as everything will then truly be under Quebec's jurisdiction.

This government is once again riding roughshod over provincial jurisdictions. This is why we cannot support this bill.

I believe that today's discussions on this bill are a clear illustration of what my colleague, the hon. member for Trois-Rivières, has presented in his motion, which will be voted on later this week, during private members' business.

That motion deplores this government's flagrant intrusion into areas that are under the jurisdiction of Quebec, which is the reason we say, and I repeat, that sovereignty is the way to put an end to this.

I believe the very eloquent speech of my colleague from Trois-Rivières, and those of the other colleagues who have spoken on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois, clearly illustrate what is going on. Bill C-13 provides us with evidence of just how justified the motion introduced by my colleague for Trois-Rivières is.

As reinforcement of the Bloc Quebecois position, on Tuesday October 7, Quebec health minister Philippe Couillard confirmed his opposition to the controversial Bill C-13, because he felt—and still does—that it is clear interference into Quebec's jurisdiction.

I do not know if people will agree with me. Perhaps the Quebec health minister is re-examining his political career. This reputed neurosurgeon may be rethinking his federalist allegiance, since he is a member of the Liberal Party of Quebec, a federalist party, and the party that has formed the Government of Quebec legitimately elected by the majority of the population since April 13, 2003. So, we must acknowledge that the Liberal Party of Quebec constitutes the Government of Quebec. Yet, its Minister of Health has made clear his opposition to Bill C-13, because he considers it an encroachment on areas that fall under the jurisdiction of Quebec. As it happens, he objects to precisely the same provision that we in the Bloc Quebecois find problematic: the creation of this Canada-wide super-agency, which would administer, regulate and control practices in all fertility clinics across Canada.

For all these reasons, we in the Bloc Quebecois must pursue our efforts and representations. Perhaps the members of the Liberal majority will eventually see the light. Perhaps they could reconsider and just withdraw Bill C-13 or not go ahead with it.

Now that the member for LaSalle—Émard is firmly in the saddle, even though he has yet to be chosen at a convention, and that he is clearly in control of the legislative agenda, there are rumours of an adjournment on November 7. All one has to do is look at how long we are taking to debate in this place matters that could be resolved much faster.

The government is drawing things out. It does not have an agenda. It is keeping members busy at committee with various tasks that are not necessarily useful, while we would like to know what direction this government wants to take and what the position of the member for LaSalle—Émard, the phantom leader of the Liberal Party is. Witness the fact that he is never in the House, he is never here to answer questions. The member for Saint-Maurice, the current Prime Minister, is answering the questions while the other one is pulling the strings, with his informal cabinet meetings, and his informal pizza lunches. In reality, he is the one pulling all the strings.

We saw it last week, with respect to the high-speed train in the Quebec City-Windsor corridor. The henchmen, the Pontius Pilates of the member for LaSalle—Émard, used that issue to literally trash and question this government's commitment to invest $700 million in a high-speed train project.

And this is happening constantly. I think the government should show its true colours and withdraw Bill C-13. At any rate, we will be voting against it.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 27th, 2003 / 12:40 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Lynne Yelich Canadian Alliance Blackstrap, SK

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-13, the government's ill-conceived blanket legislation regarding reproductive technologies and human embryo research, two very distinct and very important issues rolled into one piece of legislation.

With regard to reproductive technologies, there are some positive elements to the legislation, including the fact that it addresses bans on reproductive or therapeutic cloning, chimera animal-human hybrids, sex selections, germ line altercation and the buying and selling of embryos.

Cloning is of particular concern to constituents in my riding. I have received numerous letters, postcards and petitions from residents asking Parliament to pass legislation that would stave off the potential threat of cloning research in Canada. They feel it is an affront to human dignity, rights and morality.

Research on embryonic human stem cells requires the destruction, the death, of the embryo. So far no disease has been cured or alleviated as a result of this research or the use of embryonic stem cells, despite early hopes that such therapies might be helpful for patients suffering neurological diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

In contrast, use of adult stem cells is a far more acceptable option to many people, and research suggests using adult stem cells may even be a favourable option.

Dr. Helen Hodges, a British researcher, has said that adult stem cells may be safer and more flexible than fetal cells. According to Hodges, some of the work she has done indicates adult stem cells travel to the area needing repair, whereas embryonic stem cells remain where they are injected.

Hodges also notes that because adult patients can donate their own stem cells for treatment, the cells are not treated as foreign objects by the body's immune system and rejected.

Other published research suggests adult stem cells are able to develop into a greater variety of different tissues than embryonic stem cells and are favourable because they are more readily available.

Earlier this year, writer Wesley J. Smith highlighted the story that appeared in the New York Times of a teenager whose heart had been pierced with a three-inch nail, causing him to have a serious heart attack. The teen was selected to take part in a clinical trial using adult stem cells to repair damaged hearts. A special protocol was developed and after extracting stem cells from the young man's blood they were injected into the coronary artery that supplies blood to the heart. A few days later the teen's doctor noted an incredible improvement in his heart function.

While not yet common, cases such as that one are far from isolated and are giving researchers hope for the potential of adult stem cell treatments.

As Smith noted in his article:

Money spent on embryonic-stem-cell research and human cloning is money that cannot be spent on [investigating] adult stem cells.

A new era appears to be dawning in which our own cells will be the sources of very potent medicine. Rather than having to choose between morality and the wonders of regenerative medicine, it increasingly looks like we can have both.

On behalf of my constituents, I have to voice the concerns my party and I have about the use of embryonic research, particularly when a viable alternative such as the use of adult stem cells looks so promising.

Bill C-13 would allow for the creation of embryos, especially for reproductive research. If put into law, this would legitimize the view that human life can be created solely for the benefit of others.

Embryonic stem cell research inevitably results in the death of an embryo, early human life. It is a scientific fact that an embryo is early life. The complete DNA of an adult human is present at the embryo stage. For many Canadians, this violates the ethical commitment to respect human dignity, integrity and life.

Embryonic research also constitutes an objectification of human life, where life becomes a tool that 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 include the umbilical cord, blood, skin tissue and bone tissue. In fact just this weekend the headlines in our local paper, the StarPhoenix , indicated that the umbilical cord has saved the life of one of our young children.

Adult stem cells are easily accessible. They are not subject to immune rejection and they pose minimal ethical concerns.

Embryonic stem cell transplants are subject to immune rejection because they are foreign tissues, while 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, resources and efforts should be focused on this more promising and proven alternative.

The bill specifies that the consent of the donor to a human embryo is required in order to use a human embryo for experiment. The bill leaves it to regulations to define donor, note the singularity of the term donor, but it is vital to remember that 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.

I have only just touched on some of the complex elements of the bill. The issues I have highlighted are the ones that are of the most concern to my constituents, and I am pleased to bring those concerns to the House.

Residents and organizations in my riding have expressed, categorically, opposition to the embryonic stem cell research. I have heard from my own constituents and from across the province, but specifically from towns, villages and the city of Saskatoon in my riding.

Residents and constituents from the towns of Allan, Bladworth, Bradwell, Burr, Colonsay, Elbow, Hanley, my own community of Kenaston, Lanigan, Loreburn, Outlook, Strongfield, Viscount and Watrous, including Young, all want to send a clear message. They do not want the killing of embryonic humans for the purposes of stem cell research. They believe this is immoral, unethical and unacceptable.

I ask that when it comes time to vote on this bill that my colleagues in the House will keep in mind the concerns of constituents from my riding and from across the country.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 27th, 2003 / 12:30 p.m.
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Bloc

Paul Crête Bloc Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC

Mr. Speaker, I rise in this House today, at third reading stage of the bill on assisted human reproductive technologies, to draw the attention of the hon. members of this House to a common occurrence in this Parliament.

We saw it this morning, during private members' business, when we debated a motion about intrusion in Quebec's jurisdictions, which was put forward by the hon. member for Trois-Rivières. This is a case in point.

The assisted human reproduction bill was introduced a long time ago, and has been before this House for a very long time. It dates back to even before the April 14, 2003 election in Quebec. At the time, Quebec was opposed. Federalist members in this place may think that there was opposition because there was sovereignist government in Quebec City, but it is not so.

The new Government of Quebec, a federalist government led by Mr. Charest, and the health minister, Mr. Couillard, have spoken out against this bill. They did not address the substance, but wondered whether this was not a systematic encroachment on an area of provincial responsibility.

Therefore, the Bloc Quebecois cannot support such a motion. The current federalist Government of Quebec will not support such a bill either, and does not want it passed.

I remind the hon. members that Bill C-13 on assisted reproduction will make human cloning a criminal offence. That is not a problem, since the Criminal Code falls under federal jurisdiction. We therefore support this notion. The same is true of the ban on paid surrogacy.

The Bloc Quebecois, the Government of Quebec and all parties in the National Assembly of Quebec all agree, however, when it comes to the establishment of a Canadian agency to monitor the practices used by fertility clinics across the country. That is what the Quebec health minister, Mr. Couillard, is opposed to.

It is important for people to realize that the government is putting legislation through in an area over which it has, for a large part, no jurisdiction. In this respect, the Bloc Quebecois proposed that the bill be split, to ensure that federal jurisdiction was clearly defined, and that we would be voting on the matters of federal jurisdiction. As for the part that is more specifically a provincial jurisdiction, we should leave it to the provinces to look after it.

It was reported in Le Devoir that:

The position taken by the Charest government makes it even more unlikely that this very controversial bill will be passed in the House of Commons over the next few days.

Quebec understands what is going on here. When the Government of Quebec speaks out against the fact that the federal government is encroaching upon its jurisdiction, it is totally normal for Quebeckers to be united in seeking justice.

We often see this type of behaviour on the part of the federal government. We saw it with young offenders and with the millennium scholarships. Bills that interfere in Quebec's jurisdictions are being rammed through the House, which makes it obvious that this government does not believe in co-operative federalism.

Today, we know that the Government of Quebec, a federalist government headed by Jean Charest, is against this bill. It wants everything that comes under provincial jurisdiction to be removed from the bill. So why would the federal government not take the time to re-examine its bill and remove from it all aspects that are not under its jurisdiction, so as to respect the consensus that exists in Quebec?

We also know that members of the Alliance and a number of pro-life Liberal members are opposed to this bill. More specifically, they are opposed to the use of human embryos for stem cell research. This is not the thrust of the debate in which I am taking part this morning. Indeed, it is an area that needs to be regulated, but it must always be done with respect for provincial jurisdictions.

In fact, the Quebec health minister, Mr. Couillard, said that if the bill were defeated or died on the order paper, he firmly intended to deal with this issue. He said that this issue could not be left dangling, that a firmer regulatory framework was needed and that they would clarify the situation with their federal counterparts and then decide whether or not there was a need to legislate.

However, the federal government must first accept to take a step backwards and wait before passing this bill so there is no interference in provincial jurisdictions.

We know full well that Quebec has no jurisdiction in criminal matters, but it could have jurisdiction over the organization and management of fertility clinics. Mr. Couillard, the minister, said so himself, and I quote:

We will set up the appropriate legislative framework in our own jurisdiction, but I shall wait to see how the federal plan evolves before going any further.

Thus, we are in a system, the federal system, where each of the two governments claims jurisdiction over the same sector, from time to time. Here it is clear: the aspect relating to the Criminal Code is a federal responsibility, while the aspect relating to management of fertility clinics and all aspects related to health are under provincial jurisdiction.

Moreover, different approaches have become established in various provinces for some years. In Quebec, we hope to continue to be progressive in this field, to show leadership and adopt attitudes that reflect the will of Quebeckers. That is what is lacking today.

Often, there are situations that are difficult to assess; there must be legislation to manage the issues of cloning and surrogate motherhood. It is important to make laws in this domain, because if no one does, problems will be left unresolved and behaviours will become habits. Nevertheless, the federal responsibility is not to take a position in areas under provincial jurisdiction, but rather to pass a bill that deals with its own jurisdiction, as soon as possible.

If the federal government had taken this kind of attitude when the bill was first debated in the House—I think that was over a year ago—we would already have settled the issue. In fact, we could have split the bill and adopted it based on the elements that are federal government responsibilities. On that part of the bill, the Bloc Quebecois would probably have supported the federal government. As for the other part of the bill, which is not within federal jurisdiction, the Bloc cannot support the government.

The government led by Jean Charest, the Parti Quebecois, as official opposition, the Action démocratique du Québec, intervenors from the field, who are familiar with actual practice in Quebec, and the general public—although they may not all agree on the approach to be taken—all believe that the Government of Quebec has the responsibility, that it should shoulder that responsibility and that the federal government should stick to its own areas of jurisdiction.

We know that unacceptable practices such as creating human clones do exist now. There are also the fertility clinics' activities, for which Quebec is responsible. Bill C-13 contains a number of flaws that should be corrected. I still have hopes as far as opposition to this bill is concerned. The government has to correctly evaluate the situation. The government is responsible for passing legislation in areas under federal jurisdiction in order to deal with this problem.

If the government does not modify its current approach, the bill could very well be defeated by the House for a number of reasons. Many Alliance members are opposed in principle. The Bloc members, as well as all the federal Liberal members, should oppose this bill. The Quebec government, which represents all Quebeckers, has said through the health minister that it did not wand the federal government to adopt this kind of legislation and that it should take all the parts under provincial jurisdiction out of it.

We would like to think that the federal Liberals understand what the Quebec government is asking. It is no longer a sovereignist government asking. It is a federalist government, which has said that it was reaching out to the federal government in order to establish co-operative federalism. However, we see that the federal government across the way has not responded. It still wants to ram the bill through, despite the Quebec government's opposition.

I think that many federal Liberal members from Quebec who have already sat in Quebec's National Assembly should oppose the bill or make representations to their government to ensure that the part of the bill that concerns provincial jurisdiction is taken out of the bill in order to avoid confusion and to ensure that there is no intrusion into what is not under federal jurisdiction.

For all these reasons, the Bloc Quebecois intends to vote against the bill.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 27th, 2003 / 12:10 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Grant Hill Canadian Alliance Macleod, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have an opportunity to speak on a bill that matters, in a medical sense. Bill C-13 is a complex bill. It is about assisted human reproduction. The bill has actually been in the House in various iterations ever since I have been here.

I had an opportunity to deal with infertile couples in my life prior to coming to Parliament. I would like to briefly talk about what drives couples who want a natural child. This is a significant issue to these people and they will do virtually almost anything they can to have a child.

The causes of infertility are quite diverse. They range from the husband being infertile, possibly caused by a low sperm count from infection or injury to, more commonly, a wife's infertility. The wife's infertility may be caused by hormonal reasons and a reduction in the number of ova she might produce, infection, the ovary not working, tumours, and often times unknown factors in relation to infertility.

Science has mushroomed in this area. When I graduated, this was not a huge issue, even on the horizon, but we now have a host of mechanisms to help infertile couples. These range from drugs to enhance egg production, laparoscopic surgery which extracts eggs, to mechanisms which concentrate sperm.

We can now join the eggs and the sperm outside the body. These are commonly known as test tube babies. We can implant them in the mother's womb, or in fact implant them in another womb.

We have sperm donors. We have egg donors. We have instances where there are more eggs being extracted than are necessary for the couple to use. We also have the opportunity to freeze these little embryos, keep them for a fairly long period of time and reuse them.

Most of these issues are not controversial. They are widely accepted by Canadians under the broad heading of assisted human reproduction. Of course, this is a vote that involves issues of ethics. I personally support Bill C-13 as it relates to these activities and therapies.

There are, however, some controversial items in Bill C-13 that do have more ethical and significant moral components to them.

One of them is cloning. Cloning is encapsulated by this bill. Cloning is a complex issue in itself. I would have liked to have seen the bill split to actually look at assisted human reproduction in one bill and the more controversial issues to be looked at and studied in another bill. We in fact put that forward as a proposition, but it was not accepted. That would have been my preference.

Cloning involves taking the nucleus from a cell, replacing that nucleus with another nucleus, and having an identical organism formed from the new cell.

There are two types of cloning. There is cloning for reproduction, which would be someone trying to clone me, heaven forbid, in order to make an exact copy. That copy would be identical in appearance and genetic makeup. The other type of cloning is therapeutic cloning. It is not so simple, but to make it simple, it would be to have spare parts or spare individuals in case of the death or demise of an individual.

This bill would ban both types of cloning: therapeutic and reproductive. I believe that these types of cloning should be banned. However, at the present time, there is a debate going on in the UN on this very issue. There, Canada's position is not the same as the position in this bill. That troubles me because the Canadian position, which is to ban all types of cloning, should carry right through to the international experience.

I have been told that the reason this is being done is that at the UN there is very little chance of passing a total ban on cloning, and I do not buy that. I do not believe for one second that this is a legitimate or valid reason.

The second and even more controversial issue underneath the big umbrella of the bill is stem cell research. Basic cells in the body are stem cells and are capable of becoming any cell. We call it differentiation. They can become any cell. The stem cell, then, could become a nerve cell. It could become a brain cell. It could become a hair cell. It could become skin or bone. These cells, the basic cells of the process of an organism, are the building blocks, so to speak, of our bodies.

Stem cells can be sought and used from two broad sources. They can be used from the adult source or from the embryonic source. The adult source of stem cells is bone marrow and umbilical cord blood, and research on these stem cells has tremendous benefit, in my view, for therapy of some complex illnesses.

The other source is from the embryo. Let us remember that I mentioned in my comments prior to this that extra embryos can be taken from infertile couples and used in the fertility process. Extra embryos can be frozen and then used for research if in fact they are not used by the infertile couple.

A stem cell from an embryo is quite different from the stem cell of an adult. The embryo does involve some significant ethical and moral issues. There are those who debate that the embryo, even when it is outside the uterus, is the fundamental of human life. There are those who say that it is not implanted in the uterus and it is not human life at all. Then there is a third category of people who say that for the embryo, until it is a fetus and born, that is the only time we then have human life.

From my perspective, and this is a perspective of looking at this from the moral, ethical and medical viewpoints, the complexity of fetal or embryonic stem cell research is such that if we had a preference, and we actually do have a preference, we are better to look at the adult stem cells. To that end, my party, the Canadian Alliance, has asked for a moratorium on stem cell research from the embryonic source for three years, which is the initial three years that this bill would then review. To my mind, that would remove the controversy that surrounds the stem cell research.

What promise does adult stem cell research show us? The promise is really quite significant. There are some advantages in that if I had diabetes and my stem cells could produce the cells from my body which produce insulin, there would be no immune reaction. It would be taking my stem cells from my bone marrow and using them for therapy for my system. Immune rejection is a significant problem with the research in these areas. There would also be no embryonic destruction involved, which would remove the ethical and moral decision and debate there.

Are there examples of success? Just this year in June at the University of Minnesota bone marrow cells from adults have been transformed into every single other cell type. This has enormous potential.

My preference, then, and I speak on this bill not just from the party perspective but from my own preference, with a medical background, is to split the bill in half, one the human reproduction half and one the cloning/stem cell half. My preference would be a moratorium on embryonic stem cells for three years, which is actually my party's position as well.

Another preference is that children born of assisted human reproduction would have a right to know their parents and have a right to know the place where the cells came from.

I would also like to see some limitation of the eggs extracted from couples going through assisted human reproduction.

I also will say that there is strong support from me for research on adult stem cells and the exciting therapies that are potentially there.

The bill has been full of controversy. As I have said, it and its predecessors have been around for virtually 10 years. That controversy and the way this is now being brought to the House, with a side deal to allow for an agency to have gender parity, seem to me to minimize the importance and ethical component of the bill.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this important bill.

Business of the HouseOral Question Period

October 23rd, 2003 / 3 p.m.
See context

Glengarry—Prescott—Russell Ontario

Liberal

Don Boudria LiberalMinister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, insofar as the last part of the question, in fact such a motion would not change a law in any case. Let me first of all start by saying that this afternoon we will continue with debate on the opposition day non-confidence motion.

Tomorrow we shall consider Bill C-50, respecting veterans benefits, followed by the Senate amendments to Bill C-6, concerning first nations. Then, if we have time, we will consider Bill S-13, an act to amend the Statistics Act.

On Monday, we will consider bills left over from this week, as well as Bill C-32, the Criminal Code amendments, Bill C-13, the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, and Bill C-45, the corporate governance bill.

Tuesday shall be the last allotted day in this budget cycle.

On Wednesday and on subsequent days, we shall return to any unfinished business, adding to the list any bills that may be reported from committee. We will also start debate on Bill C-19, the First Nations Fiscal and Statistical Management Act, and Bill C-43, an act to amend the Fisheries Act.

This is the part of the session when it would be normal for bills that have been in committee for some time to be reported back to the House. I am hopeful that committees, such as the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration and the Standing Committee on Transport, will soon complete their legislative work, so that the House may dispose of them in an orderly fashion.

SupplyGovernment Orders

October 23rd, 2003 / 1 p.m.
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Bloc

Pauline Picard Bloc Drummond, QC

Mr. Speaker, we realize that there is no legislative agenda left. There are only a few bills under consideration.

More bills may die on the Order Paper, like Bill C-38, decriminalizing marijuana, or Bill C-13, respecting assisted reproductive technologies. These bills may not be passed before the House adjourns.

It is clear that the hon. member for LaSalle-Émard is behind the scenes blocking various bills. This week, a caucus was held to discuss all these questions. Obviously, this does not allow the House to go about its business as usual. The whole parliamentary process is grinding to a halt.

With this, I would like my Conservative colleague to tell me whether he agrees that decisions are now being made outside the House, something which prevents the House from doing its work. I would also like him to tell me whether he thinks the motion moved by the Bloc is appropriate.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

October 23rd, 2003 / 10:55 a.m.
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Progressive Conservative

Norman E. Doyle Progressive Conservative St. John's East, NL

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition from a number of people in St. John's East who make the point that non-embryonic stem cell research has already shown encouraging potential to provide medical cure and therapies and that adult stem cells have shown significant research progress without the immune rejection or ethical problems associated with embryonic stem cell research. The petitioners further state that Bill C-13 continues to permit people to kill human embryos.

They call upon Parliament to ban embryonic stem cell research.

The Income Tax ActGovernment Orders

October 9th, 2003 / 3:05 p.m.
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Liberal

Don Boudria Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Several officials, including those at the Table and perhaps yourself, have noted that when I gave my business statement and provided a copy, they were not the same. Just to correct the record, while I said Bill C-13 for tomorrow, that is not correct. It is Bill S-13 and the written copy I submitted said Bill S-13, respecting the census.

Business of the HouseOral Question Period

October 9th, 2003 / 3 p.m.
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Glengarry—Prescott—Russell Ontario

Liberal

Don Boudria LiberalMinister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to answer that question. I think it is an excellent question.

This afternoon we will continue with the debate on Bill C-48, the resource taxation measures. We will then turn to a motion to refer Bill C-38, the cannabis legislation, to committee before second reading. If this is complete, then we would follow with: Bill C-32, the Criminal Code amendments; Bill C-19, the first nations fiscal institution bill; and Bill C-36, the archives bill, if we get to that. There is some discussion going on about Bill C-36.

Tomorrow we will begin with Bill C-19, if it has not already been completed, and then go to Bill C-13. If we have not completed the list for today, we could as well continue with that.

Next week is the Thanksgiving week of constituency work. When we return on October 20, it is my intention to call Bill C-49 to begin; that is the redistribution legislation, for the benefit of hon. members. When that is concluded, we would return to any of the business not completed this week or reported from committee.

Thursday, October 23, shall be an allotted day. That is the sixth day in the supply cycle.

Privilege

October 9th, 2003 / 10 a.m.
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)

I will now give the ruling on the question of privilege raised by the hon. member for Mississauga South on October 6. I thank the hon. member for raising the question, as well as the hon. member for Yellowhead for his comments.

The hon. member for Mississauga South argued that, in light of the complexity of the bill and of the number of amendments which the House had adopted at report stage, members required a reprint of the bill in order to be able to properly conduct debate at third reading. He pointed out that this need was all the more pressing given that the bill had not been debated since April 10 of this year.

The unanimous consent of the House was sought on March 31 and again on October 3 to permit a motion ordering a reprint of the bill to be put to a vote. The consent was denied.

I would like to remind the hon. member that it is not the practice of the House to have bills reprinted at third reading. In this regard I refer him to the ruling by the Deputy Speaker on the same point concerning Bill C-13 on March 31, at page 4922 of the Debates .

As the hon. member is fully aware, the House may, if it chooses, order a reprint of the bill. The unanimous consent necessary to allow such a motion to be put without notice has so far not been forthcoming.

CloningOral Question Period

October 8th, 2003 / 3 p.m.
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Bloc

Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC

Mr. Speaker, Quebec health and social services minister Philippe Couillard has taken a stand against Bill C-13, the cloning bill, arguing that this bill clearly encroached on Quebec's jurisdictions.

Will the Minister of Health listen to her counterpart in Quebec and withdraw from an area that does not concern her by dividing her bill in two, to ensure that the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces are respected?

Library and Archives of Canada ActGovernment Orders

October 6th, 2003 / 5:25 p.m.
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NDP

Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North Centre, MB

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from the member for Mississauga South.

I want to begin my response by suggesting that whenever it appears that the government of the day has interfered with the work of a committee and has not respected the wishes of a standing committee of this place then it is a matter of concern for all of us. It is a theme that has run throughout these last couple of years in Parliament and one that we have raised on numerous occasions.

The member for Mississauga South will know that on a legislative matter that we held near and dear, Bill C-13, dealing with reproductive technologies, there was great concern expressed on our part and by other members about how the government refused to accept amendments made in committee by all parties and in fact interfered with that democratic process by not including those amendments in the legislative proposal.

However, as in that case, today we must make a judgment about the merits of a bill versus some of the changes that we wanted to see that are not there.

It is important to recognize, in the context of Bill C-36 when dealing with clause 21, that there was in fact agreement in committee to have this clause removed. I am not so sure who bears all the brunt of the blame for the fact that it is not there.

I was not in the House when the bill was debated at report stage, but I understand the fact that action was not taken on clause 21 was largely a result of human error and a lack of vigilance on this question. The members of the government side in committee did not move the motion pursuant to clause 21 when it was the appropriate time to do so, so it did not happen there. When the bill came to the House for report stage, the Official Opposition, who felt strongly about this happening, did not move the elimination of clause 21 in the House.

As a result, by human error and not deliberate intention, this initiative was not taken. The fact of the matter is that we now have to decide if we are going to hassle about that. Are we going to haggle over those terms and that history, and lose a bill which would make an important contribution to our society? Are we going to go forward and at least see that the merger between the National Library of Canada and the National Archives of Canada is allowed to take place? We must have a public policy vehicle to ensure that the work of those who create, the writers in our society, those who write stories based on personal histories and who pursue letters and documents from our archives are able to do so knowing, and that their work is secure and the documents are safe in a physically sound building?

The bottom line comes down to how we sort through that. For our part, we have decided to support the bill, despite any shortcomings with the bill and despite lack of assurances that in fact adequate funding will be there when this merger takes place.

We must give it a chance. We have to listen to the voices of those experts who have been sounding the alarm bells for years about leaky roofs, yellowing paper, and the loss of valuable documents because we did not have the physical capabilities to keep them.

This gives us an opportunity to do what is important in that regard and it also gives us a chance to redress a problem that was created with the last copyright legislation when we did not take into account the whole question of unpublished works and copyright protection.

Library and Archives of Canada ActGovernment Orders

October 6th, 2003 / 4:15 p.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, the member referred to the committee as the master of its own work. He was quite correct in identifying that with regard to a bill such as Bill C-13 where, after 200 witnesses and 400 submissions, the committee came up with only three amendments to the bill, and each one of those was reversed at report stage by the government because it was not in agreement with them.

The parliamentary secretary's position is always tentative, and members have argued from time to time that parliamentary secretaries should not even be on committees because they are almost serving two masters.

Could the member advise the House whether the issue about the deal has resolved itself to the extent that there is a consensus within committee?

Library and Archives of Canada ActGovernment Orders

October 6th, 2003 / 3:45 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Jim Abbott Canadian Alliance Kootenay—Columbia, BC

Mr. Speaker, I want to state at the outset that the parliamentary secretary is an hon. member of this House and any of my comments should not be inferred as to suggest otherwise. That having been said, I find a tremendous difficulty in that the entire House of Commons, whether it is in this chamber or in committee, works on negotiation between members. When that negotiation happens, there is an assumption on the part of both parties I am sure that once the persons negotiating arrive at an agreement, the agreement will be fulfilled. Clearly that has not happened in this instance.

What has happened is that the committee was overtaken by the member for Parkdale—High Park and others who are concerned about seeing that this particular omnibus provision was included in the bill. This was totally outside any agreement that had been made by us at that time.

We should be focusing as well on when the committee hearings actually took place. The Speaker might not be aware that the committee hearings actually took place after the House rose for the summer recess. When those committee hearings took place, the understanding on the part of the Bloc member, on the part of the Conservatives and certainly on the part of the official opposition was that the agreement that had been entered into by the parliamentary secretary on behalf of the heritage member and on behalf of the department officials was that those clauses would be removed.

There is goodwill that exists around the body of this bill and what this bill is actually about. There is goodwill that exists on wanting to get on with modernizing the library and bringing forward a proper archival situation in Canada. Because of that goodwill and because of the value of this bill, we did not see any reason to be worried about what would be happening at committee.

As I said directly to the parliamentary secretary, I understand that the events at committee ended up overtaking her and overtaking the commitment that she had made. To be very generous, I might even suspect that the member for Parkdale—High Park might not have been aware that this commitment had been made. Let us make that assumption, but that does not absolve the parliamentary secretary or the Minister of Canadian Heritage from the fact that a commitment had been made to members of her party, to members of the official opposition, indeed to all members of the House who were concerned about this bill.

This is scandalous behaviour. It ends up undermining the ability of us to do business. It means that all the suspicions and the worry about what the real meaning is of ministers and all the paranoia that there frequently is around the parliamentary process end up coming into reality.

The reality is that the heritage minister and her spokesperson, the parliamentary secretary, have not been prepared to follow through on a solemn commitment that was made in this chamber. Let me be very clear and totally transparent. This means that there will be a question in the minds of all parliamentarians when they receive a commitment from a parliamentary secretary on behalf of a heritage minister as to whether they actually have the intent to follow through.

We were dealing with Bill C-13 earlier today in the House. The health minister came to this House and overturned the work of the committee on Bill C-13. This is very common. It is an unfortunate happenstance because parliamentary committees should be independent. Parliamentary committees should be able to make changes to government legislation. But it is very common that ministers will come to this place after those changes have been made by committee and will overturn the changes. That is the reason I raised the example of Bill C-13.

We could go down a whole list of legislation where this has happened. Therefore, with the greatest respect, I say to the hon. parliamentary secretary that it is simply not genuine to say that the committee is master of its own destiny and therefore she and the heritage minister are incapable of making the change. I am sorry but that does not fly. That is simply not a valid argument.

I suggest what has happened is the heritage minister with her own leadership aspirations has taken her eye off her legislation, which is in front of the House now, and has basically left the parliamentary secretary hanging out to dry. Once again, on the issue of copyright law, the heritage minister has walked away from her responsibility and we have bad law. This was an omnibus bill that should never have been an omnibus bill.

Clause 21 should never have been included in the bill, as I said in my question to the parliamentary secretary. I have the Copyright Act in my hand right now. I understand the copyright law. It was very clear that there had to be changes in the Copyright Act for Bill C-36 to go forward. That is simple and very straightforward. What was not needed was Clause 21. Clause 21 in this bill is the opening up of copyright legislation.

She will know, as a member of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, that starting next week the standing committee will be briefed by parliamentary officials on a review of the Copyright Act. We will be briefed on Tuesday and again Thursday.

There is a whole situation around copyright law that desperately needs changes and I will address couple of them in half a second. The parliamentary secretary knows that. I do not know what went on behind the scenes. I do not know how in the world we ended up with clause 21 being surreptitiously put into the bill. It basically takes a current issue, a vital and important issue to certain copyright holders and advances it ahead of other people who are very concerned about clauses and provisions in the Copyright Act.

I draw to the House's attention subsection 30.8(8) and subsection 30.9(6) of the Copyright Act. This is the basis of me saying once again that the heritage minister has done a bad, totally inadequate, flawed job of copyright revision. By allowing these changes in Bill C-36, by surreptitiously putting them into Bill C-36, by falling back behind the rubric that committees are masters of their own destiny, once again she has done a totally inadequate job. When the new Prime Minister takes over, it will be very surprising to see if she manages to maintain her position as Minister of Canadian Heritage because she has absolutely dropped the ball on this issue as with many others.

In the case of sections 30.8 and 30.9 of the Copyright Act, the relevance here is that the actual provisions that had to be changed in Bill C-36 are in proposed section 30.5. We are talking about things that also need changing and we are very close: 30.5 versus 30.8 and 30.9.

What desperately needs changing is what was inserted into the bill back when we were in committee work in 1997. At that time we were looking at ephemeral recordings. That is when a radio station ends up making a recording for absolutely no reason other than a technical ability to more easily bring programming to air. There are exceptions all the way through in sections 30.8 and 30.9 that would permit the radio stations to do a job in a very efficient way.

As a result of the inclusion in section 30.8 of subsection (8), tens if not hundreds of people are losing their jobs or have lost their jobs this year as a result of this clause. The reality is subsection (8) stops the radio stations from either doing things efficiently in a modern, technological way or by doing them efficiently in a modern, technological way and having an unfair compensation go to the creators.

What it is all about is very straightforward. Nowadays just about all music comes to the radio stations in a digital format. It can come to the radio stations in a digital format on a CD or it can come to the radio stations in a digital format on some form of broad band. When that digital format is actually at the radio station, then a decision has to be made.

For example, on a CD there might be 12, 15, 18, 20 cuts or songs. What the radio station would decide is whether it would play cut number two, number seven or number nine. It does not need the rest of the CD. When the station does its programming, it simply lifts selections two, seven and nine from the CD and puts them onto a hard drive. When a particular song is played on air, it is in a different format and, as a consequence, it is automatically on the air.

As I have explained many times to the House, my daughter is married to a musician. I understand copyright. He is a composer. I understand why copyright exists and my daughter and my four grandchildren are supported in no small part by virtue of the fact that copyright law exists. I am in favour of copyright law. When value is exchanged, when the music is played, then my son-in-law and all other composers and authors and artists should be properly compensated. That is fine.

What goes on with so-called ephemeral recordings is it simply changes the format technically behind the scenes, possibly at a totally different location, and when it changes the format as a result of clause (8), a copyright fee is payable. The artists, the composers, the authors are not entitled to be paid simply because of a technological change.

The heritage minister is prepared to change the copyright law in clause 21 for specific copyright owners and holders or people who could receive value because of copyright law. However she is not prepared to protect the hundreds of people in the radio and recording industries who have ended up losing their jobs in the last year to 18 months.

The parliamentary secretary knows that. I believe her predecessor was with us when we were on the tour to take a look at this, among many other issues. We were in a radio station in downtown Montreal. We went through and saw what actually transpired. Does anyone know what it was? It was the push of a button. With that push of button there was no sound, no music, no playing and no value exchanged. There was simply the transfer of digital information at light speed from one format to another format and, as a result of that, there was a copyright payable. There are other problems within the copyright law at which we desperately need to be look.

Why did we end up with subsection (8) and subsection (9)? In 1997 the then parliamentary secretary, Guy Arseneault was negotiating with the Bloc Quebecois and at that point there were no collectives that could actually collect any copyright fee. The Bloc Quebecois critic, in negotiating with Mr. Arseneault, the parliamentary secretary, had those clauses included.

I hollered in a loud voice at that time. The recording industry and broadcasters could see this train coming into the station and we tried to make as big a deal of it as we possibly could, and good on the Bloc Quebecois.

What happened was this. Gaston Leroux, who was the critic for the Bloc Quebecois, knew there was a collective coming in Quebec and because he knew that, he wanted to wipe out the ability of the ephemeral rights exclusion and he got his way. Why? Because the parliamentary secretary of the day, acting on behalf of the then heritage minister, the current heritage minister, was prepared to negotiate that into this law, and it is bad law. Why? Because the heritage minister had made up her mind that Bill C-32 would be through Parliament, out of committee by Christmas and there was a deadline. That was a roadblock by the Bloc Quebecois.

This is fine. That is part of parliamentary procedure but it does not mean that we have to live with bad law that was created by the heritage minister who was simply trying to get the bill through Parliament.

Once again, we have a situation where this heritage minister, in Bill C-36, has gone ahead and made changes yet once again to copyright law that really should not have been made. I am really not sure what her motivation is nor will I try to guess. The fact is the heritage committee is now seized with the responsibility under legislation, which came to us through Bill C-32, to come to the House with a report on the shortcomings and the strengths of the copyright law and from that point to come forward with laws on a new copyright bill. There is no excuse for the fact that we are in that process and for the fact that this, which I believe is an erroneous part of Bill C-32 to begin with, is now part of Bill C-36.

There are other parts of copyright law that also require changing. For example, the so-called blank tape levy, again one to which I absolutely was opposed, is proving to become even more of a problem than what I have just explained about ephemeral right. Under the guise of ensuring that the artists would end up being properly compensated, the heritage minister brought into Bill C-32 the so-called blank tape levy, which is to presume that everyone in Canada is guilty of recording illegally and therefore we will extract a levy on all blank tapes.

First, that goes against anything I understand about law in Canada. Every Canadian is innocent until proven guilty. Under the blank tape levy we are saying that everybody is guilty, whether they record a sermon in church, or a speech, or something in a classroom, and they must pay a levy on that.

The interpretation by the copyright board has been that it is on the amount of information recorded, not on the length of the tape. The original idea that was floated, and I did not believe it for a second, was it only would be 25¢ a tape and that was really no big deal. In fact it has been substantially more than 25¢ a tape. Now that we have new technology and new recordings like the MP3s and others that have a tremendous capacity to absorb music, the cost of that new technology has gone through the roof.

It will mean for Canadian retailers, for people with whom I am familiar, that some people will quickly go across from southwestern Ontario to Buffalo or to Niagara Falls, New York. I am familiar with people in British Columbia who will easily go across to Spokane.

What it basically means is that an MP3 or another recording device that is available in constant Canadian dollars down there for $200 will be retailing in Canada for $400 or $600 simply because of this so-called blank tape levy.

The problem with Bill C-36 is not its intent, but the fact that the heritage minister chose to make this an omnibus bill, thereby being caught in changing unnecessary parts of the Copyright Act and as a consequence acting in a totally unfair way with other copyright holders.

I say, shame on the minister for putting the parliamentary secretary into the position that she did, in asking the parliamentary secretary to give my colleague and I, and others a solemn undertaking that the clause would be removed. Shame on her for not removing it when it came back here at report stage.

Library and Archives of Canada ActGovernment Orders

October 6th, 2003 / 3:45 p.m.
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Liberal

Carole-Marie Allard Liberal Laval East, QC

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague is referring to another situation. I cannot comment on things I am not aware of. Thus, I will refrain from answering, because I do not know what happened during consideration of Bill C-13.

Library and Archives of Canada ActGovernment Orders

October 6th, 2003 / 3:45 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Jim Abbott Canadian Alliance Kootenay—Columbia, BC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the parliamentary secretary, is it not true for example, on Bill C-13 which the House has been grappling with, that the minister came to this place and overturned the work of the committee? Is that not true?

If that is true and knowing that she and the parliamentary secretary on her behalf made that commitment to the official opposition and other members of the opposition and obviously other members of her party, why would the heritage minister and the parliamentary secretary not be prepared to follow through on the commitment that she made?

HealthOral Question Period

October 6th, 2003 / 2:50 p.m.
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Edmonton West Alberta

Liberal

Anne McLellan LiberalMinister of Health

Mr. Speaker, as far as I am concerned, the only attack on human dignity is perhaps the antics of the opposition in relation to their delay in passing Bill C-13, which in fact speaks to human dignity for families, for men and women in this country who would like to have families and cannot.

Let me reassure everyone in this House that Bill C-13 bans all forms of human cloning for any purpose, howsoever done. Let me also indicate to the House that we believe it is much better to ban reproductive cloning in the international community than to have no--

HealthOral Question Period

October 6th, 2003 / 2:50 p.m.
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Edmonton West Alberta

Liberal

Anne McLellan LiberalMinister of Health

In fact, Mr. Speaker, there is no double standard. Let me be absolutely clear that the hon. member is right, that in Bill C-13, which I would ask this House to pass with alacrity, we ban all forms of human cloning. However, achieving a broad international consensus to ban all forms of cloning may not be possible at this time.

But it is clear that the international community is ready to pass a ban on human reproductive cloning. I would suggest that Canada is supporting this effort. We should all support this effort because not taking that step at this time may mean having no convention at all.

HealthOral Question Period

October 6th, 2003 / 2:50 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Rob Merrifield Canadian Alliance Yellowhead, AB

Mr. Speaker, an international convention on human cloning is being debated at the United Nations. Many countries want to see a comprehensive ban on human cloning, both therapeutic and reproductive.

In fact, the government's Bill C-13 calls for prohibitions on both reproductive and therapeutic cloning, but our negotiators at the United Nations are seeking prohibitions on reproductive cloning alone. Why the double standard?

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 6th, 2003 / 1:50 p.m.
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Liberal

Eugène Bellemare Liberal Ottawa—Orléans, ON

Mr. Speaker, thank you for allowing me to comment on Bill C-13, An Act respecting assisted human reproduction. I have a few concerns about this bill. I will read from a text that will help illustrate my concerns.

Initially, the concern was the ethics of destroying human embryos to harvest stem cells for research, but as time passed many other weaknesses of the bill were discovered. I would want the House to consider the following.

Despite the fact that Health Canada has already corrected one error in the definition of “human clone”, the bill still does not ban all known forms and techniques of human cloning.

The bill would permit the implanting of human reproductive material into non-human life forms. The biomedical definition of “chimera” involves the implantation of reproductive material from a human into an animal or from an animal into a human. However, the definition in the bill only refers to the latter.

The conflict of interest provisions are so weak that they would allow biotech and pharmaceutical companies to be represented on a board of the agency that would approve and license research projects.

Significant clauses of the bill have been qualified by phrases such as “as per the regulations”. There are 28 areas in which regulations must be developed and these will not be known until at least 18 months after the bill is passed. Effectively, MPs are being asked to vote on a bill without knowing the full intent. Furthermore, MPs will not be permitted to approve the regulations.

The Royal Commission on Reproductive Technologies and the health committee both recommended that paid surrogacy be prohibited. The bill would permit a surrogate to be reimbursed for lost employment income if that person obtained a doctor's certificate.

The bill ignores women's health issues by not establishing reasonable limits on the amount of drugs used on them or on the number of ova that can be harvested or embryos that can be implanted.

The bill would prohibit the purchase or sale of human reproductive material, but Health Canada has not explained how researchers would get embryos from for profit fertility clinics without paying compensation.

The bill would not establish uniform disclosure or informed consent practices to be used by all fertility clinics. Such disclosure would protect the interests of the infertile.

The health committee urged that the bill state what constituted necessary research. Specifically, it recommended that research on human embryos be permitted only if it could be demonstrated there was no other biological material that could be used to achieve the same research objectives. The bill rejects the recommendation and delegates the decision to the federal agency.

The health committee made 36 recommendations on the draft bill. Its report received no response and most of its key recommendations were not reflected in Bill C-13.

The health committee heard from over 200 witnesses and received over 400 written submissions. As a result of its work, the committee passed three substantive amendments to the bill. At report stage, all three amendments were reversed to the effect that the work of the health committee was virtually ignored.

There are many more deficiencies in areas such as patentability, adoption of embryos and the use of fetus parts, but the examples noted paint a clear picture of a bill that needs to be fixed or defeated.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 6th, 2003 / 1:40 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Rick Casson Canadian Alliance Lethbridge, AB

Mr. Speaker, it is good to get up to speak on Bill C-13 again. I have been up numerous times on the bill and I do not believe the government has listened very well to some of our concerns. As the debate goes on I am hopeful, as these issues are brought up time and again, that some of it will sink in and that some of the things we are pushing for will come to pass.

One of the most controversial things is the whole issue of embryonic stem cell research. Through my experience with office with emails, letters and phone calls, this is one of the most controversial aspects of the bill. People are very concerned about the use of embryonic cells because there has been very little science put forward to say that there is any benefit to using them or that any big steps have been made to improve human life by this type of research. Most of the benefits have been made through adult stem cell research, which is a totally different issue.

The thing I suppose that people key on is the fact that we are creating a life to be used in research and once one extracts cells from an embryo to use in research, the embryo and that form of life is destroyed. The specific creation of embryos to be used in research is the issue.

What has been said is that any embryos that are created through in vitro fertilization and that are left over may be used in research. It does not take too big of a step to then realize that of course, if there is a marketplace developed and a value put on these embryos, enough will be produced that there will be leftovers and they will be used in research. That is the problem many people have.

We had news today about the UN convention on human cloning and that the government may be changing its mind on the complete ban of human cloning to which it has agreed. It is something we have certainly pushed for all throughout the debate on reproductive technology. It looks now through the UN that there may be a shift in the government's policy.

We need to ensure that Canadians are aware that the government is considering doing something along these lines and this debate needs to take place. Canadians need to have input into the debate. They need to understand fully what the government is doing. Is it saying one thing in Canada, then it is going to the UN and saying something else? This is critical to the support that some people have offered to the bill. I think if it becomes clear that the government is going to change its position on human cloning, there will be a large shift in how people feel about Bill C-13 and many more people will oppose it. We have to be cognizant that the government is looking at a possible shift in that position and ensure that Canadians are aware of it.

Getting back to the stem cell research aspect of Bill C-13, if a body is put in place to oversee the operations of this entire industry and if it us up that body to define and apply the law which will be created if the bill passes, then it is up to us to ensure, and we have seen this in other cases of law, that as law makers we make it absolutely clear what the intention of the bill is.

Words like “all necessary steps” or “all necessary issues” need to be handled. We cannot leave any kind of weasel words in a bill such as this that could be interpreted in a way that was not intended by us as parliamentarians when it was put together.

I think that it is necessary to make sure that some of the clarification is there and that if the embryos that are created for in vitro fertilization are allowed to be used in research, that there has to be very strict rules put on those clinics to make sure that the number of embryos that are created do not suddenly multiple or swell in numbers so that there is an assured supply to researchers and particularly if there is a value put on those and it becomes a marketplace situation where they are bought and sold and bid on in the industry.

I would like to see greater clarity around the provisions on embryonic research described in subclause 40(2). The clause as currently worded states:

A licence authorizing the use of an in vitro embryo for the purpose of research may be issued only if the Agency is satisfied that the use is necessary for the purpose of the proposed research.

What are they going to base their decision on whether it is necessary? More than likely on the request coming from the researcher and based on little else. If the agency is structured properly so there is enough variance of opinion on the board and if it looks at all of the issues and ensures the letter of the law is followed, that would possibly help. However there is no guarantee that that would happen.

Therefore, the word necessary in “satisfied that the use is necessary for purpose of the proposed research” brings us back into the debate on whether we need embryonic stem cells when we could use adult stem cells. From all indications that we have been able to find, adult stem cells have brought forward the most development. There have been some tremendous advances on some of the most terrible diseases that afflict humans. However, that advancement has not been through embryonic research, it has been through adult stem cell research.

We need to apply the three year ban for which our party has been asking, an absolute prohibition on any embryonic research. Emphasis should be put on the adult stem cell research until it is clearly demonstrated that no further advancements can be made using them. That should be the only time we should consider creating life to use in research.

The other issues we have talked about at length.

On the whole issue of banning cloning, I remember going to a meeting on Parliament Hill with Preston Manning, who was leading the file on this at the time. He brought together some of the greatest minds in Canada and North America to discuss the whole idea of cloning, what good that would bring to the medical profession, the mapping of the human genome and some things that many of us do not completely comprehend or could even possibly scratch the surface to understand. The impression I got from these people was that a great deal of caution needed to be taken when we were dealing with the issue.

It has become an issue that many Canadians have become engaged in, many for moral and ethical reasons and many for the way they have been raised and taught over the years in their homes and in their churches.

We do not think placing a three year moratorium is asking an lot. It would give us a three year window where we could and should put emphasis on adult stem cells, supporting that area of research and seeing how far the advances can go when all our concentration is put in that area. Then if it does not become clear that adult stem cells meet the needs, we could reconsider. I personally believe that is where the advancements have been and where they will continue to be. There would be enough forward movement working with those cells that the necessity to create life to use it in research will not be there.

It is good to rise again to put another comment forward on the bill. I hope members on the government side is listening. I do not believe at this point in time that most of them are, but I hope as the debate goes forward more and more will sink in and they will see the light and vote against Bill C-13.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 6th, 2003 / 1:35 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Deepak Obhrai Canadian Alliance Calgary East, AB

Mr. Speaker, this is the second time I have risen to speak to Bill C-13 because of the very strong and serious concerns we have.

This is an area of uncharted waters and the bill can have very serious ethical and moral complications. Therefore, it is very necessary, before we pass the bill, to take a step back, look at it very carefully and then decide as a society what exactly we want to do.

My colleagues on this side of the House and a number of members on the government side as well have stated their objections to the bill. This issue affects everybody. We cannot take it lightly. As I said the last time I spoke to the bill, we have some very serious concerns because we see loopholes in the bill of which individuals could take advantage and which could start us off in a direction that later on we may regret.

Let me talk about what Bill C-13 is about. It is about human cloning. It is about reproductive technology. These are the issues now before the Canadian Parliament. A commission has looked into this, with the former prime minister's wife as one of the commissioners. Our former leader, Mr. Preston Manning, spent a huge amount of time studying this topic. Because of the concerns that have arisen with the bill and the loopholes that exist, members on all sides of the House of Commons, from all parties, are expressing serious concern.

As I mentioned, there are loopholes. They give us an uneasy feeling. I do not understand why we cannot have very tight controls on this until we are positive and we know in which direction we are going with research. Why would the government not put those controls in place? We do not know.

Even with what is happening at the United Nations, what the government is trying to do, we do not know. An international convention to ban human cloning is being debated at the United Nations right now. One resolution, which is backed by the U.S. and several other countries, calls for a comprehensive ban on all human cloning, reproductive and therapeutic. That would be consistent with what the government is trying to do with Bill C-13, which would prohibit the creation of human cloning by any technique. That is fair enough, but there is another resolution out there, which calls for a ban on only reproductive cloning. Strangely enough, the government is supporting that resolution.

On one hand the government is supporting a resolution that calls for a complete ban on cloning, but on the other hand it is supporting another resolution that says the ban is only for reproductive cloning. Why this double standard? What is the government trying to say? We just do not seem to understand the direction the government is taking.

As my colleague who spoke before me said, the government is now trying to ram through the bill because I guess the Prime Minister wants to leave a legacy. It is on his agenda and he wants to do it, but it may have serious implications in the future. We wonder why we cannot debate the bill. Why can the bill not go back to the committee? Why can all these loopholes we have indicated not be tightened? Why can it not be explained to us exactly what the government's agenda is? We seem to be getting conflicting reports.

For example, in May 2001 the former minister of health supported an international convention to prevent human cloning. The resolution said no more human cloning and everybody agreed with that. Speaking in Geneva at the meeting of the WHO, the former minister gave his support for a resolution condemning cloning as “ethically unacceptable and contrary to human dignity”.

We have conflicting messages coming from the government. It does not know in which direction it wants to go or what it wants to do. Therefore, Canadians are a little wary. We are wary of the bill. Where is the bill going? It becomes even more disturbing to us with the loophole I have mentioned.

Is it on the government's agenda to allow therapeutic cloning to go ahead? If it is on the government's agenda, then it should say that so Canadians can know exactly what the government means. What does the government want with the bill? Why create a bill that has loopholes? Why go to the UN with two different positions? Nobody knows where Canada stands on this issue. We have to wonder what the government's hidden agenda is. Even the government members who are opposing this legislation do not seem to know where their government is headed on this issue.

As I have said, human cloning, being a new technology, goes against all ethical and moral teachings in society. We of course do know that stem cells have a very strong research value. We also know that stem cell research is needed because of its very good therapeutic advantages. But those are adult stem cells.

It is time for us to take a step back and say we should not have human cloning but we should go ahead with adult stem cell research. That way, we will know precisely where we are going and when we go into these uncharted waters we will know in which direction we are going. Why would we try to navigate uncharted waters and find ourselves beached in an area where we never wanted to go?

We have all heard of the lady in Paris who said her group had attempted to clone the first human being, but we now know that story was not true. That lady in Paris said her group had done the first human cloning. I am certainly glad it did not happen. Of course we all know the story of Dolly the sheep. Do we really need to go that way?

I can say without a doubt that Canadians do not accept human cloning in any capacity. The majority does not. We do not want to go into that area. Since we do not, we need to stand up and say in the clearest terms that we will not accept any bill that has the potential, as Bill C-13 does, for loopholes that can lead us in that direction.

In conclusion, my party will not agree with Bill C-13 because of our reservations.

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October 6th, 2003 / 1:30 p.m.
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Liberal

Stan Dromisky Liberal Thunder Bay—Atikokan, ON

Mr. Speaker, the debate has been going on in this House since April 4. By the comments that are coming across from the opposition, I think people are getting the impression that once the bill is passed everything is going to happen immediately. Nothing could be further from the truth. Also, the impression is being left in the minds of the listening public that this was a kind of impulsive act. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The royal commission in 1993 gave us instructions and gave us direction. We followed those instructions and recommendations. After many years of intensive research work done by people behind the scenes, a draft bill was presented to the health committee, of which I am a member. I attended every meeting and I know exactly what happened in those meetings.

A draft bill was presented in 2001. There were 34 recommendations that came from the committee. Bill C-13, then called Bill C-56, emerged on May 9, 2002. There were over 100 amendments dealt with by the committee at that stage. Those amendments clearly indicated, not only from the government side but also from the side of the opposition, that a tremendous amount of thought and dedication was devoted to Bill C-13 and the concepts contained therein.

Then it came back at the report stage with 84 more amendments. Those amendments were not identical to the first batch, again indicating that controversy was raging and that we wanted more clarification and improvements within the bill. That was done and since April 4 we have been debating this issue.

I am presenting that information simply because I want the listening public to realize that there was a tremendous amount of energy, not only from people within the House of Commons, people who work for the House of Commons, but from people all across this country and in other countries in the world who have communicated with the health committee, through telehealth and document after document giving us information, perceptions and scientific evidence over all these years.

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October 6th, 2003 / 1:20 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Art Hanger Canadian Alliance Calgary Northeast, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today on Bill C-13.

It has been interesting to follow some of the headlines as they appear on the debate on this issue.

There is no question that politics are being played out here when it comes Bill C-13. We can see it bounce back and forth not just between the opposition and government parties but between members within the government party and also between members within the opposition parties in the House.

There was one particular headline in a newspaper a few days ago which read “Vote on human cloning bill delayed: Bill C-13 'God squad' MP stages filibuster, debate stalls”. That is a very interesting headline. Obviously a member of the Liberal Party is considered to be part of what is called the God squad, or so it has been tagged. All of those who are opposing the proposed legislation might be tagged the same. I do not find that so unsettling. In fact, I would be proud to wear that as a badge if that applied to me by taking that position.

There have been other very strong members of Parliament. I will talk about one by the name of William Wilberforce in the great country of England in the United Kingdom. He was actually tagged the same way. He was a Christian MP who stood up against slavery. For years he fought that fight again wanting to better the lot of those who were enslaved in that country. As a result of his efforts, he and four or five other MPs were categorized as such. Because they believed in God, because they felt that there should be a stronger commitment on the part of legislators to better the position of others in society, they were tagged as such by their colleagues, the media and the opposition. They stood for something that would allow others to live in a better way and that is the tag that was placed on them.

For decades Mr. Wilberforce fought that egregious legislation to change it, to ban slavery completely and it spread throughout the free world.

Here we have another kind of legislation. It is an intrusion into human life. A whole series of unknowns are attached to this particular endeavour, that is human cloning. The House has faced the issue now for a period of time. Its intention is to set the ground rules for cloning, embryonic research and reproductive technologies. That is the bill. There are a lot of unknowns in it and it deals with human life.

The bill bans all human cloning, both reproductive, which would allow a cloned embryo to be implanted in a woman's womb and grown to a full person; and therapeutic, which would allow a cloned embryo to be used for research and medical purposes. That is the bill that is being advanced here.

For the most part the House should be applauded for that piece of legislation. However we cannot talk out of both sides of our mouths and expect to gain credibility or acceptance on one side if we are saying something different. That is what in fact is happening here.

Canada is preparing to work against some of the other countries whose efforts are to ban all forms of cloning. Belgium put forward a motion at the United Nations international convention dealing with this. Canada will support a competing resolution to what the government is even attempting to pass here in the House. How can the government do both? Explain that to me and explain that to the public. Who is to be trusted? It is inconsistent.

That is part of the politics of this particular legislation. Forty countries worldwide would like to see a total ban on reproductive and therapeutic technologies, cloning, yet Canada is now speaking out of both sides of her mouth. That would have to fall back on the shoulders of the government.

How does it play out further? The government would like to see an end to this debate. Our party has suggested that there be a moratorium or a cessation of debate until further research and information comes to light, but that is not the action the government is taking. In fact, as soon as this debate dies today, there will be no other mechanism to continue debate.

We are debating a motion introduced by the government House leader that the question be now put. This motion is known as the previous question. On page 556 of Marleau and Montpetit, the previous question is described as “at best an unpredictable method of curtailing debate”. We on this side cannot hoist it. Once we stop talking about it today, in other words, once the situation develops where no other member rises to speak to it in the House, that is it. We cannot extend it.

That is the method available to the government to curtail the debate. The previous question, time allocation and closure are all means, so this is a form of time allocation. Personally, the fact that the government would curtail debate by using this procedure is embarrassing.

Just for the record, the government has invoked closure and time allocation 82 times. There have been 73 time allocation motions and nine closure motions. If we factor in the number of times the previous question has been used, the number jumps to close to 100. The government has curtailed the action of debate in the House 100 times.

On one of the most important pieces of legislation which we are debating right now it has decided to use time allocation. It is disgusting.

Regarding the politics of Bill C-13, some of the opposition members have decided to support the government. One of the parties, of course the New Democrats, opposed the bill because it did not ensure gender parity on the board. The board is another issue altogether and we could speak for quite awhile on the lack of accountability on the board, or the weakness of the board which could in fact be overridden by the Minister of Health. We could speak for a long time to that issue alone.

The NDP has decided to side with the government and support the bill now, all because of one very weak argument. The government has assured the NDP with a written promise that gender parity on the board will be certain. How weak can that party get? Is that the NDP's sole argument on a matter as important as this one?

I think we should be re-examining the whole process of debate if that is as weak as the NDP is in its arguments to support a bill that is as serious as this one.

Our party has chosen not to support this legislation, for good cause, and I support the member for Mississauga South in his endeavour to bring all the issues to light.

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October 6th, 2003 / 1:15 p.m.
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Liberal

Julian Reed Liberal Halton, ON

Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that Bill C-13 has engendered a lot of thoughtful debate in the House and a lot of careful consideration regardless on which side of the issue one ends up coming down on.

The bill has probably exposed some of the elements that could be improved. My colleague from Mississauga South has looked at it very closely and done a tremendous amount of work. He should be commended for his efforts.

The question of human cloning is one of the fundamental underlying concerns in the bill. His concern is that the bill does not ban all known forms of human cloning. That in itself presents something of a dilemma because as medicine progresses and the practice of medicine evolves over years and generations, what is unknown now will probably be known 20, 30 or 50 years hence.

I will repeat a story involving a fairly close relative of mine who was attending university in Toronto and was rooming with another young man. They were both studying medicine at the time. At that time two very prominent doctors were researching diabetes and how this scourge could be treated. One was Dr. Macleod and the other Dr. Banting.

My cousin and his friend were both looking for summer jobs. They decided that they would try and obtain work with these researchers. They flipped a coin and my cousin went to work with Dr. Macleod and Charlie Best went with Dr. Banting. At that time no one knew and no one had a breakthrough on how to deal with the scourge of diabetes. I am sure debate raged about what one should do and should not do in terms of research and in terms of developing the techniques that would look after that disease.

A part of Bill C-13 addresses not just human cloning, but the question of developing a fetus in the very early stages. In the process of human reproduction there are sometimes leftovers that are not used. The argument that has been put forward by researchers and so on is that it would be appropriate and practical to use these things in their research. The people who are opposed have taken the position that these are undeveloped human embryos and, therefore, should not be tampered with.

My colleague from Mississauga South has pointed out that the United Kingdom at one point destroyed about 40,000 human embryos without any positive research results. I am wondering, when we are considering the use of embryos, whether we should simply say that there are not enough of them that appear at any given time to do positive research on, or whether we should press ahead into the unknown. The other side of the argument has to do with the potential that stem cell research has to cure disease.

I very often think of my late mother who succumbed to Parkinson's disease. I wonder, if it was 15 or 20 years hence whether the stem cell research would not be able to provide something to arrest, cure or prevent the progress of Parkinson's disease. However the decisions are made, we should not close the door on any of these things.

I am totally opposed to human cloning. That is a given. I think virtually everyone in this chamber regardless of their party affiliation would share that point of view.

I ask that we proceed with great care on the bill so as not to inhibit medical advancement in the future. Let us look at the bill, let us look at its weaknesses and flaws. If the bill can be improved, it is our responsibility to improve it. Whatever we do, whatever conclusions we come to however, we should not inhibit human progress in this regard.

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October 6th, 2003 / 1:05 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Stockwell Day Canadian Alliance Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC

Mr. Speaker, in looking at this legislation we are coming up against a number of legislative roadblocks that we encounter when we deal with legislation from the government. We hear concerns from the public and then we propose and find ways because of suggestions from the public on how to get around these roadblocks. However the government seems to ignore them.

We cannot play politics on something as important as cloning and embryonic and non-embryonic stem cell research. We must stick with the principles and look at the possibilities in order to address the possible roadblocks.

Clearly, something must be done in this whole area of reproductive technologies because it is advancing so rapidly upon us. It is somewhat pleasing to see that we do have members of Parliament from all sides of the House who are in agreement on ways to get around some of the dilemmas, not the least of which are the moral dilemmas.

We propose through our health critic, the member for Yellowhead, a way to take some legislative suggestions and break them into two areas or two bills, and look at addressing each of the two areas in a way in which we can make progress. We are talking about making progress, on behalf of Canadians with health needs, that has the potential of being met because of some of the exciting dimensions that are available to us in this area of technology. It can be done in a way that averts some of the technological dilemmas but moral dilemmas as well.

Our member for Yellowhead proposed that a bill come forward that is broken into two areas, one in which reproductive technologies could be covered as in the former Bill C-56 that members will recall, and another in which we would regulate the human embryo research and all of the implications with that.

A reproductive technology bill could cover such compelling issues as the prohibition on cloning which is very important. A number of countries have put a ban on cloning. What are we going to do about commercial surrogacy? What are we going to do about the question of the buying and selling of human gametes? What are we going to do about gender selection, germ line alteration and the creation of animal-human hybrids? What about the regulation of fertility clinics and the creation of a regulatory agency to observe all of these? That could all be dealt with under one bill and then a separate bill could look at regulating human embryo research.

I want to use an example of how, with discussion in this House and obviously drawing upon the incredible medical technology resource people that Canada has to offer, we put forward some suggestions. And it was important to do so. The issue of cloning, especially when it is being advanced for the purpose of meeting the health needs of people who are afflicted many times with disease, presents that very moral dilemma, as does the issue of stem cell research.

Many Canadians, myself included, believe it is simply wrong to create life for the purpose of destroying it because some part of that newly created life will go to help what might even be someone's significant health care problem.

There is a way of avoiding the whole dilemma and still getting the benefits of what this technology has to offer. The government must be clear and say that it will not proceed with and will not allow things to progress in the area of embryonic stem cell research. That is the type of research which would require the growing of embryos for the purpose of destroying them and rationalizing that it was for future health needs.

Many members, including myself, and millions of Canadians believe it is simply wrong to create life for the purpose of destroying it. How does one avoid that? The area of non-embryonic stem cell research is already making great gains.

As Canadians we are proud to see some of the breakthroughs that have been made in that particular area. In June 2003 Canadian scientists discovered that non-embryonic stem cells can trigger regeneration of severely damaged organs in animals. In this case, Canadian scientists injected bone marrow stem cells into diabetic mice which were cured or back to normal within 7 to 14 days.

We see that this can hold out great possibilities in terms of human health. We have other situations. Recently, Dr. Michael Rudnicki at the Ottawa Health Research Institute published a groundbreaking study showing how a population of adult stem cells or non-embryonic stem cells in muscle tissue contributed to muscle regeneration.

We have seen in the prestigious scientific journal called Cell that uncovered molecular signals that direct these non-embryonic stem cells could actually direct these cells to form new muscle.

We had a situation in September 2002 where a Montreal woman who was newly diagnosed with leukemia received a stem cell transplant from the umbilical cord of her new infant daughter. These are non-embryonic stem cells and seven months after the transplant, the woman was in full remission and considered cured.

Instructive on this particular point are the comments from Dr. Abdullah Daar of the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics. He said:

Should adult stem cells ever prove to be as good as [embryonic] cells, then why would anybody want to bother with embryonic stem cells?

These are the questions being put by the very leaders in technology in the field itself. Alan Bernstein who is president of the CIHR said:

Aside from the ethical issues, if one could take one's own adult... stem cells from bone marrow and use them to cure Parkinson's disease, you wouldn't have to worry about [immune] rejection problems. So this would be just a huge advance.

Immune rejection problems are very significant when it comes to dealing with and the exploration of treatment of embryonic stem cells.

Science itself is offering a way out of this cul-de-sac of debate, this moral dilemma in which the government continues to circle. Simply approve and move ahead with the area of non-embryonic stem cell research and regulate out the possibility of embryonic stem cell research.

When we look at Bill C-13, the government seems to be saying one thing in the House but says something totally different at the United Nations. We have a concern with that. The former minister of health stated in Geneva at meetings of the World Health Organization that “cloning for the replication of human individuals is ethically unacceptable and contrary to human dignity and integrity”.

He was condemning cloning. We happen to agree with that. But representatives of the government say different things at the United Nations when they discuss this and it is not reflective of what the government is saying to Canadians.

The bill also allows for “grandfathering”, if I can use that term in this debate, allowing scientists, who engage in such activity before the bill takes effect, to avoid licensing requirements and prosecution provisions? As a government, it cannot say it is opposed to something and in fact condemn something, as the former minister of health said, and then allow for it to happen. These contradictions cause us great concern.

We would like to see consistency on behalf of the government as if relates to Bill C-13. We would like to see if the former minister's statement is in fact the position of the government--“that it is ethically unacceptable and contrary to human dignity and integrity” to allow cloning to happen. Members of our party and I happen to agree with that as do many members of Parliament.

The government should bring forward the consistency of that statement into this legislation and into the regulatory process that follows. We should not allow for the door to be opened so that a violation of that clear principle of preservation of life can happen. If the government is serious about it, it should state it clearly and bring forward legislation that is consistent, and inform our delegates at the United Nations to speak in a like manner as well.

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October 6th, 2003 / 12:45 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Jim Abbott Canadian Alliance Kootenay—Columbia, BC

Mr. Speaker, following the debate in the House is one thing, but it has also been interesting to follow the debate in the news.

Over the weekend I happened to notice that one of the members, who is not noted for his religious outbursts or anything to do with his faith, was questioned about the fact that because he was opposed to Bill C-13, he must be a member of the so-called God squad. He said that he was not a member of the God squad but that he was opposed and he listed the reasons why.

Where did this almost blasphemous term, the God squad, come from? It comes about as a result of the fact that there are people in the House who have a strong sense of their faith, their identity in terms of their relationship with a Supreme Being. Therefore, I would claim the privilege of being a member of the God squad.

The God squad is a group of people, if indeed it exists, who say there is an absolute standard in this world. There is an absolute standard of how I relate to my family and to people in my community. There is an absolute standard with which I came into politics and I did not check that absolute standard at the door when I walked in here. That, very simply, is a part of the problem, a part of the cynicism that seems to be developing around the bill.

We are concerned about the bill, not just because of what is contained in the bill but because of the way in which the Liberal government has conducted itself and is continuing to conduct itself outside of this chamber, not only in Canada, but outside of our great nation, in the world.

The member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine who just spoke made the point that in her vision, although people in the House have said there is not a ban on human cloning, there was a ban on human cloning contained in Bill C-13. Let us leave that for scholars and lawyers to decide. However at the same time, the Liberal government is attempting to ram the bill through the House of Commons, it is taking quite a significantly different position at the United Nations.

An international convention to ban human cloning is being debated at the United Nations. One resolution, backed by the U.S. and several countries, calls for a comprehensive ban on all human cloning, reproductive and therapeutic. That would be consistent with Bill C-13, which would prohibit the creation of a human clone by any technique. However there is another resolution currently before the UN which calls only for a ban on reproductive cloning. Strangely, Canada is supporting this resolution.

I and the Canadian Alliance 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. Therefore, we find it suspicious that Canada's position at the UN suggests our government may have a hidden agenda in the support of therapeutic cloning. Why the double standard? Why the one standard when the government is attempting to get the bill through the chamber, and the other standard at the United Nations where it is in support of therapeutic cloning? Understandably, we are suspicious.

There is nothing more precious in this world than human life. It is the very breath that we breathe. It is the way that we manage to interact with each other. It is not an overstatement obviously to say that without life there is nothing. When it comes to a bill of this magnitude, to try to enact legislation of this type in a vacuum of ethics, morality and, I suggest, of religious standards is folly of the first order.

It has been interesting that as this bill has been before the House and before us as members of Parliament, it has perhaps made me even more aware of some of the standards that are held within our civilized societies. I notice that on soap operas coming to us from France, Australia and England, or even on our own soap operas, there is always conflict between people. That is what makes a soap opera. There is always back-stabbing between people, but the minute that one person's life is threatened, suddenly the plot thickens and that becomes the key issue.

Indeed, the reality is that without life there is nothing. Therefore, our concern about this bill is in part what is in the bill, the imperfections that are in the bill, but of equal or perhaps even greater importance, our concern, my concern, is what the ultimate objective is of the government and where it is going.

I started by talking about the almost blasphemous term the God squad. When I make these statements, I am thinking not just in terms of the most dominant faith in Canada, which at this point is Christianity, I am also thinking of the Muslims. I am thinking of the Sikhs. I am thinking of the Hindus. I am thinking of people who follow the teachings of Confucius, the Buddhists. I am thinking of all people of faith who have an absolute standard that is a reality in their lives, because for many Canadians, countless millions of Canadians, they have within their lives, at their very soul, at their very core, a belief in human life.

It defies logic to understand why the government would not have split this bill into the two obvious parts.

There are many procedures currently in place in Canada whereby human life is enhanced, that through adult stem cell research. We know of many advancements in being able to do away with or at least slow the spread of Parkinson's. We know of many advancements where there has been the removal of stem cells from an individual and those stem cells have been treated and put back into the same individual, so that there is absolutely no need for all the drugs that are necessary when a foreign body is put into a human being.

One of the most exciting parts of being alive and being a human being is the ability to be able to think, to conceive ideas, to be able to bring science to many of the tragic situations that face human beings in terms of their health. This bill, in terms of adult stem cell research, is going in the correct direction. What I am concerned about, and what many are concerned about, is the absolute lack of sensitivity, the absolute lack of understanding, when it comes to stem cell research other than adult stem cell research.

The distinctive of a civilized society is the respect of human life. That is why we find it so confusing within all of our civilized societies throughout the world when we are confronted with people who will not only take their own lives but in so doing will end up becoming suicide bombers and taking other people's lives. This is a value that is at the core of who we are in a civilized society.

This bill as it presently stands is wrong and we will do everything we can do to see that it is defeated.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 6th, 2003 / 12:30 p.m.
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Liberal

Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC

Mr. Speaker, I was among those who said no because I wanted to be sure to have enough time to speak.

I want to address Bill C-13, or reproductive technologies. This is the first time I have spoken on this issue. I have listened to, either in the House or while watching the debates live on television, or I have read the transcripts of just about everyone who has spoken to the issue in this House. I find that there has been a lot of misinformation that has been given about what Bill C-13 would do and what it would not do. I would like to just give a few pieces of information.

There are those who claim that Bill C-13 would not ban human cloning. This is incorrect. The legislation indeed would ban human cloning. The member for Mississauga South, who put forward a motion at report stage which was adopted, stated, when he spoke in support of his motion, that it would extend the prohibition of human cloning to include all types of human cloning. The House listened and adopted the motion that was put forward by the member and the legislation would ban all forms of human cloning.

In fact, Dr. Patricia Baird, the former head of the royal commission has stated, “Based on an incorrect understanding of the science, some have suggested that the bill doesn't ban cloning, but in fact on careful reading it clearly does”. Those are her words not mine.

She was quoted as saying that, in the Ottawa Citizen on March 27.

The issue as to whether or not the bill would permit the implanting of human reproductive materials into non-human life forms as well has been raised. It has been suggested in this House by numerous of my colleagues that the biomedical definition of chimera involves the implantation of reproductive materials from a human into an animal or from an animal into a human and that Bill C-13 would permit the implanting of human reproductive material into non-human life forms.

As is the case with any piece of legislation, a definition must be read within the context of the scope of that legislation. The scope of Bill C-13 is the human embryo and as such, the definition of chimera would be limited to those combinations that involve a human embryo. The definition used in Bill C-13 is scientifically accurate and has been reviewed and stated to be scientifically accurate by some of Canada's leading researchers.

Another claim that has been made in this House by members who oppose Bill C-13 is that there are less than 10 embryos available in Canada that would meet research quality requirements and that the number of surplus embryos is not expected to increase since medical technology has improved. Comparatively they claim, the U.K. has destroyed 40,000 human embryos without any positive research results. Those claims are incorrect.

In fact the number of embryos available for research purposes in Canada and their potential quality are unknown. Why are they unknown? Because the fertility clinics and the human reproductive technologies are not regulated at this time. Therefore, the government and from one clinic to another have no way of knowing how many embryos there are or the quality of the state or condition in which they are. We have no way of knowing.

The regulatory regime which would be established under Bill C-13 would lead to an accurate understanding of the number of embryos in storage and the number of embryos potentially available for research, and would control the type of research projects that could be undertaken.

Concerning the 40,000 human embryos that U.K. supposedly has destroyed without any positive research results, I cannot state how many embryos have been destroyed in the U.K. What I can say is the U.K. is one of the world leaders in the area embryonic research and significant advances in reproductive medicine has been made available by its research. In fact in vitro fertilization was first successfully carried in the U.K. in 1978. As of August 2002, there were 28 licensed projects in the U.K. involving the in vitro embryo, the majority of them focusing on improving infertility treatments.

For example, in the U.K. as we speak projects are underway to improve the maturation of embryos in vitro, to increase implantation rates as well as studies into improving egg freezing techniques. I believe that the claim that there have been no positive research results is inaccurate.

Another claim that has been made in the House by some members to justify their opposition to Bill C-13 is that the conflict of interest provisions are so weak they would allow biotech and pharmaceutical companies to be represented on the board of the agency that would approve and license research projects.

I would encourage those members to go back and read Bill C-13. The government's amendment to Bill C-13, which now constitutes paragraph 26(9), sets solid requirements for all prospective and serving members of the board. No board member may hold a licence or be an applicant for a licence or be a director, officer, shareholder or partner of a licensee or applicant for a licence. These requirements could not be more stringent or more appropriate.

It is however not the intention of Bill C-13 to exclude people from the board who have relevant experience, such as doctors, scientists, nurses, ethicists, counsellors et cetera. If we were to exclude these people we would be undermining the credibility of the board.

Paragraph 26(9) sets out solid conflict of interest requirements and the conflict of interest provision is in addition to the stringent conflict of interest and post-employment code principles, already binding all governor in council appointees.

Another claim that has been made in the House by opponents to Bill C-13 is that significant clauses of the bill have been qualified by phrases such as “per the regulations” and therefore members of the House who oppose Bill C-13 are saying that MPs are being asked to vote on a bill without knowing the full intent and that they will not be permitted to approve regulations.

First, all members of Parliament have oversight capacity over regulations. In addition, the House in conjunction with the other house, has a Joint Standing Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations that only scrutinizes regulations. However that does not preclude any standing committee of the House to scrutinize regulations.

Second, the act provides for parliamentary oversight of the regulations that would occur at the time of Canada Gazette Part I . It also calls for a review by Parliament after three years which would allow MPs to review again the appropriateness of the bill's provisions and associate regulations.

Finally, I can obviously not go through everything but I want to point out one thing. Bill C-13 prohibits commercial surrogacy on the grounds that it treats children as objects. It also treats the reproductive capacity of women and reproduction in general as economic activities.

Subclause 12(3) introduced at report stage and adopted by the majority of members of Parliament provides for the reimbursement of lost income for a surrogate mother which in no way contradicts the non-commercialization scheme. A surrogate mother may only be compensated for loss of income during pregnancy if she has a medical certificate stating that continuing to work may pose a risk to her health or to that of the developing fetus. It already exists in workmen's compensation in Quebec.

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October 6th, 2003 / 12:20 p.m.
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Bloc

Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-13 is extremely important because we have already had this debate when it appeared as Bill C-56. My colleague, the hon. member for Drummond, was a visionary and had in the mid-1990s suggested that parliamentarians should consider such legislation. She introduced a private member's bill that sought to prohibit human cloning for reproductive and therapeutic purposes.

I am extremely saddened—I do not know if it shows; I remain calm at all times—by what is happening here today. When we left for our ridings in June, I asked the Minister of Health to ensure that the Bloc Quebecois could support this legislation. We are not being politically correct with regard to this legislation. We are not debating abortion in terms of pro-life or pro-choice. This is not what we are doing; we will have other opportunities to do so.

We agree that the Criminal Code which is a federal responsibility must contain provisions prohibiting various practices on humans that, for ethical reasons and humanist reasons are unacceptable. We are talking about cloning, transgenesis, gender selection and the possibility of playing with prenatal diagnoses, in short, any and all considerations that we agree need to be federally legislated.

The problem is that this legislation contains a proposal to establish a regulatory agency responsible for implementing any regulations. This regulatory agency and the regulations, established under Bill C-13, would be incompatible with about a dozen provincial laws.

We must not forget the starting point, which is that one out of five couples in Canada experiences some degree of infertility. This is the premise. Obviously, some people, like Louise Vandelac, a UQAM researcher, say that this legislation should focus more on preventing endocrine disruptors in the environment, which cause infertility in humans.

If we look at the bottom line, we can see that the problem with the future regulatory agency is that it will not take into account a number of laws duly passed by the Quebec National Assembly.

If Bill C-13 is passed, it should be divided into two bills. In fact, upon our return in January, with its usual the sense of responsibility, the Bloc Quebecois asked for that specifically. All my colleagues in the Bloc Quebecois would have been only too happy to vote in favour of a bill focussing exclusively on prohibited activities. I am sure that our colleagues from the Canadian Alliance, the NDP and the Progressive Conservative Party would have too.

This bill would have the federal government regulate the provision of services in private clinics and hospitals. Under section 112 of the Quebec Act respecting health services and social services, the Quebec Minister of Health and Social Services is responsible for determining which facilities will provide artificial insemination services and other forms of medically assisted reproduction services.

So, if the bill, and subsequently the related regulations, were passed, this would mean that the federal government could then override the right of the Quebec Minister of Health and Social Services and the National Assembly to establish the conditions under which health professionals will provide medically assisted reproduction services.

Bill C-13 is incompatible with the Quebec Civil Code, the act respecting health services and social services, the act respecting the protection of personal information, the act respecting medical laboratories, the charter of human rights and freedoms, the medical code of ethics, the guidelines of the Quebec health research fund, and the ministerial action plan for research ethics and scientific integrity.

On Saturday morning, I met with the Fédération québécoise de planification des naissances. This Quebec group knows Bill C-13 well, and has been interested in issues having to do with planned parenthood for many years. The political attaché to Mr. Couillard, Quebec's health and social services minister, was also present.

We seemed to be reading the bill the same way. I know that the Government of Quebec has not yet announced its final position on this issue. It will do that soon. But the Government of Quebec—which is not a sovereignist government, we know—was very worried about the precedent that might be created.

I explained matters to the researchers, the feminist groups and the federation. There are groups in Quebec who have been waiting for such a bill for 15 years. One of the people at the meeting was Louise Vandelac, a researcher who had worked with the Baird Commission. She withdrew from that commission, as did the wife of the hon. member for Calgary Centre. We know that these people went as far as the Federal Court to protest some of the activities of the Baird commission.

And yet, the political attaché to the minister of health and social services was aware, as are the members from Quebec—those from the Bloc Quebecois anyway, but perhaps not the Liberal members from Quebec—that if this bill is adopted, we will be creating a precedent allowing a regulatory agency to intervene directly in establishing and regulating services provided in hospitals and private clinics.

If, as Bloc Quebecois members, we pass Bill C-13, since we do acknowledge the need for legislation on banned practices—so much so that the member for Drummond introduced a bill on it as far back as 1995— this means the federal government is going to conclude that it has leeway to get involved in early child education and palliative care. It will take advantage of this precedent, unfortunately, to interfere in health and social services, beyond the limits of its jurisdiction.

We have worked very hard on this issue. There is nothing partisan about it. People with fertility problems who want to have a child go through a lot of turmoil. We have received all kinds of testimonials, and I could talk about them for hours. So I asked the federal health minister: “Why did the federal government not split the bill?” I went on to say “If you are convinced you are not ultra petita , not outside your area of jurisdiction, why do you not table a letter from the Quebec minister of health, and one signed by yourself as federal health minister, acknowledging that, regardless of what agency, and what regulations are adopted by the Government of Quebec, this will be the law applicable to Quebec.

Equivalency will be acknowledged right from the start. It is possible that there could be an equivalency agreement in the bill. This must, however, be evaluated by federal officials, and what guarantee do we have that everything done by the Government of Quebec, which had provisions in its civil code as far back as 1994, will be acknowledged?. What guarantee do we have that any agency and legislation created subsequently by the National Assembly will be recognized?

I say again to the minister, if we get that letter, that guarantee, we will vote in favour of this bill at third reading. If we do not, however, believe me, we will not keep quiet and allow jurisdictions to be trampled over in this way.

Given the urgency of the situation and the fact that I, as a Bloc member, have followed this issue from the start in the Standing Committee on Health, could you, Mr. Speaker, find out whether, in the spirit of camaraderie that ought to exist in this Chamber, and given the importance of the issue, I might not have an additional 15 minutes to complete my speech? I would see that as a sign of true camaraderie.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 6th, 2003 / 12:10 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Ken Epp Canadian Alliance Elk Island, AB

Mr. Speaker, often I begin my speeches by saying that I am honoured and pleased to stand in the House to debate an important issue but this time I have to say that I am not very pleased to be debating this bill under these circumstances.

I think it is absolutely deplorable that the Liberal government would, in the face of a large amount of controversy and a lot of details that still have to be worked out, take steps to stop the debate on this bill and to force a vote, which is, in effect, what it is doing.

Having moved the motion “that the question be now put” precludes any further amendments. That is atrocious. Here we have a matter of life and death in the highest possible terms in the meaning of life and the Liberals are flippant about it. I hesitate to say that but they are very inadequate in the way they are doing this.

I heard my colleagues talk about splitting the bill. I do not know why the Liberal government would not do that. Why not deal expeditiously with items which are urgent? Even as we speak a debate is taking place at the United Nations on human cloning. There are some motions being debated, one of them being that all human cloning be banned. That is my position. I think it is an affront to the dignity of humanity and certainly of individuals to say “well, we will just make another one of you”.

Experimentation in human cloning should be totally banned. I know others disagree with that. Why can we not have a debate on it? Meanwhile, we see that Canada's position at the United Nations is ambiguous at best. We seem to be saying, “well you know, we do not really know about human cloning. Maybe it is okay for therapeutic purposes”.

Can anyone Imagine bringing into being a new human life to create spare parts for someone else? Since when have we had in our society the way of thinking that one human life is dispensable in order to provide for the life of another?

The dilemma arises from false assumptions. There are those who claim that the unborn child is not a human. I would simply ask, if it is not human, then what is it? It is not a monkey. It is not a cow or a pig. It is human and yet they say that this unborn child is not human. We have the dilemma in Canadian law that we can be fined or jailed for destroying the egg of a whooping crane which is a protected species and yet we have no such legislation protecting the uncompleted embryo of a human.

Is a human not worth as much as a bird? That is the dilemma. Why government members would just simply bulldoze through and say that they are doing it, they do not care, makes me almost conclude that there is such a moral deficiency over on the government side that they do not have a handle on it.

The bill should have been split so that those very necessary prohibitions could have been dealt with expeditiously. We then could have spent more time getting the other part and doing it right.

I remember one of my colleagues at the college where I taught had a little plaque on his bulletin board which said, “if you don't have time to do it right, when will you find time to do it again?” That is what we are dealing with here. For some reason time is running out, arbitrarily, and we are not doing it right. How can we ever find time to fix it up and do it again?

One of the primary dilemmas is that this is an unprincipled government. Hence, this very important bill, Bill C-13, expresses no principles in the preamble or elsewhere.

I would have liked to have seen in the preamble an overriding principle. It should have said somewhere in there that in Canada there is a profound respect for human life. This is absent in Bill C-13. The government does not even have the moral fortitude to put in the bill, which deals with life and death, a guiding principle that says we have respect for human life.

Sometime I will ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether you are a father and a grandfather and all those good things. I am and it is wonderful. My wife and I have three wonderful children. We have two in-laws that have married into the family. My wife Betty and I now have five beautiful grandchildren. They are the best, our grandchildren in Regina, Dallas, Kayla and I am thinking of Noah, my little six year old grandson. What a neat little guy. I could not even take him for a motorbike ride yesterday because I had to leave to come here. He was somewhat disappointed, but I will do it next time. And there is little Hannah and little Mica, who is only six months old. What a beautiful little baby.

When we look at these little children we cannot help but say that somehow in a profound way humanity and the divine have come together in the fact that we have the capacity to produce new life. And here Bill C-13 talks of cloning and all sorts of other procedures even, if necessary, taking the life of children before they are born.

I always say that the conclusions we reach are a function of two things. They are a function of our initial proposition or assumption and the function of our thought process or analysis as we go along. Those are the two things which determine our conclusions.

If we conclude that the unborn is not human, then no matter what kind of reasoning we use, we are going to come to a conclusion which does not respect human life. I do not care how it is cut. That is the assumption that is made and in my view it is a false assumption.

I remember reading a report of a researcher who was helping infertile couples. He was talking about beginning the life cycle in a Petri dish. The egg is put in the Petri dish right out in the open. It is not inside the woman's body. The male element is added and all of a sudden, the cells start dividing and that document said explicitly that life has begun, that cell division has begun.

I know the debate today is not about where does life begin, but that was a secular non-religious person saying that life had just begun at the moment of conception. Yet this country is ready with that Liberal government over there to deny that very important scientific fact and somehow dull our senses and our ethical standards to the point where just about anything goes.

I reiterate that we need to have in this type of a bill that underlying principle that says we have a profound and a deep respect for human life. We should have in Bill C-13 a provision that when ethics and science collide, ethics should prevail. How can we call ourselves good people if we allow some scientific ability to override our ethical standards? I like the phrase, and I do not know who said it, but it is something along the lines that just because we can do something does not mean that we should do something.

I contend that in this bill, as in all of our considerations on these topics, we ought to say that ethical standards and measures take pre-eminence over simply a scientific ability to do things.

I could go on for another two hours. I would like to ask for unanimous consent for me to have another five minutes.

PrivilegePrivate Members' Business

October 6th, 2003 / 12:05 p.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, my question of privilege relates to Bill C-13, an act respecting assisted human reproductive technologies and related research, which is the order of the day. I rise now because I believe a matter has occurred that impinges on the rights and privileges of all members of Parliament.

Last Friday I rose in the House to ask unanimous consent of the House for a reprint of Bill C-13, which would reflect the significant changes that were made during report stage last April. We have not had a reprint of the bill. In fact, if members were to ask for a copy of Bill C-13 today, they would receive the bill that came out of committee with only committee amendments reflected and it would be dated December 12, 2002.

I sponsored about 54 amendments at report stage and I believe as many as 100 amendments were proposed at report stage. During the debate at report stage a number of those amendments were carried on voice vote and did not require a recorded division. During the votes for other report stage motions, for which deferred recorded divisions were requested, there were over 20 amendments on very significant matters which were adopted by the House. For example, there was one amendment with regard to surrogacy for profit in certain cases.

I believe this is a matter of privilege because members of Parliament, for the first time since April 10, were asked on Friday and again today to appear in the House for the final debate on Bill C-13. The House leader moved a motion that the question be now put, which means no other amendments can be made. Now is the time that final speeches must be given.

However members could not possibly go back and look at report stage motions in isolation and understand what they mean. They have to be in the context of the clause to which they relate. It is a complex bill which is why the House decided to split it after significant debate.

Therefore I believe the issue of privilege is that members do not have the information in front of them in a form that permits them to make reasoned debate at third reading concurrence on Bill C-13. I believe this also relates to the hon. members in the other place, as well as to the Canadian public, to understand exactly what is being debated, what are the elements and what is there or not there. Not only can we not debate it but we are being asked to vote on it.

I ask for a reprint of the bill that reflects the numerous and significant changes that have been made. It is available. It only has to be adjusted on the first page. I am told by the Table that it would not show the information that is normally associated with a concurrence motion. It would simply be whited out or blacked out. It is available and I believe members should have that in order to do a proper job as members of Parliament.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 3rd, 2003 / 10:45 a.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Larry Spencer Canadian Alliance Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK

Mr. Speaker, this bill is a very controversial subject across our land. It is probably third only to the recent bills that we have seen go through this place, one on the question of marriage and the other being Bill C-250. There are hundreds of people who have written who are concerned about Bill C-13. They are concerned about the view that this Parliament would reflect on humanity itself, the value of life and the dignity of life if we embark upon some of the measures provided for in this legislation.

Someone has said that this is not an issue of religion or conscience. I would suggest it really is an issue of conscience whether one is religious or not. I was reminded of that remark recently in the United States when we heard of someone who was fined something like $25,000 for destroying an eagle's egg. I am remembering the burrowing owls that we have in Canada and the endangered species legislation that we are looking at where people could be fined for even destroying the habitat or the nesting grounds of species in this country.

Would we punish them for destroying an egg of a bird or the burrow of an owl? Would we punish them for that and say it was sacrilegious to destroy them, or are we being religious for passing laws to protect endangered species? No one accuses us of being religious for doing that. Why would they want to accuse us of being overly religious for passing laws to protect the dignity and the safety of the human race?

Our party supports a number of aspects of the bill. We support the bans on reproductive and therapeutic cloning, the bans on animal and human hybrids, the bans on sex selection and the bans on buying and selling embryos. We recognize that these are the good aspects of the bill. As so often is the case, we get caught between a rock and a hard place when we deal with legislation. So often, there are parts of a bill that are good, as are these points that I have mentioned in this bill, and then there are parts that are weak or bad and cause us to have to violate our conscience to support that part of the legislation.

With regard to cloning, the Canadian Alliance opposes human cloning as we believe it is an affront to human dignity, individuality and rights. We have spoken often and for a long time against human cloning. We have been urging the federal government to take a stand and bring in legislation. It has been over 10 years since the report first came out that we should deal with these kinds of things. The Liberals have put it off and waited. It is my understanding that some companies in Canada announced recently that they were tired of waiting and that they were going to go ahead with some of this research. It is a shame that we have waited this long to deal with these kinds of issues.

The practices that are still allowed in this bill are not acceptable to some of us. The bill does say that the health and well-being of children born through assisted human reproduction must be given a priority. We believe in that and we believe in it very strongly. In fact, the health committee itself in its meetings came up with a ranking of the interests that should be made around this bill.

First of all, it said children born through assisted human reproduction should have priority in the decision making; second, adults participating in that procedure; and third, the researchers and physicians who conduct AHR research. They did not mention it, but I guess fourth would be the society in general that would benefit from anything that came out of this kind of research.

Even though children are mentioned as the ones who are to be considered first when we talk about these procedures, we have a way of saying something and then quickly forgetting what it really means. In the bill, children born through donor insemination or from donor eggs are not given the right to know the identity of their biological parents. How can we say that we are considering the needs of the children first when we refuse to even allow them to find out the identify of their biological parents?

In this day and age we know there are many cases where it is very valuable information medically to have a knowledge of who one's parents really are, where they came from, what were the diseases they had, what were their traits and characteristics. We do not allow for that in the bill.

The bill does not provide an acknowledgement of human dignity or respect for human life. The government makes some statements that are sort of related but it refuses to make a statement about the dignity or the sanctity of human life. The bill is intimately connected with the creation of human life, human life that will in its end be used strictly for research.

The minority report recommended that the final legislation would recognize the human embryo as human life and that the statutory declaration include the phrase “respect for human life”. I heard already this morning in this debate that the human embryo is not human life. Is it life at all? I think it can be proven scientifically that it is life. The cells are already beginning divide. It is growing and only living things grow. Certainly we must know that it is human. It is not another kind of animal. It is not a plant. It is not a vegetable. It is in fact a human life.

The bill also allows for experiments using human embryos under four conditions. Only in vitro embryos left over can be used. Written permission must be given by the donor. It does not say donors, it just says donor. We believe that every human embryo by scientific evidence would have to have two donors and not just one. There should be the recognition of both donors in this case and that both donors should give permission and not just one. The bill also allows for research on human embryos if the use is necessary. Necessary is undefined. In vitro fertilization requires the creation of human embryos and the bill says it is only as many as are necessary, but when the end comes, when the implantation is made I think we will find that many embryos have been destroyed that were not necessary and unused only to speed up the process. We are in such a hurry to see things happen. We cannot wait to see one or two eggs fertilized at a time so that a couple can bear children.

Sometimes we forget that Bill C-13 would allow the creation of embryos for reproductive research. Canadian law will now legitimize the view that human life can be created solely for the benefit of others and sacrificed in the name of research.

I come back to the fact that the human embryo is life. Whether it is a senior adult, a young adult, a child, a baby, a fetus or an embryo, I must conclude that it is human life.

I will close by quoting Suzanne Scorsone, a former member of the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies, who said “The human embryo is a human individual with a complete personal genome, and should be a subject of research only for its own benefit”. She also said that many people hold to the idea that to destroy the embryo or utilize it as industrial raw material is damaging and dehumanizing not only to that embryo but to all of human society.

I maintain that that is the right position.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 3rd, 2003 / 10:25 a.m.
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Bloc

Monique Guay Bloc Laurentides, QC

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-13 is very important. As we know, it concerns assisted human reproduction. I can understand that there are divergent opinions on this matter. I know that some members of the House oppose this project for religious or other personal reasons. I do not share their views. However, we must divide the issue and see the positive and the scientific side of assisted reproduction. As I was saying, it is not simply a religious question or a question of conscience; one very important aspect is that, with assisted reproduction, we can help families or people who truly need help.

I will give the House a little scenario. For some years now, a cluster of technological developments have made the headlines. From Dolly the sheep to the debate about cloning human embryos for therapeutic purposes, the exciting buzz of biotechnology is taking us down previously unexplored paths. The fact that today we have some ability to deconstruct matter and, to some extent, reconstruct a living being, means that we are confronted with new problems, whose extent we still do not comprehend. These new possibilities require increased vigilance and solid ethical examination, in order to ensure that we do not overstep certain boundaries. In order to do this, a new legal language, new concepts and a new political approach are required.

Over the years, many parliamentarians, including a number from the Bloc Quebecois, have exposed the legal vacuum surrounding assisted reproduction. Again and again, we have revived the debate by calling on citizens and experts to express themselves and by demanding that the federal government impose socially acceptable limits as soon as possible. Still, we must admit that it is difficult to strike a balance between a solid ethical position that respects human dignity and the need to meet therapeutic needs.

We must decide overall how we view life and what kind of technological progress we want. Society has to make some choices, and it is high time for this debate to move into the public arena, so that everyone can have their say. Recently tabled legislation on assisted human reproduction by the federal government is a good first step in stimulating this discussion and, at the same time, relaunching a social debate temporarily shelved.

I want to review the highlights of this legislation. On May 9, the Minister of Health introduced this highly anticipated legislation on assisted human reproduction. It seeks to protect the health and safety of individuals using assisted reproductive technologies to start a family, to prohibit unacceptable activities, such as human cloning, and to regulate assisted reproductive technologies and related research. The assisted human reproduction agency of Canada, which will be created under this legislation, will issue licences for research, monitor such activities and oversee the application of the legislation on assisted reproduction.

Safety must, to some extent, be ensured. In order to ensure the health and safety of those who turn to assisted reproduction, this bill stipulates that individuals thinking of donating an ovum or an embryo for assisted human reproduction or research purposes must give their informed consent in writing before any procedure. Children born through the use of reproductive material will have access to medical information on donors, but will not necessarily have access to their identity, donors being free to decide whether or not to divulge their identity.

The legislation would also prohibit unacceptable activities, such as the creation of human clones for any reason whatsoever, i.e. for purposes of reproduction or for therapeutic purposes. The legislation would also prohibit creating an in vitro embryo for purposes other than creating a human being or improving assisted reproduction procedures, creating chimeras or hybrids for reproductive purposes, providing financial inducements to a woman to become a surrogate mother, and buying or selling human embryos or providing property or services in exchange.

I would like to present an overview of the pros and cons as set out in the various arguments we have heard throughout the discussions on human cloning. The arguments of those in favour of stem cell research fall into four main categories: historical, medical, humanitarian and legal-political.

Let us begin with the historical arguments. In the 1970s, there was vocal opposition to DNA research. After the establishment of government guidelines, however, not only was there good monitoring of research, but research also led to the development of human insulin for diabetics.

As for the medical arguments, many are of the opinion that embryonic stem cell research has a huge potential for curative medicine.

Humanitarian arguments are usually advanced by associations such as the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, based on their belief that such research is indispensable to improving the situation of those with the disease. Some experts point out that there are hundreds of frozen embryos in fertility clinics throughout Canada that have become useless, whereas they could have been used to help find treatments for such diseases as cancer, diabetes and Parkinson's disease.

Now for the legal-political arguments. Certain women's groups and certain legal experts argue that, in our current legal framework, the Supreme Court has been obliged, since 1988, to recognize that not only is a fetus not a human being—which civil law also acknowledges—but that it cannot be considered viable before the 20th week of gestation. Thus, if a fetus is not a human being, then tissues from it are not tissues from a human being.

Now for the arguments against. Research on human embryonic stem cells is controversial, mainly because it involves destruction of the embryo used. According to the Catholic Church, the creation of embryos for research purposes and the use of embryonic stem cells are actions contrary to the will of God, for whom reproduction must always be a conjugal act. Since the embryo is a potential human being, according to the Church it must have a special moral status. Moreover, numerous associations have expressed the fear that cloning, initially justified as a means to a cure for certain very rare diseases, will eventually become widespread and lead to the production of designer babies.

I will give a background on where we stand. The Bloc Quebecois has been studying this issue for several years; we have had major discussions and extensive debate to ensure that the bill would protect human beings, and that the use of embryos would stop short of human cloning. At the same time, certain jurisdictions must also be protected.

Now, for our party's position; we have been defending this issue and talking about it amongst ourselves for many years. We also realize that Bill C-13, if adopted, would interfere in Quebec's jurisdiction with respect to health. That is unacceptable to us.

My colleagues from Hochelaga—Maisonneuve and from Drummond have done extraordinary work in the Standing Committee on Health. They tried to move amendments to ensure that Quebec's jurisdictions would be left alone, but, to no avail, since they were all lost.

For us, this is not a religious question, but a question of jurisdiction and the administration of justice. We do not want this bill to change the rules for health in Quebec. Quebec manages its own affairs quite well and we want it to stay that way. We are against this bill.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 3rd, 2003 / 10:15 a.m.
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Liberal

John O'Reilly Liberal Haliburton—Victoria—Brock, ON

Mr. Speaker, I certainly also want to join in on the debate on Bill C-13 at third reading, even though basically there is now a move to invoke closure on the bill.

I think we have to take some time because the bill actually does represent life itself, and the information on this technology is certainly evolving. As time goes on, there is more and more in the technology coming forward that causes us to stop and to be concerned. The intent of the bill two years ago was certainly not the technology that is available today to support it.

I think the legislation could be passed very quickly if the bill were split and the controversial items in it taken out; they are very few and I do not understand the minister's reluctance to do this.

It bothers me that a committee of the House of Commons would make recommendations that would be completely ignored by the minister.

As we looked at changing the structure of the House of Commons, something in which I have been involved in the last few years, I was looking forward to the fact that committees would actually have some relevance, that they would not be partisan and that they would not be just carrying out the wishes of the government. I thought that committees would actually follow the recommendations that come from all parties during the debate and upon listening to the various witnesses who came forward.

In looking at this particular legislation, I notice that pretty nearly all the recommendations of the committee have been ignored, not necessarily on the things we all agree with, but on the things we disagree with.

The committee conducted very extensive hearings on the draft bill. It presented 34 recommendations, some of which the member for Mississauga South recommended and brought forward and which I seconded. I thought the recommendations had some basis for and merited discussion. I am sorry to see that the minister chose not to appear before the committee or not to listen to the committee. The minister chose instead to blindly go forward without any basis in fact on the actual bill itself.

As the committee went through clause by clause at report stage, the minister basically proposed three motions that reversed all three of the committee recommendations. I think that maybe the committees of the House of Commons in the next Parliament should be re-examined, reformed and looked at in the light of their relevance. Because if the government is just going to blindly pass legislation without input from the committees, if it is not going to refer the bills to committees and then take the recommendations of expert witnesses, I find I am in a quandary about how I can support such legislation going ahead.

Mr. Speaker, you will know that it was a legislative committee which did some of the work on the anti-terrorist legislation. Many of the recommendations came forward from witnesses, some of which were questionable witnesses, the ethics counsellor and some others, but the fact is that those recommendations were taken into consideration. Changes were then made to some of the 22 pieces of legislation before that committee.

We now have a bill with 28 areas in which regulations have to be developed, and the bill itself is flawed in many instances, to say the least.

I find that this is a bill dealing entirely with what I would consider the life of a baby. Even the Minister of Health, in recommendations on when life begins, has now come out with labelling on cigarette packages which states, “Smoking during pregnancy can harm the life of a baby”. That does not say a fetus. That does not say something which does not exist. It says a baby. So on one side of its recommendations the department admits that life begins at conception, and on the other side it is saying it does not.

I find a contradiction here. I am at odds with the minister on this, because as a pro-lifer, which puts me in the “God squad” as I am told, whatever that means, it means to me that I stand up for what I believe. I do not intend to change my mind. I do not have any science to indicate that I should change my mind. Nothing has been brought forward to indicate that I am wrong, in my mind of course, as in some people's minds I am dead wrong on almost everything. That is what happens when one is in an adversarial situation with the Government of Canada and representing a large rural riding.

On Bill C-13 and the actual closure legislation that has been brought forth, it allows us an hour to debate a bill that should be debated at far greater length. Speakers should have been allowed to come forward, as the member for Mississauga South has indicated, like many groups appearing before the committee that have not been heard in Parliament and have not had their views brought forward.

Members of Parliament are uninformed about the bill. They have made up their minds based on what the minister has told them to say. I find that reprehensible in regard to the way I operate. I believe we should look at every bill, examine bills as members of Parliament, listen to all the evidence or at least have the courtesy to read the evidence, come to our own conclusions and then be judged based on our conscience as to how we in fact vote on a bill.

I was not prepared to speak on the bill this morning. I felt that it would follow its normal course. It would have a lot of debate on both sides, there would be input at third reading and I would be able to represent the views of my riding, which are, by the way, mixed. I think the views are mixed because the evidence brought forward is not evidence that in fact has reached a conclusion and it is not a basis for fact.

The difference between a disease and a syndrome is an inconclusive body of evidence. I believe that what we are dealing with here is indeed an inconclusive body of evidence. Technology changes almost hourly as laboratories do more work on reproductive technology and as people delve into the problems that come with this type of legislation, in which, as I said earlier, we deal with life itself.

We are facing a moral dilemma as to how we should deal with reproductive technologies, particularly the related research that goes with it. I believe there are medical doctors on all sides of this legislation that would allow for a difference of opinion and allow more technology to be considered. Also, not splitting the bill and not listening to the committee troubles me. I think that committees should have more input and more relevance and should be able to function separately from the House, bring back their reports and have those reports considered.

I am disappointed that the minister has chosen, first, not to appear before the committee, which I think is a travesty of justice. I think all ministers owe it to committees to appear, to put their voices forward and to explain to the committees why in fact they support a piece of legislation or why in fact they brought it forward. That bothers me.

I will conclude by saying that there are certain parts of the bill I support wholeheartedly, but there are areas that need further study and need to be looked at in their entirety, and the technology that is coming forward needs to be studied.

Therefore, I want to express my disappointment that this process has in fact been instituted by the minister.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 3rd, 2003 / 10:05 a.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Jason Kenney Canadian Alliance Calgary Southeast, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am not pleased to speak under the current circumstances. The government House leader has effectively brought closure on this matter of great importance.

The field which we are addressing in the bill is a dynamic field of science where the facts are changing on a weekly, if not daily basis. It is rare that we can open a newspaper without seeing some startling new scientific success and discovery with respect to the potential of adult and non-embryonic stem cells.

The science in the field of non-embryonic stem cells is increasing almost exponentially. We are now in a world of potential in terms of the research and application of non-embryonic stem cells. I would suggest that this is dramatically different in concrete terms than it was when the bill was first tabled by the Minister of Health.

In that time, in the ensuing two years since the original tabling of the bill, we have yet to see a single concrete application or useful research discovery with respect to embryonic stem cells, which is explicitly authorized in the bill.

That is why this matter deserves further consideration, not to delay for the sake of delaying. I recognize fully that there are aspects of Bill C-13 which are not controversial and have broad consensual support across the political and partisan spectrum in the House. There is also consensual support across the research and ethical spectrum of opinion for provisions in the bill that seek to ban human cloning and with respect to maternal surrogacy.

However, I believe, and I have heard members of the Liberal caucus argue in the House and members of all parties suggest, that there would be overwhelming consensus to pass a bill swiftly which would incorporate the non-controversial elements such as the ban on cloning which do not raise ethical concerns.

Following the review of the draft legislation tabled by the previous health minister, that is precisely why the majority of members from all parties on the Standing Committee on Health recommended that the bill be split between those elements, including the ban on cloning, which carry broad consensual support, and those elements, particularly the authorization of embryonic stem cell research, which raise grave ethical and moral questions.

It is regretable that the government ignored the advice of its own members on the Standing Committee on Health by refusing to split the bill between those aspects which were broadly supported and those aspects which remain highly controversial because of the ethical and moral concerns in respect of creating human life in order to destroy it, which is essentially what is contemplated in the process of embryonic stem cell research.

As I say, this is a dynamic field, which is precisely why we ought to listen to those voices. Many witnesses at the health committee called for a three year moratorium or a moratorium of some reasonable period on embryonic stem cell research to prohibit this troublesome procedure and to allow us to assess the development of science in this field. This is a procedure which involves the destruction and manipulation of a unique nascent human life and which therefore offends, I believe, the ethical and moral principles upon which liberal democracies such as Canada are founded without a consequent scientific or health benefit.

There has not been a single assertion of a demonstrated scientific empirical benefit from research on embryonic stem cells.

Why then would we authorize the manipulation and destruction of a nascent life even from the utilitarian perspective given that there is no utility in that material demonstrated by scientists to this point?

That is the fundamental question which we now face. That is why many members would like further consideration of the bill unless the government is prepared to listen to the health committee and split it.

Let me point out a peculiar and strange contradiction with respect to government policy in relation to this bill. The government claims that the language in the bill would ban all forms of human cloning, both therapeutic and reproductive, and I hope that is the case. Some testimony was presented in health committee which suggested that the definition found in the bill with respect to human cloning was not sufficiently broad and was too narrow to cover all forms of human cloning.

I am not a scientist so it is difficult for me to make that assessment. However, I am a politician and I hear the government stating on the one hand that it wishes to ban both therapeutic and reproductive cloning in the bill, but currently is taking a different position at the United Nations where it has supported the ratification of a draft treaty which would explicitly ban only reproductive cloning but not therapeutic cloning. That raises serious questions for me.

If the policy of the government, as reflected in Bill C-13, were to honestly and sincerely ban all forms of cloning as it claims, then why would that the same government, in New York today as reported in newspapers across the country, be advocating in favour of the legalization of reproductive non-therapeutic human cloning?

There is a dichotomy in the government's position with respect to this issue which raises reasonable doubt as to the intent of those who drafted the relevant sections of Bill C-13 to actually ban all forms of cloning, both therapeutic and reproductive. That is why the bill requires further and closer scrutiny.

Is it really the position of the government not to ban all forms of human cloning--an odious, nightmarish procedure, which gives man the power to play God and create the kind of nightmare society that writers like Aldous Huxley imagined and described--or is it the position of the government to recognize the miracle of human life and not try to replicate it ourselves?

If the latter is the case, then why is the government today taking the position at the United Nations that we should legalize internationally,--and not just in Canada--through the instrument of a UN treaty, the cloning of human beings for so-called therapeutic purposes, a procedure which is itself grossly offensive to any thinking person from a rational ethical perspective? Why is the government taking the position that unique individual human lives should be created to offer spare parts as science experiments and replicated, each possessing an unviolable dignity, to be used in the same fashion as used cars thrown out in a junk yard?

It is deeply offensive, however that is the position of the government as reported in today's Ottawa Citizen and Southam newspapers across the country.

I would ask all members to reflect seriously on exactly what Bill C-13 says. I would ask them not to take at face value the claims being offered by the health department which do not seem to be reflected by the government at the UN negotiations today in New York.

I would also encourage members to look very closely at the false, specious, unproven assertion that there is some putative health benefit from research on human embryos which requires their production and then destruction.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 3rd, 2003 / 10:05 a.m.
See context

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, the last time this bill was called was April 10. Prior to that we went through a period of report stage motions. There were many that were passed on voice votes during the debate at report stage, and several that were passed where a recorded division was requested.

I would like to seek the unanimous consent of the House to request a reprinting of Bill C-13 that was returned from committee because members are now being asked for the last time to speak on Bill C-13. It would be very useful for them to see exactly what bill they are debating and what the specific provisions are.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

October 3rd, 2003 / 10:05 a.m.
See context

The Deputy Speaker

No, this is not an isolated debate. We will proceed with the debate on Bill C-13, with interventions being 10 minutes without questions or comments.

On a point of order, the hon. member for Mississauga South.

Business of the HouseOral Question Period

October 2nd, 2003 / 3 p.m.
See context

Glengarry—Prescott—Russell Ontario

Liberal

Don Boudria LiberalMinister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I guess this is the supplementary question to the lead-off of her leader earlier this day. He wanted to know the business of the House as well.

I am pleased to inform the House that we will continue today debating the Alliance motion endorsing Dalton McGuinty's election platform, which we have been doing for the day. Later tonight Mr. McGuinty will be the premier.

Tomorrow we will resume third reading debate of Bill C-13, the reproductive technologies bill. When this bill is completed, we will then turn to Bill C-32, the Criminal Code amendments.

On Monday, should it be necessary, we would return to Bill C-13 followed by third reading of Bill C-36, the Archives and National Library bill.

We would then proceed to the report stage of Bill C-19, the first nations fiscal legislation. If necessary, I would then return to Bill C-32, the Criminal Code amendments, followed subsequently by Bill S-13, the census records bill.

I will be seeking also cooperation of colleagues across the way to further our discussion on Bill C-41, the technical corrections bill that we discussed informally earlier this day.

On Tuesday, we will debate the third reading of Bill C-17, the public safety bill.

Starting on Wednesday, I hope we will be in a position to deal with bills that have come out of committee, as well as dealing with any of the business just listed that has not been completed.

I would also like to indicate to the House that we have had conversations about the future of Bill C-38, concerning the use of marijuana. We also intend to put this bill before the House in the very near future.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

October 1st, 2003 / 3:25 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Gerry Ritz Canadian Alliance Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK

Mr. Speaker, in my second petition, the petitioners call upon the government to introduce in Bill C-13 that non-embryonic stem cells be used. Adult stem cells have shown significant research progress in dealing with some of those diseases.

This is an excellent petition.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

October 1st, 2003 / 3:20 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Bob Mills Canadian Alliance Red Deer, AB

Mr. Speaker, my last petition is signed by 108 petitioners who are against Bill C-13, assisted human reproduction.

HealthPrivate Members' Business

September 30th, 2003 / 6:05 p.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, I too would like to congratulate the member for Yorkton--Melville for bringing the issue before Parliament. It is an important issue that has seized parliamentarians and countries around the world.

As the House will know, in 1988 the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the abortion laws of Canada. In that decision, it was not a matter of whether the unborn child was a human being. It was a matter of whose rights came first, and the courts decided the mother's rights were to be respected in advance of the rights of the unborn child.

This is an issue that will be with us I am sure for some time, but the motion does raise another element of consideration and of development as it relates to the issue of human health.

As the previous member stated, the motion asks the Standing Committee on Health to examine, study and report to Parliament on first, whether abortions are medically necessary for the purpose of maintaining health, preventing disease or diagnosing or treating an injury, illness or disability, and second, the health risk for women undergoing abortions compared to women carrying babies to full term.

With regard to the aspect of medically necessary, there is an obligation, under our publicly funded health care system, that medically necessary costs shall be covered under the Canada Health Act and under the provincial jurisdictions that basically deal with the provision of publicly funded services.

I will not go through it but at this point there is no list. It is basically a conceptual issue of what constitutes medically necessary. However medically necessary is basically driven by what the provinces have decided to either include or exclude. Over time issues could come where they would find deletions or exclusions from what would constitute medically necessary in a province, which would give the federal government and Health Canada some problem, and that action could be taken. Therefore this is a very interesting motion which has been brought forward.

I also wanted to mention that in the past year the U.S. secretary of health and human services amended the definition of child for U.S. health services purposes. The definition of child in the United States today is a person under the age of 19, including the period from conception to birth.

In the United States the unborn child from conception to birth is considered to be a person. The U.S. secretary of health and human services did this because the unbelievable procedures now being done on the unborn child in terms of health services previously were not covered under insurance programs and under Medicaid. By virtue of that change, it basically provided an opportunity for those services, to treat an unborn child with a detected malady, to be covered under an insurance plan. There has been an evolution and there are things in this regard.

Additionally, the tri-council policy statement, which came out in 1989 and is updated annually and is also part of our current bill under consideration, Bill C-13, protects the unborn child, being the embryo, from the 14th day forward. Why do they do that? They do it because even the medical profession acknowledges that the 14th day is when the primitive streak occurs. It is when twinning is not possible. It is when there are some physical features, pain can be felt, et cetera. Even the medical profession does not agree with the legal precedent, which is a person is not a human being until it is born and severed from the umbilical cord.

So there are different things going on that I thought were relevant to this debate.

Similarly, Dr. Françoise Baylis, the vice-chair of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research board of governors, testified before the health committee. She has written a number of articles in which she declares clearly that the human embryo is a member of the human species and that is an uncontested biological fact. This is the medical opinion.

Having said that, I want to comment very briefly with regard to medically necessary abortions and also the impact of abortions on the health of women.

There was an article by Mr. Lorne Gunter in the Ottawa Citizen on September 22, just a week ago. He referred to an article in the summer issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons , in which author Karen Malec laid out the case that induced abortions raise women's risk of developing breast cancer by 30% to 100% or more, whereas miscarriages do not.

Mr. Gunter went on to state, “The key is the artificiality of on-demand abortions”. He went on to explain some of the more technical aspects. He also pointed out, “Cancer societies, government research institutes, pro-abortion politicians, even medical associations continue to deny the increasing bulk of evidence” concerning the relationship between abortions and breast cancer. He stated that of the 40 or so major studies on the ABC, abortion-breast cancer, link, nearly three-quarters have shown a statistically significant correlation

There is unquestionably a growing body of evidence that there are medical impacts on abortion. They vary depending on the number of abortions as well.

Every year in Canada over 100,000 abortions are performed. Assuming an average cost of $1,000, we are talking about $100 million and more. I am sure it is much more.

The consequences of this issue, whether it be to women's health, whether it be to the health of an unborn child who is recognized as an uncontested biological fact to be a member of the human species, is enormous and growing. The fact that the U.S. will recognize the unborn child from conception to birth as a person entitled to protection means that things are changing.

Let me conclude by simply saying that this issue is a divisive issue, I understand, but this is the place in which members should not hesitate to stand and represent their beliefs and their concerns about the rights of the unborn, the future of Canada, who will never have a chance, those who have no voice in Canada.

SupplyGovernment Orders

September 30th, 2003 / 1:10 p.m.
See context

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier I do believe that this is an important debate to have because it is part of the process of informing Canadians. I would like to compliment the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle who has been a longstanding advocate of considering some form of proportional representation for the consideration of Canadians. It is very helpful.

I also want to thank him for answering the question that I asked about how PR enhances the achievement of the goal of gender parity. Neither of his colleagues could answer the question. Neither of them did answer the question. Neither of them understood it; neither of them could answer the question. It really surprises me to get platitudes without having the succinctness that the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle had.

The member for Winnipeg North Centre knows that I was one of the strongest advocates supporting her objectives on Bill C-13 for women's health issues and for women's representation on the board. I continue to work for that even though the member has abandoned her support for that already because she has some ulterior motives. I guess it shows that if one asks a straight question, sometimes one does not get a straight answer.

With regard to the motion, there are two elements. The first part calls for a referendum within a year to determine if Canadians wish to replace the current electoral system with a system of proportional representation. The second part is if it is the will of Canadians to look at a method of proportional representation, that there be a commission to consult with Canadians on the model, the process and the implementation.

The motion is probably in reverse of what it should be. It is extremely difficult to ask Canadians in a referendum to respond to a question, hopefully a clear question, if they do not have all the information they would need to be able to make an informed judgment. That can only come with public education and consultation with Canadians, et cetera, which is what is being proposed after a referendum. On that basis alone, it surprises me that they were in that order. I am not sure why, but I think that it is somewhat problematic.

Notwithstanding that, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle has given a number of speeches over the years on this issue. The phrase that continues to stick is that every vote should count and no vote should be wasted. As a general premise, that is something with which Canadians would tend to agree. Every vote should count.

There are other problems. Some of those problems are with regard to people who do not respect their opportunity, their right and maybe their civic duty to exercise their franchise, to exercise that vote. That is another problem in itself. There is the issue of voter turnout. It has come up often in debate that my goodness, only 61% of people turned out to exercise their vote in the last election. The answer that has been given is it is because the system is bad. There is not a simple answer.

The House of Commons just received a report from the Chief Electoral Officer on the voter turnout by age. It addressed specifically the question of why youth have not been voting. The report showed that of youth 20 years of age and under who were eligible to vote, I believe it was only 18% of them actually voted. Eight-two per cent of the eligible voters 20 and 19 years of age did not vote in the last election. When it was plotted by age group, it was found that the per cent turnout went up very proportionately until it got to voters who were in excess of age 70, which had the highest turnout for an election.

It shows something, and I would like to think that it is reflective of another situation. Part of that situation is historically, and I know my colleagues are all going to be listening to this, the turnout pattern tends to be somewhat related to turning to our elders for wisdom. It is something attuned to that.

Another aspect I found very interesting in that report about the turnout situation was that in recent years Canada depended heavily on immigration policy to sustain the need for a growing population in Canada because the birthrate had gone down.

Many people who come to Canada come from countries where their political experiences have been negative. Their involvement in the political process has been discouraged. They have come from Communist countries, dictatorial countries, places where they have not had the nurturing of the civic duty, the civic pride and the openness to participate without having some sort of reaction. In fact some of the research has shown that many new Canadians are reluctant to participate in the electoral process and this is continuing to grow. I think very slowly we are seeing more and more new Canadians starting to get involved in the political process but it will take time.

It is not just cynicism about government. It is not just cynicism about politics. Part of the reason, I think most would admit in this place, is the fact that there is no government in waiting, and there has not been a government in waiting since 1993. No other party in this place, other than the government party, had enough people or enough representation to form a government in which the people of Canada would have confidence. If the people feel they have no choice of who their government will be, I would expect that that would have a negative impact on turnout. They would feel their vote would not matter because there was no alternative to the Liberal Party.

We do have some situations which will sustain this kind of a situation. We have the Alliance Party, which is predominantly a western party and which continually favours western issues over national issues. We have the Bloc Quebecois, which is exclusively dedicated to Quebec issues and the provincial sovereignty issue. That focuses an awful lot of attention away from the national issues.

I was looking back at a prior speech of the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle. One of the assertions he made was that proportional representation would force parties to have a more national vision. He may recall that. It would promote national vision. However, it has not.

In fact the experience of New Zealand, as one of our colleagues relayed to us, was that the system of proportional representation was bringing out more parties with more special interests, more regionalist views and less national views. There are many countries in which they have some sort of proportional representation, but I think we should look at it and maybe get the facts about whether it has created a system whereby many people have tried to move away from the nationalist vision and have tried to create a situation in which there are governments in waiting, people who can actually govern the country.

People could come to this place and argue as strenuously as they could for their narrow views on certain restricted issues. However when asked to participate in this place, to comment and to vote on issues of national importance, they would have no platform. They have no direction but they could be in a position to affect votes. We know that from a recent vote in the House when there was a tie. There is a problem.

I would not summarily dismiss proportional representation as being irrelevant for Canada and not applicable or not possible. However I would also say that I do not think that there is a system that will be perfect. I do not think there is a system that will satisfy all, that will ensure that 50% of the people in this place are women, and that all other interest groups, such as the member for Winnipeg North Centre said, aboriginal groups, are appropriately represented in this place.

Yes, we need to show a balanced team, a representation of the constituency and that is very important. However it is not something that can be legislated, mandated or forced because a democracy is about real choices.

If we said that we needed quotas for this group and that group, it would in fact be an anti-democratic philosophy. It does not recognize that any member in this place can speak credibly and effectively on behalf minorities or special interests or whatever. We are Canadians first. If we do have this national vision, then obviously it is important that we have a sensitivity to all interests of Canadians at large, even though those interests may in fact be regionally based.

Any party that is not sensitive to the regionalization in our system today makes a fatal error. I think it is being experienced by the Canadian Alliance now and it is endemic in the Bloc Quebecois.

This place was operating much better without a pizza Parliament, without five parties. Three parties were better. The NDP played important roles in past governments, whether it was a minority or majority government. There was this focus on being a national party with a national vision and trying to balance the interests of Canadians, which sometimes come into conflict.

There are many aspects to this. It is an important question to look at. It is not as simple to totally dismiss our current British parliamentary system of electing candidates in 301 ridings and have those people in the riding. We know Canadians do not all vote for the same reason. Some people will vote for the party. I think that dyed-in-the-wool, “I am this party and I have been that way all my life”, has been diminishing substantially. I think the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle would agree that dyed-in-the-wool any party is an archaic term which probably is not terribly applicable today.

On leadership, who is the leader, who shall be the spokesperson for Canadians on the national stage and on the international stage? For some people, “who is my spokesman” is very important and they will give weighting to that. For some people, it is the platform. It has to be a national platform. It has to be a national vision. It has to address regional imbalances. It has to represent what we will do for those who are unable to help themselves and care for themselves. What will we do to have intergenerational equity? What will we do to deal with the gap between the rich and the poor? What will we do to ensure child poverty is a thing of the past? What will we do about so many of our social issues?

These are the things that Canadians want to hear. I do not think it is a valid argument to suggest that by changing the method of voting or election will somehow solve some of these problems. It may change the mix in this place. We have to think about it, and I think the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle had made an argument and an example that we could possibly have a mixed proportional representation system.

It would be a system whereby there would be perhaps 200 ridings in Canada instead of the current 301, as an example. Every party would run a candidate in each of those 200. The balance of the seats, approximately 100, would then be filled based on the party preference of the people who had voted on the riding basis, by lists of people who were submitted by each of the parties, however those lists were created, whether the party elected them in its own internal processes or they were simply appointed by the party. I do not know exactly. There would be these people who did not run in the election, did not have their name on a ballot but would be eligible to become members of Parliament because they were on someone's list.

I started to think about that and it struck me that if we have 301 seats now and I have 110,000 constituents, then all of a sudden, under the proportional representation system which the member suggests might be appropriate for Canada, I now have 50% more constituents. Instead of having 110, I am up at 165. I now have 50% more constituents with whom I must deal.

Then there is this other group, about one-third of the House of Commons, who would be people who were not elected specifically but were basically the designates or appointees of a particular party so we could achieve a seat level that was distributed in proportion to the votes the various parties received.

Look at this place then. All of a sudden, we have two classes of members of Parliament. We would have those who now have a riding that is 50% larger, 50% more workload for the member of Parliament. That means one-third to one-half less time to address the specific or individual needs of constituents simply because of the 50% increase. It would mean our job, our ability to deal with our constituents would be impaired to the extent that we can service people now.

On the other hand we would have another group, one-third of this place, of people who simply would be appointed. They could be the elite, the backbench hacks. They could be on the list for a particular party for a variety of reasons. There are many reasons why somebody might be on the list.

Is this democracy? No, it is not. We would have people in this place who would be elitist. Because they were on the list, they would automatically be in the House of Commons. They would not have to take care of constituents. What would they do? They would do other things. They would ensure that they were organized in a way which would polarize. It might put us in a situation where this place would not only physically two classes but in terms of thinking and collaboration, we would have a polarization of those who were elected by people and those who were appointed by parties.

This is proportional representation. It is not exactly a pure model of democracy. It is quasi-democracy but it does achieve the objective that the member is proposing, which is every vote would count. It would not count for every elector because it helped to get their person elected. Where it would help though, is the party for which the person they voted for belonged would at least get a proportional number of the seats. The member presumes and the system presumes that Canadians voting for candidates of a particular party prefer that party as opposed to them voting for candidates because they are a darned good and they are the people they want to represent them.

There is this slippage or leakage in terms of the logic. It is not perfect and our current system is not perfect. However I would suggest that it is probably better than the alternative. I used the example of Italy, and I was not aware that it was a bad example, that it has had 48 elections out of the last 50 years under proportional representation. Maybe that is an extreme case.

Let us look at another case. How about the Nazis in Germany. They came to power under a proportional representation. They could not have under any other system. It really does come to that.

I see my time is almost up now. I would simply like to close with a further statement with regard to the issue of gender parity. I am not sure that proportional representation is the only solution, but I want to again be on the record that I believe that this place would be a better place with a more equitable balance of men and women in this chamber.

Parliament of Canada ActGovernment Orders

September 15th, 2003 / 12:40 p.m.
See context

Liberal

Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT

Mr. Speaker, it is great to be back to make a couple of speeches on the first day of the autumn session of Parliament. I would like to welcome everyone, especially the new pages. I would like to assure my constituents in Yukon that the new pages have already completed the most important part of their training and fully understand that Yukon is the best constituency in the country.

Before I go into details on the amendment to Bill C-34, the previous speaker discussed the general legislative climate this fall. I would like to follow up on that because it is a very aggressive and detailed legislative agenda and I hope people do not lose track of that.

There are many bills that we are in the midst of bringing forward and must continue with such as, Bill C-34, which we are talking about now; but also Bill C-13, assisted human reproduction; C-22, family law; C-38, marijuana; Bill C-45, which I hope to talk about later today concerning the Westray bill for worker safety; Bill C-46, market fraud; Bill C-19, resource taxation; Bill C-6, first nations specific claims resolution for the economic development of first nations; archives legislation; bills related to child pornography and the sex offenders registry; citizenship; as well as urgent veteran's needs.

And then of course all the committees are working. The finance committee will be doing its pre-budget work. There are always important issues in foreign affairs. The health committee has to work on the West Nile virus and the agriculture committee on mad cow disease.

This is a very detailed agenda and continues to be one of the most productive legislative agendas we must get through. I hope people do not get sidetracked in the House or in the media about other things or go off these important changes that affect real people in Canada.

I am pleased to address the NDP amendment at report stage with respect to Bill C-34, a bill which would establish an independent ethics commissioner reporting to Parliament. The amendment proposes the deletion of clause 38 of the bill in its entirety.

This clause would change subsection 2(2) of the Federal Courts Act by adding references to both the ethics commissioner and Senate ethics officer so that the activities of the ethics commissioner and Senate ethics officer are not subject to review by the Federal Court, whether by judicial review or by appeal.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader has already explained why the NDP amendment is inappropriate and should be rejected. I want to comment on the need to preserve the House's privileges in this area.

The House and its members have traditionally been responsible for their ethical conduct. This is a tradition we in the House have had since Confederation and which we share with other parliamentary democracies.

Let me set out how the bill preserves this tradition of parliamentary privilege and ensures the House's accountability to Canadians.

Clause 38 amends a provision in the Federal Courts Act which itself exists for greater certainty to ensure that the activities of Parliament and parliamentarians are excluded from review by the Federal Court. Given the role of the ethics commissioner and the Senate ethics officer in dealing with the conduct of parliamentarians, it is logical that those provisions be extended to these two officers of Parliament.

This clause is but one of several provisions in the bill intended to ensure that the House, and not the courts, continues to have the ultimate responsibility, and accountability, for the ethical conduct of its members. For instance, the bill would create an ethics commissioner as an officer of the House.

Section 72.05 includes express recognition that the ethics commissioner “enjoys the privileges and immunities of the House of Commons and its members in carrying out his or her duties and functions”. This section also provides express recognition that the bill does not in any way limit the powers, privileges, rights or immunities of the House or of its members.

Further, Section 72.12 would ensure that the ethics commissioner and his or her staff could not be taken to court in respect to their official activities. This section also acknowledges that the commissioner and his or her office are protected by the privileges and immunities accorded to Parliament as an institution. Similar provisions have been made for the Senate ethics officer throughout the bill.

Collectively, these provisions, including clause 38, are essential if we are to create an ethics commissioner who, in respect of matters pertaining to members of the House, is to function as the legislation requires and is accountable to the House.

In this regard, the bill states that the ethics commissioner's functions in relation to members would be carried out “under the general direction of any committee of the House of Commons that may be designated or established by the House for that purpose”.

Canadians expect members of the House to establish and abide by ethical rules. This is only proper because as parliamentarians we are ultimately accountable to the public, both for our own ethical behaviour and for the steps taken by the ethics commissioner as an officer of Parliament.

In our view, the proposed amendment would seriously undermine Parliament's long standing privileges, the ability of the House to properly assign duties and functions to the ethics commissioner, and the House's ultimately accountability for the ethical conduct of its members.

It would undermine the ability of the House to govern its affairs and would open up the possibility that the courts might be called upon to second guess or review the actions of the ethics commissioner.

Canadians have every right to expect that the House would create and enforce the highest ethical guidelines for members. They know and expect that the House and its members are ultimately accountable for the ethical code it will implement. They do not want parliamentarians to transfer this responsibility to the courts. Accordingly, I would encourage members of the House not to support the amendment.

I want to conclude by again referencing the previous speaker's speech when he commented on the tremendous potential leadership awaiting in the wings for the country and how popular that is with Canadians. We will have a great transition to even more exciting times, but as I was saying at the beginning of my speech I hope that the important things that affect the lives of Canadians, which I mentioned and the number of bills that we will be dealing with throughout the fall, winter and spring, would not be lost in the simple transition of politics.

Business of the HouseOral Question Period

June 12th, 2003 / 3 p.m.
See context

Glengarry—Prescott—Russell Ontario

Liberal

Don Boudria LiberalMinister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I usually answer about the legislative program in the House and that is what I will do now.

This afternoon we will continue with the business of supply, with votes scheduled for 8 p.m., pursuant to the arrangement made earlier.

The business that the government will put forward before the House tomorrow, pursuant to another agreement which I will be submitting to the House a little later this afternoon, will be Bill C-42, the Antarctic agreement, Bill C-44, respecting compensation for certain military personnel, and then Bill C-35, the military judges bill. If there is any time left, we will then consider Bill C-34.

The program for next week would be Bill C-7, first nations governance, Bill C-17, public safety, and Bill C-13 respecting reproductive technologies, as well as other legislation which has returned from committee, for instance, legislation such as the sex offender registry and bills like that.

Business of the HouseOral Question Period

May 29th, 2003 / 3 p.m.
See context

Glengarry—Prescott—Russell Ontario

Liberal

Don Boudria LiberalMinister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, to answer the last question first, as to whether we need to have late night sittings, I suppose it depends on the co-operation on the part of the opposition, which is usually quite good, I must say.

Going to the substance for the next few days, we will continue this afternoon with the opposition day motion. The House does not sit tomorrow because of the Conservative leadership convention.

We are now entering June, the month when we try to wrap up the year's work and we will be consulting other House leaders on a daily, sometimes hourly basis, in order to determine the precise order of bills. However for the next few days we will be dealing mostly with report stages, third readings and consideration of Senate amendments to bills we have already passed.

The bills that will be considered next week will be, and I will start with the one on Monday, although we intend to have a minor conversation about another minor issue later, but generally speaking they will be as follows. We will start with Bill C-25, the public service bill. We will then move on to Bill C-31 respecting certain pensions for veterans and the RCMP. When that bill is completed I would hope to start Bill C-7 respecting first nations governance; and because they are all government days next week we are going to take them probably in roughly that sequence, Bill C-17 public safety; then Bill C-13, the reproductive technologies bill which is presently at third reading.

It would be my intention to then call Bill C-32, the Criminal Code amendments. When the bill is reported to the House, which hopefully will be one day next week, we could then commence Bill C-24, the political financing bill. We also have the amendments from the Senate which I understand might happen on Bill C-15, the lobbyist bill, and Bill C-10B, cruelty to animals.

At some point, we would also like to debate the second reading of Bill S-13, respecting the census, and Bill C-27, the airport bill.

As a matter of courtesy, I wish to indicate to colleagues that it is my intention to call the final supply day on or after June 12. This is not, of course, an official designation of that day at this point but that is why I say on or after, but at least to try and give an indication to colleagues in the event that they will not take other commitments at or about that particular time in order for them to be able to plan their agenda.

Canadian Institutes of Health ResearchOral Question Period

May 15th, 2003 / 2:50 p.m.
See context

Edmonton West Alberta

Liberal

Anne McLellan LiberalMinister of Health

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member is well aware, we have been debating Bill C-13 in the House for some time now and that deals with, among other things, embryonic stem cell research. I would encourage all parliamentarians to pass this legislation as quickly as possible.

The CIHR is a body that operates at arm's length from the government. Last April it indicated it would not proceed with stem cell research for a one year, or 12 month period, whereupon it would put in place a steering committee which would then, at some time in the future, receive applications that would potentially deal with embryonic stem cell research.

As I understand it, it is in the process of putting that-

SupplyGovernment Orders

May 13th, 2003 / 7:20 p.m.
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Bloc

Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC

Mr. Chair, I accept the minister's idea, particularly since I asked her a question on the funding for Quebec because she was listing what had been passed in the budget, which we already knew. I know that she meant well by sharing that information with us.

I will, however, raise some other questions because this is such a golden moment, to have a direct contact with a minister who was not know for faithfully attending the health committee. I will ask two more questions, if she is agreeable.

I contacted her about cigarette smuggling. I had received information that this was a common practice in certain parts of Canada, including some reserves. I was on the committee when we revisited the whole matter of mandatory labelling. I presented her with examples of cigarette packaging that did not meet the labelling requirements, as the standing committee required. The minister looked into this, and was suppose to get back to me. Perhaps she could take advantage of this opportunity to bring us up to date and reassure everyone, manufacturers and consumer associations alike, that there will not be two standards, that everyone will be subject to the same laws and regulations.

I have a second question on this aspect. The previous Government of Quebec was one of the best that ever served. I know my good friend, the member for Verdun—Saint-Henri—Saint-Paul—Pointe Saint-Charles, may feel otherwise, but it was a good government. We will judge the new one according to what it comes up with. Can the minister tell us whether she has had representations to indicate whether the new health minister was any more kindly disposed to the reproductive technology bill than the old?

She will recall that, although serving as a go-between is not my style, I forwarded to her a letter in which the Government of Quebec opposed Bill C-13 on reproductive technologies. Has she received any representations that would indicate that the new government is any more in favour of it?

Business of the HouseOral Question Period

May 8th, 2003 / 3 p.m.
See context

Glengarry—Prescott—Russell Ontario

Liberal

Don Boudria LiberalMinister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, we had the curious scene of having the weekly business statement made in the lead off question and the lead off question made during business statements this week. Nonetheless, we all have very much confidence in the opposition House leader.

This afternoon we will continue with the opposition motion.

Tomorrow we will resume debate on the third reading of Bill C-13 respecting reproductive technologies. This will be followed by the report stage of Bill C-17, the public safety bill, as I indicated earlier, around 2:15 p.m.

On Monday we will commence report stage of Bill C-28. When this is completed we will return to the business not completed this week, adding Bill C-36, the archives and library bill introduced earlier this day.

On Tuesday evening the House will go into committee of the whole pursuant to Standing Order 81 in order to consider the estimates of the Minister of Health.

Next Thursday shall be an allotted day.

In terms of when we propose to consider the report stage and third reading of Bill C-24, the election financing bill, I understand the committee is doing tremendous progress, thanks in large measure to Liberal MPs on the committee, and we hope to deal with that shortly after the House resumes.

Government LegislationOral Question Period

May 8th, 2003 / 2:15 p.m.
See context

Glengarry—Prescott—Russell Ontario

Liberal

Don Boudria LiberalMinister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, it is rather unusual to have the House business question being asked as the leadoff in question period as opposed to at 3:00 o'clock. Be that as it may, I am pleased to inform the Leader of the Opposition that the very important Bill C-13 on human reproduction will be dealt with tomorrow. This will be followed by the equally important Bill C-17 on public safety. We will then, thanks to the report tabled in the House earlier today, on Monday deal with Bill C-28, the budget implementation bill. Then we will consider, if not completed, Bill C-13, the human reproduction--

Canadian Environmental Assessment ActGovernment Orders

May 5th, 2003 / 12:45 p.m.
See context

Bloc

Roger Gaudet Bloc Berthier—Montcalm, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today, at this stage in the study of Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, known as the CEAA.

Both the House and the committee worked very hard and have shown a great deal of goodwill in order to amend this bill to bring it into line with Quebec's longstanding environmental conditions and claims.

Let us recall the major elements of this bill. First, there are two new objectives: to promote cooperation and coordinated action between federal and provincial governments with respect to environmental assessment processes for projects; and to promote communication and cooperation between responsible authorities and aboriginal peoples with respect to environmental assessment. It would also subject the Canadian International Development Agency, CIDA, to the process and establish a federal environmental assessment coordinator for projects that involve several federal authorities or provinces. It also authorizes the use, as an assessment criterion, of local knowledge, aboriginal knowledge and traditions. The bill broadens the minister's discretionary power to get involved in projects in Quebec. It extends the participant funding program to comprehensive studies.

Allow me to talk about the issues for the Bloc Quebecois. Bill C-9, as it now stands, is not a bad bill. It is a considerable improvement on the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, particularly by extending its application to CIDA and certain crown agencies.

Participant funding and the consultation of aboriginals are other very interesting features of this bill.

However, the problem lies with the very principle of the bill. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act interferes in Quebec's fundamental jurisdictions.

When it was introduced in 1992, the legislation was interpreted as an attempt by the federal government to reintroduce some discretionary leeway in its environmental assessment process.

Clause 22 of the bill clearly broadens the federal government's authority to interfere in one of Quebec's areas of jurisdiction. The minister reserves discretionary power for himself by adding:

Where no power, duty or function referred to in section 5 is to be exercised or performed by a federal authority in relation to a project that is to be carried out in a province and the Minister is of the opinion that the project may cause significant adverse environmental effects in another province, the Minister may refer the project to a mediator or a review panel in accordance with section 29 for an assessment of the environmental effects of the project in that other province.

Clause 8 provides for the creation of the position of federal environmental assessment coordinator. This shows clearly that the federal government wants to insinuate itself into Quebec's process. it is because the federal government intends to act in Quebec's area of jurisdiction that it has to create the position of coordinator. If the federal government stuck to its own area of jurisdiction, coordination would not be required.

Initially, some provincial governments, including Quebec and Alberta, were the leaders. They criticized the Canadian legislation and demanded major changes that would have made possible for provincial processes to be used in place of federal assessments, but there were few federal concessions.

The bill appears to introduce discrimination between the promoters of projects associated with federal authorities and those that are not. For example, a partially federal-funded project would be covered by the law, but as soon as the federal level is not involved, another system clicks in.

Let us turn now to Quebec's opposition. In 1992, under Mr. Bourassa's government, the National Assembly passed a unanimous resolution denouncing the federal government which was acting unilaterally without taking into account Quebec's representations. The motion read:

That the National Assembly stronly disapproves of the federal government bill, ...an Act to establish a federal environmental assessment process, ...because it is contrary to the higher interest of Quebec, and the National Assembly opposes its passage by the federal Parliament.

Quebec is also against duplication of the process by the federal government. This federal process can take place in addition to the environmental evaluation from the BAPE. It is a waste of resources which could be used more efficiently for environment.

One has to remember this historical event. It is important to remember what our position was at that time, in Quebec, in an effort to understand what we went through with the current legislation, which is now to be amended.

Bill C-78 became Bill C-13, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. I have here documents from 1992 where the Government of Quebec was saying, with regard to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, and I quote:

There is indeed a risk that the latter will constantly be duplicated, disputed or subordinated to the application of the federal process. Yet, the Quebec procedure has been well established for ten years already; it is well known by the general public and the promoters from Quebec; and it has proven itself.

Let me repeat this quote:

There is indeed a risk that the latter will constantly be duplicated, disputed or subordinated to the application of the federal process. Yet, the Quebec procedure has been well established for ten years already; it is well known by the general public and the promoters from Quebec; and it has proven itself.

The Government of Quebec added that the areas where the federal authority can get involved are somewhat limitless. Therefore, in the view of the Government of Quebec of the time, the scope of this Canadian Environmental Assessment Act was limitless, given all of the provisions the bill contained to force obligatory reviews of projects by the federal authority.

That was our view, in Quebec, of Bill C-13, which became the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, which we are amending today. At the time, Quebec was also worried that this environmental assessment process would create duplication. It did say that if Bill C-13 was passed as written—and I want to stress this because it is the basic legislation that we are amending here today—it would mean subjecting to federal assessment many environmental projects with an environmental impact, which have already gone through the environmental assessment and review process in Quebec. This situation would therefore create a serious duplication problem in Quebec.

The scope of our Bureau des audiences publiques sur l'environnement, or BAPE, is expanded to include various issues, and not only specific projects from proponents, something that is not possible in the federal process, which was enacted a few years ago and which we are amending today.

Therefore, the significance of the Quebec process must be recognized. As I said, Quebec did not sign the Accord on Environmental Harmonization because it was afraid at the time that there would be some bills that are not really intended to improve cooperation. As people often say, with an accord or a bill like that, you do not need to be married. Under these circumstances, we do not want to be partners. True partnership involves cooperation.

We do not see how the Government of Quebec could find a way to get application of these elements of the federal environmental assessment process delegated to it, although the process it has had in place in recent years is acknowledged as the most effective in the world. Not only do we say so, others do as well. Why undo what is being done well? If Quebec were not proactive as far as environmental assessment is concerned, I might just about be able to understand the Canadian government's desire to develop a federal process, because of the Quebec government's lack of stringency as far as environmental assessment is concerned. But why do they want to duplicate it when the Quebec process is recognized as working?

This is evidence of an increasingly centralist government in Ottawa, despite its preaching of cooperation and harmonization. People cannot say one thing out of one side of their mouths, and its opposite out of the other. They cannot say that cooperation and collaboration are necessary and then turn up with bills that could not be more centralist.

Political consistency is the one and only thing that will restore public confidence in the political system. Inconsistency and an approach of this type is what leads to Quebeckers and Canadians to lose interest in politics and politicians. To my mind, consistency is vital.

So why not give full rein to a Quebec process that allows a comprehensive study? That is what I cannot understand. Since the Quebec process allows comprehensive study, why, if the federal government wants to achieve good environmental assessment, not let this process be used to its full extent,since it does provide comprehensive study? But no, they want to consolidate a bill.

There is another fundamental problem. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act adopts a process of self-assessment, in that the federal authorities assess their own projects, unlike the situation in Quebec where we have our own Bureau des audiences publiques sur l'environnement to do environmental assessment. Often, under the Canadian legislation, departments do their own assessments.

So they are both judge and defendant. It is as if the oil industry or an industrial developer were told, “You will conduct your own environmental assessment”. What would happen? It would result in biases. What we really need is not a self-assessment process, but a truly independent process as afforded by Quebec's Bureau d'audiences publiques sur l'environnement.

We have some serious criticisms of several clauses of Bill C-9. First, clause 22 clearly gives the federal government greater authority to interfere in one of Quebec's jurisdictions. By adding “of the opinion”, the bill gives the minister discretionary power. So, the minister has the discretion to intervene.

Second, in clause 8, the whole part about the federal environmental assessment coordinator clearly shows that the federal government wants to interfere in Quebec's process. The federal government has to create this position because it intends to operate in one of Quebec's jurisdictions. If it stayed in its own jurisdiction, it would not need to do this.

Quebec is not opposed to a federal environmental assessment process, just as it did not oppose the federal species at risk legislation. Why was it not opposed to such legislation? Because, since 1990, Quebec has its own such legislation. It took the federal government 13 years to decide to adopt federal species at risk legislation and, 13 years later, we are being told that the federal legislation might eliminate Quebec's process and legislation.

The process in Quebec is more at arm's length, as compared to that approach. It excludes fewer projects, thus ensuring more comprehensive protection of the environment. It is less complex than the federal process. It is also more uniform, hence more predictable, since it comes under just one entity instead of various federal departments. Finally, it provides clearly set time limits, contrary to the federal process, which never gives any precise time limit.

I am not convinced that our fellow citizens are happy with the federal process, under which only 1% of projects are subject to a comprehensive study. I would be curious to ask the question to Canadians and I would be happy to do a public opinion poll to ask those who used the federal process if they are happy with the fact that only 1% of projects were subject to a comprehensive study, which means that 99% underwent a screening. I would ask them: are you happy with that? Do you believe that the process is transparent? Do you think that the self-assessment philosophy of the federal government is right? I am convinced that the results would be different.

It seems obvious to me that the federal government is trying to force a process on Quebec, which already has an effective process. This is my opinion, but it is also the opinion of others.

I also wish to say that in committee we strived to have the special status given to the Cree people in Quebec and recognized under article 22 of the Baie-James Convention, which provides for a distinct environmental assessment regime and process, recognized under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, as it is under the environmental quality legislation in Quebec. This was one of the major demands of the Grand Council of the Crees, namely thate this special status be given and that article 22 of the convention be recognized.

Their proposal on energy sates:

In order to guarantee Quebecers the hydro supply they will need in the near future, we intend to speed up hydro project development by quickly reaching an agreement with federal authorities in order to harmonize, and even delegate to Quebec the environment assessment process.

The Government of Quebec wishes to reduce waiting tperiods, among other things, for hydro projects. Hydro is the main economic generator in Quebec.

The past is an indication of what the future holds in store. Look at what this government has done with the environmental assessment project in the Toulnustouc project on the North Shore. It is important to remember that the interference of the federal government in the hydro-electric generating station on the Toulnustouc River in 2001 caused delays of several months on this key project for the region.

After reviewing the environmental assessment of the project, after public consultations in Baie-Comeau and Betsiamites, after 13 hearings involving some 650 people with 31 briefs having been presented, the BAPE gave the project its approval in June 2001. This hydroelectric power plant was going to generate employment for 800 people per year.

The federal government decided to enforce the federal process, skeptical of the BAPE's environmental assessment under Quebec's system, thereby delaying a sustainable development project for Canada, and also violating the principles of sustainable development.

The environment and society are equally important. I think that the proposal of the current Liberal government, to have environmental reviews delegated to Quebec, is completely warranted.

I find this reassuring and I have the following observation. We have often been blamed here in the House for not understanding anything. The Government of Quebec was often blamed for not understanding the situation and for not wanting to cooperate or harmonize environmental measures, because it was a PQ government, sovereignist and separatist—as the members opposite call us. Now, we can see that there was not just the issue of the fiscal imbalance that the Government of Quebec could not agree on. The current Liberal government in Quebec does not agree on this issue either.

I am truly convinced that when the newly elected government in the National Assembly sees this bill and studies and evaluates these major amendments, it will be consistent with Robert Bourassa's position in 1992 and support the drive to patriate these powers and have one single environmental review process for all projects.

In the end, I am convinced that the new government will remain faithful to Quebec's past demands and to the best interests of Quebec, as all of the governments in Quebec have done for decades.

Business of the HouseOral Question Period

May 1st, 2003 / 3:05 p.m.
See context

Glengarry—Prescott—Russell Ontario

Liberal

Don Boudria LiberalMinister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to note the lobby just put before us by the hon. member for Bill C-10A to be debated next week.

This afternoon, we will continue the debate on the opposition motion. Tomorrow, we will commence with Bill C-34, the long-awaited bill to amend the Parliament of Canada Act.

I have informed the House leaders of the other parties of my intention to propose, pursuant to Standing Order 73(1), that this bill be referred to committee before second reading. If this debate is completed by the end of the day, we will return to third reading of Bill C-9, which deals with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act; then we will go to Bill C-13, the reproductive technologies bill, but I would be surprised if we got that far tomorrow.

On Monday and Wednesday, we will return to the two bills that I just mentioned and we will add to that Bill C-35, regarding military judges, which I think was introduced this morning. Then we will complete, I hope, Bill C-33, dealing with the transfer of offenders.

On Tuesday, and again I am responding to the request made by my colleagues opposite, we will continue consideration of the Senate amendments to Bill C-10, respecting the Criminal Code.

Next Thursday will be an allotted day.

Canadian Environmental Assessment ActGovernments Orders

April 30th, 2003 / 3:50 p.m.
See context

Bloc

Bernard Bigras Bloc Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, QC

Madam Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise today at this stage of the consideration of Bill C-9, to amend the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, or CEAA.

We have worked very hard and with a great deal of goodwill, both in this House and in committee, to amend this bill to ensure it meets the historical demands of Quebec with respect to environmental assessment.

This is done in committee by trying to make changes to both the bill's preamble and its essential clauses, to achieve greater cooperation and collaboration, as indicated; that is what is sought by the accord on environmental harmonization, which Quebec has not signed.

Quebec has not signed this accord on environmental harmonization, and we should recall what Quebec said at the time, which was, “We will not endorse this accord as long as we do not have the assurance that legislatively, our environmental process and legislation will be respected when, for example, projects are carried out in our jurisdiction”.

That is what was said at the time, and I remember this was what Minister Bégin or Minister Cliche was saying when I was elected in 1997. This is also the wish historically expressed by every previous government, whether PQ or Liberal. I will come back later to the commitments the Liberal Party of Quebec made during the last campaign in Quebec concerning environmental assessments and the demands of the current Government of Quebec in terms of environmental assessment process. That is our position, and it is not that we do not want projects carried out within Quebec's jurisdiction not to be subject to an environmental assessment, far from it.

The first bill on this topic, Bill C-78, was introduced on June 18, 1990. A bill respecting environmental assessment was first introduced in 1990, while in Quebec an environmental assessment process was established back in 1975. In Quebec, we developed our own environmental assessment system by incorporating it in the Environment Quality Act in 1978. Well before 1990, some 12 years before the first federal environmental assessment bill was introduced, Quebec was already putting in place its own environmental assessment mechanisms and process.

This shows then that, when it comes to the environment, particularly environmental impact assessment of projects within Quebec, Quebec has already demonstrated its leadership.

By 1978, Quebec had set up its environmental impact assessment system, and two years later, it created the Bureau d'audiences publiques sur l'environnement (BAPE) in Quebec. Even Canadian environmental groups have told us that the BAPE is doing excellent work. This office provides for public participation and much greater transparency and has reduced delays in getting an environmental impact assessment. In short, it ensures that proper assessments are done, while making sure that some projects are also cost effective, for example, some hydroelectric projects. So, by 1980, Quebec had created the BAPE.

By 1990, when Bill C-78, the first bill on environmental procedure in Quebec was tabled, Quebec and Robert Bourassa's Liberal government joined forces, and the Minister of the Environment, Pierre Paradis, wrote a letter to the federal Minister of the Environment, Jean J. Charest.

I should first talk about the time that Pierre Paradis, in a letter to Robert René de Cotret, indicated that it was essential for Bill C-78 to introduce some flexibility into Quebec's process and avoid any duplication. At the time, Quebec asked that this be ensured. However, the federal government refused to make the changes to Bill C-78 that the Quebec government was requesting.

On December 17, 1990, that same Minister of the Environment for Quebec, Pierre Paradis, wrote to Jean Charest, federal Minister of the Environment, to tell him that it could clearly be demonstrated that the bill infringed on Quebec's areas of jurisdiction. This was a clear indication that the federal government was meddling in Quebec's areas of jurisdiction.

Through all these processes, it seemed clear to me at the time that Quebec had a unanimous position on this issue. In fact, the environment minister of the day expressed it in a letter. On June 16, 1992, Pierre Paradis even made representations before the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources to indicate the impact that the environmental assessment process could have on the expertise that Quebec had developed and the experience that it had gained. But the government refused to listen to reason.

Seeing that the federal government was refusing to recognize Quebec's expertise and the legitimate demands of the Bourassa government, on March 18, 1992, the National Assembly of Quebec passed a unanimous resolution and a unanimous motion calling on the federal government to suspend its procedures.

In 1992, under the premiership of Robert Bourassa, both PQ members and Liberal members passed a unanimous motion voicing strong disapproval of the federal government's bill, an act to establish a federal environmental assessment process, because it went against Quebec's best interests. The assembly was therefore opposed to the federal Parliament passing the bill.

This shows that it was not only the Bourassa government that expressed its opposition to the process that was being put in place, and which is being amended today, but the whole National Assembly.

We must remember these historic moments. It is important to remember what we, in Quebec, thought at the time to try to understand the impact that the existing legislation, which we want to amend today, has had on us.

Bill C-78 became Bill C-13, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. I have here documents from 1992 where the Government of Quebec was saying, with regard to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, and I quote:

There is indeed a risk that the latter will constantly be duplicated, disputed or subordinated to the application of the federal process. Yet, the Quebec procedure has been well established for ten years already; it is well known by the general public and the promoters from Quebec; and it has proven itself.

The Government of Quebec added that the areas where the federal authority can get involved are somewhat limitless.

Therefore, in the view of the Government of Quebec of the time, the scope of this Canadian Environmental Assessment Act was limitless, given all of the provisions the bill contained to force obligatory reviews of projects by the federal authority.

That was our view, in Quebec, of Bill C-13, which became the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, which we are amending today.

I will come back later to whether the concerns of the Government of Quebec were justified. I will refer to the Toulnustouc hydroelectric project, on the North Shore, which my colleague has seen postponed. This is a hydroelectric project, not a gas pipeline or an oil project. This hydroelectric project, which would help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, was postponed because of overlap and a federal environmental process that confirmed the conclusions already reached by Quebec's Bureau des audiences publiques sur l'environnement. I will come back to this later.

In its past claims, Quebec said that it was important that there be an acknowledgment. Such was also the view of Alberta, to acknowledge Justice La Forest's Supreme Court decision in the Oldman case. This ruling set out and recognized the federal government's jurisdiction for undertaking environmental assessments of projects for which a federal decision is required. Those words need to be stressed, “where federal participation is required”.

Justice La Forest also added something in his decision that clarifies the issue of the federal government's real powers. He stated that “the Guidelines Order cannot be used as a colourable device to invade areas of provincial jurisdiction which are unconnected to the relevant heads of federal power” by the federal department or the board.

Therefore, Justice La Forest set limits on the federal government's ability to intervene on environmental matters. He recognizes, of course, that the federal government has discretionary powers, given that it is a shared jurisdiction. However, he clearly states that this power is not limitless. This needs to be acknowledged.

At the time, Quebec was also worried that this environmental assessment process would create duplication. It did say that if Bill C-13 was passed as written—and I want to stress this because it is the basic legislation that we are amending here today—it would mean submitting for federal evaluation many environmental projects that had already gone through Quebec's environmental impact examination and assessment procedure. This situation would therefore create a serious duplication problem in Quebec.

At the time, we feared that the federal environmental assessment process would create duplication. It is not that we do not want some projects to go through the environmental assessment procedure. In fact, we would like an environmental assessment to be done on as many projects as possible. That is why we created, in 1980, our very own Bureau d'audiences publiques sur l'environnement which ensures that an in-depth environmental assessment is carried out if requested by citizens.

In many ways and quite often, Quebec's environmental assessment process is more thorough than the federal process. Under the federal scheme, only 1% of all projects go through some in-depth analysis, which is not the case in Quebec. Also, Quebec's process is transparent and allows every citizen who so wishes—as long as the request for an environmental assessment is not far-fetched—to obtain consultations, hearings and environmental assessments within a reasonable time frame. Assessments are not done only on projects carried out in a specific area. BAPE can also assess industrial and farming projects, like pig farms, if they are believed to have some environmental impact.

The scope of Quebec's BAPE extends to diverse issues, and not only to specific projects from developers, something that is not possible in the federal process which we enacted a few years ago and which we are amending today.

Therefore, we must recognize the significance of the Quebec process. I remind members that Quebec did not sign the Accord on Environmental Harmonization because it was afraid at that time that the accord was one of those pieces of legislation that are not really intended to improve cooperation. As people often say, with an accord or a bill like that, you do not need to be married. Under these circumstances, we do not want to be partners.

True partnership involves cooperation. What we are hearing today is a request that Quebec become a partner, that Quebec cooperate, but one of the partners will be more equal than the other. It is often said that everyone is equal, but in reality, in the federal system as it now exists, one partner is more equal than the other. That is the federal government, because it has assumed this discretionary power. I will come back to this point later. The government will now let the minister increase his discretionary power, and that is totally unacceptable.

Moreover, as was said at the time of Bill C-13, the Government of Quebec documents submitted to a Senate committee clearly indicated, and here I quote the words of the duly elected Government of Quebec in 1992:

We fail to see why the Government of Quebec should be interested in having the implementation of these elements of the federal environmental assessment process delegated to it, when the procedure Quebec has developed in recent years has been recognized as the most effective in the world.

Not only do we say so, but others say so, too. Why destroy something that is working well? If Quebec were not proactive in environmental assessment, then perhaps I could understand why the Canadian government would want to have a federal procedure, because Quebec was weak in environmental assessment. But why, when the Quebec procedure is recognized, does the government want to create duplicate procedures?

It is because of the will of an increasingly centralizing government in Ottawa, the same government that preaches cooperation and harmonization. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot say that you want cooperation and then bring in bills that increase centralization.

Consistency is the only way to go in politics, and it is the only way people will again have faith in the political system. Double talk is indeed the kind of approach and vision that makes voters in Quebec and Canada lose interest. In my view, consistency is fundamental.

As I often said, Quebec voiced its opposition to the bill for several reasons. Why? Because, among other things, there are several elements in the environmental assessment process that depend, for the most part, on the scope and complexity of the probable effects of a project.

The main tool is screening, which applies to 99% of assessed projects. Only 1% of projects, as I said before, are subject to a comprehensive study.

Why then is Quebec's process, which allows for a comprehensive study, not properly recognized? This is what I do not understand. Since the Quebec's process allows for a comprehensive study, why does the federal government want to have a better environmental assessment? They are not taking full advantage of a process that allows for comprehensive studies. Instead, they are consolidating the legislation.

There is another fundamental problem. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act favours self-assessment in that the federal government assesses its own projects. Unlike Quebec, where we have the Bureau d'audiences publiques sur l'environnement which is responsible for environmental assessments, under Canadian law it is often the departments that do their own assessment. So they are both judge and jury. It is as if the oil industry or an industrial developer were told, “You will conduct your own environmental assessment”. What would happen? It would result in biases. What we really need is not a self-assessment process but a truly independent process as afforded by Quebec's Bureau d'audiences publiques sur l'environnement.

Finally, public hearings were held between January and March 2000. Over 1,200 stakeholders took part. A parallel consultation process was held by the first nations organizations. But Quebec did not take part in these discussion and did not make any comments, gbecause the bill denies Quebec's traditional demands.

This legislation has resulted in 5,500 to 6,000 environmental impact assessments per year. This is a lot. It is important to remember that these assessments are being done by the departments responsible for the projects and not by the agency. The agency could not, in any case, handle such a high volume.

We have some criticisms of several sections of Bill C-9. First, section 22 clearly gives the federal government greater authority to interfere in one of Quebec's jurisdictions. By adding “of the opinion”, the bill gives the minister discretionary power. So, the minister has the discretion to intervene.

Second, in clause 8, the whole part about the federal environmental assessment coordinator clearly shows that the federal government wants to interfere in Quebec's process. The federal government has to create this position because it intends to operate in one of Quebec's jurisdictions. If it stayed in its own jurisdiction, it would not need to do this.

Quebec is not opposed to a federal environmental assessment process, just as it did not oppose the federal species at risk legislation. Why was it not opposed to such legislation? Because, since 1990, Quebec has its own such legislation. It took the federal government 13 years to decide to adopt federal species at risk legislation and, 13 years later, we are being told that the federal legislation might eliminate Quebec's process and legislation.

I do not get it. There are members across the way who voted for this threatened species act when they were in Quebec in 1990. As we consider Bill C-9, to amend the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and allow the federal process to apply in Quebec, I have a hard time understanding how some members opposite who defended and adopted the Quebec process just a few years ago can now support this bill. I do not understand this double talk. They cannot have it both ways.

One cannot endorse a bill providing for environmental assessments in Quebec and, 15 years later, support a bill allegedly designed to improve, from a federal point of view, the current legislation and the original legislation.

As far as we are concerned, the position of federal coordinator reflects the federal government's desire to interfere in the process established in Quebec. As I said, we objected to that, and so did the Government of Quebec. Why? Because we have our own Bureau des audiences publiques sur l'environnement.

I want to stress that this widely recognized process is more transparent when it comes to public participation. It is at arm's length as compared to the federal government's self-assessment approach, which I described earlier, whereby departments assess their own projects.

The process in Quebec is more at arm's length, as compared to that approach. It excludes fewer projects, thus ensuring more comprehensive protection of the environment. It is less complex than the federal process. It is also more uniform, hence more predictable, since it comes under just one entity instead of various federal departments.

Finally, it provides clearly set time limits, contrary to the federal process, which never gives any precise time limit.

When we look at the Quebec process, and analyse its performance record, including the latest report of the Bureau des audiences publiques sur l'environnement for 2000-01, which I have recently examined, we might conclude that Quebeckers are finding that the process in Quebec is not working; that it is time for a double safety net; that the Bureau des audiences publiques sur l'environnement is not, Quebeckers feel, carrying out sufficiently independent assessments; that it is time then for the federal level to step in and patch up the Quebec process; that, basically, the Quebec process needs to be consolidated because it is no good.

Yet polls have been carried out in connection with the Bureau des audiences publiques sur l'environnement, because it is important to examine what is being done, in order to see whether it is appreciated and whether the process is a good one. Most poll subjects who attended a public information session by the BAPE, 91% in fact, found its presentation appropriate. As well, 92% found the various means used to inform and consult the public on a project useful.

I am not sure that the public would really find the federal process satisfactory, when only 1% of projects are subjected to a comprehensive study. I would be curious to find out. I would be pleased to carry out a poll of those who have used the federal process, and this is what I would ask, “Are you happy that only 1% of projects were subjected to a comprehensive study? That 99% were subjected to screening only. Do you agree with this? Do you feel the process is transparent? Do you think the federal self-assessment process is a good one?” I am sure that the results would not be the same.

Most of the people polled seemed satisfied with the process in Quebec. Most of them, 86%, felt that the commission lets them ask all relevant questions within a reasonable time limit. The first part of the public hearing makes it possible for them to gain clear and precise information on the impact of projects. Eighty-eight per cent of them say this is the case. For each of these two elements, 10% report that they are dissatisfied.

However, the proportion of those who are dissatisfied is higher with regard to the time provided for preparing briefs or oral presentations. It is 21%. Therefore, even though 21% of those polled expressed dissatisfaction in terms of the time provided for preparing briefs under the Quebec process, close to 80% are indeed satisfied.

Finally, satisfaction with regard to the inquiry and public hearing process is such that two out of five respondents think that it does not need any specific improvements.

Eight respondents out of ten, or 79%, totally or generally agree that the format and structure of the report make it easy to read, whereas 8% think the opposite.

I insist on these assessments, on these comprehensive studies as opposed to screenings—it is the terminology used by the federal government. In Quebec, they are called inquiries.

The annual number of public information and consultation mandates has gone from 15 in the 1980s, when the process was created, to 18 in the 1990s and to 25 in 2001-02. The average annual number of inquiry, public hearing and mediation mandates has also increased, going from 3 in the 1980s, to 7 in the 1990s and to 12 in 2001-02. There is also a steady increase in the number of mandate-days for information, inquiry and mediation periods, that number jumping from 1,543 in 1998 to 2,622 in 2001-02.

It seems clear to me that the federal government is trying to impose its process on Quebec when Quebec's own process is working well. This is my opinion and also one that has been widely expressed.

I also have to say that in committee we tried to have included in the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, as it is in Quebec's environment quality act, Quebec Crees' special status recognized under article 22 of the James Bay Convention that provides for a distinct environmental assessment process and system. That was one of the major demands of the Grand Council of the Crees, namely granting them this special status and recognizing article 22 of the convention.

The federal government turned us down. We tried several times both within the bill before us now and in committee—the issue of the environmental assessment was also reviewed in committee—I have been trying and I am still trying to have the James Bay Convention, especially article 22 on environmental assessment, recognized by the legislation and the federal government. Unfortunately, it is turning a deaf ear to us.

Finally, I talked about the 1990s, under the government of Robert Bourassa , and I also talked about the PQ government from 1994 until very recently. In a few days, we will vote on Bill C-9 at third reading. It is important to try to understand and see whether the new Quebec government has a different vision in this regard.

I believe we must take stock and try to understand what this legitimate new government, recently elected in Quebec, will favour and ask for. Will it back down on Quebec traditional demands? It might, and then again, it might not. We know very little since the environment minister was appointed just yesterday .

The only indication we have comes from the Quebec Liberal Party election platform.

The proposal from their document on energy says:

In order to provide for Quebeckers' electricity needs in the near future, we plan to reduce construction delays for hydroelectric projects by concluding a timely agreement with federal authorities to harmonize the environmental assessment process, or even delegate it to Quebec.

What the Government of Quebec wants is to reduce the waiting period when it comes to hydroelectric projects.

The past is an indication of what the future holds in store. Look at what this government has done with the environmental assessment process in the Toulnustouc project on the North Shore. It is important to remember that the interference of the federal government in the hydroelectric generating station on the Toulnustouc River in 2001 caused delays of several months on this key project for the region.

After reviewing the environmental assessment of the project, after public consultations in Baie-Comeau and Betsiamites, after 13 hearings involving some 650 people with 31 briefs having been presented, the BAPE gave the project its approval in June 2001. This hydroelectric power plant was going to generate employment for 800 people per year.

The federal government decided to enforce the federal process, skeptical of the BAPE's environmental assessment under Quebec's system, thereby delaying a sustainable development project for Canada, and also violating the principles of sustainable development, under which the economy, the environment and society are equally important. I think that the proposal of the current Liberal government, to have environmental reviews delegated to Quebec, is completely warranted.

I find this reassuring and I have the following observation. We have always and often been reproached here in the House for not understanding anything. The Government of Quebec was often reproached for not understanding the situation and for not wanting to cooperate or harmonize environmental measures, because it was a PQ government, sovereignist and separatist—as the members opposite call us. Now, we can see that there was not just the issue of the fiscal imbalance that the Government of Quebec could not agree on. The current Liberal government of Quebec does not agree on this issue either.

I am convinced that when the newly elected government in the National Assembly sees this bill and when it studies and evaluates these major amendments, it will be consistent with Robert Bourassa's position in 1992 and support the drive to patriate and have one single environmental review process for all projects. In the end, I am convinced that the new government will remain faithful to Quebec's past claims and to the best interests of Quebec, as all of the Governments of Quebec have done for decades.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 29th, 2003 / 5:30 p.m.
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The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)

It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the amendment on the motion at third reading stage of Bill C-13.

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the amendment, which was negatived on the following division:)

Canadian Environmental Assessment ActGovernment Orders

April 11th, 2003 / 10:25 a.m.
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NDP

Wendy Lill NDP Dartmouth, NS

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-9 at report stage, the statutory review of the environmental assessment legislation.

Bill C-9 and its precursor, Bill C-19, came about as a result of the requirements of the mandatory review requirements set out by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, also known as the CEAA, or Bill C-13, which was proclaimed in 1992 and came into force in January 1995.

Section 72 of the current act required that the minister undertake a comprehensive review of the provisions and operation of the act five years after its coming into force. It also required that within one year after the review the minister submit a report on the review to Parliament, including a statement of any recommended changes.

At the outset, we believe the review was fundamentally flawed. Although participants indicated some progress in improving environmental planning, there remained significant deficiencies in a variety of areas, including sustainability, regional planning and policy coordination, alternative development options, traditional land use and aboriginal participation, and perhaps most significant, the lack of practical enforcement measures.

New Democrats had reservations about the bill as it was introduced because it did not adequately address these and other severe problems associated with the act. Our initial opposition was based on the assertion that the bill failed to address three principal criteria.

The current CEAA did not go far enough to protect our environment and the changes proposed in Bill C-9 would further weaken that legislation.

Bill C-9 attempted to streamline and speed up the environmental assessment and review process seemingly to the benefit of developers and industry instead of protecting the environment and the public.

The bill did not substantively address the measures needed to strengthen and improve safeguards to protect the environment.

During debate of the bill and throughout committee hearings we raised those and other concerns over the lack of effectiveness, transparency and efficiency in the EA process.

By listening to my own constituents in Dartmouth, I am very aware of what the community wants and, I believe, has the right to expect from federal environmental assessments.

I would like to provide an example of the lack of transparency which this process now has in place.

The reasonable expectations of environmentally aware and community-minded people are often dashed due to the deficiencies of the environmental assessment process, deficiencies which are not corrected in the statutory review of Bill C-9.

In Dartmouth, for example, we currently have a coast guard base on a large wharf on the Halifax harbour near Dartmouth Cove. I dare say that the red and white coast guard icebreakers, such as the Louis St. Laurent and the John A. Macdonald , are almost as much of a local landmark as the naval yards are on the Halifax side of the harbour. In my mind the base is another part of the bustling activity of one of the world's great working harbours set in a magnificent natural beauty.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has decided that it eventually will be moving the coast guard base down the harbour to the site of the Bedford Institute of Oceanography. I have no reason to believe that such a move would impair the important functions of the coast guard. If it can save money and allow for better search and rescue then all the better. However, one issue that is outstanding is what will happen to the current coast guard base. That is where the environmental assessment issue comes in.

The local municipality, the HRM, has for decades wanted to build sewage treatment plants throughout the municipality, including one near Dartmouth. I have supported these general plans because I am opposed to the dumping of raw sewage in the harbour, as is everyone in our community.

About 10 years ago the then municipalities of Halifax and Dartmouth proposed a number of cites for sewage plants, including one on the island in the middle of the harbour to take the Dartmouth sewage. An assessment was done that looked at the impact of the possible island sewage treatment plant. It is no real surprise that the result of that environmental study showed that building the plant would result in better water quality. The plant, however, was never built. It is now 10 years later and the municipality wants to put another plant on the current site of the coast guard base.

The Halifax regional municipality believes that this site is accessible to both the main sewage pipes from Dartmouth and it can also take the sewage from the cruise ships that are starting to frequent our harbour, and it will be available on the right time line in terms of when the base is moved by the coast guard.

The coast guard base is nestled right beside a residential community. There is a very limited amount of traffic going up and down the steep and narrow road to the base and the current base generates very little noise or odour.

Understandably, the neighbours around the coast guard base are not convinced that this would be the case with the sewage treatment plant. They have concerns about it. They worry that the plant will smell because it will only be about 100 yards from their homes. They worry about the noise and danger of heavy vehicles during the construction, and the noise and danger of the sludge trucks which will go up and down pass the area when the plant is operating. They worry about what this will do to the quality of their lives and their property values.

They have a right to worry about these things, and because the land is owned by the federal government, they have a right to look to the environment assessment process to make sure their concerns are dealt with.

I, as the MP, thought this would happen, that there would be an assessment because this project would involve the disposal of federal lands and that of course would automatically trigger an assessment.

I thought the environmental assessment would deal with the local concerns, which would have been communicated to both the municipality and to the federal department responsible. I expected that the assessment would look at the condition of the base, the concerns of the neighbours and would suggest ways for the plant to deal with concerns raised. I guess I was naive to believe that the system would be accessible and transparent for my constituents.

The environmental assessment screening that was done was released in January and it did not discuss many of the issues raised. It set limits on noise and odour for a plant. It was vague on how compliance would be enforced. It did not look at the condition of the base. It did not deal with the specific concerns raised by the community, or by me, to the department. It had not left anyone feeling that the environment was better served.

The basic problem is that it was not a transparent process. It did not even deal with the actual proposed site in Dartmouth but discussed guidelines for three sites around the HRM. It did confirm that having sewage treatment was better than not having sewage treatment, but there is no surprise in that. It took comments from the consortium trying to build the plants pretty much at face value. It did not seek or obtain community input. My office, which had written to the minister on the site and the assessment, was not even made aware of the assessment's release.

The municipalities public relations meetings have not been satisfactory to the community. As a matter of fact the report says that 19 submissions were received of which 5 were supportive. The report says that the local concerns have been dealt with but many of them were not.

I say these things to highlight how unsatisfactory the assessment process was for these local Dartmouth residents. They feel that the environmental assessments are something that exists for high price consultants and for developers and not for public input.

I have since learned that getting an assessment to a public panel stage, where members of the community can actually get a formal hearing, are so rare that it is virtually impossible.

After reviewing the legislation and in consultation with a variety of environmental, aboriginal and legal experts, the NDP submitted more than 50 amendments to Bill C-9. These amendments attempted to address some of the identified shortcomings of the act. While there was some success in getting several amendments, many more were defeated, as the House knows.

In conclusion, we cannot support Bill C-9 in its present form or the recommendations of the report of the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development. It must be made clear that the NDP supports the goals of improving the environmental assessment process to make it more accountable, more transparent and to strengthen the protection of our environment.

Therefore it is with regret that because of the inadequacies of CEAA that we were not able to bring about meaningful amendments, we will have to give our dissent on the bill at this time.

Canadian Environmental Protection ActGovernment Orders

April 10th, 2003 / 4:35 p.m.
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Bloc

Bernard Bigras Bloc Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, QC

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have this opportunity today to speak to Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. Today the government is moving 27 motions to again amend certain aspects of the work done by the members of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development .

It must be kept in mind—and this strikes me as vital at this point in the debate—that this is a bill to amend existing legislation. The essence is there. The main thrust of the opposition from Quebec lies, of course in our rejection of the amendments, but as well in our opposition to the original legislation. Legislation was tabled in 1990, Bill C-78, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

I will remind hon. members that the National Assembly made a unanimous appeal to Ottawa, reminding the federal government that it had its own environmental assessment process which worked just fine, and that in fact many aspects of it constituted a model for the world.

I will remind hon. members that Quebec created the Bureau d'audiences publiques sur l'environnement or BAPE in 1980. In 1978, we introduced our own environmental assessment system as part of the environmental quality act. Two years later, BAPE was created. Well before that, five years earlier, in 1975, Quebec had adopted an environmental assessment process.

In other words, as far back as 1975, Quebec had its own process of environmental assessment, which was strengthened by the creation of the BAPE five years later, in 1980.

In 1990, the federal government introduced a bill to create its own environmental assessment process, which interferes in areas of provincial jurisdiction.

As I have said, Quebec spoke with one voice by passing a motion in its National Assembly as follows:

That... the National Assembly strongly disapproves of the federal government's bill to establish a federal environmental assessment process, because it is contrary to the higher interests of Quebec, and opposes its passage by the federal Parliament.

This motion, passed on March 18, 1992 by the National Assembly, set the tone for the opposition by all of Quebec, in solidarity and regardless of political affiliations, to this system and to the process the federal government had just put in place.

I would also like to remind you that on February 28, 1992, Quebec environment minister Pierre Paradis wrote to the federal environment minister, Jean Charest, to say that he was totally opposed to the process. Mr. Paradis wrote to Mr. Charest as follows: “Despite your explanations, we believe that the assessment system proposed in the bill will not be feasible, either for the federal government or for the Government of Quebec. It has already caused much insecurity among those involved, who would have to put up with the many overlaps the bill would allow.

We believe that the current provisions of the bill are far from sufficient to eliminate all possibility of overlap and provide an opportunity for practical agreements on implementation methods for our respective procedures”.

Thus, on February 28, 1992, following a motion passed unanimously by the Quebec National Assembly, Quebec environment minister Pierre Paradis wrote to the then federal Minister of the Environment, Jean Charest—who is now the leader of the Quebec Liberal Party and engaged in an election campaign. The federal government refused to admit what it really wanted or to recognize that this bill interfered with the defence of Quebec's interests.

About two weeks ago, when I heard the leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec, during the campaign, telling the federal government that he intended to do everything in his power, and devote all his energies to trying to bring the environmental assessment process back to Quebec, I found it rather paradoxical. Because, at the time, he refused to bend to the wishes of the Quebec National Assembly.

Today, on the campaign trail, he tells us that he would be able to eliminate the environmental assessment process, which he authorized himself in 1992. This kind of double-speak is totally unacceptable.

This bill, unfortunately, tends once again to strengthen the underlying legislation. It creates distortions and overlaps with the Quebec environmental assessment process, which is a good process, according to all the stakeholders.

If Quebec were not assuming its responsibilities, that would be one thing, maybe. However, the opposite is true, the process is working well. If we compare the environmental assessment process in place in Quebec and the work of the BAPE to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, which I did in committee, we see that Quebec's process allows for broader consultations than federal legislation in recent years, since it was adopted.

Why would we want to strengthen a federal act when the process works well in Quebec?

What we have here today is a fait accompli. The government opposite has refused to take Quebeckers' interests into account.

Back at second reading, I mentioned a study done by the Government of Quebec several years ago on the application of the federal legislation. The Government of Quebec made comments about the legislation. I would like to quote from an analysis the federal government received at that time from the Minister of the Environment, Jean Charest. The Government of Quebec felt that, and I quote:

Bill C-13 is a steamroller condemning everybody to a forced uniformization, which might in turn jeopardize the environmental assessment process in Quebec and needlessly bring into question all our efforts in this area.

Members will recall that a judgment rendered several years ago by Justice La Forest stated that a federal department or panel cannot use the guidelines order as a colourable device to invade areas of provincial jurisdiction which are unconnected to the relevant federal powers.

We believe that this attempt to further strengthen, with Bill C-9, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, duplicates environmental assessment processes that already work well.

What the federal government could do is recognize Quebec's legislation and review process, and recognize the BAPE as the sole body to review projects, given that it has demonstrated that the process works well.

Therefore, inevitably, we cannot support this bill, and we will be voting against it when the time comes.

The federal government has to understand one thing, and that is that the process works well in Quebec. Why duplicate what already works?

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 10th, 2003 / 4:15 p.m.
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Liberal

Jacques Saada Liberal Brossard—La Prairie, QC

Madam Speaker, discussions have taken place among all parties and there is agreement, pursuant to Standing Order 45(7), to further defer the recorded division requested on the amendment introduced by the member for Yellowhead, regarding third reading of Bill C-13, until the end of government orders on Tuesday, April 29.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 10th, 2003 / 4:05 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Maurice Vellacott Canadian Alliance Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK

They can be all woman, as my colleague reminds me, if they have the kinds of skills, backgrounds and capabilities for that kind of a role. That would be the Canadian Alliance position in respect of that.

I welcome this opportunity to speak again on this bill. It is something we have to think through very seriously. There have been some very noble efforts in the past months by members trying to improve this bill to mitigate some of the flaws and problems with it. As Bill C-13 stands, it remains deeply flawed, so right through to the end it requires our diligent attention.

Although the topic and terminology of the bill might appear intimidating to many of us, it is crucial that every member looks into the bill carefully so they can make a decision about supporting or opposing it based on a clear assessment of how this bill treats the most vulnerable members of Canadian society. That is the bottom line here. How does it treat the most vulnerable members of Canadian society?

A bill legislating reproductive technologies is definitely needed but we must ensure that it demonstrates the integrity of a responsible balance between the amazing medical and technological advances being made in the field and the value of the human subjects involved in and affected by this kind of research. Currently the bill has too many serious flaws to be allowed to pass after this final stage of debate.

The first issue that needs to be addressed is the issue of cloning. We have heard much debate about cloning, and I am thankful that members of the House passed Motion No. 13 in report stage in an attempt to ensure that all cloning techniques are addressed by the bill. However this issue is by no means over. In fact the bill still has major flaws concerning cloning since it applies only to human beings after birth. In its present form, even now that the bill has passed through report stage, the prohibitions outlined in the bill, specifically in subclauses 5(c), 5(e) and 5(h), clearly state that an activity is only prohibited “for the purpose of creating a human being”. In other words, it restricts cloning only in respect of human beings. Therein lies the rub.

What is wrong with that, one might ask. The problem is that our Criminal Code only recognizes a human being as existing once the fetus has emerged completely from the mother's womb. There we see the little wrinkle, the flaw and the rub in this whole thing. It is a major flaw because it allows the cloning of human beings before they have come out the birth canal for the purpose of terminating them and using them for research right through the ninth month of pregnancy. That is horrific and it is abominable, as far as I am concerned. I do not believe it was something that was intended by the Minister of Health but it is a gross oversight and one which must be changed before the bill is passed.

A human embryo can be created by pro-nuclear transfer cloning and can then be implanted in the womb and gestated for up to nine months. As the bill now stands, the only regulation on this cloning would be that the embryo must be killed before birth, before the full nine months. Therefore the bill not only allows cloning but it ensures that the embryos cloned must be killed even after they have developed into a fetus and reached the age of viability were they to be outside the mother's womb.

Since the bill deals with human reproductive technology, the government is acknowledging, I guess indirectly or tacitly, that the embryos in question are human, yet we have this strange thing in our Canadian criminal law. Bill C-13 recognizes that embryos have worth since it imposes a 14 day limit on storing embryos without using cryopreservation. There is no denying that an embryo has the complete DNA of an adult human.

Suzanne Scorsone, the former member of the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies states:

The human embryo is a human individual with a complete personal genome, and should be a subject of research only for its own benefit...You and I were all embryos once. This is not the abortion question.

She goes on to state:

When an embryo is not physically inside a woman, there is no possible conflict between that embryo and the life situation of anyone else. There are many across the spectrum on the abortion question who see the embryo as a human reality, and hold that to destroy it or utilize it as industrial raw materials is damaging and dehumanizing, not only to that embryo but to all human society.

Cloning clearly crosses the line of an acceptable ethical practice. It denies dignity, individuality, rights and even life to a vulnerable human person.

The government claims that the bill aims to preserve and protect human individuality and diversity and the integrity of the human genome. If this is indeed the case, every effort must be made to prevent this flawed legislation. Because it does not stop all forms of cloning, we need to stop it from passing third reading.

Another reason why the bill remains so deeply flawed is its acceptance of experimentation on the human embryo. It allows research on in vitro embryos that are left over from the IVF process, as well as embryos that are created for the purpose of improving or providing instruction in assisted human reproduction procedures. By allowing this practice, the government is saying that it is acceptable to create human life for the purpose of using it and then destroying it.

I remind members of the House of the many petitions that many members have read during the past months and which concern Canadians. They call on us to turn away from embryonic research and to promote the ethical alternative of non-embryonic research. The scientific evidence is indisputable in terms of the already proven track record of non-embryonic stem cells versus the non-existent successful track record in respect to embryonic stem cell experimentation in terms of alleviating human suffering.

I believe there is a political agenda driving this push for embryonic stem cell experimentation. There is also, as the speaker from the other party just observed, an economic agenda driving this course of action, particularly for companies that will have to provide the anti-rejection drugs for patients treated with embryonic stem cells. Those who claim a reasonable scientific agenda behind such research however still have not made a convincing case.

Non-embryonic stem cells, or adult stem cells as they are called in many places, are easily accessible, they are not subject to immune rejection and, most important, are in large supply from sources such as umbilical cord blood, as well as various adult tissues.

The effectiveness of adult stem cells has already been demonstrated in treatments for Parkinson's, Crohn's disease, multiple sclerosis, as well as other conditions.

In June of last year Canadian researchers reported success in adult stem cell trials with multiple sclerosis patients. They were treated with stem cells from their own bone marrow. Also, last year a U.S. child with sickle cell anemia was treated with umbilical cord stem cells that were harvested and stored following the birth of his mother. The early signs of that kind of treatment are very encouraging.

Stem cell researcher, Dr. Wolfgang Lillge, wrote in an article entitled “The Case For Adult Stem Cell Research” that the ethical use of adult stem cell research had shown promising results in both tests on animals and in cases with humans. He states:

It has become clear from transplantation experiments with animals, that stem cells of a particular tissue can develop into cells of a completely different kind. Thus, bone marrow stem cells have been induced to become brain cells, but also liver cells... Despite the fact that basic research with adult stem cells is in its earliest beginnings and is in no way being promoted with urgency--there have been a growing number of reports lately with experiments with animals, from which it emerges that adult stem cells can successfully transform themselves into differentiated cells of organs of many kinds.

Some advocates of embryonic stem cell experimentation acknowledge the success with non-embryonic stem cells but they still argue for the need to explore all these other avenues of research including embryonic stem cells.

What these researchers do not seem to realize however is that money does not grow on trees, notwithstanding the way the current Liberal government likes to spend it. The fact is that every dollar thrown into the abyss of embryonic stem cell experimentation is a dollar that will not go into further developing already proven techniques with adult stem cells.

I am horrified that the Liberal government would actually take tax dollars from Canadians who are suffering from Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, sickle cell anemia, Crohn's disease and other terrible diseases and use them to chase a political agenda that is at odds with the scientific evidence.

There is much more that could be said. What the government should be doing is splitting this bill in two so that we can pass speedily a bill banning all the offensive technologies that all members of the House want to ban. Then we could spend more time dealing with the more contentious elements of the legislation without continuing to leave Canada in the position of having a legal vacuum in all aspects of genetic and reproductive technologies.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 10th, 2003 / 3:50 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Leon Benoit Canadian Alliance Lakeland, AB

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have an opportunity to speak to Bill C-13 at third and final reading. The bill deals with assisted human reproductive technologies and related research and is an extremely important piece of legislation.

As I listen to members from all the different parties in the House, I find that I can support many of the points made by members from each political party. Then there are some positions that I certainly cannot support, positions that are presented by members from all different parties as well.

This is an extremely important bill because it deals with issues of hope: hope for having a child when someone otherwise could not have one and hope for finding a cure or an effective treatment for diseases where until now there has been none. Hope is an important part of the bill. It also deals with some very difficult ethical issues. I am going to touch on these issues today as well in the final opportunity I will have to speak on the bill.

I want to say that certainly there are some things we support in the bill; some of them are prohibited by the bill and others are allowed. As a starting point, I want to quickly outline some of them.

I fully support, as I think probably all members of my political party do, bans on reproductive and therapeutic cloning, on chimeras, on animal-human hybrids, on sex selection, on germ line alteration, and on buying and selling embryos and paid surrogacy. I fully support these bans. We also support an agency to regulate the sector, although we do have some concerns about the agency and the way it would be set up. We have put forth recommendations for change and some of those have not happened.

On the issue of cloning, the Canadian Alliance opposes human cloning as an affront to human dignity and individuality and human 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 fact, this has been a large part of what we have dealt with in regard to the bill. In September 2001 we tabled a motion at the health committee calling on the government to immediately ban human reproductive cloning entirely. The Liberals deferred a vote on the motion. Their preference was to deal with cloning in a comprehensive reproductive technologies bill.

While we are not entirely happy with what happened, we are pleased with Motion No. 13 by a member of the governing party, which was passed in the House at report stage and which forecloses on any possibility of new cloning techniques getting by the bill's cloning prohibition. We had a grave concern with this.

I am going to deal with the research using human embryos. Some of the most difficult issues, some of the most emotional issues and in fact some of the greatest hope that stem cell research technology has to offer come under this section.

Stem cell research is an extremely exciting issue when we look at the hope it gives, hope in the areas that I talked about at the opening of my presentation, but there are also some very difficult issues to deal with that are connected with these issues. The bill allows for experiments using human embryos under four conditions. I actually find the language that was used surrounding the bill somewhat objectionable, but I will use that language.

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

Second, written permission must be given by the donor, although the bill states donor in the singular, and I wonder why that would not be an issue involving both parents.

Third, there can be research on a human embryo if the use is necessary, but “necessary” is left undefined. We have concerns with that.

Fourth, all human embryos must be destroyed after 14 days, if not frozen.

These are things regarding human embryo research that I have concerns with.

Some of the concerns that I and many members of my party have are things that are overlooked, quite commonly, and one is that Bill C-13 would allow the creation of embryos for reproductive research. Canadian law would legitimize the view that human life can be created solely to be used for the benefit of others. Embryonic research is ethically controversial and divides Canadians. We can note that from the numerous petitions we have had in the House, on both sides of the issue. Clearly this is a very difficult ethical issue.

If members will listen to what I will mention later, I would argue that there is really no need to bring that difficult ethical issue into the discussion on stem cell research, because there is so much hope for adult or non-embryonic stem cells. They are safe. They are a proven alternative to embryonic stem cells. The sources of adult stem cells are the umbilical cord, blood, skin tissue, bone tissue, et cetera. There are many sources for adult stem cell research.

Adult stem cells are easily accessible and are not subject to immune rejection, which is a huge drawback to embryonic stem cells. They pose minimal ethical concerns. I have talked about those ethical concerns. Why do we want to spoil an area that has so much hope by bringing into the mix some very difficult ethical concerns? I believe we do not have to bring these concerns into the mix, quite frankly.

Also, the issue of immune rejection of foreign tissue is taken away by adult stem cell research because the stem cells are typically taken from the individual they are used by. Rejection is not an issue because they are from one's own body tissue. That is a huge advantage. As well, adult stem cells are being used today in the treatment of Parkinson's, leukemia, multiple sclerosis and other conditions. They are being used successfully in spite of the fact that adult stem cell research is quite new compared to embryonic stem cell research.

Many research companies have really based the future of their research regarding stem cells on embryonic stem cell research, yet we have found all kinds of problems with it, such as the issue of rejection and the difficult ethical issues. From adult stem cell research, which is in fact quite new, we have found none of these problems. Not only have we have found hope, but we have already found cures or treatments for conditions for which there were simply none previously. It offers great hope, and if we limit the research to adult stem cell research we can bypass those very difficult ethical issues.

Something that I think not many people understand is that in spite of the fact that research has been done on embryonic stem cells for a much longer period of time than it has on adult stem cells, embryonic stem cells and research on embryonic stem cells have not led to a single cure or effective treatment after all that time. Yet adult stem cells so quickly have led to these treatments and to this hope. Why would people object to putting that research aside until we can see just how effective adult stem cell research can actually be?

Great hope is offered by adult stem cell research. Very little has resulted from embryonic stem cell research. I call on the House to stay away from embryonic research. Let us cultivate that hope and the potential of adult stem cell research. Let us take the ethical difficulties out of the question. Let us move forward to provide more than hope, to provide cures and treatments for people who are suffering from diseases where none exist now and to provide children for people who simply cannot have children.

There are many things to support in the bill. Some things we simply cannot support. I look forward to more work in this area.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 10th, 2003 / 3:40 p.m.
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NDP

Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased on behalf of the constituents in the riding of Winnipeg Centre to say a few words on this important bill at this stage.

Bill C-13 deals with reproductive technologies. The debate on the bill addresses an important area as Canadians approach the whole issue of reproductive technology. As we have heard throughout the debate, there are many compelling reasons to support the regulation of reproductive technology.

We are all familiar with recent sensational stories about human cloning, about eggs being sold over the Internet, about acrimonious lawsuits over surrogacy. Even last year we heard the Raelians claim that they had successfully cloned a human being. People in my riding want to know what the government plans to do to look after their interests in light of such interesting debate going on.

Even though it is the tip of the iceberg, we believe there is unregulated research and unregulated activity going on in this field. I am sure all members of the House agree that others around the globe are absolutely committed to this type of research. We want to make sure that Canadian interests are not only represented, but are protected.

We are living in a time when the term “designer babies” has become part of the North American lexicon. Parents are selecting the biological traits of their children. Internet sites compete in the trade of celebrity reproductive materials, while countless others profit from those Canadians who are more than willing to buy access to any healthy eggs or sperm that might assist them in their drive to have children. Even more worrisome perhaps is that gender selection has become topical, with all sorts of new rationales being put forward in its justification.

Many of us are now very familiar with some of the less sensational personal stories that have come to our attention as members of Parliament. We deal with families that are dealing with the issue of infertility. Stories of joy have come to my attention, as have stories of heartbreak, as well as sacrifice and pain during the whole infertility treatment and the process of parents trying to achieve reproductive success.

Reproductive technologies have become widespread in Canada, yet unfortunately they operate beyond the reach of government regulations. Therefore, we are pleased to be able to address this today and have this long overdue debate.

Unfortunately, the technology has leaped ahead by leaps and bounds without comment or without intervention by the federal government, in spite of the fact that it was over 10 years ago that the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies released its report. We have to ask why it has taken so long for us to have this very necessary debate.

I would like to list some of the concerns of the NDP regarding the bill. One issue is that during the committee stage the member for Winnipeg North Centre worked very closely with members from other parties on that committee to move amendments and to garner support for what they considered to be important amendments. They thought they had succeeded in a number of areas to break through or build some consensus on that committee regarding pretty fundamental issues in Bill C-13 that speaks to the creation of the assisted human reproduction agency.

A very fundamental principle arose. In seeing that human reproduction could be viewed disproportionately as a woman's issue or an issue that pertains to women's health, our representative on the committee, the member for Winnipeg North Centre, put forward a motion that there should be gender parity on the board of this newly established agency. She thought she had broad support for that until the vote came down.

When that particular amendment was voted on in the House of Commons, it did not succeed. We thought that the member for St. Paul's was on board with this issue and the issue of women's rights. We expected her support. We were very disappointed to find out that my colleague did not get the support for this important amendment. In fact, I have a list of how the vote went on Motion No. 71. As I say, we were very disappointed that was not recognized as a priority issue.

If, as the government claims, the bill is concerned with women's health, we argue what better way to give that claim leverage for enforcement purposes than to state outright that the precautionary principle should and must be the governing principle. Yet every time my colleague from Winnipeg North Centre raised this amendment to entrench the precautionary principle to ensure that the principle is imprinted in the legislation, our efforts were voted down by Liberal members of the committee.

The NDP wanted to require the federal government to ensure that reproductive technologies and drugs and procedures specifically are proven safe before they are introduced and that the risks and benefits of any treatment are fully made available and that the evaluation of reproductive health services include women's experiences. Yet it was frustrating, I am told, for the NDP to try to have these views succeed at the committee level.

I point out the contrast that even though the chair of that committee regarding Bill C-13 at the time, the member for St. Paul's could not see fit to support these reasonable amendments. She has recently, as reported in today's newspaper in fact, been the outspoken champion of the rights of standing committees to have some real genuine decision making authority in this place. Many of us have been frustrated by the work of committees. Many of us have felt that partisan politics and whipped votes have spoiled the opportunity for committees to do meaningful work.

As recently as yesterday in the government operations committee that same member for St. Paul's was the one saying that the members would not go any further in the clause by clause analysis of Bill C-25 until such time as the government released all the pertinent documents that they felt that they needed. In that case they were cabinet documents regarding the public service act that they were making reference too.

I see a contradiction in that on the committee dealing with the public service act the member is the champion of free speech and the champion of independent activity for members of the committee yet on the bill dealing with something as critical as reproductive health and reproductive technologies, the member was not willing to go that far.

A fundamental concern for New Democrats in this whole legislative process has to do with the commercialization and commodification of reproductive technologies. Many Canadians have expressed concern from the very beginning of the formal public dialogue about reproductive technologies. Back in the 1980s this very issue was raised. Concerns were expressed about the government agenda being driven by powerful biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries whose primary obligation is to their shareholders and not really to women's health.

There is really nothing in the bill particularly relating to the control of research results that distinguishes between the government's position and the position of these industries which stand to profit greatly from people's very real desires to have children. It is capitalizing on people's unfortunate situations that they are unable to have children naturally and are seeking reproductive technologies in the case of infertility at least and so on.

We raised the issue of patents for instance. We do not believe it is proper that human life should be a patentable commodity ever. We should never allow it to happen. There is a need to ensure that public access to the benefit of research should be available without a profit motive being built into it. For us, patenting still remains a critical issue.

Patenting remains for the government a separate issue, but for most Canadians and certainly to New Democrats, questions of research and the control and application of research results are inexorably linked.

Bill C-13, while necessary, has to be crafted in away such as to be vigorously enforced if it is to accurately reflect the wishes of most Canadians who do not want to see the commercialization of human life and human genes or human tissue ever turned into a profit making initiative.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 10th, 2003 / 3:30 p.m.
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Progressive Conservative

John Herron Progressive Conservative Fundy Royal, NB

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in this debate concerning Bill C-13 and its previous nomenclature, Bill C-56.

This is a complex piece of legislation from a scientific and ethics perspective. This is pioneering legislation that we have not seen in a Canadian context in our history. The science has been evolving at a rapid pace and thus the reason for this legislation. About 10 to 20 years ago legislation of this sort was not required, but it is our duty as legislators to ensure that legislation is in place that will keep up with the ethical issues surrounding the scientific developments that we have had in this time period.

I approached the parliamentary research branch and had the Library of Parliament prepare a comparison for me of the legislative framework that exists in the United States and the United Kingdom, and benchmark it with Bill C-56 and Bill C-13, the legislation we have before us today.

I would like to compare those three approaches, but before doing so I would like to talk a little more generically about the bill itself.

Bill C-13 would give Canada its first comprehensive and integrated legislation dealing with assisted human reproduction.

There are three components to the bill: first, it would ban human cloning; second, it would give the government authority to regulate activities such as embryonic stem cell research; and finally, it would create an agency, the assisted human reproduction agency of Canada, to oversee the regulations set out in the act. In the absence of this legislation, no rules would exist to govern assisted human reproduction.

The first component of the bill would ban human cloning. It would prohibit unacceptable practices such as creating a human clone for any purpose, reproductive or therapeutic. Currently in Canada, human cloning is legal in the absence of legislation. If Bill C-13 were passed, human cloning would be banned.

The second component of the bill would give the government authority to regulate activities such as embryonic stem cell research. A main challenge in the matter of research on human subjects, including human embryos, is the necessity to strike the necessary balance between the need to seek the causes and cures of disease and disability, and the responsibility to ensure that our public policy framework can keep up with the science. Research has moved ahead faster than anticipated, and other governments have ensured through legislation that these discoveries truly advance the public interest.

The third component of the bill addresses the creation of an agency to oversee the regulations set out in the act. This agency would be called the assisted human reproduction agency of Canada. It would licence, monitor, and enforce the assisted human reproduction act and its regulations.

The Progressive Conservative Party was concerned with this issue, and that is why we encouraged the government to proceed with legislation as quickly as possible. The House may recall that over a decade ago our party commenced the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies. That was the predecessor to ensuring that we had a legislative framework that could keep up with the science and the ethical issues that were developing during that period.

Bill C-13 is an extremely important piece of legislation that could have been managed better by the government. For example, of the three components of the bill, there was broad support among Canadians to ban human cloning. The government should have moved faster on introducing legislation that would ensure that end. A more effective manner of dealing with this wide-ranging bill would have been to divide the bill into two sections. One section would deal with banning human cloning and the second section of the bill would address assisted human reproduction procedures in a thorough and considered manner. By dividing the bill, each component would have been addressed individually.

The fact remains that Bill C-13 is a complicated piece of legislation. Even though the government could have done a better job managing the bill, it is a step in the right direction. After all, it is the first comprehensive and integrated piece of legislation dealing with assisted human reproduction in this country. Modern technologies and research in the field of science and health are quickly advancing. Rules, laws and regulations must be established to ensure that science does not move beyond human ethics. Clearly, research should not continue in a vacuum, regardless of one's position on the issues at hand. Many members in the chamber would agree that regardless of political, religious or social standpoints, we cannot continue without a legislative framework on this issue.

As I stated earlier, at my request the Library of Parliament prepared a brief synopsis comparing similar legislation in both the U.S. and the U.K. While this document provides only a peripheral view, it does highlight some important issues we may wish to consider. The proposed law in Canada is more conservative than the legislation in the United States and United Kingdom. I have the document comparing the legislative approaches of those two countries which I would gladly share with any member in the House.

As I have said, the legislation is complex because it deals with detailed issues that must be stewarded by strong legislation. Without any regulation or legislation on the issue of assisted human reproduction, the doors would be left wide open for scientific experimentation and interpretation.

I believe that the bill is a step in the right direction. I am not amenable to letting the ethics of these issues be left purely in the hands of scientists. We have a duty as legislators to ensure that there is a framework and that there are boundaries which are acceptable. Having no legislation is actually a policy. That policy would mean that the free enterprise market would dictate what ethics would govern these issues.

The government should be commended for moving forward with this legislation although the issues could have been managed in a better way.

I would like to illustrate my point. When I referred to the differences between the legislative approaches, I was referring to the document prepared by the Library of Parliament comparing the legislative frameworks of the U.K. and the U.S. with Bill C-56 and Bill C-13. There is even a chart at the end of the document.

Would embryonic stem cell research be permitted under this act? Yes, it would. It is also permitted in the U.K. and the U.S. Would a licence be required for such research? Under this act, yes. Under the U.K. act, it is; in the United States, it is not. Is the creation of embryos for stem cell research permitted? Under this act, it is not. In the U.K., it is, if properly licensed. In the United States, it is, if it is privately funded, and there are the bucks to do it.

Going through the document even further, it comes down to the fact that one could read the bill in terms of the act that was prepared by the U.K. in 1990. The British legislation may be perceived to be permissible in terms of the framework, but it is guided by finite regulation. The United States has had a protracted debate among its populace on this particular issue. In essence, even though it has had a stronger debate, it does not have legislation on these particular issues at the moment. The Canadian legislation is then a compromise between the two.

Ironically, the U.K. may appear to have the most permissive approach on embryonic stem cell research but in reality, its legislation imposes tight regulatory controls and compels the research community to proceed cautiously.

In the United States on the other hand, while there have been debates on embryonic stem cell activities and the appearance of related funding restriction, the reality is that the research community faces no legislative prohibitions or controls.

Canada has combined much of the cautionary approach evident in the U.S. debate over embryonic stem cell research with the U.K. example of placing more emphasis on the legislated controls with publicly funded research. The Canadian legislation has actually tried to adopt the best of the provisions that the United States has and that the U.K. has. I do not think we should have these issues in a legislative vacuum. We need to have legislation in place.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 10th, 2003 / 3:20 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Gurmant Grewal Canadian Alliance Surrey Central, BC

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise again on behalf of the residents of Surrey Central to speak to Bill C-13, an act respecting assisted human reproductive technologies and related research.

The government stated that the legislation would protect the health and safety of Canadians using assisted human reproduction, that it would prohibit unacceptable practices and that it would regulate assisted human reproduction activities and related research.

Specifically, the bill is supposed to create a regulatory framework for fertility clinics, ban human cloning and commercial surrogacy, and restrict research using human embryos.

Key provisions in the bill include: prohibitions on human cloning; the creation of human-animal hybrids; and sex-selection of babies. It also includes payments to egg and sperm donors and so-called “rent-a-womb” contracts where women profit from carrying babies for infertile couples. It also would create a new agency to regulate how scientists and infertility clinics use human reproductive materials. It would issue licences to both research and treatments involving in vitro embryos.

We are dealing with an issue that will have a profound effect upon the lives of Canadians. It deals with the creation and death of human life. Needless to say, this field therefore requires some measure of public oversight and regulation.

It has been a decade since the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies issued its report called “Proceed with Care”. The report was four years in the making and contained nearly 300 recommendations. The commissioners listened to the opinions of 40,000 Canadians. Four different health ministers have been involved in the debate. Since the bill was first introduced, I have heard from literally hundreds of my constituents. I would like to thank them for their opinions. Undoubtedly, this is an issue on which consensus is nearly impossible. Everyone has an opinion.

Pro-lifers, ethicists, fertility doctors, researchers, sperm banks, people who have trouble conceiving babies the usual way, children conceived in laboratories and people suffering from diseases, all have different points of view on the issues.

The common consensus is that the bill requires important amendments. I fully support bans on reproductive or therapeutic cloning, chimeras, animal-human hybrids, sex selection, germ-line alteration, buying or selling of embryos and paid surrogacy.

We in the official opposition recognize and support the need for regulating this field. I also support an agency to regulate this sector, although I want changes to it. Sometimes regulations are not good but in this particular field the regulations are the most important thing because in that way we can have oversight on this particular sector.

I will now turn to various areas of Bill C-13 with which I have special difficulty.

First, there is embryonic stem cell research. The bill would allow for experiments using human embryos under different conditions. There are four different conditions but I will not go through them. However, by allowing the creation of embryos for reproductive research, Canadian law will legitimize the creation of human life solely to be used for the benefit of others.

Embryonic research is ethically controversial, as demonstrated by the numerous petitions tabled in the House which are probably gathering dust on the shelf. All the petitions called for embryonic stem cell research to be seriously reviewed.

Another concern is that embryonic stem cell research results in the death of the embryo, which is early human life. For many Canadians this violates the ethical commitment to respect human dignity, integrity and life. The Canadian Alliance opposes human cloning as an affront to human dignity, individuality and human 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.

Embryonic research constitutes an objectification of human life, where life becomes a tool that can be manipulated and destroyed for other ends. In September 2001 we tabled a motion in the health committee calling upon the government to ban immediately human reproductive cloning. We are pleased that Motion No. 13 was passed last week at report stage to foreclose any possibility of new cloning techniques from getting by the bill's cloning prohibition.

Adult stem cells are a safe, proven alternative to embryonic stem cells. Sources of adult stem cells include umbilical cord blood, skin and bone tissues. Adult stem cells are easily accessible, are not subject to immune rejection, and pose minimal ethical concerns. Adult stem cells are already being used in the treatment of various diseases such as Parkinson's, leukemia, MS, and many other conditions. Meanwhile, embryonic stem cells have not been used in the successful treatment of a single person.

The focus on research should be on adult stem cells, being a more promising and proven alternative to embryonic stem cells. To that end, our minority report called for a three year prohibition on experiments with human embryos. Let us stop until we have enough resources and opportunities given by adult stem cell research. Our amendment to this effect was defeated in the health committee.

Bill C-13 proposes the creation of the assisted human reproduction agency to: issue licences for controlled activities, collect health reporting information, advise the minister, and designate inspectors for the enforcement of the act. The agency's board of directors would be appointed by the governor in council.

Clause 25 would allow the minister to interfere and give any policy direction to the agency. If the agency were independent, it would be answerable and accountable to Parliament and political interference would be more difficult for the minister. The entire clause should have been eliminated.

The Canadian Alliance proposed amendments specifying that agency board members be chosen for their wisdom and judgment, so that they could pursue the greater good for the sake of humanity. While regulating in that field, board members should not have commercial interests in the field of assisted human reproduction or related research, like fertility clinics or biotech companies. Conflicts of interest must be prevented.

Another area of concern is donor identity. The proposed assisted human reproduction agency would hold information on donor identity. Donor identity is important because children have the right to know who their parents are even without their written consent to reveal it. We must end the secrecy that shrouds donor anonymity and denies children knowledge of an important chapter in their lives.

In its review of the draft legislation, the health committee recommended an end to donor anonymity. The Canadian Alliance minority report clearly stated that where the privacy rights of the donors of human reproductive materials conflict with the rights of children to know their genetic and social heritage, the rights of the children shall prevail.

We must not deal with this issue lightly. It is an important issue and we must ensure that we get this right. All members should be allowed to have a free vote in the House so they can vote according to their conscience. This is an issue of life and death.

Business of the HouseOral Question Period

April 10th, 2003 / 3 p.m.
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Glengarry—Prescott—Russell Ontario

Liberal

Don Boudria LiberalMinister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, we will continue this afternoon and tomorrow with consideration of Bill C-13, the reproductive technologies legislation, followed by Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, and the Senate amendments to Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Criminal Code.

When we return on April 28, in addition to the bills I have just listed, if any remain, we will consider the legislation on RCMP pensions introduced earlier today—I believe it is C-31—and the Criminal Code bill that will be introduced tomorrow by one of my hon. cabinet colleagues. After that, we will move on to third reading of Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, if that stage has been reached.

I am looking forward to a number of committees reporting legislation in the near future and it would be our intention to proceed with report stages of those bills as quickly as possible, once the reports have been received.

The chief opposition whip has asked the House what is happening with the government motion concerning Iraq. Of course, we have debated Iraq this week and last week, and we even took a vote this week. As I indicated, during the next five days of the session at least—but that will depend on the progress we make—I do not intend to bring that motion back before the House. After that, we shall see.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 10th, 2003 / 1:50 p.m.
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Liberal

Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC

Mr. Speaker, I want to stand and speak in support of this bill. The bill is a result of a royal commission having spent over two years travelling this country, bringing about recommendations that would lead to the making of the bill. That was over 10 years ago. During those 10 years, three subsequent ministers of health in this government also consulted with groups, with experts and consulted broadly among themselves in an effort to bring about this bill. The bill also was discussed by the Standing Committee on Health, which also made recommendations.

This bill is a composite of all the best advice that the government could get in balancing a technology that has been in existence now for over 15 to 20 years, that has been completely unregulated, that has no ethical barriers or boundaries on it and that is continuing to carry on without any restrictions or regulations whatsoever.

It is important that we do not delay any longer, over the 12 years that we have been dealing with this issue, and that we get onto at least a set of regulations and guidelines.

The bill is not perfect. I would hazard to say that I know of no bill that is absolutely 100% perfect. However it has struggled to take all the advice of all of the groups, including the Standing Committee on the Health, to bring about the bill and to find a balance between the good that this technology and research can do against the risk of harm and unethical behaviour. That is what we must always seek to do. That is why I support the bill. I think it has managed to find that clear balance to deal with some of these issues.

The bill took the advice from the Standing Committee of Health of which I was a member. The advice and the recommendations, many which were made by the standing committee in its amendments, were extremely important. For instance, the committee made significant amendments on the establishment of the assisted human reproduction agency of Canada. It raised the age limit for surrogate mothers to 21. It made it explicit that the health and well-being of children be a priority. It added an anti-discrimination clause. It rejected cost recovery in the issuance of licences. It enhanced parliamentary oversight to include a review of regulations and a mandated three year review of the legislation. It removed the ability of the board of directors to delegate licensing decisions. It added a specific authority to regulate the number of children that could be born from a single gamete donor. It strengthened information requirements to ensure the agency must provide to the public on risk factors that may lead to infertility. Those are substantial amendments which the committee made and which were incorporated in this bill.

Some members criticized the government by trying to overturn only three substantive amendments that the standing committee put forward on Bill C-13. Having accepted so many amendments, those three were not accepted. The member who brought up the concern about this was also known to say that he was very impressed with the quality of work that was done by the committee and that the report on the draft bill was the best report he had ever seen.

Why did the member put forward over 51 motions at report stage that in effect would have completely overturned the work of the committee and the long 13 years of work of the royal commission, of the minister and of public hearings?

Let me just touch on some of the concerns people have had on this bill.

They are concerned that research comes out of the work on reproductive technology such as stem cell and embryonic stem cell research. There is an argument that we should not allow for that research to occur or we should only allow adult stem cell research to occur and not allow embryonic stem cell research.

I know been many quotes from a lot of people who have done this research that have been used to suggest that these researchers do not want embryonic stem cell research. However I would quote from those same researchers.

Dr. Alan Bernstein, president of the CIHR, said that he thought this legislation was a model for the world. He said that it balanced the ethical and social concerns that the Standing Committee on Health had expressed with the potential or promise of these cells to cure disease.

Dr. Freda Miller, who does research on adult stem cells said:

--my fear is that my work with adult stem cells, which may not come to fruition, would be used as a rationale for halting the work on human embryonic stem cells...if the adult stem cells don't come to fruition, we're left with nothing.That is my biggest fear as a scientist, that my own work won't pan out and will be used as justification to stop something that actually does look like it will pan out, because embryonic stem cells have been put into adult animals and shown to generate the right cell types.

The work of embryonic and adult stem cells has the potential for in fact stopping a great deal of human disease, such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, and for being able to regenerate and doing a whole lot. Most important, they have the ability to stop mortality and morbidity in human beings.

Knowing this is the good work that comes out of this research, we must continue to do the research. Recognizing that as always in any science there is the good and there is the potential for harm, we must clearly build an ethical and regulatory framework that would allow the research to go on but that would protect and prevent the harm that could come out of this research. The bill finds that exact balance.

I wanted to also say that the member for Yellowhead has quoted Dr. Catherine Verfaillie from the University of Minnesota whose leading edge work is demonstrating increased flexibility in adult stem cells. Dr. Verfaillie has reached the exact opposite conclusion. She agrees that we must continue to use both types of research, both embryonic and adult stem cell in order to move forward.

The member for Mississauga South stated that Worton, who is the CEO and scientific director of the Ottawa Health Research Institute, is likely to become a Nobel laureate for his research in health. His work is much respected in Canada, and certainly by the health committee. I agree with that statement, so let me quote Mr. Worton on his November 19 presentation to the Standing Committee on Health. He said:

--the most likely scenario...is that no one cell type will be the magic bullet for all types of therapy...therefore it would be premature to eliminate research on one of the most versatile cell sources to date, and that is the embryonic stem cells.

We can see that all researchers, even the ones who have been quoted here, are very much in favour of continuing this basic research on the two lines of stem cells, but with strong regulations.

We have heard that the bill will allow cloning, chimera and pathogenesis. The bill specifically prohibits it. In my last speech regarding this issue in the House of Commons, I spoke to the scientific data and the scientific truth of how the bill would ban cloning, pathogenesis and chimera. Therefore some of these fears are not really true.

The bill states that there is a concern that the bill will lead to commodification. The bill specifically bans the commercialization of donors of any kind, whether they be ova, sperm or gametes. One thing I did was bring forward an amendment to the House, which the hon. member from Mississauga suggested was a most unusual thing to do. However the hon. member from Mississauga brought 51 amendments in the same way, over the same period of time and in the same manner that I did.

My amendment does not commodify surrogacy. It recognizes that only in a very limited and clearly prescribed instance, when during the process of a pregnancy there is considered to be medical harm to the fetus or to the mother and if a physician specifically intervenes with bed rest and that person has to take time off work, that on certification from that physician and specifically and only when the mother and the fetus are at risk, that person should be reimbursed for time lost from work. That is all that my amendment does.

Finally, the bill seeks to keep the balance that our own Charter of Rights and Freedoms seeks and that is to assist and recognize the disadvantage of minorities and balance it with the public good, and the bill does that. If it is not passed we will be left with nothing and we will have people continuing to do this research and reproductive technologies with no regulations or guidelines.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 10th, 2003 / 1:45 p.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-13 is a very important bill. It is a bill which still has some controversy surrounding it in terms of whether or not cloning is actually banned in all its forms and all its techniques.

There is still some controversy surrounding the efficacy of drugging women to the max to harvest embryos and create surplus embryos for research. This is a major concern to people in terms of surrogacy for profit and also in terms of embryonic stem cell research which requires the destruction of embryos.

I have quite a number of questions for the member. If other members want to ask questions that is fine, but there are more questions I would like to ask.

My question has to do with some provisions that are not in the bill but which I believe should have been included in it.

In terms of conflict of interest, the bill provides a provision whereby if a board member of the agency has a relationship with either a licensee or an applicant for a licence, that person cannot be a member of the board. The health committee changed the bill to expand it to anyone who had a pecuniary interest in downstream activities so there would be no conflict of interest. The report stage motion put forward by the minister overturned the committee's work, and we are now back to someone who has a relationship with a licensee or an applicant for a licence.

My concern is with regard to the board members who will license and authorize research. In its present form after the reversal of the committee's work, Bill C-13 would permit pharmaceutical companies and biotech companies to be represented on the board of directors. This concerns me.

I will leave my question at that and ask the member for his comments. If there is time left, I would like to ask him another question.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 10th, 2003 / 1:25 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Rick Casson Canadian Alliance Lethbridge, AB

Mr. Speaker, it is good to rise to speak today following the member for Lac-Saint-Louis and his comments on his personal situation. I have heard this before from the member. He has a unique outlook on the protection of those in our society who cannot protect themselves.

I am not sure how much belief he has that the Senate will do the right thing with this bill. I would have more confidence if the Senate were not loaded up and appointed to such a degree that there is a majority in the Senate who support the government's wishes. I believe if the Senate were elected and equal we perhaps would have a chance to do something here, but I am not sure that will happen under the present situation.

Bill C-13 is a very troubling to speak to because there are things we support and things we oppose. We have had thousands and thousands of names on petitions tabled in the House on this issue. Many Canadians have become involved, have made themselves knowledgeable on the issue and have offered input. We certainly do appreciate that.

When we get into the protection of human life and the creation of life to destroy it for the benefit of another life, it becomes very complex and gets into the whole idea of respect for life and respect for health situations. When we get into cloning we talk about ethical issues. It gets more and more involved as we go on.

This goes back 10 years to the royal commission's report on new reproductive technologies. However, in the early stages, it was brought to the House by the former member, Preston Manning. He was our lead on this, and I have mentioned this before. He brought together experts from across North America I believe, if they were not all from Canada, to talk about the human genome and the mapping of the human being. It was a very informative session. It was not a committee meeting. It was an exploratory meeting, a seminar type of issue. People were brought forward to give their various views, and there were various views. Even with the scientific and medical communities, people had diverging opinions on this issue.

At that point in time I became aware of the complexity of the entire issue, especially when we start dealing with ethics, morals, science, health, the good of man and all of these issues. When one boils it down to try to make it into a piece of legislation, it is not an easy thing to do.

I do want to thank all those across Canada, and certainly in my riding, who brought their opinions forward on this bill on both sides. Some support some aspects of it and some do not support other aspects. It is not cut and dried as to the opinions that are brought forward for various reasons.

One of the things we keep hearing from members is the fact that this bill should have been split up. The things that we all agree on, we could agree on quickly and get into legislation. The other issues, which are controversial, we could spend more time on and have more public debate and input so we could really come to a conclusion after a more indepth analysis of the situation.

I would like to mention a few things. There are many issues in this bill, but in the short time I have I will try to deal with some of the things we do support, some of the things we do not support, some of the reasons we do support them and some of the reasons we do not support them. One of the things we fully support, of course, is the ban on reproductive or therapeutic cloning: chimeras, animal-human hybrids, sex selection, germ line alterations and the buying and selling of embryos. Those are cut and dried. The banning of those items is something that I think we would be able to quickly put through the House because there would be a vast majority of Canadians who would support the banning of all of that.

This may seem strange coming from a party that believes in less government, but in this instance we do support a regulatory body to monitor and regulate fertility clinics. However we want to see some changes in the bill. This is important. If we get into a situation through fertility clinics where more embryos are created than are needed to satisfy what then becomes a market driven issue, a supply and demand type issue, we get into the whole issue of creating life for profit, which would go into research that would destroy life.

We do oppose the human cloning aspect of it because we feel it is an affront to human dignity, to individuality and to the rights of a person. I have tried to wrestle with this. We have dealt with animals being cloned, but for the life of me I cannot understand why anybody would want to clone a human being. I think some of this lends itself again to creating what could be considered a half life, somebody who just has organs and the things that can be harvested for transplants, but would not be considered a full human being. That is of deep concern to me. I do not think we should ever start down that road.

We brought forward a motion back in September 2001 and tabled it at the health committee. It called on the government to immediately ban human reproductive cloning. However that was dismissed. The government preferred to have an indepth bill brought forward to deal with all the issues of reproductive technology, so here we are today with a bill that we are struggling to get through, to understand and to point out that some of it we respect and support and some of it we do not.

In the preamble of the bill some of the highlights are that the health and well-being of children born through assisted human reproduction must be given priority which, of course, almost goes without saying, and that human individuality, diversity and the integrity of the human genome must be preserved and protected. This is what is in the preamble. The concern we have with some of it is that some of it sounds good, but if we look at it closer, without definition and without more clarification, it becomes somewhat confusing.

We support the recognition that the health and well-being of children born through assisted human reproduction should be given absolute priority. The health committee came up with the ranking of whose interests should have priority in decision making around assisted human reproduction and related issues. These are listed in what the health committee considered to be their priority. Number one of course is children born through AHR, assisted human reproduction; adults participating; and researchers and physicians who conduct the research.

While the preamble recognizes the priority of the offspring, other clauses of the bill fail to meet this standard. Children born through donor insemination or through donor eggs are not given the right to know the identity of their biological parents. We will get into that a little bit further. That is important as a person progresses through life.

In my personal situation, we needed to find out, for health reasons, who were the parents of an adopted member of my family just to be sure we could understand some of the things that were going on. Doctors like to know too what our parents and grandparents went through so they know what to watch for and what problems may arise. It is important, when needed, to be able to find out who they were for health reasons.

The preamble of the bill does not provide for an acknowledgement of human dignity nor respect for human life. That is important. It should be in the bill. It should be clarified. Without question, it should be addressed.

The bill is intimately connected with the creation of human life, yet there is no overarching recognition of the principle of respect for human life. We feel that is a great deficiency that needs to be addressed.

Our minority report attached to the committee report states that the final legislation clearly recognize that the human embryo is a human life and that the statutory declaration include the phrase “respect for human life”. We have included that in our minority report. It was not part of the main report; it was part of our party's attachment. We believe that the preamble and the mandate of the proposed agency should be amended to include reference to the principle of respect for life.

When we get into the research using human embryos, the bill states that it would allow for experiments using human embryos under four conditions.

One, only in vitro embryos left over from the IVF process can be used for research. Embryos cannot be created for research, with one notable exception. They can be created for the purposes of improving or providing instruction in assisted human reproduction procedures. That is where we get into the whole regulatory issue. How many embryos would be produced for the IVF processes? Would there be more produced than necessary knowing that there would be a market for them?

Two, written permission must be given by the donor. We think it should say “donors”. It takes two to create an embryo. That singular term is troublesome and should not be there. It should be plural.

Three, the bill would allow research on a human embryo if the use is necessary. Necessary is a broad word which is not defined and it should be.

Four, all human embryos must be destroyed after 14 days if not frozen.

That is what is in the bill. Those are the four instances where a human embryo would be allowed to be used in experimentation.

I will expand on some of our concerns. Embryonic research is ethically controversial and divides Canadians. Numerous petitions have been tabled in the House on this issue. Most of the petitions that I tabled asked that we explore the use of adult stem cells first before ever going into embryonic stem cell research. We also actually called for a three year moratorium on any embryonic stem cell research while the adult research was further investigated. Embryonic stem cell research inevitably results in the death of the embryo, early human life. For many Canadians this violates an ethical commitment to respect human dignity, integrity and life.

There are some other issues having to do with the research using human embryos. Adult stem cells are easily accessible. They 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 cell use for transplants typically are taken from one's own body.

That is something that we do not really consider when we are looking at it. If we use an embryonic stem cell and put it into another body, that is foreign tissue and anti-rejection drugs would have to be used forever.

Actually there has been no successful use of an embryonic stem cell but there has been lots of good progress using adult stem cells. They are being used today in the treatment of Parkinson's, leukemia, MS and other conditions. It is important to note that is happening and is successful. We should put our emphasis there.

We should explore all avenues of expanding adult stem cell research before we ever go near the other. It states in our points that embryonic stem cells have not been used in the successful treatment of a single person.

We did call for a three year moratorium or a prohibition on experiments with human embryos and this corresponded with the first scheduled review of the bill. Our amendment to this effect was actually defeated at the health committee.

There are a number of issues to deal with regarding adult and embryonic stem cells, such as their differences and in which direction we should go. We have clearly stated our position that we should be dealing with adult stem cells. More experimentation needs to be done to explore the advantages that can be derived from that before we go any further into the embryonic stem cell area.

There is also the issue of donor anonymity. That is an important issue to me for personal reasons and for many other various reasons. The bill states that although the agency will hold information on donor identity, children conceived through donor insemination or donor eggs will have no right to know the identity of their parents without their written consent to reveal it. That seems a little strange to me. Then it states that donor offspring will have access to medical information of their biological parents.

In order to get into that research to find out who one's parent were and what their situation was, one would have to have written consent from them. It does state that there would be access to medical information if required, but I will have to clarify that as it is a little confusing.

Donor offspring and many of their parents want to end the secrecy that shrouds donor anonymity and denies children knowledge of an important chapter in their lives. The Liberals claim to want to put the interests of children first, but in this case think the desires of some parents should trump the needs and interests of the children. We say it should be the other way around.

In our minority report, we stated:

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

We went on further in our report and stated that the government attaches a higher weight to the privacy rights of donors than to the access to information rights of offspring. In my mind this is backward.

An identified donor is a responsible donor. If all donors were willing to be identified, then people would donate for the right reasons. Today, one main motivation for anonymous donation is money. Here we get into the whole aspect of this becoming a profit driven industry, and all for the wrong reasons.

There are other points that we in the Canadian Alliance have issues with. We feel that this is an issue of conscience, an issue of ethics and an issue of morality. There must be a free vote by all parties on this issue. We as members of Parliament must be given the opportunity to vote on this according to our conscience. I know Canadian Alliance members will be given that opportunity. To date that indication has not come from the government side. I believe there is a lot of support for this on that side of the House. This should be a free vote. All members should be allowed to vote as their conscience dictates.

I do not know if there will be another opportunity to speak to the bill before the debate collapses. I appreciate the opportunities I have had. I have risen to speak to this piece of legislation three or four times. It is not an easy issue. Hopefully as it progresses further through the system we will still have an opportunity to amend it and make it better and more acceptable to all Canadians.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 10th, 2003 / 1:15 p.m.
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Liberal

Clifford Lincoln Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC

In my view, Mr. Speaker, the upper house is there to review bills and make sure they become watertight if by any chance there are loopholes left by the House of Commons.

I know of many bills, and many of them are of far less importance than this one, that have been looked into deeply by the Senate. Witnesses have been called. Sometimes bills have lagged on for months in the Senate. One current example is the cruelty to animals act which has been tied up in the Senate for many months.

It would seem to me that on an issue as fundamental as this one, especially in light of the suspicion that the definition of human cloning, among many other issues, is incomplete and leaves gaps, that the least the Senate can do is to carry out a very thorough examination of the bill, including calling witnesses, such as Dr. Irving, and other objective specialists, as my colleague suggested, who can shed light on this key question and not only this key question but all the other issues relating to the bill that have been controversial in the House of Commons and have left us with many questions in our minds.

I think it would be terribly sad on a bill of this importance if the Senate were to whitewash it and say “Oh, well, the House of Commons has pronounced itself. It's fine. We need it. Let's pass it overnight and that's it”. That would be a tragedy because if there is one bill that has a key importance, not just for us here but for all Canadians, and which sets certain guidelines for the future in a difficult ethical and moral areas, it is Bill C-13.

I agree completely with my colleague from Mississauga South that the Senate should do a thorough review of the bill, including calling witnesses on the definition of human cloning and all the other issues for which we have been left with many questions.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 10th, 2003 / 12:55 p.m.
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Liberal

Clifford Lincoln Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC

Mr. Speaker, I have spoken twice on this subject. Before I do so again, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Mississauga South who has done a tremendous job of research to try to make us aware of various details in the bill that need to be looked into much more thoroughly.

The last time I spoke I mentioned the fact that all of us here certainly would draw a consensus in regard to human cloning. Without exception, I think all parties and all members in the House would agree that human cloning as such should be banned.

The last time I spoke I suggested there was a debate as to whether the aspect of human cloning, which is one of the key features of the bill upon which we all agree as a principle, might not be defined closely enough in the bill so as to leave no possibility of some form of cloning taking place. We suggested that amendments be made to tighten the definition of human cloning.

Unfortunately, the bill as it stands today leaves open this debate. It leaves open the possibility that the definition in the bill, as put forward by many who feel this definition is not thorough and complete, should be reviewed and revised.

I really hope if the bill should go forward, as I hope it does not in its present form, that this whole subject be reviewed completely and thoroughly by the upper house when it reaches there, if it does. I hope this whole question is reviewed thoroughly by calling witnesses so we can be completely aware. To pass a bill, which one of the main purposes is to prohibit human cloning, and not ensure that the definition is tight enough to completely ban cloning, would be to fail our duty as legislators and parliamentarians.

I know I clearly stand in a minority here, certainly a minority in my party. I probably stand as part of a minority among Canadians at large. If polls were taken today, most Canadians would support embryonic cell research. Some of my closest friends have written moving letters to me, asking me to back the bill because they believe embryonic cell research will change the lives of suffering relatives, a child in one case.

I am extremely conscious of the fact that human suffering has to be allayed and that we cannot dismiss research that will help do that. At the same time, I have this fundamental belief which is anchored in the fact that I believe human life starts at conception and includes an embryo. To destroy embryos willy-nilly, whether it be for a lofty purpose or a lesser purpose, is something I cannot accept in my convictions and in the belief system to which I hold.

I know how difficult it is when I am faced with omnibus legislation that contains some parts with which I agree totally, for example, the prohibition on human cloning, or the research on adult stem cells. To refuse to accept the whole bill because some parts of it are fundamentally against one's basic beliefs is not an easy decision to make. At the same time this is a decision I feel that I am bound to make because the very essence of this bill, as it relates to human life in all its forms, is denied when we say that research involving embryos in large numbers will happen because we will sanction it through this bill.

Were we to admit that embryonic stem cell research would be valid ethically, which in my case I do not, the least we could do in that case would be to adopt the recommendation of the health committee that ethical criteria be set within the bill so that research in embryonic stem cells be surrounded by parameters, by bounds, and by constraints so that there would be a set of markers and ethical guidelines in the use of embryonic stem cells.

This is what the health committee recommended. It certainly does not go as far as I would want because I do not want embryonic stem cell research in the first place. But even then, this suggestion, which to me is perfectly logical assuming that one accepts in the first place that embryonic stem cell research is acceptable, was rejected by the government.

There was also a suggestion made that a stem cell bank be set up. If a stem cell bank were set up, it would have the effect of reducing the need for embryos to be used in research. It would lessen the impact of the bill on embryonic research. But that again was rejected.

A definite conflict of interest would exist in the new agency that would be set up to oversee stem cell research in that we would allow representatives of the pharmaceutical and biotech companies to be part of the board that would licence biomedical research including stem cell research. If that is not a conflict of interest, I do not know what it is.

The last time I spoke I suggested that ethical guidelines be set up to ensure that there would be a set of parameters, a set of markers to prevent conflicts of interest. Research in these key ethical areas, to some of us moral areas, should not be undertaken without constraints, without clear ethical guidelines and prohibitions. Again, that was rejected.

It must be admitted that in the society of 2003 people who hold the beliefs that I do, wherever they may be, in the House of Commons or in society at large, are a minority. That, I concede. It does not make that minority necessarily wrong. A minority of one may still have the right on his or her side.

What I find sad and unacceptable is to say that the minority opinion which believes deeply and convincingly in life from the time of conception must somehow be viewed as being from another planet, from another century, or from ages past. It is dismissed out of hand as if it does not count.

There are reactionaries out there, however, I do not believe I am a reactionary. I do not believe I belong to another age. At the same time, I strongly believe that there are ethical and moral issues which are extremely profound in our society even though they may be held today by a minority of Canadians or parliamentarians.

I do not believe that this ethical and moral position that people hold strongly, whether they be in a minority or not, has been listened to by the powers that be regarding the bill. Somehow any suggestions made, including those of the health committee, have been dismissed out of hand, as if the powers that be in ethical and moral judgment know best and we, because we are in the minority, do not count. I do not find that fair and acceptable.

Even though we may be smaller in numbers the votes that took place at report stage showed that a large body of opinion shares our point of view. It may not be a point of view that is popular. It may be a point of view that is viewed by many as regressive. Nevertheless, it is a point of view that strongly believes that in matters of life there are ethical elements which go far beyond legislation in black and white forms. These beliefs, the ways of life, and the ways of thinking that certain people hold must be taken into account with sensitivity and certainly consideration.

We have asked time and again to have the bill split so that the cloning part of the bill would be on its own. I think we would find overwhelming support for the bill to go through and it would go through so rapidly that at least it would show that there is a tremendous consensus on one large clause of the bill to ban human cloning. I think that it is important that it happen as soon as possible.

By making it an omnibus bill and joining controversial issues which the powers that be knew to be controversial from the start, and would present ethical and moral dilemmas for many members here, as was shown by the votes last week, it seems to me that in fairness there should have been far more regard and consideration to the points of view of that minority. There are, after all, a number of parliamentarians who represent a point of view which cannot be dismissed out of hand because it goes deep into belief, conviction, and a way of thinking that at least some of us think is right.

If this bill were to clear the hurdles because of the majority in place, then I would take my plea to the upper House because that is its role. Its role is not just to pass legislation rapidly, to simply obey the dictates and say Bill C-13 must go through as soon as possible because it is part of the big plank of the government. The Senate must do its work in looking at all the objections that many of us have brought forward here and not to be obstructive. From our point of view it must have objectivity and conviction in looking at these points of view, and review the bill and call as many witnesses as possible to address the fair points of view on the other side which we have brought forward.

For example, is the definition of human cloning really watertight or is it not? Are the people and experts who say that it is not completely invalid in their thinking or do they have a point? Should it be heard? Should we not find out before we pass a bill in its final form that we have heard all sides of the story? If those questions have to be answered once more, that is the job of the upper House. I ask it to find out whether we are going too fast into many areas, such as embryonic stem cell research, and all the pitfalls that have been brought forward by my colleagues, particularly the lack of ethical guidelines within the advisory board, et cetera. I ask it to look at all these things.

Once this bill is passed, so much is left to regulations that will take at least two years to be issued. We are accepting a bill with many phases of it still hidden in the dark. Certain regulations will not come forward until two or three years. These are the issues that we would ask the upper House to look into more deeply, if by any chance this bill were passed. We would ask it to do its work properly, call witnesses, and hear the points of view of all parliamentarians in the House who have brought forward their objections and convictions and, in fairness, be taken into consideration as well.

This is my plea today. I hope that Bill C-13, an important bill for most of us whatever our conviction, becomes a bill that represents the point of view of not only a majority but takes into account that many of us, and I am one of them, feel deeply that there are still many flaws in the legislation. Those concerns need to be addressed. Passing the bill just because of a majority will not be sufficient to allay the preoccupations, concerns and deep feelings that we are going in the wrong direction.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 10th, 2003 / 11:55 a.m.
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Canadian Alliance

John M. Cummins Canadian Alliance Delta—South Richmond, BC

Mr. Speaker, the former president of the Czech Republic, Václav Havel, in a now famous speech at Stanford University in September 1994, “Forgetting We Are Not God,” reminded his listeners that the greatest human folly occurred in the 20th century under those leaders in governments who had failed to understand “how unbelievably shortsighted a human being can be who has forgotten that he is not God”.

We are engaged here today in a debate where it is well to remind ourselves of the folly of forgetting that we are not God, that when moral and ethical absolutes are lacking, great evil can be done, and if experience is our guide, almost surely will be done.

A fundamental failure in Bill C-13 is that it is ethically and morally neutral as to a preference between embryonic stem cell research and adult stem cell research. The bill does not, nor does the government, commit itself to substantial new funding for adult stem cell research. The bill and the government have tragically failed Canadians on this point.

First and foremost this is an ethical and moral debate because we are talking about human dignity. Much is at stake. We are shaping the future of what it means to be human in Canada. We cannot blindly follow the path of expedience, tailoring our understanding of human dignity to what is scientifically possible.

It is important to remember that scientific understanding does not render other forms of human understanding obsolete or irrelevant. The scientific understanding that the human body contains cells which in turn contain DNA does not trump a parent's understanding of a particular human as their child or a moral and ethical understanding of that child as a member of the human race.

Having a scientific understanding of the human body may be required to evaluate a proposed experimental medical treatment, for example, but it does not reduce a child to a collection of chemicals and cells.

In practice, any scientific understanding a parent may have is likely to make only a very minor contribution to their overall understanding of their child. Importantly, scientific information does not relieve even the most scientific parents of the obligation to make decisions regarding their children in the most comprehensive and just manner possible, as a scientist, as a parent and as a citizen, under the law and under God.

The same obligation holds on a larger scale for members of Parliament charged today with making legislative and policy decisions for society. Evaluating whether a highway should be built in Delta does not require a detailed understanding of how to pour asphalt in the rainy weather that we are often blessed with. Such an evaluation does require an understanding of where the road will lead and what purposes it will serve.

Similarly, evaluating public policy on genetic engineering, embryonic stem cells or human cloning does not require a detailed understanding of the underlying technology, but rather a willingness to weigh the issues raised by this technology in a broader social context without merely deferring to the judgment of scientists.

On moral and ethical issues, scientists are no more prepared to provide an intelligent answer than anyone else. In moral and ethical debates, the professional competence of the scientist is limited to a presentation of the facts.

Society has developed a collection of habits, customs and norms that assist us in making prudential and moral judgments when confronted with new experiences and situations. Prudential judgments are concerned with the practical assessments of risks and benefits: What are the most fitting means to achieve a desirable end? Moral judgments are concerned with the nature of right and wrong, with what should and should not be done in a free and democratic society. “Thou shalt not kill” is an example of a moral prohibition deeply ingrained in our culture that has led to the legal prohibition of murder.

In both prudential and moral and ethical matters, we have certain cultural guideposts that assist us in evaluating new situations as they arise. If someone proposed doing away with Parliament, we would instinctively know that this is an imprudent course of action. History tells us of the likely consequences of such actions.

If we witness one man shoot another on the street, we can rather quickly determine that one man killed another, and furthermore, if the shooting was not in self-defence, that this killing would be homicide.

In both cases we have clear cultural, historical and personal experiences that assist us in determining the proper course of action. But judgment based on past experience has its limits. As objects become further and further removed from the common experience, they also become further and further removed from the common wisdom that is culture.

Because modern science is in the business of discovering new things, it is constantly uncovering items that seem to defy our cultural coping mechanisms. Indeed, that is why we are engaged in this debate today.

Great claims are being made for the therapeutic and drug development potential of human embryonic stem cells and their derivatives. We are told that we are standing on the cusp of a medical revolution, if only the law will permit the necessary research on human embryos to be carried out.

The fundamental ethical objection is that the creation or use of embryos for research is wrong and their destruction indefensible. This implies two things: first, that embryos have a moral status; and second, that in a moral calculation we must appreciate that we violate the protected interest of embryos by deploying them for research or destroying them. Of these two points the first is critical, for, if this does not hold, the objection does not get to first base and it can only apply in an attenuated form.

The human embryo must be directly respected. It matters not that it cannot experience distress or make its own choices. It is not like a rock or a stone. It is a living thing and a member of the human species. As such, it must be protected by the overarching value of respect for human dignity. It has moral and ethical status and to treat it like a rock or a stone is to compromise human dignity.

Canada has always regretted doing the expedient thing rather than the right thing. We remember with shame the removal of Japanese Canadians from the fishery and the sale of their boats and equipment during the second world war. Similarly, we remember the refusal of our government to allow, in the days before the opening of the second world war, the entry into Canada of Jews desperately trying to escape Nazi Germany. Let us not repeat the errors of the past.

Why is a debate about embryonic stem cell research so fundamentally important? First, fundamentally the debate over embryonic stem cell research is about what a human being is, what rights a person has and what respect society owes that person. When people cannot agree on so fundamental an issue, terrible things can happen.

Second, this is an aging society about to confront many uncomfortable ethical dilemmas about vulnerable and unwanted people. What Parliament decides now about embryos sets a precedent for all subsequent legislation. It writes a guidebook for future debates about health and health spending.

The role of a scientist is to give facts. From the ethical and moral perspective scientists have done a marvellous job in giving us the facts, indeed all the facts we need to make an informed ethical judgment: embryos have a fully human genetic tool kit; given the right conditions an embryo will grow into a baby; and embryos are vulnerable and cannot survive without a favourable environment.

If the embryo is a person, it is the human rights, no matter how big it is or what it looks like. No person can be experimented on against his or her will. No person can be dissected for profit. This is a fundamental principle of a democratic society.

Regrettably, much of the debate on this issue has taken place on emotional grounds, pitting the hope of curing heart-rending medical conditions against the deeply held moral and ethical convictions of many Canadians. Such arguments frequently ignore or mischaracterize the facts. To arrive at an informed opinion on human embryonic stem cell research, it is important to have a clear understanding of precisely what embryonic stem cells are, whether embryonic stem cells are likely to be useful for medical treatments and whether there are a viable alternatives to the use of embryonic stem cells in scientific research.

A single stem cell line can produce enormous amounts of cells very rapidly. For example, one small flask of cells that is maximally expanded will generate a quantity of stem cells roughly equivalent in weight to the entire human population of the Earth in less than 60 days. Yet despite their rapid proliferation, embryonic stem cells in culture lose the coordinated activity that distinguishes embryonic development from the growth of a tumour.

Much of the debate surrounding embryonic stem cells should be centred on the ethical and moral questions raised by the use of human embryos in medical research. In contrast to the widely divergent public opinions regarding this research, it is largely assumed that from the perspective of science there is little or not debate on the matter.

The scientific merit of stem cell research is most commonly characterized as “indisputable” and the support of the scientific community as “unanimous”, rather like their support for Kyoto. Nothing could be further from the truth. While the scientific advantages and potential application of embryonic stem cells have received considerable attention in the public media, the equally compelling scientific and medical disadvantages of transplanting embryonic stem cells or their derivatives into patients have been ignored.

There is no scientific consensus about the need for human embryo experimentation. The letter from a group of leading medical researchers to the Australian senate committee studying a bill somewhat similar to Bill C-13 is instructive. It reads:

We the undersigned medical researchers submit the following points for consideration of our elected representatives:

  1. While accepting that the debate about destruction of human embryos for research purposes is primarily an ethical one, it is relevant that from a purely scientific point of view, arguments claiming the urgent need for embryonic stem cell research are not compelling.

  2. Undue expectations have been created in the community, particularly in those with various medical afflictions, as to the imminence and likely scope of embryonic stem cell therapy.

  3. The community has not been properly informed of the scientific difficulties involved in developing embryonic stem cell therapies, which include major obstacles of immune rejection and cancer formation.

  4. Research using adult stem cells, by contrast, avoids issues of rejection and cancer formation, and has the clear advantage of being able to use the patient's own cells to repair any deficits.

  5. Such research on stem cells derived from adult and placental tissues, which has seen great advances in the last three years is quite compelling in its clinical promise, and does not involve the destruction of nascent human life.

  6. In proper medical research, “proof of concept” must first be established in animal models before moving to human subjects. Such proof using embryonic stem cells has not been established in any conditions such as Alzheimer's, MS, diabetes and Parkinson's which are so often part of public discussion.

  7. Therefore it is scientifically premature and improper to move human experimentation at this early stage of research.

  8. Consistent with proper research principles, we advise that there be a moratorium on the destructive use of human embryos until, if ever, animal models are able to adequately demonstrate “proof of concept”, and human safety issues have been adequately addressed.

There are at least three compelling scientific arguments against the use of embryonic stem cells as a treatment for disease and injury.

First and foremost, there are profound immunological issues associated with putting cells derived from one human being into the body of another. The same compromises and complications associated with organ transplant hold true for embryonic stem cells. The proposed solutions to the problem of immune rejection are either scientifically dubious, socially unacceptable or both.

The second argument against the use of embryonic stem cells is based on what we know about embryology. Failing to replicate the full range of normal developmental signals is likely to have disastrous consequences. Providing some but not all the factors required for embryonic stem cell differentiation could readily generate cells that appear to be normal but in fact are quite abnormal. Transplanting incompletely differentiated cells runs the risk of introducing cells with abnormal properties into patients. This is of particular concern in light of the enormous tumour forming potential of embryonic stem cells.

The final argument against using human embryonic stem cells for research is based on sound scientific practice. We simply do not have sufficient evidence from animal studies to warrant a move to human experimentation.

While there is considerable debate over the ethical, moral and legal status of early human embryos, this debate in no way constitutes the justification to step outside the normative practice of science and medicine that requires convincing and reproducible evidence from animal models prior to initiating experiments on humans. While the potential promise of embryonic stem cell research has been widely touted, the data supporting that promise is largely non-existent.

To date there is no evidence, none, that cells generated from embryonic stem cells can be safety transplanted into adult animals to restore the function of damaged or diseased adult tissues. The level of scientific rigour that is normally applied and legally required under the Canadian Food and Drugs Act and its regulations in the development of potential medical treatments would have to be entirely ignored for experiments with human embryos to proceed.

As the largely disappointing experience with gene therapy should remind us, many highly vaunted, scientific techniques frequently failed to yield the promised results. Arbitrarily waiving the requirement for scientific evidence out of a naive faith in promise is neither good science nor a good use of Canadian taxpayer dollars.

Despite the serious limitations to the potential usefulness of embryonic stem cells, the argument in favour of this research would be considerably stronger if there were no viable alternatives. This, however, is not the case.

In the last few years, tremendous progress has been made in the field of adult stem cell research. Adult stem cells can be recovered by tissue biopsy from patients, grown in culture and induced to differentiate into a wide range of mature cell types.

The scientific, ethical, moral and, some would say, political advantages of using adult stem cells instead of embryonic ones are significant. Deriving cells from an adult patient's own tissues entirely circumvents the problem of immune rejection. Therapeutic use of adult stem cells raise very few ethical and moral issues.

In light of the compelling advantages of adult stem cells, what is the argument against their use? The first concern is a practical one: adult stem cells are more difficult than embryonic ones to grow in culture. There is a concern that scientists do not yet know how many mature cell types can be generated from a single adult stem cell population.

In theory, embryonic stem cells appear to be a more attractive option because they are clearly capable of generating all the tissues of the human body. In practice, however, it is extraordinarily difficult to get stem cells of any age to do what we want them to do in culture.

There are two important counter arguments to the assertion that the therapeutic potential of adult stem cells is less than that of embryonic stem cells because adult cells are restricted and therefore unable to generate the full range of mature cell types.

First, it is not clear at this point whether adult stem cells are more restricted than their embryonic counterparts. It is important to bear in mind that the field of adult stem cell research is not nearly as advanced as the field for embryonic stem cell research. With few exceptions, adult stem cell research has demonstrated equal or greater promise than embryonic stem cell research at a comparable stage of investigation.

Further research may very well prove that it is just as easy to teach an old dog new tricks as it is to train a wilful and unpredictable puppy. This would not eliminate the very real problems associated with teaching any dog to do anything useful, but it would remove the justification for age discrimination in the realm of stem cells.

The second counter-argument is even more fundamental. Even if adult stem cells are unable to generate the full spectrum of cell types found in the body, this very fact may turn out to be a strong scientific and medical advantage. If adult stem cells prove to have restricted rather than unlimited potential, this would indicate that adult stem cells have proceeded at least part way toward their final state, thereby reducing the number of steps scientists are required to replicate in culture. The fact that adult stem cell development has been directed by nature rather than by scientists should greatly increase our confidence in the normalcy of the cells being generated.

There is clearly much work that needs to be done before stem cells of any age can be easily used as medical treatment. It seems only practical to put our resources into the approach that is most likely to be successful in the long run.

In light of the serious problems associated with embryonic stem cells and the relatively unlimited promise of adult stem cells, there is no compelling scientific argument for taxpayer supported research on human embryos.

Embryonic stem cell research goes to the heart of how we view human life, both at its earliest and its final stages. As in the case for all matters of life and death, this research raises issues that are both painful and profound. Resolution of these issues should certainly not be based on unfounded speculation and emotional exploitation of those desperately hoping for a cure.

The bill opens the door to the use of human life as simply raw material, to make objects and commodities out of life.

It is written that Moses, after he presented to the people of Israel all the law that God had given him, said this:

I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life that you and your descendants may live....

Today we face the same fundamental moral choice. We must choose life.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 10th, 2003 / 11:30 a.m.
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Madawaska—Restigouche New Brunswick

Liberal

Jeannot Castonguay LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her speech. As we know, there are embryos left over from the process of assisted reproduction. Obviously, with donor permission, the bill would allow research if that were acceptable. Some couples will opt for the other option, of merely allowing the embryo to thaw and to die.

The experts who spoke before the Standing Committee on Health in connection with Bill C-13 told us that embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells behave totally differently. They believe parallel research is necessary in order to learn more about how each cell functions. This could lead to health discoveries that would benefit mankind.

I would like to have the hon. member's opinion of the importance of parallel research using both of these cell types.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 10th, 2003 / 11:05 a.m.
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Liberal

Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON

Mr. Speaker, it is with pride that I rise to speak to Bill C-13. The Government of Canada is providing much needed leadership by putting in place the legislative framework to ensure consistency in the measures governing assisted human reproduction for the one in six couples who have trouble beginning their families.

We hope the bill will finally lay to rest the fact that there have been charlatans, people who have preyed on some of our most vulnerable families in terms of promising them the world and delivering literally nothing.

The bill must go forward so that families trying to have a family can do so knowing that their safety, privacy and health will be taken into consideration, and that it will be conducted in a safe and ethical framework, which is what the bill does.

We must reaffirm the three objectives of the bill: to help couples build a family without compromising their health and safety; to prohibit unacceptable practices, such as human cloning; and to make sure that related research in infertility treatments and serious disease take place within a regulated environment.

It is imperative that all potentially beneficial research take place in a tightly regulated environment which is what the bill would do. The bill places Canada in line with the measures taken in many other industrialized countries. I think it is comprehensive, integrated and draws on the best practices and experiences from countries around the world. It is the result of extensive public consultation across Canada and it reflects a consensus on some of the most complex and challenging issues facing our society.

People must also understand, regardless of what commentaries have been made in the House, that the bill effectively bans cloning. The lack of scientific knowledge reflected in some of the speeches in the House was really upsetting to me. For people in the House to think that the bill does not prohibit unauthorized research on human embryos and that it would allow cloned embryos to be implanted in the embryonic stage and harvested, is just nuts.

The idea that we have parliamentarians talking about creating humans from mitochondria just actually lets us know that they have no idea of science. As I get to the end of my remarks, I want people to understand that it gives me some concerns about the need for a scientific understanding by members of any proposed agency for the conduciveness of the bill in terms of the research.

As a family physician I have always been impressed by the poignancy of the plight of the infertile couple. It is a medical problem, an emotional problem and a social problem but it is one of the few problems where people are told to get over it and forget it. However in my experience as a family physician, people cannot and do not get over it. The desire to have a family that is biologically related is huge. We need to ensure in everything we are doing in terms of progressive legislation that we do not have the unintended consequence of sending people, which is a normal instinct, underground or to the United States.

Ever since the royal commission's results came out I have had serious concerns about using the Criminal Code for issues regarding women and their bodies. I believe the Criminal Code should be used with respect to cloning and the scientists.

However, when it comes to the relationship between a woman, her physician and the specialists dealing with this, I have serious concerns about the donors in this bill. I personally will work on that as the bill goes to the Senate and in its review in three years.

It is interesting that the bill has had such a long gestation. I think Valerie Lawton's comprehensive article in the Toronto Star reminded us that the royal commission's report on reproductive technologies was titled “Proceed with Care”. It has been 10 years since that 1,300 page report resulting from consultations with 40,000 people and only now are we starting to fill that legislative void.

There is no question that the bill has been tough. As Ms. Lawton pointed out in her article, the opinions on the bill are sharply divided. The pro-lifers, the people who have trouble conceiving babies the usual way, children conceived in laboratories, ethicists, fertility doctors, sperm banks, researchers and the people suffering from diseases that could one day be treated or cured because of the research involving embryos, all have very different points of view. Therefore it has been very difficult to proceed in this way, to find effective compromises and a proper legislative framework.

It is important that the research on stem cells continue, both on embryos and on adult stem cells. I do not think one researcher in Canada has told us that we should not move forward vigorously on both files, that we cannot put all of our hopes on adult stem cells when it is very clear that at the present time there is so much promise in the embryonic stem cell lines.

We must continue to remind ourselves, as there has been this big debate around stem cell research, that the bill is actually about helping couples who need help. The bill is about assisted human reproduction. It is about creating a safe and ethical environment for couples having trouble getting pregnant.

It is important that this debate is around embryos that are left over after tormented couples decide they have had enough of an extraordinarily invasive and difficult time with in vitro fertilization, that they will not do any more cycles and there are a couple of eggs left over. It is, therefore, with their consent that they would, in this bill, be allowed to decide whether these embryos will go to the laboratory to be used to find cures for the difficult diseases like juvenile diabetes and muscular dystrophy, or whether that same frozen embryo goes into the basket. It is pretty clear. I think women and their partners have every right to choose whether those frozen embryos go toward saving lives and curing diseases.

As we look at the important parts of the bill and the overall benefits that exist in the bill, I want to comment on some of the issues that I hope will be dealt with in the Senate or at the review stage of the bill. We must realize that legislation such as this has to be made responsive and relevant to the emerging needs. The existence of an agency will help but, with the experience in England, the agency must be able to anticipate and move with the science, it must be able to comment and it must be able to regulate the emerging science.

I am a little concerned at the moment that the makeup of the agency precludes the people that know the most about this area. Patrick Taylor's op-ed piece in the Globe and Mail which says that war is too important to be left to the generals is a very interesting concept. Even members in the House have been so confused by the science. We need to ensure that the people on the agency have the scientific background to be able to interpret the information coming to them. Otherwise they will be at the mercy of the people briefing them when it comes to making those ever important decisions.

The infertile community is worried that the board of the agency could be constituted of people who do not understand what their problems have been. The reality is that a ban of gestational carriers or donors would mean that they would have to either go underground or go to the United States.

It is really important as we move on a registry that we move on the kinds of things that could really help. We must also have people who have had experience with adoption. In that way we can learn from their adoption experience and help couples move forward. There is a need for updated medical information in such a registry. We need the capacity to do this in an open way and in a way that will enable the tracking of genetic information and social information in terms of the offspring of the pregnancies.

I am worried about the word “mandatory” in reference to counselling which is in the bill. As a family physician who did a lot of this kind of counselling, I am worried for the couples who do not have a family doctor. I am worried about the capacity, even in a community like Ottawa, where there are only a couple of psychologists that are available. I am worried that we will pre-empt the ability of couples to get the help they need if we are too strict about the definition of counselling in the bill.

I am concerned in the interpretation that even couples who use their own eggs and/or their own sperm, in the technicality of the bill would be forced to go to counselling, even when the genetic material is their own. I am also concerned that anybody undergoing this sort of procedure in terms of assisted human reproduction would have to register in a registry even if it is their own eggs or their own sperm. I think that is an invasion of their privacy and I hope that will be dealt with in the regulations.

It is extraordinarily important as we move forward that the people for whom this bill is intended, the one couple in eight couples, feel they have been listened to. Some of the toughest moments in my practice have been when I have had to tell someone of a diagnosis that will mean they will never be pregnant, whether it was Turner's syndrome or cancer.

The double whammy of a bad diagnosis plus the inability to ever consider being pregnant cannot be emphasized too much. It is totally underestimated and is a huge secret in terms of the actual torment couples in our country go through. I have to think of when those women realize they are not pregnant again after all they have been through to try to have a pregnancy.

Husbands would sneak into my office without their wives knowing. They wanted me to know how tough it was on their wives, how tough it was on their families and how their wives were not able to function at work in the ongoing difficulty in trying to have their own biological children. It is very easy for people to say, “Get over it. Turn the page. Get on with your life”. That has not been my experience as a family physician.

I think that people who wanted to adopt would have adopted before going through the kinds of procedures that couples are going through, those who have chosen to try to have some sort of pregnancy of their own genetic line. It is not a luxury for these people. It is a medical problem they face. We as Canadians should support this extraordinarily important wish of these couples and help them to become parents and grandparents.

The bill is an important first step. I think it is comprehensive. I think it has done an important job in this legislative void. I think everyone will work to try to make it better both in the Senate and in its review in three years.

I also hope we will get the agency up and running as quickly as possible so that the much needed research is not delayed. I hope as Canadians we will start to have a better understanding of the extraordinarily large part of our society that is having trouble getting pregnant.

I will be proud to vote for the bill. I still hope that one day we can do a better job for the infertile community. I also hope that all members of the House will see how important this is and will get behind it and support the bill.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 10th, 2003 / 10:45 a.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Larry Spencer Canadian Alliance Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to some of the issues surrounding Bill C-13. I want to speak in a fairly broad sense, not being a lawyer like our hon. colleague across who just spoke in a passionate and honourable way in addressing the bill.

I want to speak about the feelings and concerns I have heard from my constituents. These are based around moral attitudes, perhaps even with a religious base, but nonetheless they are valid considerations to enter into this argument.

In fact, this bill is so divisive because there are those who have these particular moral views and those who do not have that same type of view. We are not taking into consideration all the information if we do not take into account what the people in our ridings are feeling. They have demonstrated this over and over with the numerous petitions that have come through this place requesting that we emphasize post-natal stem cell research rather than embryonic stem cell research. Thousands of names have been added to those petitions that have come through this place. I may remind members of that more than once as I talk about the bill.

I support assisted human reproduction and stem cell research. I would support a complete ban on cloning, whether it be reproductive or therapeutic. I would support a ban on animal and human hybrids, which is taking a human egg and adding animal sperm. Sex selection, buying and selling embryos, and paid surrogacy are all dangerous steps that need to be banned.

I am not sure the bill adequately bans any of those and the hybrid human is one example. It is quite a familiar sight when we look at comic books or some of the entertainment features that are being published in today's world where there are mutations for the kids to watch. I think of the ninja mutant turtles where they not only took on humanistic characteristics, but some of the characters were part animal and part human. We find those examples going back in history. However, this is a dangerous area for us to get into and we should be sure that is banned altogether.

I support the recognition that the health and the well-being of children born through assisted human reproduction should be placed ahead of the interests of adults, physicians or researchers involved. We talk about doing things in the best interests of the children and we talk about that in the Divorce Act and in other places. Surely, if we are talking about assisted human reproduction, we can remember to take note of the interests of the children who are being produced and put them ahead of the interests of those involved.

Sometimes the reproduction of a human being is only incidental to what a researcher hopes to gain from the research. We live in a world that is selfish, where so many are willing to sacrifice the lives of other people in order to see their lives enriched in some way, whether it be by finance, fame or whatever. I believe we need to place the interests of adults and researchers involved as subordinate to those of the children who may be born by this process.

I support the protection of the uniqueness of all individuals, their right to life and human dignity. We come into this world with little enough dignity. We come in naked and penniless and will go out that way unless someone dresses us, cleans us up, and puts us in a fancy box. Human dignity is something that must be maintained and valued. To materialize or commercialize the making of embryos, whether it be for research or whether it be an overproduction of embryos, even for assisted human reproduction in a legitimate sense, goes beyond what I would like to see happening. I know that it is being done already.

We hear of multiple births. We hear of quintuplets, sextuplets and numbers of children being born and then without fail it is discovered that these are people who have been working with some fertility drug or some assisted human reproduction process of some kind. What we are not told is how many embryos were created that were left over and/or frozen, and/or disposed of in some way. This bill opens the door to that and, therefore, we lose the respect for human life and dignity when we commercialize these products.

I support the right of all persons to know the identity and the necessary biological information of their birth parents. I have already mentioned that we tend to be somewhat selfish. As the hon. member across the way pointed out a moment ago in his speech, it is extremely important for children to maintain the right to know their biological ancestry and to know the biological information concerning any disease that might have been in their family. This bill falls far short of that.

The selfishness to allow someone to profit, as in a $25 per shot deal, and not require the identity of that person is beyond me. No matter what form that takes, any donors who are willing to contribute to an assisted human reproductive process need to subordinate their desires to that of the children being born. We must take responsibility as adults for these children who will be born.

There are some common errors made in the arguments and ideas propagated by the proponents of embryonic stem cell research. Let me talk about the defence based on the opinions of people who do not believe in or do not hold any absolute principles of right or wrong. We find many times that people believe everything is relative. Simply because the human reproduction process is interrupted early in its life does not mean it is not a human being. It is, in fact, being hijacked and used in some other way. It does not mean that it is right simply because that human being has not yet seen the light of day or has not yet exited a mother's womb, as the Criminal Code requires.

We know that people hold to this idea that there is no such thing as right and wrong. There are thousands of people in this country who disagree with that. There are right and wrong principles. There are things that are right and there are things that are wrong. Just because, as human beings and because of our education and technology, we are able to interrupt the processes of life does not mean it is right.

I am thinking of the story that I heard recently people who challenged God on creating life. They decided to have a contest. So God said, “Okay. I did this from dirt”. The contestants said, “Okay. We will do it from dirt too”, and they began to gather up some dirt. God said, “Wait a minute now. You've got to get your own dirt”.

We are gathering up the particles that we did not create and then we are claiming the right and the ability to create life from these particles. I do not think that is right. We are interrupting a process that comes from somewhere else. I think there is an origin of right and wrong.

Every day in the House, as institutionalized and formalized as it is, we take a little bit of time at the beginning to acknowledge God. If God exists we would presume that God would have the power to create.

On Wednesdays we sing O Canada as we address the flag. As we sing “God, keep our land...”, we are acknowledging daily, even in this place, that there is a power that goes beyond us. That is where moral authority comes from.

It is wrong to create a life, or put together the ingredients in any scientific way, solely for its destruction or for the benefit of another. No matter what we say, those components that are put together were not created out of nothing by us. We took what is already here and put it together. To do it for our benefit and for its destruction should be absolutely wrong.

Embryonic stem cell research requires the intentional death of innocent human life. It should be an absolute. It is an error to ignore the genesis of human life or to ignore the right of all human life to be protected from harm and death as much as possible. It is an error to believe that the embryo is a potential human life. An embryo is human life with potential. We sort of reverse things once in a while and to make it sound better.

For example, notice how we say human embryo. We say human fetus because that makes the subject an embryo. It makes the subject a fetus and only the modifier is human.

I want to remind the House that when we talk about a wagon we talk about a red wagon, particularly in the English language and this may be different in the French language which has a different structure. In English we talk about a white elephant, a baby elephant, but we do not talk about an embryo human, a fetus human, or a baby human. We reverse those so that the subject is not human.

A former member of the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies stated:

The human embryo is a human individual with a complete personal genome, and should be a subject of research only for its own benefit....You and I were all embryos once. This is not an abortion question. When an embryo is not physically inside a woman, there is no possible conflict between that embryo and the life situation of anyone else. There are many across the spectrum on the abortion question who see the embryo as a human reality, and hold that to destroy it or utilize it as industrial raw materials is damaging and dehumanizing, not only to that embryo but to all human society.

That sums up what I wanted to say about that idea.

I will now address the fourth error. I believe it is an error to place the emphasis on embryonic stem cells when the scientific evidence points to postnatal stem cells as showing more promise without the ethical problems of embryonic stem cells and without the same problems of recipient rejection.

I am no expert on this subject but I understand that no one has ever been cured or helped from any disease by any embryonic stem cell. However I understand there are quite a number of people, and the number is continually growing, of those who have been helped by the implantation of postnatal, that is adult stem cells into their bodies.

I have a few personal conclusions to make. First, embryonic stem cell research should be avoided at this time. It is ethically controversial and it is strongly opposed by large numbers of Canadians, as is demonstrated by the tremendous volumes of petitions and signatures that have been tabled in the House.

Second, postnatal stem cell research should receive our complete focus for both medical and ethical, that is moral, reasons. If this has the greater potential, as science indicates at this point, why would a responsible government not give at least a three year moratorium, which the official opposition has asked for, on embryonic stem cell research and allow the postnatal adult stem cell research to develop as it should so there is not competition here? I believe it is because some people simply do not want adult stem cell research to win out over embryonic stem cell research, actually because that leads to life. It would be life-giving and the embryonic is not.

Third, a human life should be respected and protected in whatever stage it is observable. The dignity of human life must be preserved. Of all that we do for convenience and technological advancement, we do not do ourselves any favours, nor do we do our children down the line any favours, if we continue to allow the erosion of the dignity of the human being.

The fourth conclusion is that the truth about scientific and medical facts around stem cell research must be recognized and given without misrepresentation. It is unfortunate that such an emphasis on embryonic stem cell research has been put out there. It is made to sound almost as if people will die like flies if we do not sacrifice some embryos. That is not a good representation of the scientific truth.

Fifth, the rights of any child born because of assisted human reproduction should supercede the rights of any donor. Children must have the right to know their identity and their family medical history. It is only fair to the children being born.

The last conclusion I have is that the recommendation of our minority report, which states that the final legislation clearly recognizes the human embryo as human life and that the statutory declaration include the phrase “respect for human life”, should be included and should be a part of everything we do in this field.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 10th, 2003 / 10:40 a.m.
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Liberal

Tom Wappel Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON

Mr. Speaker, with regard to the regulatory agency Patrick Taylor, MD, professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia's faculty of medicine and a past director of the infertility clinics at the University of Calgary and University of Manitoba, wrote an article wherein he called the bill a bad bill. Some of his reasons I agree with and some I do not agree with.

About the regulatory agency he said:

Now to this add some of the provisions of Bill C-13.... An assisted reproduction agency is to be established. On the principle that, “War is too important to be left to the generals”, there are no provisions for any representation on the agency's board from the physicians, nurses and scientists who are experts in the field nor from those most directly affected--the infertile. Yet this board will regulate almost all infertility care and research in Canada. Treating the infertile is no less a reputable medical procedure than caring for the victim of a heart attack. Would you like to have a lay cardiology agency dictating how much and what kind of care you could have if you suffered a heart attack?

Perhaps it is an overstatement, but it is food for thought.

A lot of Bill C-13 simply ignores legitimate concerns of a lot of stakeholders. It is not necessarily appropriate at the last minute to try to change various specific parts of a bill, although it is always a good attempt. These things should have been noticed by the government and the bureaucrats who advise the government. They should have made either the changes or a proper reasoned, debated case for why they rejected the changes.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 10th, 2003 / 10:15 a.m.
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Liberal

Tom Wappel Liberal Scarborough Southwest, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-13 today. It is a very important subject matter and one that is not to be trifled with and one that is not to be decided lightly.

I will begin my analysis of the bill by dividing it into two steps. First is the analysis of the process by which we have arrived here. Second is an analysis of the substance of the bill.

As I proceed with my remarks the House will see that for a variety of reasons I will be unable to support the bill. I want to explain those reasons because, in my view, this is truly a very important bill in respect of the dignity of the human person.

I will begin with the process. I find the process that the bill took objectionable for four particular reasons. I would like to discuss each of those four reasons in some detail.

First, there are two aspects to the bill. Of course I am simplifying what is an extremely complicated bill. Some parts, in my opinion, one cannot understand unless one is a scientist or medical doctor. However, I am a legislator and a lawyer and certainly I can understand the legislative and legal aspects of the bill. One aspect of the bill is that it would prohibit certain activities, in this case cloning, and another is the portion which deals with the regulation of certain aspects of this particular medical practice.

When the bill was first being discussed by the then minister of health, now the Minister of Industry, there was a great deal of discussion, certainly within our caucus, as to the nature of the format that the bill should take. A lot of members of Parliament very strongly urged the minister to, in effect, split the bill so that there would be a separate bill dealing with cloning and another bill dealing with regulated activities.

I can say, with as much certainty as one can have, that if that advice had been taken and a bill had been brought in to prevent cloning simply by itself, leaving all regulated activities to another bill, that bill undoubtedly would have sailed through the House of Commons, likely in record time.

I do not say this simply because I am pulling something out of the air. I want to bring to the attention of the House the act in the United States that did just that. It could not be shorter unless it was a joke. It is really two sentences and a maximum of a couple of pages. Basically, it prohibits human cloning, end of story. It has very few sections but it is very clear. I will get back to the definition of human cloning a little later in my remarks but it defines human cloning very clearly and broadly as follows:

The term 'human cloning' means human asexual reproduction, accomplished by introducing nuclear material from one or more human somatic cells....

I underscore the words “or more”.

It could have been done. It has been done in the United States. There would have been no reason not to do it. One has to ask why it was not done. Why was a bill not presented to ban human cloning and then another bill presented dealing with regulated activities?

My speculation, as a member of Parliament, is that it was done to either entice or coerce. I will let members choose the word they wish to use. Members of Parliament who had great difficulty supporting certain aspects of the regulated part of the bill were reluctant to not vote for the bill because it also bans human cloning. We would be left with a situation where if we were to vote against the bill, because there were parts of it with which we could not agree in terms of the regulated aspect, we would also be voting against banning human cloning. How can we do that?

On the other hand, if I were to vote for it I would be banning human cloning, which is something we all want, but I also would be literally approving parts of the bill with which I cannot live. That was a very difficult thing for me to deal with. Because the bill was proceeded with in that way, for me that was strike one on the issue of process.

The previous minister of health, currently the Minister of Industry, asked a question of the health committee. I am not a member of the health committee but I commend its members for their work on the bill. It was an onerous task over many months. The minister asked the committee to examine a bill prior to second reading and make certain recommendations.

The health committee took that request very seriously and travelled across the country to hear witnesses who had many interesting and important things to say about the bill. The committee debated and basically did what the previous minister of health, now the Minister of Industry, wanted it to do, which was to examine the bill and present a report for the minister's consideration.

Sure enough, that was exactly what it did. The health committee requested a comprehensive government response to that report within 150 days. That is not unusual because if we look at Standing Order 109 it states:

Within 150 days of the presentation of a report from a standing or special committee, the government shall, upon the request of the committee, table a comprehensive response thereto.

It is not “may”. It is not “can”. It is “shall”. It is mandatory under our rules that the government, when requested, shall table a comprehensive response to the committee report in the House of Commons. Did that happen? No, it did not.

If we look at Marleau and Montpetit at page 886, under the subject “Government Response”, the learned authors state:

Speakers have consistently refused to define “comprehensive” in this context, maintaining that the nature of the response must be left to the discretion of the government.

That is fine. I have been in this place 14 years and I have enjoyed every minute of it. In my experience on numerous committees I have never seen a request for a comprehensive response by the government either ignored or, as I see it in this case, toyed with by saying “Our comprehensive response to your considered report is another bill”. That to me is a slap in the face to the work of the health committee and to the people and witnesses who contributed to that work.

Why is a comprehensive government response required? It is because the committee made numerous recommendations. If the government did not like the recommendations it would have been incumbent on the government to explain. Therefore when the committee studied the new bill old ground would not need to be rehashed. The committee would know and perhaps even agree with the government's reasons for not agreeing with some of its recommendations. If the government agreed with some of its recommendations, then there would be no need to talk about those recommendations.

In this case, on the 150th day after the request was made, the government tabled Bill C-13. That is not a comprehensive response by any definition in my opinion as a member of Parliament.

Marleau and Montpetit goes on to state:

The Standing Orders do not provide for any sanction should the government fail to comply with the requirement to present a response.

That is true. There is no sanction in the rules. However if we believe the government, in ignoring what it is supposed to do under our rules it has taken away our ability in committee to enact proper legislation for the country. Therefore the sanction each and every one of us can use is to vote against the bill and send a message.

Because the government did not table a comprehensive response to the committee report, that is, for me, strike two on process.

When Bill C-13 was called, it is my understanding that the present Minister of Health at no time appeared before the health committee to discuss the bill or its predecessor under the subject matter of the bill. I am not talking about an idle question or two when the minister appeared for estimates. I am talking about a minister of the crown appearing before a health committee, presenting the bill after it has been passed at second reading, discussing the issues, encouraging the committee to make whatever amendments it wishes to make or do whatever study it wishes to do, answer responsible questions of committee members and then allow the committee to proceed with its work.

When I have been on committees where legislation has been presented the ministers have appeared. I do not know whether the committee asked the minister to appear. If it did not it should have. It is inconceivable to me that a committee would proceed with a bill without asking a minister to appear to defend the bill. Let us assume the committee did and if it did then the minister did not appear despite being requested to do so. That is wrong.

If the committee did not ask the minister to appear that also is wrong but the minister should have appeared of her own volition. If one believes strongly enough in a bill one should be there to defend the bill in front of the committee. That to me, on process, is strike three.

After considerable study, the bill went through the health committee which made numerous amendments. One presumes that those amendments were thought out, debated, perhaps even hotly debated, a consensus eventually arrived at, and the bill was brought forward to the House with the committee amendments. What happened?

The government immediately filed amendments to negate the amendments that the hard-working committee brought forward and, for all intents and purposes, offered, certainly to me, very little guidance as to why I, with my limited knowledge of the bill, should overturn amendments thoughtfully brought forward by the health committee simply because the bureaucrats in the Department of Health did not like it. That is the wrong way to approach a bill. It has happened numerous times and I am sick and tired of it.

If there is some reasonable reason for a committee amendment to be overturned then let us hear in debate from the government why it should be overturned. We are being accused in the media all the time of being trained seals, getting up and doing what we are told. That is not true and it certainly is not true on this bill.

The government wants to overturn amendments thoughtfully brought forward by the health committee. It has happened with the environment committee and the justice committee, and it should stop. If the government wants to continue doing that then it had better provide reasoned responses as to why, not just a blanket statement saying that this is not required. That is, for me, strike four on process.

To go back to a comprehensive response, if the government had tabled a comprehensive response when I originally talked about it, some of the amendments might not have even come forward because the explanations would have been there. It is a self-defeating thing for the government not to provide a comprehensive response. That is four strikes on process alone, never mind the substance of the bill.

Let us turn to the substance of the bill. It is a complicated bill. I am not a scientist but we are legislators. We are required to pass this act. The bill reminds me, and I will paraphrase, of the example of a camel being the result of a committee being asked to design a horse.

The bill is a combination of clauses drafted by the Department of Justice, by the Department of Health and by scientists. It is a hodgepodge. It is very difficult to understand. As a lawyer, I look to certainty of wording and that is what I want to talk about. Let us look at the actual bill and the words therein. I do not need to go very far into the bill in order to demonstrate what I am talking about. Let us look at the definition of embryo:

“embryo” means a human organism during the first 56 days of its development--

Human organism is a new concept. Notice that it does not say “human being”; it says “human organism”. At least for once in our statutes we are actually acknowledging that upon conception, the product of conception is human. At least that is in the bill. It is human on conception; it is a human organism.

What is the bill going to do? It will allow experimentation on humans. I cannot agree with that. In any event, at least there is a definition. It says that an embryo is a human organism during the first 56 days of its development. What a human organism is after 56 days of development is another matter.

We then go to clause 5, prohibited activities. It says, “No person shall knowingly” and it goes through a number of prohibitions, many of them using the phrase “human being”.

Human being is not defined. Why is human being not defined? Because there is a logical disconnect. It makes sense that there is a logical disconnect because we get into the issue of life and when life begins.

The minister says there is no need to define “human being”, that it is well defined in case law and therefore there is no need to define it in the statute. This is the same minister who, when she was minister of justice and I brought forward a bill to put into statute the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others, said to me, “Oh yes, the government supports that concept. It is clearly defined in case law. We do not need to enshrine it in statute because the common law recognizes what marriage is”.

What has happened is that advice that was given to that minister and previous ministers and subsequent ministers by the Department of Justice is wrong. It has been proven wrong. One or two judges on one or two courts can change 150 years of case law just like that. That is exactly what has happened.

All of the lawyers who gave that advice to those justice ministers that it does not need to be put into statute should be fired. Those lawyers should try and make their living on the streets because by giving that kind of advice they would starve to death.

If the government cannot define marriage because it is defined in case law and it will never change, and a year later we are into a huge discussion of what marriage is, can we imagine what the definition of human being is? In fact, there is a definition of human being and it is in the Criminal Code. The definition of a human being is:

A child becomes a human being within the meaning of this act when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother, whether or not it has breathed--

A child is not a human being according to the Criminal Code until the child is right outside its mother.

What does that mean? That means for example, in the bill a person cannot for the purpose of creating a human being make use of any human reproductive material. What if a person does not want to make a human being? What if someone just wants to make a human organism? Then there is no prohibition.

What about clause 5(1)(g):

--transplant a sperm, ovum, embryo or fetus of a non-human life form into a human being;

What if a person does not want to be transplanted into a human being as defined which is coming out of the mother's womb? What if a person wants to transplant it into something just before it comes out of the mother's womb?

There has to be a definition. Words have to be tied up. It is absolutely ridiculous to suggest that the common law will cover the term “human being”.

I did not think I would talk for 20 minutes and I am shocked that I did. However, I think I have given enough reasons that the bill has to be defeated.

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms ActGovernment Orders

April 7th, 2003 / 3:35 p.m.
See context

Glengarry—Prescott—Russell Ontario

Liberal

Don Boudria LiberalMinister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of things I want to address regarding this rather complicated address that the opposition House leader has brought to the attention of the Chair.

His first argument was that this issue brought before the House by the Senate was not a stage of the bill. Obviously, no. It has been ruled by the Speaker on a number of occasions that the message from the Senate regarding anything inside a bill that amends it is a stage of the bill. Proof of that is if it had not been a stage of the bill in the past, the Chair would have not enabled either myself or my predecessors from moving a motion under Standing Order 78.

If it had been considered strictly a motion, I would have had to use Standing Order 57. In other words, I would not have been able to use time allocation. I would have been obliged to use closure. The Chair has already ruled on that. There is jurisprudence from the Chair on ruling that Standing Order 78 can be used. It has been used that way for a long time on amendments from the Senate. That is my first point.

My second point is that the hon. member was drawing some sort of parallel between the House providing a reasoned amendment to one of its own bills and the Senate providing an amendment to a bill when it sends it back to the House. That has never been considered to be an equivalent. No one has ever made that argument in the past because it is totally incoherent. As we all know, the stated purpose of a reasoned amendment is to either refer a bill back to committee so that it not be now read a second time and so on, or that it be sent over here to be divided, or whatever.

The hon. member is not correct in saying that until this item is disposed of we cannot continue the consideration of the bill. If the opposition provides an amendment, as it did the other day and perhaps it is still before us on Bill C-13 that we debated earlier today, the provisions under our Standing Orders, whereby the time is added up in order to arrive at 10 minute speeches, still count whether we are debating the main motion or one of its amendments. It is all bunched together and counts as part of the same debate of what has to be disposed of in terms of voting before we can actually vote on other matter, but that is a separate issue altogether. In my opinion, what the hon. member is alleging does not reflect reality.

The hon. member also raised the appropriateness of the Senate's message. The Senate's message has the effect of telling the House that the senators have amended the bill by dividing it. They could have amended it by removing a clause. They could have amended it by adding something. They have amended it by dividing it. The test of this is that if the minister's motion to concur in the amendment is passed, then Bill C-10A would be ready for royal assent. In other words, this is a stage of the bill considering the Senate amendment, and I go back to the initial proposition that I raised.

There are two final points that I want to bring to the attention of the Chair. If someone is now alleging that this motion is inappropriately before the House, I draw the attention of the Speaker to page XI of today's Notice Paper in which it says that two hon. members of the House have proposed to amend the motion that is in the view of the same party not properly before the House. This begs the following question to be raised.

This begs the following question, how could a group of MPs in the House pretend that the issue is not before the House properly and then move to amend that which should not be there according to the testimony we have just heard?

I do not believe this issue is properly in order before the House. The hon. member's point of order is not in order in itself. In order for the Chair to entertain that point of order, it should have been made before the Speaker put the motion. The motion has been put. Not only that, it has received an amendment from the same political party, but perhaps that is an aside. No one member sought that particular point prior to the motion being put. The Chair allowed it to be put which makes it in order in that regard.

The House has even entertained an amendment to that particular motion and to make the point even stronger, it was made by members of the same political persuasion as the hon. member who has raised this now.

In conclusion, the motion is properly before the House. The House will deal with it and vote, in its own time, on the amendment, if hon. members still wish to have a recorded vote on that amendment, and on the main motion. Then, of course, the matter will be disposed of. Any intervention similar to either the one that has been raised now by the hon. member or anything similar would have had to have been made at the appropriate time and it was not.

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms ActGovernment Orders

April 7th, 2003 / 3:20 p.m.
See context

Canadian Alliance

John Reynolds Canadian Alliance West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, BC

Mr. Speaker, my point of order pertains to the motion to concur in the Senate's message respecting the vision of Bill C-10. I will also comment on the notice given by the government to curtail debate on the motion using Standing Order 78.

Mr. Speaker, as you are aware, both the Senate and the Commons have clearly established a difference between dividing bills and amending bills. It would be inconsistent not to apply the same logic and establish a difference between the Senate messages that amend bills and Senate messages that divide bills.

I will argue that the motion to concur in the message from the Senate regarding Bill C-10 cannot be considered a stage of a bill nor can the Senate's division of Bill C-10 be considered an amendment to Bill C-10.

Accordingly, the motion to concur in the Senate's message should not be listed on the Order Paper as a motion in response to an amendment made to a bill. It should properly placed on the Order Paper as a government motion. If you were to agree with my point of order, there are two consequences.

First, the notice given by the government to time allocate the motion in response to the Senate message is invalid since Standing Order 78 cannot be used to curtail debate on a government motion unrelated to the legislative process.

Second, the wording of the motion is incorrect. It is worded as a motion to concur in a message from the Senate regarding an amendment to a bill.

As was argued on December 5, 2002, the issue of the Senate dividing a Commons' bill was unprecedented.

We all assumed and accepted that this message seeking concurrence to divide Bill C-10 should be treated as an amendment made by the Senate. There are no other precedents regarding messages from the Senate dealing with legislation. If we had thought it through, we could have concluded that the division of a bill should not be treated as an amendment. Dividing a bill has never been considered an amendment and never should be.

The two most common messages that we receive from the Senate to which we are expected to respond are messages regarding amendments to legislation and messages regarding participation on joint committees.

A message regarding amendments made to legislation is treated as a stage of a bill. A motion pursuant to Standing Order 78 would, in that case, be in order to curtail debate.

A message regarding a committee, or any other business, would also be responded to by a motion. However the motion would be considered a run of the mill government motion and would be listed on the Order Paper accordingly.

Just because the Senate message is concerning legislation does not make it a stage or an amendment to a bill. Consider as examples the numerous House orders that are moved in regard to legislation. They are not treated as stages or as amendments to bills. Let us take a more specific and pertinent example such as the division of a bill.

At page 641 of Marleau and Montpetit, it states:

--the House may give the committee an instruction by way of motion which authorizes it to do what it otherwise could not do, such as, for example...dividing a bill into more than one bill....

A motion to instruct a committee to divide a bill stands alone from the legislation. It is a separate substantive proposition. It relates to the bill but is not a stage of the bill. The government could not use time allocation to curtail debate on such a motion.

On the Order Paper we have a motion instructing the health committee to divide Bill C-13. It was moved on November 22, 2002 by the member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve. It reads:

That it be an instruction to the Standing Committee on Health that they have power to divide Bill C-13, an act respecting assisted human reproduction, into two bills in order to deal with all matters related to the criminalization of practices such as cloning in another bill.

As you are aware, Bill C-13 has advanced beyond committee stage and the consideration of this motion is of no consequence to the legislative process of Bill C-13. If it were considered an amendment it would have to be disposed of first before advancing Bill C-13 any further.

If dividing a bill is not considered a stage or an amendment, then how can we consider as an amendment the motion concurring in the message from the Senate advising the House that the Senate has divided Bill C-10 into Bill C-10A and Bill C-10B.

The Senate itself did not consider the procedure to divide Bill C-10 as an amendment. The motion concerning the division of Bill C-13 is not considered an amendment in the House either. If that is the case, why are we treating the message from the Senate regarding the division of a bill as we would treat a message from the Senate regarding an amendment to a bill?

The motion to concur with the Senate should be listed under “Government Business” in the Order Paper with the other government business alongside the adjourned motion of the member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve regarding the division of Bill C-13.

There was only one other precedent regarding the issue of the Senate dividing a Common's bill. On June 7, 1988, the Senate considered the matter of dividing Bill C-103, an act to increase opportunity for economic development in Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation. The issue on June 7 had to do with the fact that Bill C-103 was no longer on the Senate Order Paper but was superseded by two separate bills and that the chair had a problem accepting that the two separate bills were still government bills.

Mr. Speaker also said:

Senator Graham's instruction does not deal with amending a government bill, but with dividing a government bill into two bills.

The Speaker of course was correct. No one was arguing that it was an amendment. Everyone agreed that it was a separate motion adopted by the Senate. The issue was whether the Senate could adopt such a motion, not whether it was an amendment.

On July 11, 1988, the Speaker of the House of Commons ruled that the procedural event concerning Bill C-103 was totally without precedent. In his ruling on Bill C-103, the Speaker stated that he did not have the power to enforce the privileges of the House directly. He said that he could not rule the message from the Senate out of order for that would leave Bill C-103 in limbo. He said:

The cure in this case is for the House to claim its privileges or to forgo them....

I am not asking the Speaker to enforce the privileges of the House but to define what we are dealing with and have it worded properly and listed in the right place on the Order Paper. That would not leave Bill C-10 in limbo.

In the 1988 case the Speaker did not rule the statement made by the Senate Speaker was incorrect. I am referring to the statement that the division of a bill is not an amendment. It simply was not directly pertinent to the particular arguments put forward in the case of Bill C-103 and it was not a factor in the Speaker's ruling on Bill C-10.

The opinion of the Senate Speaker that dividing a bill is not an amendment has not been dismissed. It is accepted by both Houses that dividing a bill is not an amendment but, for some reason in the case of Bill C-10, the act of dividing a bill morphed into an amendment somewhere along the road from the Senate to the Commons.

As I said earlier, we did not know what else to do with such a message because, as Mr. Speaker stated in 1988, the procedural event concerning the division of a Commons bill by the Senate was totally without a precedent.

If we look at the message itself, it does not claim to be an amendment. The message was sent on December 4, 2002 and it is recorded in Journals as follows: “A message regarding C-10, an act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, was first received from the Senate as follows”:

Ordered, That the Clerk do carry this Bill back to the House of Commons and acquaint that House that the Senate has divided the Bill into two Bills, Bill C-10A, an act to amend the Criminal Code (firearms) and the Firearms Act, and Bill C-10B, an act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals), both of which are attached to this Message as Appendices “A”and “B” respectively; and

That the Clerk further acquaint that House that: (a) the Senate desires the concurrence of the House of Commons in the division of Bill C-10; (b) the Senate has passed Bill C-10A without amendment; and (c) the Senate is further considering Bill C-10B.

The message does not claim to be anything more than a message. The Journals Branch does not attempt to classify the message as anything other than a message either. It began its life on the Order Paper as an amendment after the government gave notice of its motion in response. Therefore it is the government's response to the message where things went wrong procedurally.

I suspect that the government regarded the message from the Senate as an amendment made to legislation because it had no other experience of messages from the Senate regarding legislation.

Even though the message represented an extraordinary procedural event, the government's response to that extraordinary event was to use a traditional response. The motion obviously came from a template that has been used countless times.

Beauchesne's 6th edition has a number of them in appendix 1. All one has to do is fill in the blanks. There are templates in appendix 1 regarding the proper wording for report stage motions; six month hoist motions and concurrence in Senate amendments. Template No. 74 reads as follows:

That the amendments made to Bill C-...., an act...., be now read a second time and concurred in; but that this House, while disapproving of any infraction of its privileges or rights by the other House, in this case waives its claims to insist upon such rights and privileges, but the waiver of said rights and privileges is not to be drawn into a precedent.

The government's motion regarding Bill C-10 and the template are almost identical. I am not knocking the government's use of templates. We all use them. In fact, the opposition amendment to the government's motion could be considered a template amendment to a template motion. While the use of the templates help keep us consistent, they cannot be used in response to an extraordinary and unprecedented procedural event. We are required to think a little harder under those circumstances.

While the template theory may explain why we considered another message from the Senate regarding the division of a bill inadvertently as a Senate amendment, sound procedural practice does not come from a good explanation of how a mistake was made. Sound practice comes from correcting those mistakes.

Just how material are those mistakes to my argument, or how material will they be when touted as precedence, will be included in the much anticipated opposing argument that I am sure the government House leader will present in a few moments.

The House never adopted a motion that concurred in the Senate's division of a House of Commons bill. The motion before us has not been adopted yet and the only other motion, the motion regarding Bill C-103 from 1988, disagreed with the Senate. The House has never accepted the division of a bill by the Senate to be an amendment. The House thus far has rejected the Senate's power to divide a House of Commons bill outright.

That is why it is so important for us to get this right before the government adopts the motion. I would urge the Speaker not to put much stock in mistakes of the past. I would urge the Speaker to consider instead the pure logic of the argument I am presenting today. There is no question the logic is in the Speaker's Chair. It always is and always has been.

Since both houses have clearly established a difference between dividing bills and amending bills, it would be consistent to apply that difference to our response to Senate messages that amend bills and Senate messages that divide bills. If the Speaker were to agree with my argument, there would be another issue regarding the wording of the motion. It reads:

That, in relation to the amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-10, An Act to amend the Criminal Code--

The reference to amendments is what I am concerned with. If the Speaker were to agree with my argument, would that not disqualify the motion since the motion would not make sense if it were determined that the division of a bill is not an amendment to a bill? The proper course of action would be to place motions in response to Senate messages regarding the division of House of Commons bills on the Order Paper as a government motions, and not as amendments. Motions in response to Senate messages regarding the division of House of Commons bills should either agree or disagree with what the Senate has done and should not masquerade as an amendment. Dividing a bill is not an amendment.

In preparing my argument I considered the following question: Would the adoption of a motion that addressed an action of the Senate that was not considered an amendment to a House of Commons bill satisfy the legislative process? In others words, must the communication between the House and the Senate regarding legislation be exclusively about amendments in order to satisfy the constitutional requirement that both houses pass the same bill?

I raised a point of order last spring regarding Bill C-10A. I argued that Bill C-10A should not be allowed to remain on the Order Paper because the bill lacked a procedural necessity to qualify it to exist, let alone proceed to the next stage. Bill C-10A was the offspring of Bill C-10 and was divided as a result of a separate substantive motion that instructed a committee. I attempted to convince the Speaker that since Bill C-10A had not been read a first time, nor had it been read a second time, it was not legitimately before the House.

On June 3, 2002, the Speaker ruled on the matter. He said:

However in the circumstances, given the House's explicit instructions to the committee to divide the bill and report it in two parts, like dividing things like the Red Sea, we do have to follow the instructions that the House gave. In my view the procedure adopted by the committee was the exact instruction the House gave, which was to divide the bill into two parts and report it accordingly.

It was an excellent ruling. It did not matter to the Speaker that the bill in question did not actually receive second reading. The Speaker was satisfied with the procedural standing and legislative course of Bill C-10A because it was established through the adoption of a motion by the House. He maintained this opinion even though the motion that established the existence of Bill C-10A was not considered a stage of the normal legislative process.

In the case of the motion to concur in the Senate's division of a House of Commons bill, the fact that the motion to concur is not considered a stage of the bill or an amendment is immaterial. The Speaker, in this case, would have to respect the decision of the House as he did with the division of the bill. The records would show that both houses were in agreement and that the constitutional requirement would have been met.

Mr. Speaker, my arguments have raised two questions which I hope, in your wisdom, will give us an answer because we must ensure we do things right for the future of parliaments in this great land. Can the motion be time allocated using Standing Order 78? Can the motion remain on the Order Paper as placed and as worded?

Until the Speaker rules on this point of order I would request that the Speaker refuse to allow the time allocation motion to be moved and defer any vote on the motion regarding the Senate message until this matter is resolved.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

April 7th, 2003 / 3:15 p.m.
See context

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, the final petition has to do with stem cells. It is quite appropriate on a day when we are debating Bill C-13.

The petitioners would like to draw to the attention of the House that Canadians do support ethical stem cell research, which has already shown encouraging potential and provides the cures and therapies necessary to deal with the illnesses and diseases of Canadians.

However they also point out that non-embryonic stem cells, also known as adult stem cells, have shown significant research progress without the immune rejection or ethical problems associated with embryonic stem cells.

The petitioners therefore call upon Parliament to pursue legislative initiatives which support adult stem cell research to find the cures and therapies necessary for the illnesses and diseases of Canadians.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 7th, 2003 / 1:45 p.m.
See context

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, I want to take the opportunity to give an enormous amount of credit to the member for Nanaimo—Alberni for his contribution to Bill C-13. He spoke at every stage, he was active in committee, and he knows what he is talking about. My question relates to the structure of the bill. Being an omnibus bill, it does a lot of things.

I wonder if the member would care to comment on whether or not he believes that a bill which came forward and, very simply, banned the prohibited activities laid out in the bill, without a lot of complexity and linkages to the fertility clinics, researchers, agencies, et cetera, could pass quickly through the House and, in fact, have an in force date even sooner than would likely be the case with Bill C-13?

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 7th, 2003 / 1:25 p.m.
See context

Canadian Alliance

James Lunney Canadian Alliance Nanaimo—Alberni, BC

Mr. Speaker, again we are here with Bill C-13, a very important piece of legislation, probably one of the most important pieces of legislation that the House has considered to this point in the 37th Parliament. There are great implications for Canadians, for Canadian families and, because of difficulties with infertility, for men and women trying to produce babies .

The implications go far beyond that, which is why we have had such an interesting and prolonged debate. Again, to go back to the origin of the House dealing with this, the recommendation did come to the health committee from the minister, who asked us to look at draft legislation. The agenda has been ongoing since 1995 with the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies. Canadians have been looking into this going back a long way and we have been waiting a long time for some response.

I want to refer to the committee work because it was a procedure that we felt was very commendable. In fact, rather than getting the legislation already in a legislative framework for debate, we received a recommendation from the minister as to the direction he felt it should take and he asked us to consult Canadians and to hear from witnesses and to come up with our version of how we should respond.

I want to refer to the committee's preamble. The committee entitled our work, “Assisted Human Reproduction: Building Families”. Under the framework at the beginning of our report, we established our priorities. The committee established three priorities to be used in appraising the individual components. There are many and varied components to this legislation, but these priorities flowed from the committee's view, from the views of committee members from all parties and all sides. We took this issue seriously.

The committee's view was that “the primary goal of assisted human reproduction is to build families” and therefore we focused on the potential effect of the draft legislation on three priority issues. The first was children. The committee took the view, and I think rightly, that the focus should be on children. Priority number one was that for children resulting from assisted human reproduction procedures, “The legislation must protect the physical and emotional health as well as the essential dignity of the children who are the intended and desired result of the procedures”. Our first priority was the children who will be produced.

The second priority was the adults participating in the reproductive procedures: “The legislation must protect the adults undergoing the procedures from potential negative physical, social and emotional effects”. In order to hyperovulate, women undergoing these procedures are often exposed to very caustic chemicals. In the process, there can be rather significant consequences for the women. We wanted to make sure that the people participating are also protected from negative physical, social and emotional effects.

Finally, there are the researchers and the physicians who conduct the research: “The legislation must oversee the experimental aspects of the...procedures while allowing selected procedures that might alleviate human suffering”.

These were our priorities: first, the children; second, the adults participating; and finally, the research community. We are concerned that the way in which the bill has developed has moved away from the committee's priorities and has taken on other priorities. I will address some of these concerns.

The member for Mississauga South has just pointed out some of the concerns we have in relation to the emphasis on stem cell research that will come out of this. Also, there is the issue related to anonymity of the donors as far as the children's needs being respected is concerned.

As well, there is the issue of industry in terms of the regulatory body that is to be set up to oversee this, a very important aspect of the bill. Members worked hard on this and it was the committee's view to make sure there was no conflict of interest in this important body that will govern this research. Unfortunately, amendments that would have tightened up the conflict of interest provisions were not supported in the House and in fact provide for, as the member for Mississauga South just alluded to, members from industry who have profits tied up in this industry and a great vested interest, perhaps, in being in a position to make decisions with that regulatory body.

I would just like to mention the overarching considerations of the committee that we felt were important to put in the preamble. One principle that we felt was overarching was “respect for human individuality, dignity and integrity”. We also felt that a “precautionary approach” was necessary “to protect and promote health”, and that “non-commodification and non-commercialization” were to be foundational issues. We are concerned that this is violated by the bill and that these interests have not been enforced. We felt also that informed choice is important, as well as accountability and transparency. I will just leave the committee report at this point, but those were the principles we wanted to address.

The bill addresses very important aspects that are important to all Canadians, at least those who are conversant with these issues, such as therapeutic cloning. Cloning of human beings is a topic of much discussion these days, as is germ line alteration, and these issues are addressed by the bill.

The member for Yellowhead, our health critic for the Canadian Alliance, moved an amendment the other day to which I will refer. It said:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following thereafter:

Bill C-13, an act respecting assisted human reproduction, be not now read a third time, but be referred back to the Standing Committee on Health for the purpose of reconsidering clause 18 with the view to allow children born through donor eggs or sperm to know the identity of their biological parents.

Just a moment ago, my colleague, the member for Nanaimo--Cowichan, stood in response to the member for Mississauga South and mentioned a young woman from Nanaimo. Her name is Olivia Pratten. She is a young woman who was one of the first offspring from assisted reproduction. She has been speaking on these issues since she was about 15.

This is not an issue of passing interest to Olivia Pratten. This issue has affected her life, the origin of her life, and it affects her to this day. I would like to make reference to her remarks to committee, because her voice needs to be heard, and frankly, the way the bill stands it has not considered this voice at this point. In fact, it has violated and works contrary to what Olivia is asking on behalf of the children produced by this technology. Olivia Pratten says that only donors who are willing to be identified to the child upon reaching their age of majority should be accepted as donors. Responsible, accountable and fully consenting donors: that is the standard that needs to be set by the medical establishment and the government that should be regulating them.

Sadly, the bill allows for anonymity of donors to continue. Anonymous donations allow for a college student to make repeated donations with a financial inducement.

I see that the member opposite is engaged with this. Maybe he thinks it is a good idea. I am not sure. We know that college students often need financial support, but we question whether this is the way they should be earning their way through college: by making a donation for which they get paid $65. That is not payment, according to those making the payment; it is compensation for expenses. For the student to come over to the clinic and make a donation of sperm, he is rewarded with $65, but he is not allowed to do this every day. No, he is only allowed to do this three times a week. That amounts to about $195 a week. We are talking about $800 a month. That is pretty good part time income. That is not income, by the way, but just compensation for his expenses.

This is commodification and commercialization. This is part of what we were concerned about as committee members. The committee was very clear in saying that men and women in Canada need to understand that their bodies are not for sale, that their reproductive capacities are not for sale. While we want to be compassionate and do everything we can to help those who are experiencing the great difficulties that go with fertility problems, we do not want to see people selling their bodies or their body parts. We do not do that with organ donations. We do not encourage Canadians to sell a kidney. We do not encourage the poor people in the country to receive a cash donation by giving up a kidney. Some countries do and in some countries they are not even compensated; the organs are just taken.

We do not want to encourage commodification of body parts in our country. Carrying on with Olivia's comments in committee, she said:

Simply put, the loss of never being able to see or know who this nameless, faceless person was, in my future children and in myself, is something that lasts a lifetime.

The young woman born of this procedure is concerned because she does not know who her father was.

There are other countries that have taken an open donation model where the donor agrees that at the appropriate age children the information about who they are will be given them so they can know something of their biological history. Procedures can be put in place to protect the person from financial obligation, but all children should have the right to know who their parents were.

All children should have the right to know what their genetic inheritance is, if only for health reasons. It would include their emotional, mental and physical health because there are inherited conditions that can affect their offspring in many generations to come. Anonymous donations where this just goes into a system and spins out, and produces a child with no knowledge of where it comes from violates this principle and violates the rights of children produced to know from whence they came.

Olivia argued:

An open system not only gives the child acknowledgment and respect; it also has a positive effect for all parties involved, as well as the overall societal impression of donor insemination. Maintaining an anonymous system implies that there is something shameful about this practice. How can we believe that emotionally healthy families can be created in such an environment?

Barry Stevens is another person produced from the early procedures who appeared before the committee and I would like to refer to his remarks. Barry Stevens made a film on the subject called Offspring . The film was about the search for his donor's identity and it won a Gemini award.

Barry gave evidence at the health committee on December 2, 2002. He brought attention to studies that dispel some of the myths about donor anonymity. Barry Stevens says: “We are often told that children born from gamete donations do not want to know their donor”. Mr. Stevens told us this was completely false. He pointed to a study that highlighted the fact that between 79% and 83% of donor offspring thought they should be able to know the identity of the donor and they wished very much to have that information. Their main concerns were the lack of genetic continuity and frustration in being thwarted in the search for their biological fathers.

A second study dispelled the myth that an open donor system would wither for a lack of donors. Mr. Stevens pointed to Sweden where a law was passed for a mandatory open system. After an initial drop there was a 65% increase in donors above the pre-law levels.

For those naysayers who say that if we were to go to an open system the whole system would collapse, it simply is not true. There are models of an open and responsible system. It tends to attract more responsible donors who are aware of the risk and willing to help. They are concerned about having children but for their own reasons want to do it in a responsible way. There are such people and this direction would be more respectful of the children that would be produced.

This is what the committee worked toward. There was quite a bit of discussion on this in committee. Frankly, the government side made sure that when it came to voting it did not come in this way. I hope members will reconsider because many members did not have the opportunity to hear the testimony of Olivia Pratten, Barry Stevens, and those who are firsthand products, who have had the experience, and who have lived with the consequences of being born from an anonymous system.

Mr. Stevens quoted figures saying 30% mistaken donor identity have been given but with little proof. Mr. Stevens quoted from a Lancet journal article saying the rates of non-paternity have taken on the character of urban folktales, pieces of conventional wisdom that are widely believed but have little basis in fact. The Lancet study actually found that non-paternity rates for some populations were as low as 1% to 3%. I suppose mistakes are possible but not on the scale that those who argue against an open system.

Mrs. Catherine Clute, a spokesperson for the Coalition for an Open Model in Assisted Reproduction, also gave testimony. She did not mix her words for the health committee. She stated that “anonymous gamete donation is a throwback and a travesty. As we have seen in adoption, secrets and lies provide no foundation for a family and certainly not for a life”.

This bill will come before the House for a vote. Rather than be voted on at third reading, it should go back to the health committee for reconsideration of this important issue of anonymity. We think the committee should hear the voices of Olivia Pratten, Barry Stevens, the people most affected, the people with the most experience, the people with a personal interest and passion for the subject, and the ones for whom this is not just another issue but the main issue and whose concern is to protect the children who will follow them as products of this technology. Their voices should be heard and the committee should consider this.

If we were to adopt the system, we should make it integral in Canada. We should have an open system of donation, one that respects the children who will be born and their futures, and concerned about the mental, emotional health and stability of the families that will be produced, as well as the generations that will come in this area. We need an open system and I hope all members will be ready to consider that and do the right thing for the sake of the children who will be born.

I would like to go for a moment to the minority report that came from the Alliance where we talked about the conflicts between ethics and science. It stated:

Nevertheless, there will always be situations where what is scientifically possible and what is ethically acceptable conflict. In such situations, we concur with the minister when he told the committee, “There must be a higher notion than science alone...that can guide scientific research and endeavour. Simply because we can do something, does not mean that we should do it”.

The recommendation in our minority report was:

That the mandate and code of practice of the Regulatory Body to be established by the legislation include a directive to the effect that where there is a conflict between ethical acceptability and scientifically possibility, the ethically acceptable course of action shall prevail.

We consider that an important aspect because it ties right in with the use of embryos for research. The member for Mississauga South has addressed this just recently. There has been much discussion in the House about the use of embryos for research.

The bill rightly would prevent the creation of embryos for research purposes, but in fact would allow for the creation of embryos through so-called surplus embryos left over from reproductive technologies. I am concerned because that would cause the most vulnerable people, the ones who are expected to give their embryos up because of their failed physiology, to attempt to find a way to have a child and we are saying to them, “Yes, we will help you have a child, but the leftover ones we want for research”.

The member opposite referred to Dr. Pothier who spoke at the UNESCO meeting related to reproductive technology. He said that there is no money in adult stem cell research. Dr. Freda Miller from McGill, now of Toronto, is one of our top researchers in the area of adult stem cell research. When I asked her about that she said that, frankly, she did not see any opportunity for patenting or profits in adult stem cells.

Yet, as committee members, like the member for Mississauga South, who have taken the trouble of educating themselves and understanding the science, along with scientists like Dr. Alan Bernstein, the head of the CIHR, Dr. Ron Worton, the head of the Ottawa stem cell research body, we have admitted that adult stem cells are where the best treatments are likely to come from. Why is it that this research will allow embryos--

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 7th, 2003 / 1:20 p.m.
See context

Canadian Alliance

Reed Elley Canadian Alliance Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC

Mr. Speaker, I want to take the opportunity to thank my hon. colleague on the government side for all the hard work he has done to not only educate the members of the House but, indeed, the Canadian population on the seriousness of this issue.

I, like my colleague, cannot vote in favour of the bill for many reasons, one being that nowhere in the legislation does it allow the offspring of someone who has been created by in vitro fertilization to actually know the name and history of the father or mother. It is usually the father, of course. A constituent in my riding, Olivia Pratten, has lobbied long and hard to get this included in the legislation. She is 20 years of age at the moment and would like to know something about her father. She has no recourse within the legislation to ever know anything about her father.

I do not know whether my hon. colleague knows this, but my understanding is that there will be a court challenge to this part of the law should Bill C-13 pass and that it is planned to take this as far as the Supreme Court of Canada to right the wrong that is in this very flawed legislation.

I wonder if my hon. colleague could comment on that and comment on the kind of cost this would be to people's lives and to taxpayers as they have to take these things through the courts to change a bad law.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 7th, 2003 / 12:45 p.m.
See context

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, I thank all hon. colleagues for the opportunity to provide my input on Bill C-13.

Bill C-13, an act respecting assisted human reproductive technologies and related research, is an omnibus bill. As members know, an omnibus bill affects many bills and attempts to do so much that everyone can find something that they do not like in the bill. As well, omnibus bills are often used to get through the back door what one cannot get through the front door. This is the case with Bill C-13.

Bill C-13 was intended to prohibit--and I stress intended to prohibit--cloning and other unethical reproductive activity, to regulate fertility clinics and to regulate biomedical research. The bill falls short of meeting those objectives and I intend to lay out the facts for all members to consider.

Based on expert opinion, Bill C-13, despite the report stage motion that was passed, still does not ban all forms of cloning. Let me repeat that Bill C-13 still does not ban all forms of human cloning.

There are numerous techniques of cloning, such as somatic cell nuclear transfer which is reportedly the technique that was used by the Raelians, also parthenogenesis, germline cell nuclear transfer and many others. Cloning is not just one thing; it is a range of techniques all leading to the same thing.

Precise definitions are very important in the bill but they were handled very poorly according to numerous witnesses.

Dr. Ronald Worton is the chief executive officer of the Ottawa Health Research Institute. He is also the scientific director of the Canadian Stem Cell Network. He testified before the Standing Committee on Health that from a scientific perspective, many of the definitions in Bill C-13 were either incorrect or problematic. Dr. Worton is likely going to become a Nobel laureate for his research in health. His work is much respected in Canada and certainly by the health committee.

Others have also raised the same concern. In a submission to the committee, Dr. Dianne Irving, a research biochemist and biologist, detailed how contradictory and erroneous scientific definitions in the bill would not even prohibit all forms of human cloning.

If Bill C-13 is to achieve anything, it must ban all forms of cloning, all manners and all techniques and it does not.

Clause 5 of the bill states:

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

On its face this is clear; one cannot create a human clone. Most people think that a human clone is a born child. They think of what the Raelians did. They birthed a child. That is a human clone.

In the bill a human clone is not a born person. Obviously if the bill says a human clone is a born child, one would not transplant it into a human being. Therefore it must not be a born person. In fact the bill defines human clone. It is defined as an embryo. A human clone is actually an embryo that, as a result of the manipulation of human reproductive material or an in vitro embryo, contains a diploid set of chromosomes obtained from a single living or deceased human being, fetus or embryo.

Now we can appreciate how confusing this is, but why is it confusing in the bill? Members have to ask themselves, why are the definitions so confusing? Why is the prohibition so confusing? Why are there so many gymnastics? Why can it not just outright state, no cloning by any means, any techniques? There is a reason.

The term “human being” is frequently used but is not defined in the bill. The usage verifies that it is referring to a born human being and the minister has confirmed this fact. She indicated that the definition being used comes from case law, from the laws of Canada, and means that it is a child completely emerged from the womb.

Dr. Irving has noted that that definition of human clone is flawed and would not cover certain types of cloning, including pronuclei transfer, formation of chimeras and back breeding, mitochondria transfer or DNA recombinant germline transfer also referred to as eugenics.

I am not an expert but I have looked up the terms. They exist and I accept the word of expert testimony that these are forms of cloning and these forms of cloning are not prohibited by this bill.

The deficiencies in drafting the bill also get worse. In clause 5(1)(c) the bill states:

No person shall knowingly

for the purpose of creating a human being, create an embryo from a cell or part of a cell taken from an embryo or foetus or transplant an embryo so created into a human being;

That is a difficult clause to understand but the problematic phrase in the clause is “for the purpose of creating a human being”. One is prohibited from doing that if the purpose is to create a human being. What happens if the purpose is not to create a human being? What happens if the purpose is to just do research? All of a sudden, if someone's purpose as a researcher is simply to create this embryo for research purposes, then the bill does not ban that activity.

On a prima facie case this is absolutely clear. Bill C-13 does not ban all forms of cloning. Nor does it prohibit unauthorized research on human embryos. This would allow cloned human embryos to be implanted in the uterus at the embryonic stage and then be harvested for research at any time from the embryonic period through the ninth month of gestation, anytime during the pregnancy of a woman. Not only could researchers get stem cells from that unborn child, they could also harvest organs from that unborn child. Now we are getting serious. This is not just simply a matter of cloning; this is a matter of using human beings and all their parts for research.

The faulty crafting of this clause is extremely dangerous, not only because it permits cloning but it also allows unborn children to be butchered for their parts. This is very technical and complex. That is why it is so important that expert testimony be obtained and why Health Canada must answer all the questions posed by members, and they have not.

Members of Parliament cannot be experts in all things. Therefore, we rely on credible evidence and comprehensive answers to the questions that we have asked. Members should know that despite the cautions of Dr. Worton and Dr. Irving, neither of them had the opportunity nor were they asked subsequently to appear before the health committee to present those concerns in detail. Why, when experts raise problems and concerns with either problematic or incorrect definitions, would the committee or Health Canada not address those concerns with experts?

Furthermore, the Minister of Health herself never appeared before the Standing Committee on Health to answer questions or defend Bill C-13 or to undertake to provide the committee with a response from her department to the very serious deficiencies noted by numerous experts. Why? That is the question.

To summarize, Bill C-13 does not ban all forms of human cloning and in its current form would permit research on unborn children as long as they were harvested before birth. These are fatal flaws in Bill C-13.

I want to move on to comment on the creation of in vitro human embryos. Bill C-13 seeks to prohibit the creation of a human embryo for any purpose other than creating a human being. In other words, if it is for the purpose of reproduction, that is fine. For other purposes, it will not be permitted unless one can get a licence from an agency.

We should note that the fertility industry habitually harvests more eggs from women and creates more human embryos than are reasonably necessary for in vitro fertilization. Women can be drugged to the max, and they are based on expert testimony before the committee, and a fertility clinic can harvest up to 25 eggs. However they only need three to five eggs for the first fertility treatment under IVF. All those eggs would be fertilized and those that are not necessary for the first attempt at IVF would be frozen, and I will comment on that in a while. The point is, in vitro fertilization as part of the normal course of its operation does create surplus embryos.

The minister rationalizes that research on embryos should be permitted since these human embryos are no longer required for reproductive purposes and they will just be thrown in the garbage. That was her response to the press when she tabled the bill on May 9 of last year. The Minister of Health said to go ahead and use them for research if they were only going to be thrown in the garbage. This is appalling. One would have thought that if surplus human embryos were being created, the appropriate response for any Minister of Health should be, “How do we reduce or eliminate the creation of surplus embryos?” Should it not be to fix the problem rather than to take advantage of the problem?

The fundamental principle of the bill is that human embryos can only be created for the purpose of creating a human being. Yet what we are saying is that if there happens to be some left over, let us use them for research anyway because otherwise they will be thrown in the garbage.

Dr. Françoise Baylis has been very important in this process. She is a professor of medicine and philosophy at Dalhousie University and is vice chair of the board of governors of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. In her testimony before the Standing Committee on Health, Dr. Baylis said:

The first thing to recognize in the legislation and in all of your conversations is that embryos are human beings. That is an uncontested biological fact. They are a member of the human species.

Bill C-13 disputes the biological facts. To accept the fact that a human embryo is a human being would make it illegal to destroy human embryos for research even if those embryos were no longer needed for fertility treatments.

I understand that this is a very delicate issue because we are talking about when life begins. Human embryos are human beings and are entitled to the protection and dignity afforded to all human beings. Furthermore, human beings do die and when they do, we do not throw them in the garbage. How absurd. We put them to rest in an appropriate and dignified manner. I know that the medical community has established appropriate guidelines for when a human being dies and for its appropriate and dignified disposition. The medical community would never say to just throw them in the garbage.

Researchers want these embryos because they want stem cells within the embryos. We know that. They hope that these stem cells may one day be useful in treating illnesses. However stem cells from embryos have shown a tendency to spontaneously create tumours and other unintended cells. In addition, they do not have the same DNA as the prospective patient and therefore they are subject to immune rejection and would require lifelong anti-rejection drugs. This is good news for the pharmaceutical industry but it is very bad news for the human embryo and those who acknowledge the biological fact that human embryos are human beings.

One of the primary principles of medical ethics is that if the scientifically possible is in conflict with the ethically unacceptable, the ethical view must prevail. Our responsibilities as members of Parliament is to therefore ensure that human beings, at any stage, must never be used for biomedical research because there are ethical alternatives.

The situation with surplus embryos actually is much worse than the public really understands. If a fertility clinic drugs a woman to the maximum, as I have said, and harvests 25 eggs, only three to five of those actually will be necessary for in vitro fertilization. The remaining 20 embryos would be cryogenically frozen and thawed as needed for future attempts as necessary. However, and this is an important point, 50% of frozen embryos do not survive the thawing process. That means that of the remaining 25 embryos that are cryogenically frozen and thawed for future use, 10 of them will be destroyed. They will die simply because the cryogenic freezing process is unacceptable.

This is a tragically low threshold of success for any medical procedure, and we can and should do better. How can we tolerate the destruction of so many human beings as part of a process that itself is attempting to create human beings? There is a grave contradiction here.

There are other alternative approaches to these problems. If there are surplus embryos, medical research communities should be working to perfect the techniques to eliminate or reduce the creation of surplus embryos. Medical research should concentrate its efforts on perfecting the process to store the eggs that are harvested from women, not the fertilized eggs but the eggs from women, and only fertilize those that are necessary for reproductive purposes. That process is now under intensive research outside of Canada. I am not sure what is happening inside of Canada. When it is perfected, there will be no surplus embryos.

At this time the research community has developed an in vitro fertilization process that habitually produces surplus embryos, which are in turn used for their own research. Research is supplying itself using IVF as the delivery point. This is a conflict of interest, and in the extreme. We as legislators have a responsibility to correct this unacceptable situation.

Another alternative is to permit the adoption of surplus embryos by other infertile couples. This is no different than adopting a born child. In the United States there is a program that is doing just that. It is called the snowflake program and it has been very successful. If this bill were truly intended to assist the infertile, why has Health Canada rejected this viable and successful program, a program that would make use of any surplus embryos.

Today in Canada there are approximately 24 fertility clinics and many of these are private for profit companies. As such, we do not really know how many surplus embryos are presently in storage nor how many would have received informed consent to be donated for research purposes. However Dr. Baylis has done an informal survey and she estimates that there are about 500 embryos frozen in Canada, in total. Of those, half are necessary for future IVF treatments. That means there are 250 that may be available for research purposes.

As I indicated, half of these will die while thawing. Of the 250, 125 will die while thawing. Therefore, we are down to 125. Then Dr. Baylis goes on to explain that of those 125, only 9 of the frozen embryos when thawed would actually be able to produce a viable stem cell line. Of the 9, only 5 of them would be of a standard that would meet the quality requirements of researchers. Think it out. Only 5 out of 250 embryos that are thawed would actually be useful. That is 2%. In other words, 100 human beings would be destroyed to obtain 2 useful stem cell lines, which may be able to be used to find cures and therapies to assist other human beings. This makes no sense at all.

One would think that Health Canada would have determined whether there were sufficient embryos to sustain meaningful research in advance of preparing this bill to regulate research and fertility clinics. Why has it not? I know Dr. Baylis is looking for funding to do a formal survey but we do not know what is happening in fertility clinics. We do not know what is happening out there today. How can we have legislation to regulate fertility clinics? These are the same fertility clinics that refused to appear before the health committee to disclose how they operated their businesses. This is awful. I cannot understand how that happened.

There is also another ethical alternative to destroying embryos to obtain those stem cells. Stem cells actually occur naturally in every organ of the human body. Last year Dr. Catherine Verfaillie published verified research that stem cells from bone marrow could become virtually any cell in the human body. This means that stem cells from a person's own body could be taken and used to repair damaged cells elsewhere in that person's body. That means that there is no ethical controversy, no immune rejection problem, no need for lifelong anti-rejection drugs and no concern about the spontaneous creation of tumours.

Why is it that the researchers are so anxious to have stem cells taken from embryos despite the ethical controversy and all the other problems, such as immune rejection? There is an answer and we heard it. I know a couple of members were there at the same meeting.

The bold and the true answer came from Dr. François Pothier, who has a Ph.D. in cellular biology and is a professor at Laval University. On February 5, 2003, while addressing a round table on assisted human reproduction, sponsored by the Friendship Group of Parliamentarians for UNESCO he answered the following question: Why do we want embryonic stem cells? Why are we shunning adult stem cells? His answer was “There is no money in adult stem cell research”.

That is the answer that everyone has been waiting for. Why do we want embryonic stem cells? It will cause all kinds of interesting scenarios for commercialization, drug use and all kinds of opportunities for people to make money. According to Dr. Pothier, and I believe this sincerely, the reason we do not concentrate on research using adult stem cells is that there is no money in adult stem cell research.

If one's own stem cells could be used to treat themselves, the prospect for patenting and commercialization would be diminished. Drug companies would also have less incentive to provide research funding. If research was unlikely to lead to increased need for the drugs why would they? One can only conclude that the bill really is about money.

We know that researchers migrate to money and have shown only a secondary interest in the ethics of research. I have tried to move a motion at report stage to include amendments to the Patent Act to guide the patentability of biomedical research. I was ruled out of order because Health Canada said that it was beyond the scope of the bill.

On the contrary, patenting of such research would likely reduce research done in Canada because the cost of patented techniques would be prohibitive for other researchers to use.

If patenting of biomedical research is allowed, the amount of effective, meaningful research in Canada will actually go down.

With regard to biomedical research, Bill C-13 would establish the assisted human reproduction agency of Canada. It would have the authority to issue a licence to authorize the use of human embryos for the purpose of research only if it is satisfied that the use is necessary for the purpose of the proposed research. The word “necessary” is the key.

In the opinion of the Standing Committee on Health, the criteria for what constituted necessary must be laid out. As a starting point, the following is what was recommended in the health committee' report: Even if all other regulatory criteria are met, no licence may be issued unless the applicant clearly demonstrates that no other category of biological material could be used for the purposes of the proposed research.

In other words, embryonic stem cells cannot be used if there is another ethical alternative. It is a good compromise I think for most but Health Canada rejected the recommendation of the committee and emphatically refused to define the term “necessary” in the legislation.

It is hard to believe that there are no criteria in the bill to guide this agency that would authorize and licence the research. Something might be buried in the regulations but I will talk about that later.

One would think that if research proposed has already been done then a licence should not be issued. If there are other ethical means to achieve the research, then a licence should not be issued in that case either. It simply does not make sense not to articulate the fundamental principles that should guide the agency.

Health Canada appears to be totally dependent upon the research industry. In fact, we all know it was the research industry that developed Bill C-13. The research industry, right back from the royal commission, right through the CIHR and all the iterations of the bill, the research community was the driver of what is in the bill. My sincere belief is that Health Canada went along for the ride.

The Standing Committee on Health spent two years studying the draft bill and Bill C-13. It received hundreds of submissions and heard from over 200 witnesses. I was very impressed with the quality of work that was done by the committee. In fact, the report on the draft bill was the best report I had ever seen.

After due consideration, however, the committee made only three substantive amendments. The first was that 50% of the board of directors of the agency should be women. The second was to ensure that people wanting IVF treatment would receive counselling and independent advice. The third was that the conflict of interest provisions in the bill would be broadened so that pharmaceutical and biotech companies could not be on the board of directors.

Those were very reasonable amendments and yet Health Canada rejected every one of them and put in report stage motions to reverse them. As a result of two years of work done by committee and after all the witnesses who appeared before it, there is nothing substantive in the bill, and that is a shame. I honestly believe the bill would have been better with many of the committee's recommendations.

This is a very troubling situation and it should raise caution levels of all members with regard to the credibility of Bill C-13. When ministers, the staff and the bureaucrats in all departments ignore the work and recommendations of standing committees and ignore the questions and suggestions of members of Parliament, the bill in question develops an opposition. If hon. members do not receive satisfactory explanations to their concerns or answers to their questions how can we say that we have discharged our responsibilities?

I believe members have been misled by the hype and rhetoric surrounding Bill C-13. The bill already has serious deficiencies and more will come out when questions are answered. In my view, the bill cannot be fixed in its present form. As the member for Hochelaga--Maisonneuve suggested, its deficiencies would be better addressed by a split bill, one dealing with prohibited activities and the other dealing with regulating research. The minister still has that option.

The bill also has other notable problems and I will deal with them quickly. The bill would prohibit the creation of a chimera. However a chimera, as defined in the bill, is the combining of animal and human, but it would prohibit the transplantation of non-human material into humans. It would not do the reverse. The bill would permit the transplantation of human reproductive material into non-human life forms, and the minister has said that this is necessary research. I do not buy that.

The bill would not permit the creation of a hybrid for the purpose of reproduction. However if the purpose of the research is in fact to do research, then hybrids would be permitted because they would not be used for reproduction but for research.

With regard to conflict of interest, as I have already indicated, the bill presently says that pharmaceutical companies and biotech companies can be on the board of directors. Why not? It is a conflict to the extreme. The bill would not require board members to file conflict of interest statements. Health Canada said that it would be too inconvenient for someone who was not paid very much and because part time appointees are less likely to have a conflict. This is faulty logic.

The bill would not prescribe transitional provisions relating to frozen embryos that existed prior to the bill coming into force but it should. It is very important. There are 500 embryos out there. How do we deal with them?

The bill would not require all fertility clinics to use the same application or information disclosures? Why not? It was recommended at report stage. Would consistent documentation, forms, disclosures and consent, et cetera, not make some sense?

The bill does not prescribe limits on the amount of drugs that can be administered to women and other limits that can affect women's health. Why would we not do that since this is a women's health bill?

There is very substantial policy in the regulations. Although members can have an opportunity to review the regulations, the bill goes on to say that members will only be able to comment. In other words, parliamentarians will not get an opportunity to approve or reject regulations to the bill, and most of the details of the bill are buried in the regulations. We will not see that until two years after royal assent. Parliament has a problem.

The bill would permit the use of surplus embryos for the purpose of education but it has no rules. As the member for the Bloc mentioned, it would provide surrogacy for profit and reimbursement of employment income. Those things were rejected right from the royal commission all the way down the line, and it was sprung on the House at the last minute. That must change.

If we were to defeat the bill, fix it and reintroduce two improved bills, one on prohibitive activities and one on controlled activities, they would result in earlier enforcement than if we proceed with Bill C-13 as it is now. A bill on prohibitive activities would pass at all stages very quickly and would be in force immediately, which is what Canadians want to see.

The other two are more problematic and that is what is delaying this whole process. I think we have to do some serious thinking about this.

The bill attempts to address reproductive technologies but it does so very poorly. It also touches on the very delicate, ethical and moral issues related to the sanctity of human life. For this reason a vote on this bill is a matter of conscience. I personally do not condone the destruction of human beings for research purposes under any circumstances. Consequently, I will be voting against Bill C-13.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 7th, 2003 / 12:05 p.m.
See context

Bloc

Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC

Mr. Speaker, this is like a pregnancy. I wondered whether this would ever happen. We are all aware of the ups and downs this bill has put the House through.

Perhaps I should point out at the outset that the Standing Committee on Health, to which the bill was referred, has worked long and hard on Bill C-13. This is a bill with a history: it was previously introduced as Bill C-47, which died on the order paper, then came back as Bill C-56 in 2000, and we now have Bill C-13, which we are debating.

The Bloc Quebecois has always had concerns about certain prohibited procedures. I am thinking about cloning in particular. In the mid 1990s, the hon. member for Drummond, whose riding is located in the heart of Quebec, put forward a bill to prohibit cloning for reproductive and therapeutic purposes.

This is an aberration, an odd situation brought to the fore by the whole Clonaid episode over the holiday season. Some of our fellow citizens were under the impression that they were protected against any attempt at cloning by a public or private laboratory.

Unfortunately, we had to disillusion them when it became our duty as parliamentarians to explain that, if a public or private laboratory had, indeed, succeeded with human cloning experiments, as the Raelians implied, for example, unfortunately, there were no provisions in the Criminal Code that could have led to any legal action against those who were guilty of genetic manipulation, up to and including human cloning.

Very early in the history of the Bloc Quebecois, the member for Drummond was made aware of this issue. It was because of her sensitivity not only to the cause of women, but also to the entire issue of respect for human life, that she came to present a bill which, as we know, did not have the support of the government.

It was all the more incomprehensible because, in 1989, a royal commission was set up. The Baird commission of course recommended that legislators ban practices like cloning. The royal commission was a very important moment for those who are interested in such issues, because 293 recommendations were made.

We might ask ourselves this question: How is it that there were recommendations and that there was a royal commission? We know that a royal commission is not a trifling matter. It is set up by the Privy Council and its budget is quite substantial. A lot of research was done and scientific studies were carried out. Why is it that we have had the information we need for creating legislation since 1990, and it is not until 2003—13 years later— that the House is going to be asked to vote on this matter?

The government's attitude has definitely been rather lax. There is certainly no cause for satisfaction. This is one more issue on which the Bloc Quebecois has been particularly vigilant.

When I said that the Standing Committee on Health had devoted much time and energy to the issue of assisted human reproduction, it is important to remember that, as early as 1991, the then Minister of Health, now the Minister of Industry, had introduced draft legislation. Even before the official introduction and first reading of a bill by a minister of the Crown, the Standing Committee on Health had been asked to give its views on a number of issues. The bill asked us to validate a certain number of hypotheses with respect to the preamble to a bill like this one and the type of regulations that should be implemented. I will have the opportunity to discuss this later.

The committee considered six possible regulatory models, and selected a semi-autonomous agency, appointed by the Governor in Council. We would have preferred the board to be equally represented by both genders. The government did not retain this recommendation, but the board does have a certain degree of autonomy.

During review of the draft legislation, we were asked to reflect on the whole issue of prohibited and regulated activities, and various mechanisms for accountability that I will have an opportunity to explain shortly. However, Bill C-13 is characterized by the fact that the regulations are more important than the bill itself.

Most of the 26 major decisions about reproduction, manipulation and assisted human reproduction treatments, while covered in the bill, will be set out in the regulations. That is why the committee was strongly advised to ensure that the regulations would be subject to periodic review and would be referred to the Standing Committee on Health. As happened with the bill, public consultations will be held when the committee considers the regulations.

One question greatly concerns the Bloc Quebecois, which we naturally discussed in caucus. The Bloc Quebecois believes it is necessary for the Criminal Code to include provisions criminalizing certain practices. First and foremost, of course, is cloning.

But what is the approach? The Bloc Quebecois in defending the interests of Quebec—which is what brings it here—unfortunately had to oppose this bill at the report stage. Why so? I will explain, because we have received a number of letters and inquiries from the public in this connection.

Although we were in favour of this bill in principle, the Bloc Quebecois cannot vote in favour of such a bill. And why not? Because Bill C-13 intrudes in areas that are fundamentally under the jurisdiction of the provinces.

The Government of Quebec, through its health minister François Legault, has written the federal Minister of Health asking that this bill not be passed, that it not be followed up on in the House of Commons.

A list has been made of all the legislation passed by the National Assembly that is incompatible with Bill C-13. I will have an opportunity to come back to that list but I will touch on it briefly here. There are about a dozen acts, and of course the most important is the Quebec civil code. It contains certain provisions that are incompatible with the issue of surrogacy.

Bill C-13 is also incompatible with the Act respecting health services and social services, as well as with the Act respecting access to documents held by public bodies; the Act respecting the protection of personal information; the Act respecting medical laboratories; Quebec's Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, including the whole area of confidentiality of some nominative information; the medical code of ethics; the guidelines of the Quebec health research fund, commonly known to people in the field as the FRSQ; not to mention the ministerial action plan on ethics and scientific integrity, which was published by the former member for Vimont on behalf of the Government of Quebec. This is all very disquieting.

Come to think of it, all treatments for infertility take place in laboratories located, naturally, in hospitals, university research centres and, occasionally, in private clinics. The best known such clinic in Quebec is, of course, PROCREA.

Why should the federal government interfere in what basically amounts to the delivery of services in health care facilities that come under the various provincial governments? Naturally, it is doing so through the Criminal Code, because of certain illegal procedures.

If the Canadian government had put before the House of Commons a bill to criminalize only a few procedures, namely the 13 prohibited procedures I will list in a moment, we in the Bloc Quebecois would have voted for such a bill with enthusiasm and our well-known sense of responsibility.

We felt so strongly about this that when we resumed our work here in January, I moved a motion inviting the government and the entire House to split this bill. However, the government rejected this idea, which is why we are now bogged down with this bill. We have been discussing this issue since May 2001. In fact, we have been discussing this topic for several years now. The federal government could have simply prohibited a certain number of procedures.

What is the reality? The member for Trois-Rivières also explained, through a motion that he moved in the House, that the government wants to use health to do some nation building. That is what the Romanow report proposes, naturally, and Bill C-13 is a good example of this. That said, there are still a certain number of important provisions.

Let us start with what are arguably the most important clauses found in the bill, clauses 5, 6 and 9. They render a number of procedures illegal. Therefore, if it can be proven, either before an inspector or a court of justice, anyone who is involved in any of these prohibited procedures could be brought to court under criminal charges by the crown, which could lead to either imprisonment, or a fine of between $200,000 to $500,000. The seriousness of these offences is reflected by these heavy fines.

So, what are these prohibited procedures? Of course, creating a human clone. This is an ethical issue. Incidentally, this bill deals with a variety of considerations, such as ethical and medical considerations, in addition to family law, and of course, administrative considerations as well, all at the same time.

Why is it so important to prohibit human cloning? What is cloning? First, it is a medical procedure where the nucleus is removed from somatic cells. This cell is taken and another nucleus is added, and it is then fertilized. With the help of the maturation process, it is hoped that the cell will have a new nucleus containing new genetic material, which will lead to the birth of a child that has a genetic makeup identical to the genetic makeup of the person from whom the original cell was used. That is cloning.

Cloning was first tried, with mixed results, on animals. I say with mixed results because the committee was told that the consequences for cloned animals, naturally, were extremely serious, the most immediate being premature aging and, of course, premature death. So, no animals have been successfully cloned, and this, obviously, does not encourage us to try human cloning.

But there is an ethical side to cloning. No one wants to live in a society where, in the name of humankind, we can biologically bring about the creation of two humans with identical genes. No one wants that.

I saw public affairs shows on TQS, for example, where the Raelians said, “Yes, but there are twin brothers”. Of course, there are identical twins. This is a natural phenomenon. It is called homozygotic embryos. I have an identical twin brother myself. This makes some people happy and some sad, each of us is entitled to our own opinion, but the fact remains that this was not forced on nature. It is a natural phenomenon. Some people say that there is really no such thing as identical twin brothers, because life, through our personality, ensures that each of us is very different. For example, my twin is heterosexual; I, as you know, am not. We are pretty much alike in our sense of humour. But we are very different in every other respect.

My twin brother is greatly interested in sport and a little less intellectually inclined than I. We do, however, share a similarly refined sense of humour.

It is not true, then, that identical twins with the same genetic baggage, homozygotic twins that started out from a single cell, from a single egg, are alike in every aspect.

The question raised by human cloning is what it will mean for psychogenesis, the psychological development of the child. How can a parent raise a child knowing he or she is the duplicate of the parent, knowing they are genetically identical? Scientists came to testify that, on the psychological level, at every stage of personal development, this poses a risk for human development. This is prohibited by the bill as a result.

The second procedure that is prohibited in the bill is the creation of an embryo in vitro for purposes other than the creation of a human being. We would not want to live in a society where embryos were created solely for research purposes.

This does not mean—and I will have an opportunity to explain further when we reach the clauses on regulated activities—that if there are surplus embryos as part of the initial activity of fertilization, for example if four are created, that a person cannot donate them for research purposes with informed consent.

Research on embryos is definitely necessary, but the bill says that a person could not turn up and announce that he wanted to use medicine to create an embryo solely for research purposes. This is prohibited in the bill.

An embryo cannot be created and then maintained outside of a woman's body, i.e. in vitro, for more than 14 days. The basis for this is that the main international conventions state that the nervous system begins development on the 15th day and it can then be dangerous to keep an embryo outside a woman's body. This is prohibited.

There is another important prohibition that is also related to ethical considerations. It is forbidden to use sperm screening and selection to choose a child's sex. A father cannot announce that he wants a girl, or a mother announce that she wants a boy, and then make use of medical and genetic means in order to ensure that this happens.

Why is this prohibited? It is prohibited based on the values found in both the Quebec and Canadian charters. The first of these values that govern the legal and human community is the equality of individuals. We do not start from the pretext that women are superior to men or that men are superior to women. Given that there is no such superiority, it does not make sense that the bill would contain mechanisms that would officially allow people to choose the sex of a child. That is why it is prohibited.

There is also an important prohibition that bans any alterations to the germ line. The germ line refers to hereditary characteristics that are passed down from one generation to the next, or that skip one generation, in the case of certain deadly diseases that we know of.

We do not want to live in a society where people can have their children tailor-made. It should not be possible to say, “I want the genetic tools that will allow me to have a blond girl with blue eyes, who will be a good painter, or artist, or ballet-jazz dancer”. Accordingly, the bill stipulates that it will not be possible to have tailor-made children, nor will it be possible to select hereditary traits by altering the germ line.

Obviously—plain common sense dictates this—transplanting sperm or ova into another form of life, other than human, will be prohibited. Implanting human reproductive material that has already been transplanted into another form of life is prohibited. This is known as the creation of hybrids, or chimera, and it is clearly prohibited in this bill.

Another prohibited procedure that attracted a great deal of attention in Quebec is surrogacy, or surrogate motherhood. This reminds us that this bill is designed to deal with an empirically observed situation: one out of every five couples experiences fertility problems. This situation is not expected to improve in the near future. Often, environmental factors cause hormonal imbalances that may affect the ability to procreate.

Some people say we should live in a society where a couple can ask a woman with no fertility problems to bear a child.

A number of nuances or clarifications could be made on the issue of surrogacy. Let me make the following. We have been told that a surrogate mother artificially inseminated with sperm from the father who hired her is called a genetic surrogate. A surrogate mother could also carry an embryo created through IVF using the hiring couple's gametes. In this instance, the surrogate mother is making her uterus available, but there is no genetic contribution.

So, surrogacy poses quite a complex ethical problem, because one might think that women own the children to which they give birth. They do not. Pregnancy has to be an altruistic act. Women who bring children into the world with their spouse must do so, whether it was planned or not, because of their desire as a couple to raise a family.

There are therefore major inconsistencies between the bill and the civil code. Even if these were the only inconsistencies, the Bloc Quebecois would have to vote against the bill. There are, however, many more, which I will point out.

In this respect, a provision was included in the civil code of Quebec a few years ago. If I am not mistaken, it is section 541. It provides that agreements for surrogacy for payment are null and void. This means that, in Quebec, under the civil code, if I ask a woman to bear a child for me, I will have absolutely no right in the unborn child. As far as the mother who bore the child is concerned, the regular lineage rights—the parental authority, and all that it means for a mother to have responsibility for a child—apply.

This is where we find out how well I know the civil code. I would be willing to bet that it is article 541, just after the provisions on adoption, which says that agreements regarding surrogate mothers are absolutely null. I will read the passage in question:

Any agreement whereby a woman undertakes to procreate or carry a child for another person is absolutely null.

That is article 541 of the civil code. The lawmakers of Quebec did not wait for Bill C-13 to be passed; they put these provisions in the civil code.

But now we see that Bill C-13, in clauses 6 and 12, says there are certain situations in which surrogate mothers can be reimbursed. That is quite sad. I do not know how we are going to settle this before the courts. Will it be the civil code or Bill C-13 that prevails?

Bill C-13 says two things. It says that it will be possible to recognize surrogate mothers who do this as an altruistic gesture. But is it not strange to see written in a bill that it will be possible for a woman to carry a child for someone else? Might that not make us think that children are perceived as a kind of property and that women are the owners of children? Should we not be seeking other ways to respond to people with fertility problems? Of course, reproductive technologies, such as in vitro fertilization, are one such way.

Research is needed into the causes of infertility related to the endocrine system. Domestic or international adoption is also a solution. It is, therefore, somewhat aberrant that we find ourselves with such a bill in 2003.

The Bloc Quebecois held its convention this past weekend, and it was a great moment for democracy, Mr. Speaker. We missed you a bit, but you can always come next time. We discussed all these issues in workshops.

One of the great specialists in Quebec, Professor Louise Vandelac—whom you may have heard of— is very well known internationally. Although she has also researched GMOs, her main concern is the life sciences. She told us, “It is incredible that such a thing could be happening in 2003” and added, “in the country of Margaret Atwood”, referring to the English Canadian novelist and writer. She continued, “How can English Canada, the Government of Canada, turn up in 2003 with Bill C-13 in which it is acknowledged that a woman has the right to call upon another woman to bear a child for her?” This does not, of course, make any sense.

It does not stop there, however, Despite the fact that the Quebec has adopted as part of its civil code—in the mid-80s if I remember correctly—the section I have read, section 541, still clause 12 of this bill opens up the possibility of reimbursing surrogate mothers for altruistic purposes. It is true that this bill—and I must be honest about this so that those listening to us will not be misled—says that payment for surrogate motherhood is totally forbidden, that is if someone wanted to pay another to have a child.

This is one of the 12 procedures I have referred to which can lead to prosecution and to imprisonment or a fine of $500,000. Nevertheless, it is possible to bear children for others and the federal government will recognize surrogate motherhood agreements. Clause 10 even contains provisions for certain expenses of surrogate mothers to be met.

So, hon. members will see the incompatibility here, the value choices. Ethical decisions have been made by the National Assembly, but will not, unfortunately, be respected by the Canadian Parliament.

This whole issue of surrogacy is a very serious one. Once again, I have no idea how this will be settled by the courts. We had hoped that the federal government would not get involved and that the provinces would be in charge, as is already the case in Quebec.

This pretty well covers the issue of surrogacy agreements, the importance of which is well known. I think I have also demonstrated how these do not comply with the civil code of Quebec.

I thought I had a good half hour remaining, seeing that I have barely started my speech, but I will come back to that in due course, because I am getting the signal that I have only 10 minutes left.

The bill addresses the whole issue of controlled activities. No one is saying that there should be no research on embryos or infertility. The agency that will be established will receive $10 million a year and bring together individuals who, we hope, will not only have expertise but also reflect a range of backgrounds, to include not only members of the scientific community but also users. The agency will issue licences for research. Researchers who demonstrate that a need exists, that research cannot be conducted using existing reproductive material, and that the research is validated by an ethics committee and based on a serious protocol, will qualify for a licence.

This opens the door to the use of stem cells. That is why our colleagues from the Canadian Alliance have been opposed to this bill all along.

What are stem cells? The embryo sac, which is created a few hours after conception, contains stem cells. Researchers do not agree on the number of them. Some American researchers say that there a hundred or so, and Canadian researchers say that it is more like 300. For the purposes of my speech, we will say that there are between 100 and 300 of these stem cells. These cells have not decided what their future holds and they are able to contribute to the rebirth or regeneration of any tissue, whether it be tissues found in the heart, arm, or anywhere in the entire body.

This is extremely valuable, and unlike adult stem cells, they are not in blood, or produced in bone marrow, but are found in the embryo sac. As a result, they are easy to extract, and they can obviously be used to help people with major degenerative disorders. We have heard about Alzheimer's, cerebral palsy, juvenile diabetes and other diseases.

This is why big associations that do fundraising for this type of research explained how important it is that this bill contain regulated activities to allow for this type of research. Carrying out this type of research that uses stem cells destroys embryos.

Depending on how one defines a human being, some people say that by destroying embryos, you are committing a crime against humanity, that the embryo is a potential human being. I respect this point of view, but I do not share it. The Supreme Court clearly established that a human being is a fetus once it is outside the mother's body and has taken its first breath.

People will recall that there were a number of legal challenges on this. It might have been nice if it were legislators who had made the decision, but the abortion bill introduced by the Conservatives ended up being unique in terms of our legislative work. In fact, in the Senate, the other house, there was a tie vote. It was referred to this House. There was no conclusive vote, and there was a legal vacuum until the Supreme Court issued a judgment and ruled that an embryo was not a human being.

To be logical, from a legal point of view, if an embryo is not a human being, then we cannot, as legislators, consider any of its constituent material as a human being. That is why I was in agreement. It is not the part of the bill that I am most concerned about. Of course, that will not stop me from supporting ethical issues. I believe stem cell research must carry on, because it is important to make life better for the people who are suffering from degenerative diseases.

I have mentioned the 12 prohibited activities. The controlled activities are specified in clauses 10, 11 and 12. They would include research on embryos or reproductive material in accordance with the regulations and a licence. Any research carried out without the proper licence would be in violation of clauses 5, 6 and 9, which I referred to earlier.

Among the issues raised during our work was the type of donations that could be made. As I said, with this bill, we want to meet the needs of those with fertility problems, which affect one out of every five couples. People with fertility problems may want to go for treatment, either insemination or in vitro fertilization. For this to happen, donors have to go to a hospital or to some institution authorized to receive their donations. I am talking, of course, about the people who donate sperm or ova, what is called gametes. Interestingly enough, there is a shortage of sperm in English Canada. The sperm banks are empty.

As for Quebec, for perhaps other more sociological reasons and also because the regulations are not quite identical, there are fewer difficulties in ensuring a supply of sperm.

Of course, Mr. Speaker, sperm donors cannot be older than 40. This has excluded you for quite some time. At the same time, sperm donors must undergo all kinds of medical tests. The sperm is tested for genetic defects or disease. Obviously, some very important tests need to be done.

The committee asked itself the following question: if you are a donor and you go to a hospital or clinic, would you be required to reveal your identity? If you are going to donate sperm, must you identify yourself? Currently, donations are anonymous.

The parliamentary secretary will remember that many people made representations, including children born as a result of assisted reproduction, from anonymous sperm donations, and they said, “This is called the right to know who you are”.

For human development, it is not desirable, they told us, to not know who the donor is. I was moved by one individual who testified that when she was in grade five in a public school in English Canada, her teacher asked all the students in the class to do their family tree. You know the drill. Our family tree allows us to discover our ancestors and understand who we came from. This is obviously important to the formation of our identity. This person, born as a result of an anonymous donation, told us what a wall she had run up against, how she felt as if she had come from nowhere, how important it was to her for donations to be anonymous but not the identity of donors.

The opposing opinion says that, in donating sperm or eggs, the donors are not making any attempt to raise a child nor any attempt to raise a family. Those who oppose identity disclosure for donors said, “Yes, but is there not a risk if I donate sperm and the child born is viable, when that child reaches 16, 17 or 18 he will seek financial support from me as the genetic father and donor”.

People were worried about that. That point of view prevailed, so thoroughly that, according to the bill now before us, the regulatory agency must gather information on donors. Of course, it must gather identity data, and other information in order to maintain records, but it is not mandatory to divulge the identity of the donor.

Naturally, this has created discontent and disappointment, but there is a way to solve the problem. Quebec has solved it, as have Nova Scotia and Yukon. Thus, there are three legislatures where laws have been passed and the laws contain provisions that, in the case of children born through medically assisted reproduction, donors can never be considered genetic fathers having parental responsibilities. Three provinces have done this. Obviously, it lies within the area of family law. It is not up to the federal government to create such legislation, but this could have been done.

So, that is a question that has been asked. The systems created in some countries make it mandatory to divulge identities. I can think of Sweden, Australia, New Zealand and Austria, among others.

Mr. Speaker, I think my time is running out, but because of the importance of this debate, and in consideration of the excellent work I did in committee, could you please ask for unanimous consent to allow me 10 minutes more to complete my speech. I will not take advantage of this, but I would then feel we had addressed the issue completely.

Business of the HouseOral Question Period

April 3rd, 2003 / 3 p.m.
See context

Glengarry—Prescott—Russell Ontario

Liberal

Don Boudria LiberalMinister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, the continuing fear of Liberal candidate Brian Innes is duly noted, but this afternoon the House will continue with the opposition day motion on the war in Iraq. There are discussions going on with regard to this subject which may continue today and otherwise.

As previously ordered, the House will not be sitting tomorrow.

On Monday, pursuant to what I just stated, we will return to consideration of Bill C-13, the reproductive technologies legislation, followed by report stage of Bill C-9, the environmental assessment legislation.

I am also looking forward, with the usual cooperation of all hon. members for an appropriate time and hopefully very soon, to resuming the consideration of the Senate amendments to Bill C-10, the Criminal Code amendments.

Thursday of next week, in other words a week from today, shall be an allotted day.

In the event that there are additions or other changes to this business, I shall communicate with other House leaders through the usual channels.

Sex Offender Information Registration ActGovernement Orders

April 2nd, 2003 / 5:40 p.m.
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Bloc

Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I wonder if I can obtain the consent of all parties to do the following.

I believe that the government is preparing to go forward with Bill C-13, as was announced. I am the next member to speak on this bill, now at third reading. I am entitled to speak for 40 minutes, but the House is scheduled to proceed to private members' business in 10 minutes. In order not to interrupt my speech, I wonder if I could obtain unanimous consent to go straight to private members' business.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 1st, 2003 / 5:45 p.m.
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Bloc

Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-13 now before us is nothing new to the House, since it was first introduced as Bill C-47, in 1997, then as Bill C-56 and now as Bill C-13. Therefore, as parliamentarians, we have been pondering these issues for some years now.

Our hon. colleague from the New Democratic Party has raised a number of concerns. I would like to ask her a number of short questions, if I may.

First, I would like to know what she thinks of the make-up of the board of directors, which will consist of 13 members. At report stage, we recommended that half of the members be women. However, I understand that she would have liked to see more stringent provisions concerning conflicts of interests, and I would like her to elaborate on that.

I would also like to find out what she thinks of the requirement to disclose the name of the donors. There were two schools of thought on this issue. Some argued that the donors should remain anonymous and others thought that their names should be disclosed. I would like her thoughts on this.

Third, I would like to know if the preamble to the bill meets with her agreement.

I have other questions, but they will have to wait until next time. For now, I would like to hear what the member has to say about all of this.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 1st, 2003 / 5:25 p.m.
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NDP

Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North Centre, MB

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the Bloc Quebecois. It is with great pleasure that I rise in the House today because this is a very important debate for the New Democratic caucus.

I am very pleased to participate in the debate on a bill that addresses as important an area as Canadians' approach to assisted reproductive technology. As we have heard throughout the debate, there are many compelling reasons to support the regulation of reproductive technology.

We are all familiar with the sensational stories about human cloning, about eggs being sold over the Internet, and about the acrimonious lawsuits over surrogacy. Last December the Raelians claimed to have successfully cloned a human being. While that claim may be unsubstantiated, it certainly shows the need for urgent action. It is but the outspoken tip of a much larger iceberg of unregulated research. We know, and I am sure all members in the House agree, that there are others around the globe who are absolutely committed to this and other dubious research objectives.

We are living in a time when the term “designer babies” has become part of the North American vocabulary. Parents are selecting the biological traits of their children. Internet sites compete in the trade of celebrity reproductive materials while countless others profit from those Canadians who are more than willing to buy access to any healthy eggs or sperm that might assist in their drive to have children. Gender selection has become topical with all sorts of new rationales being put forward in its defence.

Many of us by now are very familiar with some of the less sensational personal stories that have emerged from these technological innovations. There are stories of joy and heartbreak, as well as sacrifice and pain during infertility treatment.

Reproductive technologies have become widespread in Canada yet unfortunately, they remain beyond the reach of government regulations. Therefore, the debate on this piece of legislation remains critically important.

The question for all of us here today is, what took so long? Why did it take more than 10 years to get to the point where we are actually debating a concrete piece of legislation that may be passed through the legislative process? We all know that Liberal neglect by delaying the introduction of this legislation has allowed developments in reproductive technology to mushroom outside a regulated environment. No one more than New Democrats in the House want this situation changed.

Cloning and gender selection are areas where Canadians have expressed unqualified support for regulation for a good number of years, going back to over a decade ago and the recommendations of the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies which reported in 1993. The Liberal government has had ample opportunity to move quickly to stabilize the clinical and research environments. If it was unable to come up with a strategy of its own, it could easily have thrown its support behind a private member's bill presented to the House by a member of the Bloc, a bill to ban cloning, for example, or accepted agreement among other parties to expedite certain areas to introduce some legislative standards quickly. The government chose not to. Instead it opted to plow ahead and even trampled over health committee suggestions for improving its bill.

After failing in its previous attempt at regulating reproductive technologies in 1997, the Liberal government has left us today with a no win, no choice decision, a trouble or nothing kind of proposition. As we said earlier in the debate, that is a choice we cannot make. It is a choice we refuse to make because several major issues have not been adequately dealt with in this final legislative proposition before the House of Commons. Several major issues have not been adequately dealt with that will govern the application of the research and technology that we are addressing.

I want to list some of those concerns, starting with the paramount concern for those of us in the New Democratic Party and I hope many others in this chamber, and that is the health of women. It is women's safety that remains our concern here today. From the beginning of the whole process with the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies, New Democrats have been working, fighting and insisting that women's health concerns be paramount.

A colleague of mine, Dawn Black, the former NDP status of women critic, was very adamant about this point here in the House. She consulted extensively with organizations representing women from across Canada in developing recommendations for the royal commission itself. She pursued those concerns through the parliamentary process and was as disappointed as other women across the country when legislative initiatives did not come to fruition.

Dawn Black and other women across the country knew then and know today that it is women who put their health at risk by undergoing drug regimes with unsafe products. It is women who undergo the painful intrusive procedures to secure eggs for treatment or research for example. It is women who must try to make informed decisions about the pressure of societal expectations and commercial service promoters.

Many have commented on this issue. I want to reference the work done in February 2001 by Anne Rochon Ford, who wrote in a paper entitled “Biotechnology and the New Genetics, What it Means for Women's Health”:

Particularly in the area of reproductive health, women receive a disproportionate percentage of medical tests including genetic tests and treatments. Many treatments and technologies once promoted to women as safe and effective were later found to cause harm.

She listed three: the hormone drug DES; the Dalkon Shield IUD; and of course as well we all know, the Meme breast implant.

Once again women are being asked to trust and comply with new technologies such as genetic testing and gene therapies about which relatively little is known. As the author went on to say, it is like being asked to take a leap into the genetic darkness.

That point is no more relevant than today with the news on CBC radio about its investigative reporting on unsafe medical devices which are currently on the market. The problem continues. We remain concerned that the government has not taken seriously the need to protect the health and well-being of Canadians at all costs and to ensure that the drugs we take, the medical devices that are on the market, the food we eat, the interventions that are made are safe beyond a reasonable doubt.

With today's news about Canadians who depend on implanted medical devices experiencing harm and danger as a result of using those devices, we ought to be concerned again when we acknowledge the fact that Bill C-13 does not do the utmost to ensure that the health and well-being of women are protected at all costs.

We tried very hard in committee to make those changes. We were successful to some extent, but on some very major issues we were not. Although we were able to improve the significance of women's health within the bill's principles at committee, the government has stubbornly refused to make precaution the overriding principle in terms of women's health.

If, as the government claims, the bill is concerned with women's health, what better way of giving that claim leverage for enforcement purposes than to state outright that the precautionary principle is the governing principle? Yet every single time we proposed amendments to entrench precaution, to ensure that the principle was imprinted in the legislation, our efforts were defeated by Liberal members.

We wanted to require the federal government to ensure that reproductive technologies, drugs and procedures specifically, are proven safe before they are introduced, that the risks and benefits of any treatment are fully disclosed and that the evaluation of reproductive health services include women's experiences.

Let me raise another issue of concern to us with respect to Bill C-13 that we have before us. It has to do with prevention. While it is crucial to have a regulatory framework within which these activities take place or do not take place, the intent of the bill should not be the creation of an industry. Our goal should be the reduction, as much as possible, of infertility in our society today. That overriding motivation would surely require the integration of an active prevention strategy as a critical element in the role of the new agency being created under Bill C-13.

When we were working at committee on the legislation, we proposed a stronger prevention mandate. Interestingly, this was again resisted by the government that in turn insisted on a narrow approach to a very broad issue. Unfortunately that has been the pattern. This is quite consistent with the government's overall approach to industrial and environmental health. Prevention is so much better for women but treatment is so much better for industry. For the government, that is unfortunately no contest.

Let me go on to briefly talk about a fundamental concern for New Democrats in the whole legislative process and that has to do with commercialization and commodification of reproductive technologies.

Many Canadians have expressed concern from the very beginning of the formal public discussion about reproductive technologies back in the 1980s. They have expressed concerns about the government agenda being driven by powerful biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries whose primary obligation is to their shareholders and not to women's health.

There is nothing in the bill, particularly relating to the control of research results, that distinguishes between the government's position and the interests of these industries. We raised the issue of patents and the need to ensure public access to the benefit of research. For us, patenting remains a critical issue.

Patenting remains for the government a separate issue while for most Canadians, and certainly New Democrats, questions of research and the control and application of research results are inexorably linked.

There is the recent experience with Myriad, the U.S. genetics company that developed genetic cancer screening techniques which it only made available at considerable expense, clearly demonstrating the hazards ahead.

We have to deal with gene patenting issues here and now, not off in Industry Canada stakeholder discussions but as an integral part of this debate on the future pertaining to women's health and the use of assisted reproductive technologies.

To ensure public interest was primary, we focused attention on the makeup of the board directing the assisted human reproduction agency. We have repeatedly cited the need to ensure the independence of decisions and advice made by the agency in its role as chief policy advisory body to the government on reproductive technology.

When the legislation was introduced, my colleagues in the NDP and I noticed immediately and were particularly horrified to find that the government had included no conflict of interest guidelines at all. We proposed and the health committee adopted strong requirements that would avoid potential conflicts. What happened? The government introduced an amendment at report stage that cut our proposal and the teeth out of the conflict of interest provisions.

The government claims to want to keep reproductive technology out of the commercial realm. We encourage the government to put some flesh on the bones of that sentiment. We encourage the government to follow the Manitoba government's example in returning private for profit clinics to the non-profit public sphere. This bill could have set that agenda.

By leaving clinics in the private, competitive, for profit sphere the government has provided no assurance at all that some more complicated procedures may not become inaccessible to women as commercial firms drop them to keep their success rates high.

The federal government's de facto encouragement of for profit services in the recent health accord further confirms that women will be at the mercy of service decisions made according to market values in reproductive health.

The law of the marketplace has consistently failed to protect women's interests over the years. The commodification of women's bodies plays right into the hands of those who would profit. There is nothing in the bill to indicate the proactive approach to enforcement necessary to ensure women's safety. The government's under resourcing of other health monitoring is not encouraging at all.

Let me go on to the issue briefly of surrogacy because this is another area where the health committee hammered out a solid recommendation that was either rejected outright or substantially weakened by the government during report stage.

It was the committee's position that permitting commercial surrogacy arrangements would commercialize women's childbearing capacity. With government supported amendments, we are now left with a confusing mixed message that tries to accomplish two contradictory goals at the same time: banning paid surrogacy activity on the one hand, while simultaneously supporting it financially on the other hand.

In some ways other aspects of the bill have been overshadowed by the controversy surrounding research options using human stem cells. After careful and lengthy consideration, the health committee had reached a common position on stem cell research. Instead of adopting that position however, the government has decided to pass what is essentially a policy decision off to an administrative agency.

In the last minute available to me, I would like to just touch briefly on the matter of eugenics because much of the bill deals with the technological capacity which was still in the realm of science fiction a brief quarter of a century ago. The selection of genetic traits, as much as cloning, falls within this brave new world. The magnitude of these discoveries would to most Canadians beg a thoughtful and critical examination of their relationship to our traditional societal values. We have reached this critical point, however, with no government leadership around such a public evaluation.

As it stands, the bill does not clearly set out a set of guiding principles that would recognize and safeguard the value and integrity of the lives of all Canadians. It fails to clearly challenge the assumptions held by some researchers whose overall goal is to perfect future generations and eliminate certain conditions through genetic manipulation.

The concerns that have been raised by groups representing persons with disabilities about the value and contributions of all members of our society have not been met. We made constructive proposals to strengthen this aspect of the bill in committee and tried successfully to introduce an amendment at report stage. Regrettably, we have been forced to once again resort to a private member's initiative to deal with the concerns of groups representing people with disabilities.

Finally, we are at the end of a long process. In many ways our work is just beginning because provisions around the agency have been left wide open for further regulations and depend very much on government commitments in terms of appointments to the board and truly acting on the possibility of conflict of interest.

We must remain vigilant. We must remain purposeful in our deliberations to ensure that the health and well-being of women, children and families is preserved and protected throughout this process of regulating reproductive technologies.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 1st, 2003 / 5:20 p.m.
See context

Bloc

Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. As you know, when we start the third reading debate on a bill, the first three speakers are generally allowed 40 minutes for their speech. I do not think there is enough time left for me to use my full 40 minutes.

With permission from my fellow members and the unanimous consent of the House, our colleague from the New Democratic Party could now be allowed to speak, with a 10 minute period for questions and comments. Then, with unanimous consent, the House could be adjourned thereafter.

I could use the 40 minutes I am allowed tomorrow, after oral question period, if the government intends to bring back Bill C-13.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 1st, 2003 / 4:40 p.m.
See context

Canadian Alliance

Rob Merrifield Canadian Alliance Yellowhead, AB

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege and pleasure to rise on third reading, and give my voice to the bill one more time. We have had a number of opportunities to speak out strongly and firmly on a piece of legislation that will impact our nation in a significant way into the 21st century. I do not think we need to understate that. We must state it as clearly and strongly as we possibly can so that the people of this great nation understand the road that we are about to embark upon.

This legislation has the potential to change the ethics of a nation. It is the first time that we will approach the idea that it is okay as a nation to destroy human life for the sake of research.

In doing so, we set out that the ethic we stand on is for the greater good. If we shrink ourselves to the place where the only ethical ground that we stand on is that for the greater good we should do something, then we are on a slippery slope as a nation that will disregard the value of human life as we have seen in many different countries around the world.

It is important that we discern the intensity of the impact of this proposed legislation. After a year of draft work on this bill and after going through committee stage, report stage and third reading, which brings us to this point now, we must understand that we have tried to explain this all the way through.

We ask for the wisdom of the House that it discern clearly and carefully the actions and the voting pattern that will set this in motion or stop it, and with some wisdom throw caution to going down this road so aggressively.

Having said that, we need and have called for legislation in this area. My colleague talked about the banning of cloning, chimera, sex selection, and all the prohibitions within the bill that are important. We must ensure that happens.

However, when it comes to Bill C-13, it touches matters of a great human affair. It touches matters of life and death, and the desires of parents to conceive children. Couples are attempting to build families. That is how the bill started. The problem with the bill is that it goes beyond building families.

As my colleague has said, one in eight Canadians are having difficulty with the experience of becoming fertile and creating a child. That is where the bill started. It started with the idea that the bill should address how to assist those individuals to create a replica of themselves.

Bill C-13 touches on the hope for the treatment of debilitating diseases and conditions. It is important that we address both the ethical complexity that is so highly controversial as well as the other side, which is the whole area of whether the proposed legislation is going in the right direction with regard to the science behind where we will allow ourselves to go.

I believe that Canadians have been driven by the value of protecting human life and respecting it. Whether young or old we have an intrinsic value to respect our creator. Human life is special; it is not to be disregarded. It is not to be created for the sake of destruction. It is important that we have that concept and because of that we should respect life right from conception to natural death.

I regret the government has chosen the uncharted path of embryonic research which may lead in a direction other than human health.

Let us go back 10 years to the evolution of this piece of legislation. It started in 1993 with the royal commission and a piece of legislation came forward. Bill C-47 died on the Order Paper in 1997. It came forward again as Bill C-56 and died on the Order Paper at the prorogation of the House. Now we have Bill C-13 that we are debating.

It is important to understand that in the drafting of this legislation we did something special and unique. In a non-partisan way we had a piece of legislation that was drafted and went to committee. For nine months we listened to the greatest minds and the most informed to give us the input that they had with regard to how it could be amended and how it could be a model of legislation that would be used around the world.

We had the opportunity to have the best legislation of any nation in the world. It is for those reasons that we fought so hard to put in place some of the changes to this legislation prior to it going to committee after it was introduced.

What I find astounding is that the report that came out on the draft piece of legislation is significantly different from what we have before us today. There were many cautions put before the committee. The committee members at that time were nervous about the idea of embryonic stem cell research. The committee was explicit on how we should deal with the regulatory body that will allow or not allow certain practices to occur in the area of reproduction.

The bill we have before us seems to ignore much of the work that was done. It ignores much of the work of the witnesses who came forward and advised the committee. This is why, if we talk to many of the committee members privately, they are frustrated with a piece of legislation that has ignored the recommendations after nine months of hard, non-partisan work and nine months of truly looking at a piece of legislation that would be the best for Canadians. Canadians deserve no less. They deserve the best piece of legislation. They deserve their values to be protected. The bill falls short of that. We must be cautious when we move down this road.

I would like to spend some time on some of the things we support in the bill. It is important to state them and to understand them. It is important that if the bill falters at this stage that we go back and look at the things that we would all agree on, such as the things that are prohibited in the bill, for example, banning either reproductive or therapeutic cloning.

Cloning is an emotional issue that has been publicized in the last while. The threat or the possibility of cloning is a reality that we see coming closer and closer as the days pass. In fact, there are those who have suggested that they have cloned already.

We applaud the idea of the prohibition of reproductive or therapeutic cloning in this piece of legislation. That reflects Canadian values. If such a piece of legislation were to come forward in the House it would pass as quickly as a salary increase, in 72 hours. That is how quickly it would pass because there would be unanimous consent from every seat in the House.

The idea of animal and human hybrids; the idea of chimera, mixing animal and human; and the idea of sex selection is appalling. The idea of germ line alterations that last forever once they are created, and the idea of buying and selling embryos and paid surrogacies are all areas in this piece of legislation that we agree should be prohibited. These are things that are important and we cannot understate them. We cannot overlook that the prohibitions are in this piece of legislation and we should applaud and embrace them.

However, there is one other thing which is an important part of this legislation and that is the agency. The agency will either allow or disallow what will be carried forward in research in this whole area. It will either enforce or not enforce the things that are in this piece of legislation. It is important that we discern who the individuals are that will sit on this regulatory agency. It is important that they are men and women of character who understand the intensity of what is being asked of them in order to control this whole area as the legislation comes into being.

The other thing we need to understand is the whole idea of cloning. What is frustrating for me is that before the ink is even dry and before the bill even passes third reading, scientists are clamouring to say that therapeutic cloning should be allowed.

This goes back to my opening remarks when I said that we were on a slippery slope. We should be very cautious and careful about the legislation. Before the ink is even dry and before we even vote on the bill, the scientists are saying that somatic cell nuclear transfer or therapeutic cloning should be allowed.

Great Britain, which has been under a regulatory agency for the last decade, is now allowing therapeutic cloning. It has also allowed the creation of embryos solely for the purpose of research. If we as Canadians say that is okay, then we are on a slippery slope and we will not be able to stop.

It is actually more ethical to allow that than to place frozen embryos in storage and then thaw them because less than 5% of them go on to create what we would like to create as far as research goes. Whereas if we could get them without the freezing process, it would be more ethical to use them that way.

The next battle we would be fighting in the House is whether we should move to that stage. I suggest that we are fighting that now, even before the ink is dry on this bill. We should be very cautious as we move forward on this legislation because the slope is more slippery than most members understand.

Canadian Alliance members oppose the whole idea of cloning. It is an affront to human dignity, individuality and human rights. It is very important that we make sure it does not happen.

We felt that this legislation should have been split. A motion was brought forward by my party in committee in September 2001 asking for some legislation that would put Canada on the prohibited side of this. We asked that reproductive cloning be something that everyone would have to agree on. At that time, the Liberals deferred the vote. Since they did not want to do it, we had no legislation in that area. That is appalling. It should have been included. If the bill had been split, we would have had the needed protection in the prohibited areas. We would have had more time to deliberate and move cautiously on the areas of controlled activity. We should be very careful as we move forward on this legislation.

I would like to talk for a bit to the preamble of the bill. Clause 2 states:

the health and well-being of children born through the application of assisted human reproduction technologies must be given priority in all decisions respecting their use;

It goes on to state:

human individuality and diversity, and the integrity of the human genome, must be preserved and protected.

Those are noble and thoughtful insights that we put into the preamble of the legislation. However my concern is that as a committee we ranked how we should approach this legislation. We asked ourselves what should govern our decision-making and what should have priority.

As a committee we said that the legislation was about building families and creating life and that obviously the child born by assisted human reproduction should have number one priority. Our paramount concern was that the legislation respected and recognized their rights and protected the rights of the most vulnerable.

The second thing we considered to be an important driver in the legislation were the adults who would be participating in assisted human reproduction.

The third consideration were the researchers and physicians who would be conducting the research on assisted human reproduction.

If we had kept in mind the child first, the adult second and then the science as we went through the legislation, we would have had a different bill in place than what we have right now.

We also must recognize where we have faltered, where we have mixed these things up, where we have allowed science and parents' rights to override the rights of the child. We should reflect on those as we go through the legislation and stop it at third reading if it violates those three priorities.

The preamble of the bill recognizes the priority of the offspring but it fails the offspring in other areas. Children born through donor insemination or through donor eggs are not given the right to know their biological parents. I will return to that a little later in my presentation.

The bill's preamble does not provide an acknowledgement of human rights and respect of human life. That is another misgiving because we believe that is a value that Canadians hold near and dear. The bill is intimately connected with the creation of human life and yet there is no overarching recognition of the principle of the respect of human life. That is a great deficiency and a grave deficiency in the legislation.

With regard to research using the human embryo, Bill C-13 would permit the use of the human embryo from supposed leftovers from in vitro fertilization treatments. It would allow stem cell research and it would allow the creation of actual embryos for reproductive research. I think this is an important fault in the legislation that we should recognize right up front.

Sometimes we overlook the whole idea of creating an embryo for reproductive research. Canadian laws will now legitimize the view that human life can be created solely for the benefit of others. This obviously goes against the view that life should not be created in order to be destroyed, yet this is what the legislation would allow. It is an ethical issue and it is something that divides Canadians right down the middle. It is something we should be very cautious about allowing. Canadians are very concerned about this. I know many members in the House have received many e-mails on it. Many of their constituents are very concerned because it violates their whole value system of respect of human dignity and integrity of human life. It is great that we have legislation that can wax eloquently in its preamble about respect but then it does not follow through with that in the rest of the legislation.

Embryonic research also constitutes an objectification of human life and a life becomes a tool in which it can be manipulated or destroyed for others, even to ethical ends. This is one of the things we have to understand.

People always ask me that because I think life begins at conception therefore it is just an ethical argument, so they dismiss it. Well, let us take the ethics out of it and just ask, biologically, whether life begins at conception. I would argue, biologically, that when 23 female chromosomes from an egg and 23 chromosomes from a sperm connect and begin to grow we have the same DNA at that stage as we do when we are 80 years old or lying on our deathbed. If it does not start there, then where does it start?

Protection under law starts when we are born. A fair debate would be on the kind of protection we should allow at the embryonic stage. However whether that is life is not debatable. It is just biological. As biologists will tell us, that is where life begins.

Let us have a true debate, not on the ethics but on the reality. The reality is, that is life. Do we protect it at that stage or do we not? The legislation is very interesting because it does give some protection at that stage. It protects it after 14 days. Therefore we would have to conclude that life begins, according to the legislation, at 14 days after conception. If not, why would we protect it at that stage? Why not just keep allowing it to grow until nine months in the womb, where it is protected under law? Obviously that is a little further than most Canadians would allow it to go. Therefore, from that perspective, we have to understand where that ethical argument is, and let us be realistic about it.

The other thing that really upsets me is that we do have an alternative. We do not need to put Canadians through this dilemma. The alternative is what is happening with the non-embryonic stem cells or adult stem cells. It is a terrific study. Some of the things that have been proven possible out of the study on non-embryonic stem cells have been absolutely astounding. We can get these stem cells from the umbilical cord, from tissue, from skin and from bone marrow. Last summer a group of scientists out of Minnesota discovered that stem cells could be grown into any organ of the body

If we have an answer looking us right in the eye, it is very difficult for us as a nation to say that we should go to the embryonic stem cell. Why would we do that with our precious resources? Why would we do that when any organ that is grown out of an embryonic stem cell and then put into another individual would result in that individual being on anti-rejection drugs for the rest of the individual's life? We have to recognize that is not in the best interest of the patient either. Why would we do that when we have an alternative?

Most Canadians who have tried to take part in the debate on embryonic stem cells have failed to understand the difference between an umbilical cord stem cell, an embryonic stem cell or an adult stem cell. It is quite complex but we should make no mistake that the embryonic stem cell has the ethically charged problem.

Incidentally, the embryonic stem cell has its own problems. It is so elastic that it cannot be controlled to grow into the organ that scientists want it to grow into. They say that they need those embryos so they can trigger it appropriately. If that is true, I would say that they should carry on with their research but carry on with the research on animals, on embryos from the animals, carry on with research on the stem cell lines from the United States that have already been created and which we have imported into Canada. That would be fair. However let us move carefully and slowly, as Canadians, into the area where we would destroy human life for the sake of research.

Nonetheless, we are seeing some response and some results from the stem cells that are derived from the adults. Parkinson's patients are being cured. Leukemia is being cured. MS patients are improving. Conditions have greatly improved in the whole area of taking stem cells from the adult and using those. I think that is where Canadians' money should be placed. It is very limited. We need to use those dollars as wisely as possible if we are to create the kind of society that we want and the kind of research that is most productive for that society.

The minority report we had for the first draft of the legislation actually recommended that. The report said that we should pull back for a three year period to allow the scientists to continue their research on the adult or non-embryonic side and see where that goes. The report also said that we should continue with animal research on even the stem cell lines from the embryo but that at this stage we should not move to the place where the scientists could move the ethical guidelines, where we changed the line in the sand to as far as what we as a nation would find it appropriate to go.

It is interesting that the legislation uses the word “necessary”. It says that the only way we should be able to touch the embryo is if it is deemed necessary. In saying that, one would think that it at least gives the agency, which would be validated to control this activity, an indication that it should only go there if it is necessary. Yet, in the definitions we do not define “necessary”. When I asked what the word “necessary” meant to the scientists, they could not define what would not be necessary. In doing that, it indicates that everything would be necessary.

The health committee originally was very nervous about this so we put it in a different way. We said that if they were to go there then they could only go there if there were no other category of biological material that could be used for the purpose of that research. If they could prove that to the agency, only then should it be allowed. Even with that, there was a strong debate in the health committee and much nervousness in even allowing it to go to that point.

This entire area is difficult when we see how loosely this is worded and when we see that we have legislation that perhaps is taking us down the wrong road, the wrong road maybe with the right intent. Maybe we think that by doing it we can save some lives in the long run. I would suggest that has yet to be proven and until it has been proven we should not go there.

My biggest frustration is that for this piece of legislation the committee that was asked to report on it was not listened to. We reported on it and I believe we did so in a very non-partisan and very good way, putting some safeguards in place in the legislation. The health minister decided to ignore that. It gets even worse if we talk about some of the amendments made here last week with regard to allowing surrogacy. I will talk about that later.

When we talk about the regulatory agency and how important it is, in reality that is the most important piece of this legislation. If we get this wrong, we get it wrong for the 21st century. If we get it right, we then put in place something that will garner the confidence of a nation in this entire area. It is very important that we look at the agency, at how it is made up and how it is controlled.

When we look at the legislation, we see that it allows the Minister of Health sweeping control, complete and total control, of that agency. Because of this legislation, the minister can have sweeping control of this agency and I am not even speaking of the current minister but of any minister who comes along in the future. Because of this, it is very dangerous legislation. In fact, clause 25 would allow the minister to give any policy direction she would like to the agency, and the agency without question must follow it. That is what clause 25 states. I believe that clause 25 should be absolutely and completely removed from the legislation because it goes against anything that we would see as being wise.

The agency must be answerable to Parliament. It should not necessarily be answerable to a minister of health and her or his will. The agency has to recognize that it is important to have the wisest individuals in that agency. In fact, the health committee said that we should have men and women of wisdom, men and women of judgment. We do not care whether they are all women or all men; I do not. What is important is that they are men or women of wisdom and judgment who are not impacted by monetary gain, who do not have a conflict of interest, and who are not driven by a certain constituency and controlled by the scientists or the special interest groups. They have to be outside that. They have to be above that.

In this legislation we had the opportunity to make that possible and I think we have failed on that count. That is what I would see as the largest failure of the legislation. How terrible it is when we had such a golden opportunity to get it right and we got it so wrong. When this agency is struck, I hope that the Minister of Health and the Prime Minister at the time will reflect on the wisdom of the committee originally and will reflect on who the personalities are that they place on this agency. It is absolutely critical that we get this right, in spite of the legislation, if it goes through the way it is now.

Donor anonymity is another area in the legislation and we have totally blown it. Although the agency would hold the information for donor identity, a child conceived through donor insemination or donor eggs would have no right to know the identity of the parent unless written consent were given.

Let us go back to the priorities I mentioned earlier. The priority should be the child, and then the parent, and then the scientists. This gets it wrong. This allows the parents to override the will of the children in knowing their identity. That is getting it wrong. Do we realize how many offspring this would impact? It is very significant. In Canada right now we have somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 children born each year through donor insemination. That is a small community or a small village in many of our constituencies. That is how many are born not knowing where they came from. They have no opportunity to know unless they have consent.

When we look at the history of individuals who donate semen, we see that a good amount of the donations, almost 50% or more, are coming from the United States. Sometimes we have no idea of where they come from. We have no way of knowing. Sometimes they come from prisons, for goodness' sake. We need to look carefully at this whole area. The legislation fails in this. It fails to force individuals to allow their history to be given to the child who is born through donor insemination.

This was a very difficult issue at committee. In fact, it came to a vote and, if I remember it right, the vote was six to five. All the committee members were not there that day. It was a six to five vote. That is how close it was. We voted the wrong way. That was a terrible error. It was a terrible mistake that was not corrected at report stage and it should have been. It needs to be. What a golden opportunity it would have been to do what is right for so many if such a little change could have taken place.

One of the other things that upsets me is the grandfathering of the governor in council's exemption in clause 71. It allows the grandfathering of controlled activities until the day it is fixed by the regulations. Unfortunately, when we allow that sort of thing to go into the regulations, we really have created a clause that we could call a get out of jail free clause. It allows the scientists to actually go in a kind of free will and totally uncontrolled way into the whole area of using these leftover embryos before the legislation is actually enacted, because there is no grandfathering clause in it. Because of that, we will see a great rush to take the embryos that are there now and do research on them before the legislation and the controlling agency are in place. The agency would handle the controls. Because of that, this is a grave error in the legislation and the scientists are just sitting back waiting to make this happen.

In fact I was talking to one of the scientists the other day who said, “This is already in place. We are already starting on April 1”. That is today. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research said it will not allow research in this area until today. Does this mean that tomorrow it starts? Yes, this means that tomorrow it starts. That is a terrible mistake. This legislation has sent the wrong message to our scientists. To allow this before the legislation and the regulations are even in place is very unfortunate.

The whole idea of chimera is something that is repugnant to most individuals. That is about combining humans and animals. In regard to chimera, the legislation talks about the human embryo being implanted with an animal cell, but it does not talk about the reverse. We tried to bring forward an amendment at report stage to change this, to tighten it, because it does not talk about an animal embryo being implanted with human cells. Because of that, it is just as repugnant, and actually more so, and yet the legislation is silent in that area.

Some things should be in this legislation and are not. Why not? If we are to bring forward legislation, let us deal with it completely. We know that we have had enough time, but what we have not had is the appropriate will on the part of the minister and her department to deal with it. That is regrettable.

Now I would like to talk about the whole idea of surrogacy. Allowing the individual who is to be a surrogate to be compensated for loss of work is detestable. It will allow the commodification of the womb. It is something that we have been very nervous about from the very beginning. It is one thing that on every side, whether it was the Liberal individuals at committee, the NDP or ourselves, the Canadian Alliance, we all found repugnant, yet we saw the motion to allow it pass in the House last week. It is a terrible mistake. It will vault us into the commodification of human life beyond anything we have ever seen.

We will find it becoming trendy for an individual who is a movie star to get a surrogate and some sperm from a superstar or a super-athlete and create a fashionable individual. Money would not be an object. It lends new meaning to the whole idea of prostitution. It goes beyond that.

This is a deplorable thing that we are now allowing in Canada. It should be looked at again. It is absolutely incredible that the amendment was allowed to pass last week in the House. I do not believe that most of the members in the House understood what they were voting on. That is very shameful. We need to go back and re-examine it so that they understand what is actually in the legislation. I know that the members in this place are honourable and I know that this does not reflect Canadian values in any way. So why would we allow it? I really have to ask myself that. I know individuals from all sides of the House and I know that they did not understand this completely or they would not have voted that way on the amendment.

We are calling for a free vote in the House on this legislation. That is very important. It is important that on all sides we are able to vote the will of our conscience and the will of our constituents. That is the way it should be on every piece of legislation, but on this one in particular. We are calling for this because it is very important. We should look at how important this legislation is to the future of Canada and to where we should go as individuals. I cannot imagine being forced to vote for something that would have such ethical repercussions without clearly being able to vote our conscience. I cannot imagine being whipped into voting in this area on something with which we and our constituents disagree.

I would certainly challenge members to go back to their constituents to try to discern exactly where Canadians are, but to do it in a way that informs them, to do it in such a way that they will understand the differences in umbilical cord stem cells, embryonic stem cells and non-embryonic stem cells taken from bone marrow, skin, blood or other areas. It is complex, I know, but I would challenge every member of the House to do his or her homework and to truly discern what is appropriate for Canada as we look at this.

The bill is critically flawed. It sets us on a path we should not be on. I will be recommending that the Canadian Alliance vote against the legislation. It should not go forward the way it is. It is flawed to the point that it should not be accepted. It would be a terrible thing for Canadians to be pushed without their knowledge into something in this area that is so ethically charged. I do not believe that the debate has reached most Canadians so that they understand it well enough. That is a shame.

I have had people from the diabetes association, the Parkinson's association and others in my office. These are well meaning people who would do anything to save their loved ones or to save themselves. Unfortunately, embryonic stem cells have not been proven to be their answer. Adult stem cells have and that is where we should go. That is where we should be putting our energies and our efforts.

The way ahead is clear if we stick to our principles. This legislation should put the child first, followed by the parent and then the science. If we were to keep that straight, we would change much that is in here. Also, if we were to understand that this changes the ethics of a nation and that we should be careful where we go in that area, we would also be very cautious about moving in this direction. That is where we should go.

Because I am so concerned, I have absorbed myself in this piece of legislation for the last two years. We have had some of the brightest minds give us their wisdom and their input. With all my energy I have tried to impress upon the House that we should be cautious in going down this road and that we should change the bill to make it the best in Canada. We really should consider doing exactly that, because it has not been done to this stage.

Now that we are at third reading, it is important that I at least encourage the House to do one more thing, which is to amend the bill. I would like to put forward a motion. I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following thereafter:

Bill C-13, an act respecting assisted human reproduction, be not now read a third time, but be referred back to the Standing Committee on Health for the purpose of reconsidering clause 18 with the view to allow children born through donor eggs or sperm to know the identity of their biological parents.

I respectfully submit this amendment, Mr. Speaker.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 1st, 2003 / 4:25 p.m.
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Madawaska—Restigouche New Brunswick

Liberal

Jeannot Castonguay LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health

Mr. Speaker, it is obviously a pleasure for me to speak today on Bill C-13, An Act respecting assisted human reproduction. This bill has been long awaited in Canada. All the members and all Canadians know that this bill has been long awaited. It is truly a delight for me to speak on this subject.

In its current form, Bill C-13 reflects the contribution of numerous groups and individuals, including the members of the Standing Committee on Health, whom I want to thank for the enormous amount of work they did on this bill. It was not always easy. There were many important aspects. I believe that everyone devoted time and effort and, today, the bill is better for it. I would also like to mention the contribution of many of the members of this House.

There is no doubt that this bill today is different from the legislative proposals presented to the Standing Committee on Health almost two years ago.

Significant changes have been made since the bill was introduced last spring. The greatest change is the power to establish the assisted human reproduction agency of Canada.

However, there are also differences in many of the details of the bill, such as the Parliamentary review of regulations, the anti-discrimination clause and the firm rejection of any reimbursement of expenditures. As we all know, the bill will fill a legislative void.

We know that the current situation has serious consequences not only for infertile couples and Canadians born through assisted human reproductive technologies, but also for society as a whole. Having recognized these consequences, Canadians have clearly stated that they want the federal government to show leadership in this area.

It is up to us to protect the health and security of Canadians who are turning to assisted human reproduction technologies to help them build families. It is also up to us to follow up on concerns that science and technology should not be able to continue to evolve without regulation.

The bill also recognizes that approximately one in four Canadian couples has to deal with infertility, and this figure is increasing. These couples must overcome a fundamental obstacle to one of the most human wishes, that of having a family. Assisted human reproduction technologies offer the chance to overcome this obstacle.

The bill will be a significant development for people who use these technologies in the hope of conceiving a child. It will ensure that they can do so knowing that their health, safety and privacy are protected. It will ensure they are not discriminated against.

Having a child is a major decision for anybody. But those who use assisted reproductive technologies are faced with added difficulties requiring they ask themselves some pointed questions. Is the technology safe? What are the chances of success?

This is why informed consent is a key element of the bill. To make an informed decision on assisted reproductive technologies, whether we are directly involved or not, we need tools.

Bill C-13 puts great emphasis on the availability of reliable information on assisted reproductive technologies. It recognizes how important it is to keep Canadians informed of the possible causes of infertility, prevention measures and treatment.

Couples who opt for in vitro fertilization or other forms of assisted reproductive technologies must have reliable information on the technology and treatment they choose. Bill C-13 will make sure clinics provide this kind of information.

Moreover, the agency established under Bill C-13 will have the power to monitor and evaluate new developments in Canada and abroad. It will become a known and informed source of reliable information for those considering using assisted reproductive technologies in Canada.

Couples should have access to professional help to evaluate the psychological, emotional and social stress they and their children might face.

So Bill C-13 attaches a great deal of importance to counselling, so much so that it has generated a considerable amount of interest for many members.

Although it is true that protecting the health and safety of Canadians who are seeking to start a family is at the very core of Bill C-13, there are still other important aspects to it.

Recent events have drawn the world's attention to the more sombre aspects of assisted reproduction. For many people, the necessity for such a bill has been crystallized by the claims, false though they may be, that a cloned baby was born prior to last Christmas. The spectre of that possibility was of huge concern to us all.

As a society, we have a duty to set out in legislation what we will accept and what we will not. That is precisely what Bill C-13 does. Without it, cloning will continue to be legal in this country.

The use of cloning techniques to produce a child is deplorable to Canadians. Health and safety issues aside, cloning for reproductive purposes is ethically and morally repugnant.

The deliberate creation of genetically identical humans is contrary to human dignity and to diversity. It blurs the distinctions between reproduction and production.

It virtually ignores the well-being of the cloned child. Any child born as the result of cloning techniques would have to cope with unprecedented psychological, social and emotional challenges relating to identity issues.

Cloning is not, however, the only unacceptable aspect of assisted reproductive technologies. Bill C-13 makes a number of other practices illegal as well, practices which Canadians simply will not accept, including gender selection for other than health reasons, the commercialization of reproduction, and the creation of animal-human chimera.

Clearly, the problems addressed by Bill C-13 are profound ones. We therefore consider Bill C-13 to represent a balanced approach.

The path to that balanced approach was not an easy one, but I feel that, overall, the bill establishes a very solid framework, a framework that will enable us to address the rapidly evolving technologies and the changes in public opinion.

I will cite the example of the approach the bill takes to donor identification. I recognize the valid concerns of those who would like to see donor identity disclosure made mandatory.

I firmly believe that Bill C-13 marks a major step forward. Let me be perfectly clear: under this bill, the identity of donors may be disclosed provided consent was given.

At present, the many Canadian descendants of donors are denied access to the most basic genetic and medical information about their genetic parents. Bill C-13 will ensure that future Canadians conceived with donated gametes have full access to the detailed medical and genetic background of the donor.

However, information from which the identity of the donor could be inferred will remain with the agency. This would mean that, in a medical emergency such as a bone marrow transplant, a medical practitioner will be able to contact the donor in confidence.

In addition, we cannot ignore the fact that, to date, most provinces and territories have not clarified the status of donors in family law. This means, for instance, that identified donors could possibly be asked to support a child or could have claims against their estate made by genetic descendants of theirs.

The international experience seems to indicate that for a system based on the mandatory identification of donors to work, legal protections must be provided.

This bill could well be a catalyst for such a legal clarification in Canada. Parliamentarians may therefore want to review this issue, as part of the mandatory review of Bill C-13.

Another area where we have achieved an appropriate balance is that of research on surplus embryos. Given current scientific and technological capabilities, surplus embryos are a virtually unavoidable result of in vitro fertilization.

Therefore, as legislators, we have a duty to establish parameters regarding the fate of these embryos. Bill C-13 will ensure that, if a couple decides to donate an embryo for research purposes rather than simply have it destroyed, as is often the case now, the procedures relating to this embryo will be conducted in compliance with the rules of ethics and with the values of our society. Again, a balance has been achieved.

I want to reiterate to the House that, without Bill C-13, there is no legislation governing the fate of surplus embryos. There are no rules that are authorized by the legislation and that govern research on embryos.

It is important to point out that Bill C-13 will make it easier for parliamentarians, provincial and territorial partners, stakeholders and Canadians to make a commitment. The act establishes a process that will allow Canadians to address, on an ongoing basis, complex issues that surface quickly.

Parliament can legally conduct a comprehensive review of this legislation and, in the meantime, it will review all the regulations and it will receive reports on the full performance of the agency.

The structure of the assisted human reproduction agency of Canada owes much to the members of this House. As recommended by the Standing Committee on Health, the agency will be at arm's length from Heath Canada and will be governed by a board of directors reporting directly to the health minister.

The agency will aim for the greatest transparency possible, while ensuring that privacy rights are upheld.

The board members will come from a wide variety of backgrounds. They will each bring their unique expertise to the board. There is however one issue on which we will be adamant. No member will represent a specific organization or sector. Instead, the board members will work together in the best interests of all Canadians.

Lastly, let me quote the wise words of Louis Pasteur, the man who unlocked the mysteries of rabies and anthrax and was responsible for laying the groundwork on which much of modern science is based.

Pasteur said, and I quote, “Chance favors the prepared mind”. Bill C-13 sets up the framework that will prepare us, as a society—and as legislators—to assess and follow up on a variety of scientific discoveries and ethical challenges, now and in the years to come.

The bill now before the House might not solve all of the ethical dilemmas related to new technology. Some of these ethical issues go way beyond the scope of the bill. But the bill does provide for a balanced approach, a reasonable and reasoned approach. It is a global approach which is based on the experience and the best practices of countries the world over, but still remains our very own.

It is a truly Canadian approach that will help us meet the challenges of the new century.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

April 1st, 2003 / 4:25 p.m.
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Toronto Centre—Rosedale Ontario

Liberal

Bill Graham Liberalfor the Minister of Health

moved that Bill C-13, An Act respecting assisted human reproduction, be read the third time and passed.

Sex Offender Information Registration ActGovernment Orders

March 31st, 2003 / 6:25 p.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Before the time for government orders expires, I would like to ask the Chair if he could assure the House that the reprint of Bill C-13, if it is already printed, reflecting the changes made in the bill for report stage motions which were passed, be made available in the Chamber tomorrow so members can have it for the commencement of debate on Bill C-13.

Sex Offender Information Registration ActGovernment Orders

March 31st, 2003 / 5:30 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Jim Gouk Canadian Alliance Kootenay—Boundary—Okanagan, BC

Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of points that perhaps my colleague could comment on.

The hon. member across the way in his questions and comments said we must give a chance for amendments because that this is how the system works and it is good. He had over 50 amendments to Bill C-13 and I do not think any of them were passed, so I do not know how he can stand and say that we should go the amendment route.

The other point is the question of retroactivity. We are saying it is okay to do this in the future. We are not worried about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of someone in the future. The only thing we are saying is that if the people who had raped and molested young children or attacked women in the past had only known that their names were going to be written in a book, perhaps they would never have done it.

It is not fair to now come along and say that after everything else that was done to them, their name is now going to be written in a book. They would say that is not fair because if they had known that, they would never have done these things. Does the member think that is even remotely possible? Even if it is, does that not suggest that it is a deterrent, not that I believe that it is the case, but it should not stop it from being put in?

What the government is using as an excuse is an absolute absurdity. It is time we started coming up with solid laws to protect law-abiding citizens in the country instead of being bleeding hearts about the rights of criminals.

Sex Offender Information Registration ActGovernment Orders

March 31st, 2003 / 4:30 p.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, regarding the member's last reference to Bill C-13, I think we all recognize now that we must make 43 amendments to get 3. Maybe we have some opportunity.

Should the bill, as presented, be defeated, I would ask the member to advise the House on what specifically he would like to see in a new bill that would be different and that would make it acceptable to him.

Sex Offender Information Registration ActGovernment Orders

March 31st, 2003 / 4:25 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Ken Epp Canadian Alliance Elk Island, AB

Mr. Speaker, of course, if there are amendments, and there will be amendments from our party, if those amendments are taken seriously and are accepted as being reasonable amendments to improve the legislation, if sufficient work is done on it to improve the bill to make it palatable, I do not have a closed mind on this. I like to look at bills and motions and evaluate them for what they are.

Where the bill is right now, I cannot support it, anymore than when I was in trucking and my boss would pay me to go from here to a place 400 miles away and return with the same empty truck. We were paid to pick up a load, not just to drive there and back. This is what the bill does. It has the label and the pages but the words on the pages do not do what they should be doing. Consequently, yes, I am forced on principle to vote against the bill because it does not do anything. It only has the labels.

I would like to encourage the member and other members in the Liberal Party, when they work on the bill in committee, to put partisanship aside and if amendments come across from our party or other opposition parties, as well as their own backbenchers, that they will listen to them. The member in particular knows how open the government is to seriously considering amendments that are made in committee. He has learned that very well in Bill C-13 in the last little while.

I am not very hopeful. It just does not happen around here. It should but it does not. However that is my answer to the question.

Criminal CodeRoutine Proceedings

March 31st, 2003 / 3 p.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, last week the House dealt with Bill C-13 at report stage. This morning I have asked for a copy of the bill, as amended, and understand that Bill C-13 is not to be reprinted. Notwithstanding that there were seven or eight motions to amend, I would ask for the unanimous consent of the House that Bill C-13 be reprinted so that members could understand what they are speaking to at third reading stage, which is scheduled to start this week.

Business of the HouseOral Question Period

March 27th, 2003 / 3:15 p.m.
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Liberal

Don Boudria Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Mr. Speaker, as you know there is no time allocation motion on the agenda. There is however a notice, should that notice need to be exercised.

It is the intention of the government to continue this afternoon and tomorrow with Bill C-28, the budget implementation legislation. I wish to confirm to the House that it is my intention to continue to do so notwithstanding the opposition's dilatory motion to stop the bill from proceeding which was introduced in the House earlier this day.

If and when the bill is completed, we will then turn to Bill C-20, the child protection bill, either tomorrow if the budget bill is completed, or if not, on Monday. This will be followed by Bill C-23, the sex offender bill.

I then propose to bring back to the House for third reading Bill C-13 on reproductive technologies, which was concurred in by the House yesterday. That would probably bring us at least some way into next week and there will be further consultations at that point.

There have been discussions among parties and it has been agreed that the House shall not sit next Friday, April 4. Given that is the case, I now seek the consent of the House pursuant to that consultation to move the following motion. I move:

That when the House adjourns on April 3, 2003, it shall stand adjourned until Monday, April 7, 2003.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

March 26th, 2003 / 4:55 p.m.
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The Speaker

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Battlefords—Lloydminster, National Defence; the hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas, Foreign Affairs.

The question is on Motion No. 4 at the report stage of Bill C-13.

(The House divided on Motion No. 4, which was negatived on the following division:)

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

March 26th, 2003 / 3:55 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Jason Kenney Canadian Alliance Calgary Southeast, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the Group No. 3 amendments to Bill C-13. I have spoken to all of the other groups, I believe, and I am taking an active interest in this bill. At this time I would like especially to commend my colleague from Yellowhead for his tremendous efforts on this very opaque bill that involves of course great questions of moral import as well as areas of science which normally are not the purview of members of Parliament. I would also like to commend my hon. friend opposite from Mississauga South for his efforts and the many constructive amendments which he has brought forward.

Let me turn, then, to the motions before us and say that first there are Motions Nos. 28, 29 and 30, all of which jointly and separately seek to eliminate the prohibition in the bill against paid surrogacy. It is my view, and in fact it was the unanimous view of all five parties at the Standing Committee on Health's review of the original draft of Bill C-13, that legislation ought indeed to prohibit paid surrogacy. There is a very broad consensus on that point in this place and indeed among expert witnesses who have appeared before parliamentary committees on this question.

Why is that the broad consensus? Because there is something fundamentally offensive with the notion that the act of human reproduction can and should be commodified, that it can and should become a market service, that to compel somebody, through financial incentive, to bear someone else's child in a sense cheapens the invaluable act of motherhood upon which a price cannot be placed. Of course paid surrogacy would likely lead to many abuses, where low income women would be, in a sense, financially exploited for the rental of their wombs. It seems to me that this would open the doors. Were we to permit it and pass these amendments in Motions Nos. 28, 29 and 30, it would be denigrating the inherent dignity of women and the reproductive process. For those reasons, I will oppose these three motions.

I also would like to specifically note that Motion No. 29 seeks payment for legal services in arranging surrogacy, et cetera. It seems to me that we ought not to be concerned about lawyers' fees in commodification of the process of human reproduction; rather, we should be concerned about human dignity, both of women and of nascent human life itself.

I also will support Motions Nos. 32, 33 and 36 in the name of the member for Mississauga South, which seek to prohibit the purchase of fetuses or fetal tissue or fetal parts and which add a prohibition on the sale of fetuses or fetal tissue. Similarly, Motion No. 39 would prohibit the transfer of ownership of embryos or reproductive materials, thereby supporting the goal of preventing commodification around assisted human reproduction.

The notion that we can and should be able to buy and sell human beings, living or deceased, or the parts of their bodies, reflects a fundamental philosophical error in terms of our understanding of what man is. Human beings are different in kind from all other living species. Human beings are different because they possess an inviolable dignity which is not granted by the state or a court and which cannot be traded on any market.

It is an inviolable dignity understood in theological terms expressed by all of the great religions as human beings created in the image and likeness of God, and understood in secular philosophical terms as the only rational being which possesses a special and inherent dignity which cannot be violated.

Regardless from which theological or philosophical perspective one comes, except for a brutally cold Huxleyan and utilitarian perspective, it is in my view impermissible to see the human body as a commodity to be chopped up and sold on the market to the highest bidder, which the bill currently permits with respect to embryos, fetal parts, et cetera.

I will support Motion No. 44 as a provision that adoption of embryos should be restricted, except as provided in the regulations, that is to say that we should carefully govern the transfer of the ownership of embryos as currently worded in the bill. The biological parents would theoretically be permitted to transfer ownership of their child, which is the embryo. It is the successful result of the reproduction of their genetic material and it is a nascent human being.

I believe that this nascent human being, by virtue of being a human being, is created within a family, meaning by and within the relationship of a mother and a father. It is therefore wrong and impermissible to trade or exchange its ownership to a biological laboratory which wishes to experiment on and/or destroy that nascent human life. This would create greater regulatory oversight of embryonic adoption.

I am strongly in support of the principle of embryonic adoption where the idea is to give that embryo the opportunity to realize its potential as a full human being through implantation into the womb of a mother who is infertile and who seeks a fertilized embryo. There have been hundreds of cases of successful embryonic adoption and implantation in the United States, not paid surrogacy but embryonic adoption, which vitiates the argument put forth by the Minister of Health that so-called surplus embryos created ostensibly for reproductive purposes will be thrown in the trash if they are not used by researchers. The cases in the United States make it plainly clear that there is an alternative to destroying these embryos and that alternative is embryonic adoption, properly governed and regulated.

I will also oppose Motions Nos. 46, 49, 51, and 95, which again seek to liberalize the bill with respect to surrogacy and again to commodify the reproductive process.

In closing, I am hopeful that all members have taken very seriously the time of debate that we have had on these amendments and will vote with their conscience tonight. I hope that all members will vote in a free vote. In particular, I call for members to look closely at my motion, Motion No. 17 in Group No. 2, which seeks to ban the odious practice of embryonic stem cell research and to assert thereby the inalienable dignity of innocent human life.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

March 26th, 2003 / 3:45 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Leon Benoit Canadian Alliance Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, just to make it clear what we are debating today, it is the Group No. 3 amendments on Bill C-13, which deals with human reproductive technology and other issues, extremely important and sensitive issues.

I want to start by referring to a particular motion in Group No. 3, Motion No. 45. There are some others related to it. Motion No. 45 specifies that no research on embryos or reproductive research should be done except as provided specifically in the regulations. I think that this is extremely important and I want to talk a little about why I see this as an extremely important and sensitive issue and why it is such an important amendment, which simply must be made, I believe, before we can pass the bill in good conscience.

I certainly have concerns, as do many colleagues in the Canadian Alliance and certainly some members in other parties. When we are looking at this whole issue of embryonic research, we are getting into an ethical area that is extremely difficult to deal with. It is a sensitive and very emotional issue and members can understand why. It does divide Canadians. We have seen that through several different petitions that have been tabled in the House. These petitions have pointed out the divisions in Canadian society which have to do with this issue.

When we look at the issue of reproductive technology, it is such an exciting issue to even talk about because the potential of the research in this area, the potential cures, the potential for dealing with very difficult diseases that our friends, our families, and people we know in our communities are suffering from, is almost unimaginable. It is truly an exciting area to be talking about. To me, it seems that it simply is not right to put this very difficult ethical issue into the mix when it is unnecessary, and I want to explain that.

Embryonic stem cell research inevitably results in the death of an embryo, which is early human life. For many Canadians this violates a very important ethical commitment to the respect of human dignity, human integrity and human life. I believe, as do many Canadians, that it is an incontestable scientific fact that an embryo is early human life. The complete DNA of an adult human being is present at the early embryo stage. Whether that life is owed protection or not is an issue that is in some debate and brings up this controversial ethical issue, which again I argue is completely unnecessary to bring into the mix. Again I want to explain why I say that.

I say that because adult stem cell research has proven to be so successful. In spite of the fact that research has been done on human embryos for a much longer period of time, and I know that some very large companies have invested millions and millions, probably billions, of dollars on embryonic research, it has not borne results. There has not been one cure. Not even one individual has been dealt with in an effective way to lessen the symptoms of a disease, to make it easier for a person to live with a terrible disease. There is not one example of that.

Yet with adult stem cell research, which has been dealt with for a much shorter period of time, and it is new research by all measures, there have been terrifically exciting results from it. Knowing this, why do we want to get into the difficult ethical issue? What the motion calls for is a three year moratorium on research on embryonic stem cells. It seems like a very reasonable approach. It stays away from the ethical issue and it encourages research on an area that has proven to be so successful, that is, adult stem cell research.

There are so many advantages to adult stem cell research and I just want to talk a little about them. Adult stem cells have proven to be safe. They are a proven alternative to embryonic stem cells. The sources of adult stem cells are, and this is important to note, umbilical cord blood, skin tissue and bone tissue. It is quite broad. It can certainly be obtained from any human quite easily.Adult stem cells are easily accessible and are not subject to immune rejection.

This is one of the real drawbacks of the research that has been done so far on embryonic stem cells. First, in all cases they are obtained from another human being and there is a rejection problem. Any individuals receiving embryonic stem cells into their bodies will have to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their lives. They are very expensive drugs that have quite a remarkable impact on the body. They are not something to be taken lightly. That problem of immune rejection is a very serious problem, a problem we do not find with adult stem cell research simply because adult stem cells come from the same human being who is being treated.

There is a very important distinction between the two that has proven to be a remarkable advantage and that I think will lead to a future in adult stem cell research which simply will not be there in embryonic stem cell research. Of course we have found from the embryonic stem cell research done to date that the cells are so unstable that very strange things happen, including completely unanticipated tumours in experiments done with animals where embryonic stem cells were used. That type of thing is caused by the instability of the cells themselves. Adult stem cells simply do not have that problem.

I think it is important to note again that embryonic research has not led to a single cure to date, whereas already adult stem cells have been extremely successful, in spite of the shorter research period. I think that should lead us to do what the committee called for originally, which was to put in place a three year moratorium on embryonic stem cell research. By that time, I would suggest, it will be clear that there will be no need and in fact no reason to use embryonic stem cells for research.

For those reasons, I want to again encourage all members of the House to support Motion No. 45 from Group No. 3, which deals with this very important issue.

There is one other issue I want to deal with. There are several motions in Group No. 3 that deal with the issue: Motion No. 28, put forth by the member for St. Paul's; Motions Nos. 29 and 30; and there are some others as well that were put forth by members of the Liberal Party.

Motion No. 28 is a motion which would delete prohibitions on surrogacy in order that they can be dealt with in regulations. I am a person who believes that if there is an issue of this magnitude to be dealt with, this issue of surrogacy, that issue should be dealt with in the legislation itself, not in regulation where it can be manipulated quite freely by the civil servants dealing with the issue. I simply do not think that is acceptable. I think Canadians expect parliamentarians, on important issues like this, to in fact have them dealt with in legislation, not in regulation.

I will oppose Motions Nos. 28, 29 and 30.

I know that my time is up, but I really want to encourage members of the House to support Motion No. 45 and to oppose Motions Nos. 28, 29 and 30. These changes, along with some others, are extremely important and if they are dealt with we can have an extremely exciting piece of legislation that will lead to unbelievable things in the future. Those of us who see our family members, our friends and people in our community with diseases like Parkinson's disease can at least look with hope to some remarkable cures in the near future.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

March 26th, 2003 / 3:35 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Maurice Vellacott Canadian Alliance Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the hon. member from the NDP who just spoke. I certainly agree with her in terms of the slope we go down when we want to do away with because there is some risk of somebody being disabled. In addition, not only diminishing the value and the life of a disabled person, often they are wrong. We have often found them to be perfectly healthy babies with no defect or disability at all. That is why we cannot go down that road.

I am thankful to have the opportunity to express why changes to Bill C-13 are required to restore dignity to human beings, as well as to remove the possibility of future problems in interpretation due to some ambiguous terminology and a restricted view on the progress of science as reflected in this bill. Particularly, I wish to draw the attention of the House to support Motions Nos. 32, 33, 36, 39, 44 and 45 in Group No. 3 which are crucial to the positive outcome of the bill.

I remind the House that one of the overall goals of the bill is to ensure that the health and well-being of children born through assisted human reproduction are given priority. We must remember that these children, who are born through assisted human reproduction, do not gain their status as human beings through the process of birth. Rather, in fact, their humanity existed from conception on, when their genetic makeup was intricately formed in the womb of their mother.

I draw members' attention to this because, when dealing with the ethical questions that are presented before us today, we must not limit our good intentions to the well-being of a human after birth, but also before birth, when they are subject to these very medical procedures that we are discussing today. This means that Bill C-13 should treat all stages in life with the same respect and care that we show one another.

I would especially urge the House to consider Motion No. 45, as sponsored by the member for Mississauga South. The motion specifies that there must be no research on embryos for reproductive research, except as provided in the regulations. Under the current wording of the bill, research and experiments can be taken on a human embryo provided that it is “necessary”. That is a slippery word and a flawed word.

We are well aware that what one person deems or judges to be necessary might be completely different from another person's definition, from my definition. With such an important decision, with a human being's life at stake, how can we allow such ill-defined terms to remain in the bill? It is an embarrassment to the House.

Once again the bill leaves open the possibility to be interpreted according to the desires of the individual or the institution that wishes to benefit from the experimentation on human embryos.

By not at all permitting the experimentation or harvesting of embryos, we would be recognizing that human life always deserves dignity, even at its earliest stages, from conception on. We have no right to conduct any experiments that do not benefit the subject and especially without even having their consent. We recognize that crucial principle when we look with horror at the experimentation done in the concentration camps in Europe during World War II. We said no experimentation without the consent of the subject. Why do we now permit this experimentation based on our justification of what we consider as progress? If it was wrong then back during the days of Nazi Germany, then it is wrong now.

By closing the door to embryonic experimentation, we are by no means closing the door entirely to the promising future of adult stem cell research. There are fascinating studies that are clearly showing the effectiveness of adult stem cells as treatments for many diseases that make life so difficult.

For example, a study reported by New Scientist Journal in January 2003, as well as a study by Catherine Verfaillie of the University of Minnesota, revealed that special cells could be isolated from the bone marrow of mice and could then be turned into virtually any type of tissue. New Scientist Journal also reported that autopsies on four women revealed that stem cells in bone marrow could develop into brain cells. Originally it was believed that they could only form blood or bone cells. The point is simply that with the promising discoveries related to adult stem cell research why are we even discussing experimentation on human embryos?

Bill C-13 is also flawed in that it allows the use of non-human life forms in the human reproductive process. Cows and others are involved here. That would really be a degradation of the intrinsic value of humanity. Furthermore Canadian society recognizes, and rightly so, that there is a clear difference in the value of the genetic makeup of humans and that of non-humans. Clear guidelines must be in place for all stages of humanity and all forms of genetics so that there is no confusion between human and non-human life forms. The dignity of humanity also applies to the very core of our genetic makeup.

Bill C-13 permits the combination of the human genome with that of a non-human species when permitted by a licence. That is a very dangerous process and the unknown implications can be detrimental to humanity. Transgenic or recombinant gene research poses a grave threat to the integrity of the human gene pool. This bill is intended, as we said before, to benefit humanity and, as such, must ensure that any desire to combine the human genome with a non-human genome must not be permitted since it would desecrate the value and sanctity of human life.

The possibility of combining the human genome with that of an animal or other life forms contradicts one of the main purposes of this very bill, which is to preserve and protect human individuality and diversity and the integrity of the human genome. How can humanity and the human genome be protected if it is combined with other types of genomes?

It is of utmost importance that this bill does not in any way permit other possible forms of cloning either. Dr. Dianne Irving, professor of philosophy and medical ethics and also the former bench research biochemist for the National Institute of Health, was asked by the clerk of the House of Commons health committee to present an analysis of this legislation. She makes it very clear that due to the absence of necessary and relevant accurate scientific definitions, as well as the linguistic loopholes that exist in the bill, it can allow many forms of cloning techniques on humans.

If this bill fails to address the multitude of techniques for producing a human clone or if it improperly defines a technique and then restricts itself to that one improper definition, it is possible that future cloning techniques will not be addressed by this legislation. That will open the door to cloning in Canada, even if that was not the intention of Bill C-13.

Dr. Irving also makes it very clear that only internationally approved scientific terms and definitions, as approved by the International Nomina Embryological Committee, should be used to produce a bill that is not open to a vast array of misinterpretations or misuse. By supporting certain amendments that are before the House today in Group No. 3, we will help ensure the well-being of Canadian society by trying to prevent deviations from the intention of this bill.

The progress of science in this realm does not automatically entitle us to make use of whatever we are capable of doing . The scientific community works hard to make these discoveries, but it is our responsibilities as elected members of the House to ensure that guidelines are put in place so that these amazing discoveries work to benefit humanity rather than pose a risk of harming it. For these reasons, it is essential that we support Motion No. 45 to ensure only ethical research on humans.

I would like to now address Motions Nos. 32, 33, 36 and 39 in Group No. 3. These motions ensure that the purchases of fetuses, fetal tissue and embryos or parts of embryos are prohibited. Human life is not a commodity that we can buy and sell. It would be outrageous if we even considered the sale of babies. Why then does this bill allow for the sale of human beings at a yet younger stage? The legislation of the government must in no way contribute to an industry of selling humans or human parts. In good conscience, how can we allow the commodification of human life? I urge the House to support Motions Nos. 32, 33, 36 and 39 to show that we believe in the value of persons of all ages in our society, those who are pre-born as well.

In good conscience we must oppose a number of the motions that are presented in Group No. 3 as well. I would like to draw attention specifically to Motions Nos. 28, 29, 30, 46, 49, 51 and 95. These motions would allow payment for surrogacy. We must not allow commercial surrogacy in Canada. As a government, we should be seeking to promote the health of Canadians. We must not allow an industry of selling reproductive materials and promoting an industry of commercially using humans to advance reproduction.

In conclusion, I urge the House to consider the implications of this bill as it stands. Without adopting Motions Nos. 32, 33, 36, 39, 44 and 45 in Group No. 3, it is open to some pretty serious and negative consequences that defeat the intention of this bill because of some very vague, ambiguous terminology. We need to make wise laws that chart the direction for us and our future generations. We must not only look at the ground before us as we walk but into the horizon to avoid the stumbling blocks that will hinder us later.

I urge the House to change Bill C-13 to uphold the dignity of human life and remove the possibility of future problems due to our restricted vision of the progress of science.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

March 26th, 2003 / 3:25 p.m.
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NDP

Wendy Lill NDP Dartmouth, NS

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to Bill C-13 at report stage. This is a very important bill.

I want to point out to members that the bill and the amendments can strongly affect Canadians with disabilities by supporting the drive that biotechnology firms are creating in the medical marketplace toward producing the perfect baby. I will return to this issue at the end of my address. I would first like to talk about the progress of the work on the bill that the NDP has tried to accomplish.

This is my first opportunity to speak to this legislation. I want to add my voice to all of the voices of Canadian women who know that the need for legislation is urgent. This urgency is underlined by recent sensational news stories about experimentation with human cloning.

The urgency for me has also been brought home by a recent conversation which I had with a health expert who informed me that there are hundreds of new assisted reproductive technologies and drugs that are aimed at the Canadian market and will be arriving in the next year. We really cannot afford to leave this very critical area of public health to the mercy of the biotech market.

During the committee's examination of Bill C-13, New Democrats attempted to introduce amendments to strengthen the bill in areas that we believed needed improving. Some of our concerns were addressed, but several important proposals were voted down by the Liberal majority on the committee.

My caucus colleague proposed 13 amendments during committee stage and succeeded in gaining several improvements to the bill. We wanted the protection of the health and well-being of women added to the principles. We wanted the donors to be provided with independent information before participating and that the public be informed of the risk factors relevant to infertility. As well, we wanted the board of the assisted reproduction agency of Canada to consist of a minimum of 50% women. We wanted the addition of a comprehensive conflict of interest clause governing the board as well.

We were unsuccessful in adding the precautionary principle to make safety an overriding concern. The committee also voted down our amendment to tighten up the commercial sale of reproductive materials and to make the agency more accountable by stipulating what it would do rather than what it may do. We tried and failed to facilitate donor identification in recognition of the needs of children born through reproductive technology.

If the government had seen fit to simply follow the wisdom of the committee which had spent time, expertise and energy to review the bill, we would be seeing improvements to this legislation. Sadly, we are seeing steps backward instead.

We have seen the failure to include the basic safety provision of the precautionary principle to safeguard women's health, together with the reversal of our gender parity and conflict provisions for the agency's board. Measures needed to keep biopharmaceutical corporations at bay has left the NDP no choice but to vote against the bill at third reading. This is despite our desire to have a long overdue regulatory framework in place as soon as possible.

I would like to re-examine the principles involved here.

Our first concerns were for health protection. Women involved in reproductive technologies ought to be assured that the drugs and treatments they take are safe beyond a reasonable doubt. As well, they must have access to independent information and counselling at critical times when they may be vulnerable to promoters of technologies that may put their health at risk. We succeeded, although not in as decisive wording as we had hoped, with the formal acknowledgement that the health and well-being of women must be protected in the application of these technologies.

We were not successful however in securing that protection through the instrumental inclusion of the precautionary principle in the bill. We sought to include the precautionary principle in the principles and application and interpretation sections and again in clause 13 through which it would have been applied to all controlled activities covered by the act.

To further the objective of informed decision making by those participating in reproductive technologies, we proposed, and it was accepted, to require all those licensed under the act to provide donors in advance with independent information provided by the assisted human reproduction agency.

Commercialization is another of our big concerns with Bill C-13. Much of reproductive technology remains the private reserve of giant life sciences and drug corporations with patent protection taking precedence over the public good and with private for profit interests dominating the field.

We attempted to tighten up the bill's prohibition against commercial gain by extending the ban on purchasing ova and sperm to include offering them for sale. This would correspond to the treatment given embryos under the bill. The amendment, as well, was defeated by the Liberals.

I would like to return for a minute to concerns that persons with disabilities have around this bill and the whole issue of reproductive technology, biotechnology and the new era we have entered of designer babies.

I would like to raise some important issues which have been posed to me with regard to the whole issue of prenatal genetics testing.

I have spoken with women who have received prenatal testing. This testing has shown, for example, high possibilities of giving birth to a child with Down's syndrome, or a child with spina bifida or with a cleft palette. After this testing has been done, they find themselves presented with a barrage of very negative counselling about the need for termination.

This is a very disturbing situation because what we are seeing is thousands and thousands of times each year in doctors offices women being faced with decisions around terminations of pregnancies without being given the kind of honest and neutral counselling about the values of having a child with a disabilities and about persons with disabilities who are living and contributing in the world.

The question that is raised as soon as we realize we have the ability to “screen out” Down's syndrome, cleft palette, spina bifida and bipolar disorder is this. What does that mean to the people who now live on the earth, who live among us and who are in our families who have disabilities? What does that mean to the value that they see given to their own lives?

I would like to take this opportunity to read a declaration which has been put forward by the Disabled Persons International on this subject, which I think is very germane to the topic. It states:

The right to live and to be different.

Up until now most of us have been excluded from debates on bioethical issues. These debates have had prejudiced and negative views of our quality of life. They have denied our right to equality and have therefore denied our human rights...

We are full human beings. We believe that a society without disabled people would be a lesser society. Our unique individual and collective experiences are an important contribution to a rich, human society.

We demand an end to the biomedical elimination of diversity, gene selection based on market forces and the setting of norms and standards by non-disabled people.

Biotechnological change must not be an excuse for control or manipulation of the human condition or biodiversity.

In closing, I and my party believe in that declaration. My colleague from Winnipeg Centre has put forward a very strong private member's motion on the importance of a national strategy around genetics and genetic counselling which will bear in mind and keep front and centre the value of persons with disabilities and will respect the dignity of their lives.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

March 26th, 2003 / 3:15 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Reed Elley Canadian Alliance Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC

Mr. Speaker, as we enter into this next stage of the debate on Bill C-13, specifically Group No. 3 amendments, I want to highlight several important issues.

The debate is a very important one. Frankly, I have been somewhat disappointed with the importance this issue has had in the past for Canadians all across the country and has sparked such little interest among the majority of members in the Chamber, for this debate will set the future for reproductive technology.

Yes, legislation can be changed but realistically how often does it ever happen? We just need to look perhaps at the most flawed legislation in Canadian history, the Indian Act. It is over 135 years old and the only changes to it over all that period of time have been relatively minor.

Yes, there are proposed changes before the House now on Bill C-13 but they are a long way from completion and yet the known problems have been in place since even before the legislation was drafted.

As the elected members of Parliament we have a responsibility to truly debate the issues of the day. Bill C-13 has strong science, health and moral implications within it. It is an arm of science that has been moving so incredibly quickly that I predict that there are many issues that we have not even considered at this time.

These issues will exist, not out of ignorance but simply because the technology of what we cannot do or even contemplate today will have the potential of changing for tomorrow. Let us not trap ourselves in a legislative box that we cannot get out of and adequately deal with in the future.

Therefore, I urge all members of the House to carefully consider the amendments and look to the future. As elected officials we are chosen by our constituents to represent them and to provide leadership here in this place.

I wish to speak specifically to this group of amendments and then make some closing comments on Bill C-13 at this time.

I will be opposing Motion No. 28 which deletes prohibitions on surrogacy in order that the prohibitions can be dealt with in the regulations. Unfortunately, the regulations are lost from the scope of Parliament. Yes, they are published and there is a procedure for the public to table support or opposition to them, but the fact is that they are not debated in Parliament. I cannot, therefore, support the notion that surrogate mothers should receive some form of compensation.

I note that the health committee report “Building Families” was united in wanting to end commercial surrogacy. It may seem altruistic but I do not support the premise of payment for children. These same principles apply to Motions Nos. 29 and 30.

While on the issue of surrogacy I would like to voice my opposition also to Motion No. 46 which would allow exceptions on prohibitions on procuring a surrogate, arranging a surrogacy and inducing a female to become a surrogate, namely, “except in accordance with the regulations”. As I have mentioned previously, I oppose leaving controls on commercial surrogacy to the regulations, for Parliament is the best place to have these debates and make these decisions.

Likewise, I oppose Motion No. 49. Opening the door to payment for gametes or in vitro embryos by leaving this to the regulations is not the correct way to proceed on this issue.

I must also oppose the motion to open the door to compensation to surrogates for work related loss of income as proposed under Motions Nos. 51 and 95. The health committee heard testimony that compensation for such expenses could be greatly inflated. There are just too many outstanding questions and issues surrounding this particular issue and, on this basis, the health committee recommended there be no such compensation for surrogacy. Surrogacy must be altruistic, not simply done for payment.

I support the premise of Motions Nos. 32, 33, 36 and 39 which would prohibit the purchase of fetuses or fetal tissue, any part of the embryo or the transfer of ownership of embryos or reproductive materials.

I believe that life begins at conception and therefore cannot nor should not be bought and sold. Life is a precious gift from God and one that cannot be reduced to the level of a common commodity that can be bought and sold on the open market or profited through the stock exchange.

Motion No. 44 is an interesting one and worthy of support. Rather than the destruction of embryos, they could be adopted. Embryo adoption is a possible alternative to the destruction of or research on so-called excess embryos, though not without its own complications, I admit. This is an area that could have future consequences. As I mentioned earlier, let us not trap ourselves in a legislative box that we cannot get out of or adequately deal with in the future.

I feel strongly about Motion No. 45. I support this motion which specifies that there should be no research on embryos for reproductive research except as provided in the regulations. I oppose research on human embryos for any purpose and therefore support this motion.

Due to scheduling of committee travel, it appears that this may be my last opportunity to speak to Bill C-13. Therefore I would like to offer some additional thoughts on this important matter.

I have the privilege of knowing two very dedicated people on this important issue. Shirley Pratten, who lives in my riding of Nanaimo--Cowichan, and her daughter Olivia have both appeared before the standing committee on more than one occasion along with Health Canada officials and interested media. They particularly urge the House to move to an open gamete donation system.

I remind members of the House that the committee talked to several international researchers and professionals who spoke about the success of open systems in other countries such as Sweden, Austria and New Zealand. It is also my understanding that Australia and Holland are moving along in that direction over a two year transition period.

Hon. members of the House should also know that should Bill C-13 go through as it is currently written, that is legalizing anonymity, there will then be a legal challenge in British Columbia where adoption records are open. Discussions have already taken place with one of the lawyers who was involved with opening the adoption records in British Columbia and he is keen to take this on, with the adoption community in this country firmly behind him. With this in mind, there are several offspring in British Columbia who will be part of this challenge.

In short, I believe that if Bill C-13 is passed without change, there will be a serious court challenge starting in the province of British Columbia and probably continuing on through the Supreme Court of Canada. I wonder if the government really wants this. Is this in the best interests of Canadians?

I have stated before and repeat now that the bill is about improving human health. I am reminded that this is not only about physical health, but also emotional and psychological health. If members of the House deliberately deny people the knowledge to know where they have come from through an anonymous system, I believe that we are knowingly compromising their psychological health.

I have some insights into the adoption process, having one adopted child and two through private guardianship, so I know of what I speak. The federal government has a responsibility to safeguard the emotional and psychological health as well as the physical health of Canadian citizens. We need to put the interests and protection of the children conceived through reproductive technology first. Let me repeat this because I believe that this is tantamount to our discussions today and throughout the debate in the past few weeks. We need to put the interests and protection of the children conceived through reproductive technology first.

I acknowledge that Bill C-13 states that this is in the preamble, but it fails to address this need in the bill by sanctioning an anonymous system. Anonymity is not in the best interests of the people who are being conceived. If we really mean that we need to put the interests and protection of children conceived through reproductive technology first, then the bill must actually do what it says it will do.

There are of course very strong lobby groups that attempt to influence the government and the legislative process. In this case the government is not only allowing the desires of some parents to come before the needs of the children, it is also putting the desires of the medical profession above the children.

It would appear that the government has caved in to the terrific power of the medical lobby whose interests in keeping the status quo are both self-serving and for financial motivation. It will take a strong government to stand up to the medical lobby and endorse the standing committee's recommendations on all aspects of the legislation. I really question whether the present government is strong enough to accomplish that.

I realize that my time is nearly up in addressing Bill C-13 but whether my time is up or not, when the House passes this legislation, the legislation will become the law of the land for the foreseeable future. Whatever we pass today and after third reading will have long-lasting consequences.

In the continuum of witnesses, who is most important? It is always the children. I urge all members to seriously consider this as we vote on this issue today.

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March 26th, 2003 / 3:15 p.m.
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Liberal

Julian Reed Liberal Halton, ON

Mr. Speaker, I rise to seek unanimous consent of the House to withdraw my amendment to report stage Motion No. 86 of Bill C-13.

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March 18th, 2003 / 1:35 p.m.
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NDP

Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North Centre, MB

Madam Speaker, it has long been the NDP position that the commercialization of human reproductive services should be halted.

As a women's health issue, infertility should be given the full weight of government support through campaigns to inform the public of the causes of infertility and initiatives to eliminate those causes when possible.

In a recent article by Abby Lippman, who is a well-known expert in the field of reproductive technologies, she writes:

--the regime being developed to oversee the development of these technologies is not being created within a framework of women's reproductive health.

We see the co-opting of the idea of choice--this idea that reproductive technology automatically increases choices. In terms of being able to have children, reproductive technologies are one kind of choice offered to women who can afford them. But if we want choices, why don't we deal with where the source of the problems are... instead of at the end of the road saying, “You can have this technology now that you're infertile...”--that's a limited menu.

That is what we seek to achieve in this legislation, a women's reproductive health framework. That is what is missing in the bill and why the New Democratic Party remains concerned about Bill C-13.

Members would expect that those of us in the New Democratic Party believe firmly and with conviction that for profit health services have no place in our universal public health care system. It also will not come as a surprise when we say that the value of human health, of women's health, must be primary and unchallenged by competing commercial values.

Leaving these services to the for profit marketplace, irrespective of the compliance with specific quality regulations, will undoubtedly limit the number of Canadians who have access to infertility treatment, and for us that is totally unacceptable. Limiting access to quality reproductive health services only to those who are well off, runs counter to the very foundation of our public health service.

As the House has heard from many members on this side of the House, the government's record on protecting public health care in Canada, up to and including the recent health accord and the federal budget, has been shown to be totally untrustworthy. We only have to look as far as the revelations today on CBC radio and TV about clinical trials being conducted in this country and a drug being used in those clinical trials, when the government had the information and knew full well that deaths had occurred in another country as a result of that drug being used in clinical trials.

We only have to look as far as the failure of the government to act on the recommendations flowing from the death of an Ontario woman who had taken the drug Prepulsid, and having been failed by a system that did not require mandatory reporting of adverse reactions. Time and again, when it comes to health protection, the government has failed Canadians.

The House will also know that part of the debate is about patents. A strong concern has been expressed throughout the proceedings that the patenting of human reproductive materials and processes would have a severe impact on the question of financial barriers, yet the government has done nothing to tie the legislation to consequent clarifications of the Patent Act.

This legislation and the values it represents cannot be left in competition with the conflicting values on property rights within the Patent Act.

We only have to look as far as the well-known developments around Myriad Genetics, a company that isolated two genes which can help identify women at particular risk of developing heredity forms of breast and ovarian cancer, a company that has sought to achieve maximum commercial benefit from the control over patent of that information.

It is an affront to human dignity and the integrity of our human heritage to commercialize human reproduction, and this bill does not adequately shut the door in this respect.

The government's position is revealed in its attempt to remove conflict of interest language proposed by the NDP and accepted by the standing committee. This measure would have ensured that government policy and reproductive technology would not be influenced by the commercial considerations of its advisers.

There is no question that without that amendment, without that strong language in Bill C-13, representatives of the pharmaceutical and biotech industries could possibly be permitted to sit on the board of the agency governing this field of endeavour.

In that context, I again want to refer to the remarks made by Abby Lippman in a recent article entitled “Conceivable Options” when she says:

Women's bodies are a natural resource for the biomedical industry because of the scientific possibilities to commercialize human reproduction, human DNA and develop increasing numbers of genetic tests to be used in combination with in vitro fertilization.

The dangers are clear and the problems are evident without further action by this government. We express great concern and displeasure at the failure of the government to adequately represent the hard work of the Standing Committee on Health and to respect the democratic process.

The issue of surrogacy was debated and discussed at length in the Standing Committee on Health's examination of the bill and the government's no-name predecessor proposal. The committee concluded that surrogacy should be banned. To ban something is to shut down any avenues that will facilitate it happening. Motion Nos. 28, 29 and 51 in particular, appear aimed at relaxing the impetus within the bill to prohibit surrogacy. They send the wrong message, a message that must be unequivocal so that Canadians have a clear sense of what is acceptable and what is not.

Obviously it would be wrong for any of us to promote a piece of legislation that on the one hand said it was wrong for sperm donors and surrogate mothers to engage in any kind of commercial activity and on the other hand allow large corporations in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology spheres to patent life forms and make millions of dollars from their discoveries.

It is important that we be consistent on this principle and that is what we propose today in speaking to the bill and through our previous amendments.

Regrettably, the government has resisted our attempts to ensure that women's health is adequately protected in the bill. We proposed that the precautionary principle be incorporated as a fundamental principle of the bill and that it apply throughout. The government voted that proposal down in committee. What better way of ensuring that women's safety is the primary consideration in every decision?

We are all too familiar with the fact that women undergo many different drugs and treatments that can have an adverse impact on their health and it is our call today to ensure that all such drugs and treatments be allowed on the market only when proven to be safe beyond a reasonable doubt.

Madam Speaker, I wonder if you could give me permission to have three or five extra minutes to finish my remarks on this important matter.

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March 18th, 2003 / 1:25 p.m.
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Liberal

Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON

Madam Speaker, in debating Bill C-13, the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, we realize that infertility is still one of the most misunderstood, invisible and nonetheless distressing problems that Canadian couples are faced with. I do not know of any other complication for which friends, colleagues and decision makers—although well-meaning and normally compassionate—simply advise couples to forget about it and move on.

As we debate Bill C-13, an act respecting assisted human reproduction, it is clear that infertility remains one of the most misunderstood invisible, yet poignant situations facing Canadian families. I cannot think of another health problem about which it seems so easy for well meaning, usually empathetic friends, colleagues and policy makers to just say “Get over it”.

As a family doctor, I was often overcome by the tremendous reactive depression, inability to function and relationship disharmony precipitated by the realization that again this month she was not pregnant. There were also those moments where I, in giving the diagnosis of a cancer, or a genetic problem like Turner's syndrome, or a severe medical problem or disability, had to deliver the additional devastating news that woman would never be able to carry a pregnancy.

Bill C-13 was brought forward to help those women who would need some extra help in trying to have a baby and to ensure that happened in a safe and ethical environment. Unfortunately, a great deal of the debate of Bill C-13 has been hijacked by those anti-choice members who are obsessed with obstructing the use of embryos produced for the purpose of reproduction being used for research instead of being discarded.

There is no question that society wants reproductive cloning banned totally, which Bill C-13 does by placing it in the category of prohibited activities with penalties enforced by the Criminal Code.

The debate however, ongoing since the Royal Commission on Reproductive Technology and the health committee report leading to the present bill, is whether other activities should be prohibited, that is criminalized or regulated, thus requiring a licence.

The bill deals with a very specialized area of health care in which the practitioners, the fertility doctors, are highly qualified medical practitioners who would be losing their right to practise their profession if found to be performing these controlled activities in violation of the regulations. I believe that physicians take these responsibilities very seriously and for us to now possibly criminalize the activities of these practitioners and their patients amounts to the government once again trying to dictate to women what they can and cannot do with their bodies and a naive failure to recognize that not all those requiring assisted human reproduction will have willing voluntary donors or gestational carriers.

The number of pregnancies requiring AHR is small and the number of pregnancies carried by gestational carriers in Canada even smaller, with estimates ranging from 60 to 100 attempts resulting in only about 30 pregnancies a year. Only about 500 eggs are donated per year and surprisingly only about 1,500 to 2,000 pregnancies result from donor insemination. This is certainly a manageable number of assisted pregnancies that has been self-regulating for years with the clinics' own codes of conduct and certainly could be meticulously regulated without requiring criminal penalties.

Even without regulations, the maximum reimbursement for gestational carriers in Canada has been $20,000, much less than the $30,000 to $40,000 paid for international adoption once the legal, travel and counselling have been paid. Reimbursement for egg and sperm donors has remained equally modest compared to the American reproductive industry whose example seriously appalled the members of the health committee during their hearings. I think the intent of the bill could have been achieved within a tight regulatory framework.

I hope the new proposed agency will get up and running quickly so there will be no unnecessary delays for the women and their families needing help or for the researchers to carry on their invaluable work. I hope that we will continue down the road to a registry that will provide the much needed medical information of the donors leading to successful pregnancies and that the agency will have the capacity and the mandate to keep that information updated so that the offspring will be able to find out their evolving family histories, such as breast and colon cancers, heart disease and eventually actual genetic information.

The debate around additional identifier information should continue and in the meantime there should be a voluntary offspring registry. Indeed some infertility patients may want to choose donors who would agree to a full open model.

We have a lot to learn from the experiences of adoption. In AHR we should apply the imperative for honesty about a biologically different beginning to the children, a plan for disclosure without retroactivity, expert counselling and guidelines for the information available at intake.

At our town hall meeting on assisted human reproduction last year in St. Paul's, the panellists and the audience presented compelling stories of the need for a better understanding of the challenges facing the infertile community.

The responsible use of gestational carriage for the women, who would otherwise be unable to carry a pregnancy because of trauma, cancer, genetic problems, was compelling. To assume that these women will be able to have a sister or find a friend to perform the role on a voluntary basis is naive. To close the door to gestational carriers with a modest compensation will drive these law-abiding citizens underground or to the United States.

I ask all hon. members to take the time to hear these stories, such that they will feel comfortable supporting Motions Nos. 28, 30, 46 and 49 that take the issue of surrogacy and egg and sperm donation from the prohibited category to that of controlled acts, and allow these families the opportunity of genetically related children and grandchildren.

Every day in Canada the dream of having a child genetically related to the parents is being fulfilled in families where it would have once been impossible. We must continue to ensure that our society becomes more educated and supportive of the one in eight couples in Canada who need help fulfilling their dream in a safe, affordable and ethical environment. The issue of a wanted pregnancy must be seen and responded to as yet another important issue of choice.

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March 18th, 2003 / 1:15 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Gurmant Grewal Canadian Alliance Surrey Central, BC

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the constituents of Surrey Central to participate in the report stage debate on Group No. 3 amendments to Bill C-13, an act respecting assisted human reproduction.

Every year thousands of babies are born in Canada using assisted reproductive technology, everything from simple insemination to cutting edge in vitro fertilization. But there have been no laws governing any kind of regulations leaving doctors and infertile couples to come up with their own guidelines.

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

Since 1989, Canada has been attempting to define the proper legislation and regulatory controls to govern assisted human reproductive technologies through the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies. According to a Léger marketing survey, 84% of Canadians were against the cloning of human beings, compared with just 5% who favoured the controversial practice and 11% did not know or refused to answer.

Human reproductive cloning represents a profound disregard for human dignity, individuality and rights. In effect, it is an affront to the dignity of human life and reduces its value to that of a commodity. That is not acceptable.

The Canadian Alliance minority report recommended that the final legislation, which we are now debating, clearly recognize the human embryo as a human life and the statutory declaration include the phrase respect for human life.

For many years, adult stem cell transplants have successfully been used to treat a variety of diseases such as Parkinson's, MS, leukemia and Crohn's. Adult stem cells are a safe, proven alternative to embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells include those collected from umbilical cords, placenta, brain tissue and bone marrow. Embryonic stem cells, on the other hand, are those extracted from an embryo in a procedure that kills a tiny but 100% genetically human living being. Despite the hype embryonic stem cells have never been successfully used in clinical trials.

As the member for Mississauga South said earlier, Bill C-13 would not ban human cloning. Thus, the bill belongs in the garbage and I agree. That is why we in the official opposition are opposing the bill.

Besides regulating the use of embryonic stem cells, Bill C-13 would ban the practice of paying a woman to carry a pregnancy. It would make it illegal to pay a man for his sperm or a woman for her eggs: gamete donations, as both are known. An estimated 50 to 100 babies are born through surrogacy every year in Canada while hundreds more result from gamete donations.

I will proceed to deal with all the motions in this group. The House has been very generous today and I would like to ask for an extra five minutes if I could, Madam Speaker.

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March 18th, 2003 / 1 p.m.
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Liberal

Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC

Mr. Speaker, I want to say at the outset that this is, for the most part, a good bill. It is a bill that sets out to place a legal, ethical and regulatory framework around very complex research and a technological set of new ideas that have come about in science.

As a physician I know only too well the agony and heartbreak that some couples face because they are unable to have children, to reproduce. The stress placed on these couples by society, by family expectations, and by their own desires and their dreams for children for the continuity of their family line, is very emotional.

New reproductive technologies and some of the research we are talking about in the bill are able to help couples like these in many ways. In effect, therefore, the good that the bill can do, the good that these technologies and this research can do, however, must be balanced by the recognition of the harm it could do to society as a whole. The bill sets out to find that fine balance and I think it has done so very well.

For instance, the commodification and the commercialization of reproduction carries with it the risk, as we of course have heard everyone speak about, of exploitation, especially of vulnerable young women. Young women who need money, who are in penurious circumstances, and not so young women who are in penurious circumstances, could be exploited for use as surrogates or as donors. For instance, because of the authority figures within a family, a young woman could be made to become a surrogate whether that young woman wishes to or not. Clearly one must set guidelines in which we do not allow for exploitation, in which we do not allow for commodification, and in which we do not allow commercialization to create an incentive for exploitation. I think the bill has done that.

Many people have suggested that donors of ova or sperm and surrogates should be driven purely by altruism. That is wonderful, but that is not what happens in the real world. The bill recognizes that realism. It recognizes that we cannot only ask people out of the goodness of their hearts to donate without protecting them in some ways. I think that the bill, to some extent, allows for that. In fact, it allows for the anonymity of a donor while at the same time ensuring that the elements of a family history and a medical history are there to protect the future well-being of any children born of these technologies. I think that the bill is in fact very good in all of these aspects.

Where I believe the bill falls short is on the issue of surrogacy. Surrogacy, unlike some of these other interventions, is not simply a donation. In surrogacy, a woman agrees to carry a child to term. Altruism alone does not play a part in this, because we all know that inherent within a pregnancy there are risks, risks that are expected and risks that may not be expected.

In Motion No. 51, I have suggested that we move to recognize some of those risks. If a surrogate faces any sort of complication due to pregnancy, such as toxemia, abruptio placenta or any one of those threatening problems that can occur during a pregnancy, and needs to take time off work, she should be compensated and reimbursed. At the moment the bill only allows for reimbursement of actual expenses such as taxis, going to the dentist, getting food, et cetera. We need to look realistically at some of the risks that could occur and ensure that the surrogate, the mother and the child are protected so that a healthy child will be born and so that women do not take undue risks. If we do not protect them, we will find that we will be able to say in the bill that surrogacy is allowed but it will never happen in fact, because no one would want to put themselves at that kind of risk if they are not assured that the risk is taken into consideration in the bill.

Similarly, I also want to say that in Motion No. 29 I am clarifying something that is extremely important. When we look at some of the issues of technology or issues dealing with sterility, surrogacy or any of the technologies involved here, there quite often is a need for informed consent from the patient, the couple needing the services, or the surrogate, a need to have counselling by a physician or by a legal counsel to allow them to make the right decisions, to allow them to make informed consent. Informed consent is a very important part of any kind of medical intervention. I think this is important and I do not believe it is very clear in the bill. I think that Motion No. 29 would clarify it very clearly so that physicians and lawyers doing their jobs on informed consent would not feel that they would be liable to prosecution.

The parts of the bill, however, that deal with research, cloning and stem cells et cetera, have been subjected to a great deal of misunderstanding and I would say misinformation, but I would sometimes believe it is disinformation. I hope that this is because the complexity of the science is often too great for some people to really grasp it clearly.

For example, paragraph 5(1)(a) states:

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

It works in tandem with the definition of a human clone that states:

“human clone” means an embryo that... contains a diploid set of chromosomes obtained from a single--living or deceased--human being, foetus or embryo.

A diploid set of chromosomes means the full set of 46 chromosomes that are present in every cell of an embryo, in fact, in every cell of each and every human being. Some members of the House raised concerns about this definition not being watertight. I would like to speak to and zero in on some of those concerns.

It is suggested that it is problematic to define a clone as an embryo that replicates the complete set of chromosomes of another single human organism. Members raised the spectre of cloning techniques that use more than one source of DNA, but this is not science. This is bad science. To create a human clone a scientist must, by definition, obtain all 46 chromosomes from the same organism but not necessarily from the same cell within that organism. That is what a clone is, a copy of an entire human being.

For example, if we wanted to clone you, Madam Speaker, we would need all of your chromosomes, not just some of them. It does not matter if we get the chromosomes from one of your cells or from a handful of them, as long as the complete set of chromosomes comes from your body we will have created a cloned Madam Speaker. But if we mix your chromosomes with the chromosomes of someone else we will not be able to produce a clone.

It is suggested that the bill's cloning ban would not cover newer approaches such as mitochondrial cloning, pronuclei transfer or parthenogenesis to create a clone.

Let me say for the record that it is not possible to create a cloned human being from cloned mitochondria. A mitochondrion is a little structure found within every cell. It supplies energy to the cell, a sort of genetic battery. Mitochondria have their own DNA separate from the 46 chromosomes found in the nucleus. We cannot create an entire cloned organism by cloned mitochondria. It is like saying that if we cloned the battery we could get the whole energizer bunny. Well, we cannot.

On the other hand, it is in theory possible to create a human clone through pronuclei transfer. There is a pronucleus containing 23 chromosomes in every human egg and sperm. Following fertilization the two pronuclei will come together and provide the 46 chromosomes of the developing human organism. Using two pronuclei from the same human organism would, theoretically, produce a clone. Such a procedure would obviously therefore be covered by the human cloning prohibition found in the bill and thus would not be allowed in Canada.

There was concern about some things that are not possible and some things that are already prohibited in the bill. Bill C-13 would ban the parthenogenetic creation of a cloned human embryo. Parthenogenesis is simply a method for asexually reproducing an entire human organism. It is not a means of creating sperm and eggs as Motion No. 27 wrongly suggests.

I want to address the suggestion that the cloning prohibition would not ban chimera. This is in fact quite true. Chimeras are not clones. By definition they consist of cells drawn from more than one entity and chimeras are specifically banned under paragraph 5(1)(i).

The cloning ban in Bill C-13 is comprehensive and it is scientifically sound. Unless there be any further doubts, allow me to quote Dr. Patricia Baird, an internationally respected geneticist, who as many members will know chaired the royal commission on reproductive technology. Professor Baird said:

Based on an incorrect understanding of the science, some have suggested that the bill doesn't ban cloning, but in fact on careful reading it clearly does.

Madam Speaker, a lot of my colleagues have been given an extra five minutes. I would wrap this up if I could be given another three minutes, please.

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March 18th, 2003 / 12:45 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Rob Merrifield Canadian Alliance Yellowhead, AB

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege and a pleasure to speak once again to Bill C-13.

It is important to understand that this is the sixth and last round of amendments. We are trying to recap where we have been up to this point, and address the sixth grouping of amendments.

It is important for members to understand how many amendments we have looked at report stage. Over 70 amendments have been put forward by members of the House who have said that this legislation has failed in committee. It has failed in what it has brought forward to the House because it has not adequately reflected the views of Canadians or the whole area of reproduction with which the bill has attempted to deal.

It is true that the bill is very wide ranging in its scope. Some members say that it is all about reproduction and that it is to help individuals who have difficulty in conceiving a child. Part of the bill does deal with this and part of the bill deals with what happens with the leftover embryos. However part of the bill also deals with science related to that. The science is of great concern to most members of the House. It will change the ethic of a nation when we say if we are prepared to create human life for the sake of research.

If we do that, then we are moving to a place where we are saying that it is all right perhaps even to commodify life. Perhaps it is all right to even produce eugenics or be allowed to create a specific human, one that is tailor made for us, one that gets around the idea that God is the creator of human life and that we may be able to produce tailor made individuals.

This is something that has been tried many times in our history. It is also something that has that potential. It is alarming in the way some of the amendments have come forward in this group. It sets me back when I see the way this group has been put forward because it really says that the whole area of surrogacy should be opened up.

I know the intent is to be able to put it into regulations. However, if it is put into regulations, we do not know exactly what will happen. We are very concerned about what might happen in regulations. The regulations do not give us the intent of the bill. If we truly wish to do something about our concern with surrogacy and allow individuals to modify human life from that perspective, then it must be in the legislation.

Some of the amendments state that we should allow ourselves to purchase a surrogate and there is no real price tag on that. When the members of the committee went through the area of surrogacy, we were told that they should be paid $20,000, $40,000 or perhaps $100,000. It would depend on what they were paid in their workplace and how long they would be away from work. We have not defined in legislation what would be an appropriate reimbursement for having a child.

If this is allowed, then we have to set parameters around it. This is something on which we fought long and hard in committee. The committee had some of the best witnesses from Canada and around the world. Committee members were able to question the witnesses on this question and other important issues.

The area of surrogacy is very important. Either a person is on one side of the fence or the other when it comes to surrogacy. A person is either saying that surrogacy is all right, that it is all right to purchase a womb or an individual to have a child. The other side is that it is something that could or would be exploited. We see the exploitation of females for sex. People say that it is the oldest occupation and that it has been around for many years. We hope that would not be extended to the idea of having a surrogate, but perhaps we should think again.

What potentially could happen is women might have the opportunity, and certainly would be flirting with the idea of having a child, of taking an egg from them and a sperm from a super model or superstar, put those together and create the perfect child. This would be a child who would have the traits that would see as more of a toy rather than a living human extension of themselves.

People are on one side or the other on this issue. Either we allow it to happen or we do not. I think there is a strong division in the House on whether that is okay because some people think it should be up to the individual to choose. Other people ask if we go down that road, where do we stop? If we allow it there, then why are we stopping the idea of sex selection, for example, and we say that is a deplorable thing, although the practice happens in other countries around the world. They try to take a picture of the child in the womb to discern whether it is male or female and then they keep aborting it until they get the sex they want. This also happens in Canada to a degree and it depends to what extent. This legislation will bulk us into that sort of idea with the kind of amendments that are before us in this group.

I would also ask, Mr. Speaker, if I could get an extension of my time. This is the last group. I have put a lot of time into it over the last couple of years. Could I have an extra 10 minutes?

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March 18th, 2003 / 12:40 p.m.
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York West Ontario

Liberal

Judy Sgro LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to set the record straight on a couple of issues that have been addressed during the debate today.

I will begin with human cloning since it is one of the rare issues on which the House agrees. We are united in our opposition to human cloning. Canadians have clearly shown that they too support this goal.

The only area of disagreement seems to be whether Bill C-13's prohibition on human cloning is complete. It is. There are no loopholes. Bill C-13 would ensure that no human cloning takes place in Canada, period. Patricia Baird, an internationally respected geneticist and former chair of the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies, has made this crystal clear. Professor Baird said:

Based on incorrect science--

--and I think part of what is being referred to throughout this debate in the last few days is the issue of incorrect science--

--some have suggested that the bill doesn't ban cloning, but in fact, on careful reading, it clearly does.

All forms of human cloning would be banned, irrespective of whether the goal is to produce a child or to undertake research. The prohibition would capture every cloning technique, whether currently known to us or a new method still to be invented.

Therefore, the motions that were discussed in Group No. 2 are clearly unnecessary in reference to Motions Nos. 13 and 40.

I will now turn to the issue of embryo research. It sometimes seems that in the debate over the bill we are losing perspective of what it is actually all about. Bill C-13 first and foremost is legislation that seeks to protect the health and safety of women and men who walk through the doors of Canadian fertility clinics, people looking to start a family or to help others to do so.

The work we do in the House reflects the values and the principles that we share as a nation. Canadians believe that children and families are critically important to us. The government has made helping children and their families a priority in its long term commitment to a better quality of life. Healthy children, secure families and vibrant communities are all essential in defining quality of life in Canada.

Estimates suggest that some one in seven Canadian couples face the challenge of infertility. Many of us take the ability to have children for granted, but for them, starting a family is not at all a simple matter. Many of them have to turn to fertility clinics. They should be able to do so, knowing that there are the same solid safeguards in place whether they visit a clinic in Moncton, Toronto or Montreal. They should be able to do so knowing that everything possible is being done to make the procedures as safe and as effective as possible, not only for those undergoing them but also for any children born from them.

If we want the procedures used in fertility clinics to be safe, doctors, nurses and other health professionals must be able to learn how to do them safely. These professionals also have a duty to improve the assisted human reproduction procedures in ways that strengthen safety and further protect the health of the women undergoing them and that of any resulting children.

As the standing committee recognized, this work will sometimes require the creation of embryos. This would be permitted under clause 5(1)(b) but would require a licence and be subject to strict regulations and inspections, which are currently not happening.

We as a society have accepted assisted human reproduction procedures as a way to treat infertility. We cannot prohibit the research used to improve the safety of these procedures. That would be analogous to saying that we accept kidney transplants as a treatment for renal failure but do not accept the research needed to improve the safety of the transplants.

Indeed, I urge members to support Bill C-13. A lot of it is based on what Dr. Baird has accurately termed “incorrect science” that we hear from many of those who continue to be in opposition.

Let us move forward in a timely fashion with this legislation to protect the people whom we are here to protect and to define our intentions.

Timeliness is key. As it stands today, Canada has no law to prohibit or regulate activities relating to assisted human reproduction. This has immense implications, not only for the infertile Canadians and for those born from reproductive technology but also for our society as a whole. Recognizing this, Canadians have said clearly that they want national leadership in this area. They have been waiting for over eight years for legislation that would protect Canadians.

Let us give them the leadership, for without Bill C-13, there would be no legislation or regulations governing embryo research. Without Bill C-13, there would be nothing to prevent the Raelians or others from attempting to clone human beings on Canadian soil.

I ask that members reflect upon this and on the alternative that the solid science that Bill C-13 represents, and on the immense need for us to have legislation to protect Canadians and to assist the many couples in our country who want to have children and create a family.

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March 18th, 2003 / 12:25 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

James Lunney Canadian Alliance Nanaimo—Alberni, BC

Mr. Speaker, we are back debating Bill C-13, a very important bill, an act respecting assisted reproductive technologies and related research, as it came to be known. It started as Bill C-56 and our health committee spent a fairly extensive period of time discussing this issue. It came to us in a rather appropriate form as draft legislation. The health committee spent the better part of a year dealing with the very technical aspects of the bill. We came up with a report that we entitled “Assisted Human Reproduction: Building Families”. It was tabled in December 2001. We spent a lot of time dealing with this comprehensive report.

Today, the Group No. 3 amendments with which we are dealing address a significant aspect of the bill. There are quite a number of issues that are being addressed here that are important to the outcome and the application of the bill, and to the effect that it will have on Canadians and certainly on the industry. We want to address these important amendments that have been brought forward.

In our report “Assisted Human Reproduction: Building Families” members of the Standing Committee on Health were united in wanting an end to commercial surrogacy. It happens that the members for St. Paul's and Vancouver Centre were not members of the committee at the time, and these new members of the committee are responsible for some of the amendments that we will be addressing today. The report stated that:

It is contrary to our thinking to treat human beings or human material as commodities that can be regarded in terms of their economic value rather than their intrinsic worth. In particular, we feel that children can never be objects to be acquired or exchanged. Women and men need to know that their bodies and their reproductive material are not for sale or barter.

Some of the amendments that are being addressed here, particularly Motion No. 28 by the member for St. Paul's, would delete prohibitions on surrogacy from the prohibitions and would allow it to be dealt with in regulations, which would allow compensation and commercialization of this aspect of reproduction. Motion No. 29 from the member for Vancouver Centre would allow for the payment of legal and medical services.

There are aspects of the bill that we certainly, as a health committee, were not inclined to want to see advanced. For example, the payment for sperm and gametes. These amendments would allow for donor compensation, but basically we are talking about selling human cells and human life.

A website of a Canadian company working out of Toronto is offering sperm donors--although it is not called compensation, it is just for their expenses in making a donation--$65 per sample. It is recruiting on university campuses for young men to make a donation and allows them $65 for their trouble. They may leave up to three samples weekly. That would total about $200 a week for a university student. That is pretty good part time income we might say, about $800 a month for someone who wanted to take advantage of that.

Furthermore, successful donors are referred to the company by their friends or fellow students. Referrals can be an excellent source of revenue, it says here. If individuals are comfortable talking with others about being a donor, they receive a $10 referral fee for bringing in a friend, but if the friend is accepted as a qualified donor, they receive a $100 finders fee.

This is what our health committee was concerned about. We did not want to see human reproduction commodified. We did not want to see people selling human cells or human parts. For example, we do not pay a kidney donor for a kidney and we do not think we should be paying people for materials to produce babies or for babies themselves, as these amendments would allow.

I am quoting again from the committee report:

Women and men need to know that their bodies and their reproductive material are not for sale or barter. The Committee does not support any elements of trading, exchanging, buying or selling of human reproductive materials. We are aware that, in recent years, commodification, and in many respects, commercialization, have occurred in the field of assisted human reproduction. We want to ensure that the legislation will prevent the commodification of children, women's bodies, human reproductive material, and reproduction.

The fact is commercialization is already taking place in the United States. People who have a desperate need for a baby are able to buy one with the help of numerous surrogacy agencies.

A quick Internet search under “surrogacy” returns over 54,000 website hits revealing the vast amount of commercial businesses available to people who are willing to buy and sell babies. How much are people willing to pay for someone to have a baby for them? What should be an altruistic gift to an infertile couple could wind up costing that couple as much as $50,000 U.S. or even more if they want twins or a surrogate mother that is experienced.

How much can a woman sell her baby for? The going rate for a surrogate mother in the Untied States is about $20,000 U.S. and more if the woman has experience or if she is willing to carry twins.

Is that what we want to pursue in Canada, the buying and selling of children? That is really what it amounts to. That is what will happen if the amendments that the members would like to bring in are passed. They would take out the clauses that prevent sale, surrogacy and commodification. That is what will happen if the legislation is amended to reflect the motions put forward by the member for St. Paul's and the member for Vancouver Centre.

Ms. Phyllis Creighton is a member of the Health Canada Advisory Committee on the Interim Moratorium on Reproductive Technologies. She spoke to the health committee on September 25, 2001. I would like to reflect on some of her comments. She stated:

Canada should learn from the U.S. experience, with its unsavoury catalogues of surrogates and Internet marketing. Sound public policy must be based on the principle of the best interests of children. Baby brokers are not in the best interests of children.

Commercial surrogacy is vitiated by its morally unacceptable premise that a baby is a product to be exchanged and transferred for money. Brokers may claim that payment is for the reproductive service that the surrogate mother renders, but since she's not paid the full sum agreed to in the pre-conception arrangements until the baby is received into the custody of the commissioning parents, it is the baby who is being paid for.

Ms. Creighton concluded:

We do not pay the expenses of kidney donors for their donation in circumstances of life-threatening need. Childlessness is anguishing and worthy of compassionate help--

We certainly agree with her on that.

--but it is not a life-threatening condition. And it ought not to be done unless the best interests of children are secured.

The issues raised in these amendments are very important ones. There is donor compensation and whether we want to pay people for their gametes. Furthermore, other aspects of the bill allow for the import and export of gametes. Why, we might ask, would we allow for gametes to be imported from other countries where we cannot control the quality of the collection or the persons they are being collected from? We did hear evidence at committee that semen samples that are arriving at sperm banks in the U.S. are being sought out and also received from prisons in the United States.

Mr. Speaker, we are addressing some important aspects of the bill. I am wondering, given the importance of these amendments, whether I might receive unanimous consent from the members to continue my comments for five more minutes.

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March 18th, 2003 / 12:15 p.m.
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Liberal

Jeannot Castonguay Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB

Mr. Speaker, the motions contained in Group No. 3 deal with a number of important points. First, they ban paid surrogate mothers, intermediaries who make surrogacy arrangements, and ovum or sperm donors. They also deal with the donation of in vitro embryos to couples who want to have a family and whether or not these embryos should be considered property. Finally, there is also the scope of Bill C-13 itself. I will speak to each of these points.

Banning payment for assisted human reproduction is a central element of the bill, which contains an outright ban when it comes to paying surrogate mothers as well as ovum, sperm or in vitro embryo donors.

These issues have already been debated at length by the Standing Committee on Health.

I believe that Bill C-13 treats all of these issues in a balanced manner. It prohibits payment for assisted reproduction and clearly states that children are not property to be bought or sold. This position received overwhelming support. The recommendation to prohibit paid surrogacy was always supported by the royal commission on new reproductive technologies in the 1990s, and the Standing Committee on Health supported that position several times.

Also, the bill was drafted in such as way as to not prevent altruism. As such, a woman who wants to help her sister, a friend, or even a perfect stranger, need not bear all the costs of her altruism.

Clearly, a surrogate mother who acts out of the goodness of her heart has expenses to cover, like any other pregnant woman. For example, there may be expenses for psychological counselling or other consultations related to the birth, there are costs related to drugs and vitamins that are taken during pregnancy. Under the provisions for regulations and the issuing licences, Bill C-13 will provide for the reimbursement of reasonable expenses related to the pregnancy of the surrogate mother. Incidentally, under the current version of the bill, an altruistic surrogate mother would not be eligible for any compensation for other costs, such as missing work.

The bill will also ban paid intermediaries. It is important to note that this does not include doctors or counsellors who give professional advice and medical services to surrogate mothers.

Intermediaries, or brokers, are organizations or individuals who get paid to arrange for the services of surrogate mothers for potential parents or make contractual arrangements for such services for commercial purposes. That is making money off of human reproduction, pure and simple. This is why we feel it has absolutely no place in Canadian society.

Under Bill C-13, it would also be prohibited to purchase sperm or ova for reproductive purposes, and to purchase or sell embryos. We do not think that the trade in human gametes and embryos should be permitted in Canada. Neither do we want to see human ova sold to the highest bidder on E-Bay, like antiques and collectibles.

In addition, Bill C-13 recognizes that, like altruistic surrogate mothers, ova and sperm donors incur legitimate costs that ought to be reimbursed subject to the regulations. The fact that a donor should not financially benefit does not mean that he or she may not be reimbursed for transportation and other reasonable expenses supported by receipts. The regulations will set out clear parameters with respect to these expenses.

To conclude my comments on trade, I wish to remind the hon. members of the wording of this Parliament's declaration concerning Bill C-13. Clause 2( f ) states:

trade in the reproductive capabilities of women and men and the exploitation of children, women and men for commercial ends raise health and ethical concerns that justify their prohibition—

I would now like to address the issue of in vitro embryos donated to couples looking to start a family. Given the current state of scientific and technological expertise, the production of surplus embryos is the almost inevitable outcome of IVF procedures.

This bill will allow couples, who give their free and informed consent, to donate embryos they no longer need to other infertile couples who want to have children.

Motion No. 44 is pointless, in my opinion. Bill C-13 provides for embryo donation. I would also like to draw the attention of hon. members to the fact that, legally in Canada, the term “adoption” refers to the adoption of a child and not to donated in vitro embryos. Furthermore, child adoption is clearly a provincial responsibility. Therefore, it is incorrect, legally, to talk about embryo adoption.

Now, I will address the legal concept of property as it relates to in vitro embryos. During discussions at the report stage of Bill C-13, members discussed how very inappropriate it would be to let market forces operate unfettered in the area of procreation. I find it very odd that Motion No. 39, on transferring the ownership of in vitro embryos, has been introduced. This government does not feel it is at all appropriate to consider in vitro embryos as property subject to property law.

The third point I want to briefly mention is the scope of Bill C-13. This is raised by Motions Nos. 32, 33 and 36.

This bill is limited solely to in vitro embryos. It is not regulating embryos in a woman's body, nor fetuses, nor stem cell lines. These are clearly outside the scope of Bill C-13.

Bill C-13 takes a balanced and reasonable approach to the issues raised by the motions in Group No. 3. This is a Canadian approach. Let us address these matters judiciously and help advance this country's legislative system.

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March 18th, 2003 / 12:05 p.m.
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Progressive Conservative

Norman E. Doyle Progressive Conservative St. John's East, NL

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have a few words to say on Bill C-13. Like many who have already spoken in this debate, I too am against experimentation on embryonic stem cells. I just do not believe that the creation of the human embryo for the eventual destruction of it is an ethical procedure that we should be involved in here in Canada.

We have, as we are all very much aware, received many petitions in the House of Commons. I have received many from my riding of St. John's East urging all of us to oppose Bill C-13 and to concentrate our efforts on adult stem cells. We have seen hundreds and hundreds of petitions coming to the House of Commons on a daily basis.

We have heard a great deal about adult stem cells and the fact that this kind of experimentation holds great promise for cures for many diseases, like Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, cancer and diabetes, and for the reversal of damage from spinal cord injury and stroke. That research, as many people have been saying, would benefit a great deal from greater resources being put into it. It would make sense to put greater resources into adult stem cell research. This should be given greater priority by government.

By contrast, of course, there is an ethical dilemma arising from embryonic stem cell research. We are told that the benefits of embryonic stem cell research are sheer speculation at the moment. The controversy is expending a great deal of energy that I feel could be better redirected toward more promising pursuits like adult stem cell research.

Many ethical questions remain unanswered, not the least of which is the question of what happens to the embryos that remain unused in this experimentation. I have heard many points of view, some very good, put forward today regarding the beginnings of life. There are many, including me, who believe that life begins at conception. Given that belief, which is held by many, and given that these small beginnings of life have the potential to grow into full human beings, then from my point of view government should be coming up with some way to protect these very beginnings of life.

What is the reason we are not putting greater energy and greater resources into, if we will, pro-life? I happen to believe that we in the 21st century unfortunately are living in a culture of death. We seem to have very little respect for human beings and very little respect for the beginnings of life.

It probably stems from the fact that we have been fed a steady diet of violence and death on a daily basis. We have become desensitized by the images of death all around us. When we see, for instance, hundreds of dead bodies floating in a river in Rwanda, when we see thousands of dead human beings stacked one on top of the other in an image from the second world war and the Jewish holocaust, when we see hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of starvation and death in Somalia, or when we see bodies strewn in the streets from a chemical attack, then society becomes very desensitized, and things like abortion become just another procedure instead of the destruction of a human being, a living, moving human being.

We can see, then, how embryonic stem cell research works its way on to the floor of the House of Commons. Assisted suicide and euthanasia will probably find their way here as well. Why? Because we live in a desensitized world, I believe, which embraces the culture of violence and death, and that is quite unfortunate.

There are many scientific risks surrounding embryonic stem cell experimentation. Initially scientists thought that real progress from stem cell research would come by way of embryonic stem cells. Today, however, it is known that while adult stem cells are already being used successfully in some human treatments, embryonic stem cells have yet to be associated with any kind of successful human trials. Embryonic stem cells are far from the utopian medical breakthrough that many people are suggesting. Embryonic stem cells appear to be subject, for instance, to a random and uncontrollable growth. On the other hand, adult stem cells seem to be more predictable in responding to the growth factors and hormones that function to redirect their development. Embryonic stem cells have been known to grow into the wrong types of cells, for instance, so the method for steering stem cells in the right direction still needs significant improvement.

Where should we go from here? I believe that due to the scientific risk and the ethical dilemmas associated with human embryonic stem cell experimentation, a moratorium on funding such research should be issued and we should be putting society's money into adult stem cell research. We are talking about human life. I think that we have an opportunity here to show respect and protection for the very beginnings of life.

It is far more beneficial for us to be concentrating our efforts on adult stem cell research. Let us stop for a moment and have a look at what we are doing here.

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March 18th, 2003 / 11:55 a.m.
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Bloc

Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC

Madam Speaker, it is always very touching to see the great spirit of comradeship in this House. Surprising, sometimes, but still very pleasing.

So, on to the crux of the matter. We had hoped, as I have said, for the bill to be split. That was defeated. We introduced the standard motion in the House to that end. The government did not see it our way and we respected that. Today, however, the issue is still unresolved as far as the Bloc Quebecois is concerned, because again we are hoping to see provisions in the Criminal Code. We do, however, have questions about the consequences of having a regulatory agency.

Let us talk about the Government of Quebec. As you know, Madam Speaker, it is an excellent government and one that may retain popular support for a third mandate. The outcome will be known on April 14. I will have an opportunity to speak of this again.

What is worrisome is that, if the Bloc Quebecois votes in favour of this bill and regulations, it will mean the superimposing of structures one on top of another, and there will not only be the Criminal Code, but also an agency responsible for application of very important regulations.

I was in the process of listing inconsistencies between the agency, Bill C-13 and legislation passed by the National Assembly. I mentioned the Civil Code. This is an important piece of legislation because there is a world of difference between the common law tradition and Quebec's civil law tradition. What makes Quebec different, besides its blueprint for sovereignty, which will see it become a sovereign state as soon as the people make that decision, is its legal system.

In Quebec civil law, it is not up to judges to decide the meaning and interpretation of legislation; it is up to the National Assembly, which, through elected representatives, adopted a type of law called positive law, which is codified in its Civil Code. English Canada is not governed by the Civil Code, civil law, but rather by common law. This means that when there is a dispute and a court is asked to settle it, it may not necessarily be what the lawmaker provided that prevails, but precedents, tradition, custom. Judges are not required to take into consideration what was decided by an assembly of parliamentarians, but do take into consideration how their colleagues ruled in similar cases. That is what the common law tradition is all about. That is not what we have in Quebec.

That is why the Civil Code of Québec contains provisions prohibiting surrogacy agreements. One cannot give birth to a child and say,“I will not be its mother.” There are provisions against that in surrogacy agreements.

So, there are major inconsistencies between Quebec law and Bill C-13. These aspects are not compatible with our Civil Code and the Act respecting health services and social services, which was amended by the National Assembly a few years ago to allow the Government of Quebec to determine which facilities will provide medically assisted reproduction services. There is the Université de Sherbrooke and its health care facilities for instance, but the National Assembly and the minister determine who is authorized to provide services.

If we were to pass Bill C-13 with the related regulations, the federal government would then be able to determine which facilities, while not under its jurisdiction, may provide medically assisted reproduction services. This, of course, is a problem.

The debate with regard to the Privacy Act is extremely important. In the bill, the government says that there is no obligation to disclose the identity of donors. Individuals who donate at fertility clinics can and should maintain their anonymity. The child of a donor will not know who the donor is.

In committee, we heard the testimony of children born through such technologies who told us that this makes no sense.

In legal terms, this is called the right to know who you are. Are children born through these technologies entitled to ask fertility clinics about the donor's identity?

This is the subject of much debate. The government says that it does not want to force donors to disclose their identity for two reasons. It says that, in places where this has been done, donations have decreased, and fertility clinics have experienced a shortage of donors. This has created problems in the supply of sperm and eggs.

If we look at the situation in Australia and New Zealand in the months after donor disclosure became a requirement, we see that supply really was a problem.

At the same time, some point to a whole new area of law opening. up. For instance, I recently read a document for the European Convention on Human Rights that said that the act of withholding the identity of the donor is inconsistent with human rights, not to mention what this means for psychogenesis. For his development as a human being, an individual, a child needs to know not only his social father, the man who raised him and took care of him, but also his biological father.

In our report to the Standing Committee on Health, we asked the government to lift the ban and make identity disclosure mandatory. The government did not listen to the recommendation of the Standing Committee on Health. If passed in its present form, the bill would not require disclosure of the donor's identity, except in emergencies.

Clearly if the child born of these technologies goes to the hospital for a blood transfusion and he needs to know his father's blood type, a national registry would exist for that purpose. This registry would make it possible to search and find the identity of his genetic father, his genetics, and of course, his blood type.

Over and above such urgent considerations, there is no provision in the bill for disclosure of donor identity.

We also note major incompatibilities with laws in place that have been passed by the National Assembly. I have already referred to the Civil Code, the Health and Social Services Act, and the Act respecting the Protection of Personal Information. I could now talk about the Act respecting medical laboratories, organ, tissue, gamete and embryo conservation. There is also an extreme incompatibility concerning the right to one's origins, in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I could also refer to the physicians' code of ethics, the guidelines of the Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec, or FRSC, and the ministerial action plan for research ethics and scientific integrity.

As you can see, it is not easy to gain a grasp of a bill like this one. We had good intentions, and were convinced that the government was prepared to split the bill, but it did not do so.

So we find we are faced with an incompatibility as far as the Health and social services act is concerned; a superimposition of criminal penalties onto the practices of our civil law; interferences with certain provisions of the Quebec Civil Code, particularly those relating to adoption. I am thinking of sections 538 through 542.

Then there are problems with qualifications, as found in the various statutes on professional practices, as well as the addition of an administrative framework to which researchers will be subject, as defined in the regulations as set out in the bill.

Madam Speaker, you are indicating that my time is up. I do not want to take up the time of the House further, particularly since it is an important law and I have already had 10 minutes. I will come back to this at third reading. I assure you that, obviously, in this matter as in others, we are going to defend the interests of Quebec to the best of our ability.

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March 18th, 2003 / 11:45 a.m.
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Bloc

Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC

Madam Speaker, I have good news for you. I just learned that our colleague Jean-François, who looks after question period for us with the House leader, will soon become a father. Since we are talking about assisted human reproduction, I thought I would share this with my colleagues. I am sure that everyone in this House will want to join me in extending our congratulations to him. Of course, no artificial processes were involved here, as far as I know. The child will be born some time in November. I will come back to that in due course.

This bill underwent a rather long gestation period. We debated it in committee for 18 months, but have yet to see it through report stage. We, and the minister's parliamentary secretary in particular—who is the father of this bill to some extent—look forward to a timely delivery. We look forward to that happy event in the near future.

It has not been easy for the Bloc Quebecois to come up with a position on this bill. Members will recall that the member for Drummond, whom each and everyone of us in the House is fond of, has been in the vanguard of this debate. Back in 1995 she tabled a private member's bill inviting the House to legislate and set out provisions in the Criminal Code to protect us from therapeutic cloning. We now realize, with the passage of time and some perspective, just how much of a visionary the member for Drummond was. I think that is the appropriate word.

During the Christmas break, we were given a scare because of claims made by a company called Clonaid. No one here would have wanted embryo cloning to be possible. However, if what the spokesperson for Clonaid was saying had been true, unfortunately there would not have been any recourse available to Parliament, because the Criminal Code does not contain any relevant provisions.

It is a bit sad that the government has taken so long in legislating. Ten years have gone by since the report of the Baird commission, the royal commission of inquiry on reproductive technologies. I think this is reasonable. We would have expected the government to have introduced a bill to deal with the pressing issues, at least.

True, it is not easy to look at every consideration and every aspect of a bill such as this one. It involves ethical values. One's perspective will depend on one's idea of family.

Of course, we have to bear in mind that when dealing with assisted human reproduction, one in five couples in Canada has fertility problems. Therefore, one in five couples could benefit from assisted human reproduction. We must also acknowledge that for the first time in the history of humanity that it will be possible to reproduce without there being sexual intercourse between two people. That is what is troubling when we look at how we must perceive this debate.

There are other important elements. First, with respect to this bill, the Bloc Quebecois asked, quite early on, that the bill be split.

If it had been, we could have voted rather quickly on provisions to add to the Criminal Code. I think that there is consensus in the House regarding the 13 prohibited activities. Some activities are unanimously condemned by all parliamentarians, be they members of the Canadian Alliance, the government party, the Bloc Quebecois, the Progressive Conservatives or the NDP. We could have voted rather quickly on these activities.

For example, there is the issue of cloning, of maintaining an embryo outside a woman's body for not more than 14 days, because the central nervous system forms after that.

There is the issue of paying consideration to surrogate mothers. There is also the issue of not taking human reproductive material and mixing it with that of an animal to produce what is called a chimera.

There are, therefore, 14 prohibited activities in the bill that members unanimously agree on and that could have been voted on rather quickly.

That is why the Bloc Quebecois had asked that the bill be split. If we had been able to split the bill, perhaps it would have been passed already. Perhaps it would have already gone through the Senate and received, naturally, royal assent. Because we have been asking for many months now that this be done.

Today, we find ourselves in a complex situation because the Canadian Alliance does not like the bill. This bill is like an unwanted pregnancy. And as with all unwanted pregnancies, the father refuses to step forward. The Canadian Alliance is doing everything possible to prevent labour. We are being made to undergo a C-section. People want to force the bill into existence despite the protests of the Canadian Alliance. That is why, if the bill had been split, we would not be in this situation.

The Bloc is also in an uneasy position because we would like there to be provisions in the Criminal Code, but at the same time, we are uncomfortable with the assisted human reproduction agency of Canada. This agency would receive $10 million a year and interfere in provincial jurisdictions.

Allow me to give a few examples. If this agency were created, it would be incompatible with 14 pieces of legislation in Quebec, all of them important to the National Assembly.

One of these is the Civil Code of Quebec. What are the differences between the bill and the Civil Code of Quebec?The Civil Code of Quebec states that under no circumstances will surrogate mothers be reimbursed for expenditures. Pregnancy is an altruistic act. If you want to give life to someone, bring a child into the world, it cannot be for monetary or commercial reasons. It has to be a purely altruistic act. There cannot be reimbursement for certain expenditures.

Bill C-13 states that under certain circumstances, if receipts are provided, the agency may agree to reimburse certain expenditures such as for consulting a psychologist or travel. Some expenditures could be reimbursed. This is not consistent with the Civil Code of Quebec.

There is another extremely significant interference. The bill, especially the regulations that will govern its implementation, sets out not only the conditions under which gametes (the sperm and the ova) will be maintained but the conditions under which health professionals will be able to make technologies available and carry out medical procedures.

The National Assembly—the only true parliament for Francophones in North America—amended the Act respecting health services and social services. Quebec's Health and Social Services Minister was given authority for designating institutions for the exclusive delivery of certain services, including medically assisted human reproduction.

The conflict in jurisdiction is obvious. We have the federal government, which clearly has no valid constitutional jurisdiction over the delivery of services involving medically assisted human reproduction.

I am not denying that the federal Parliament has a responsibility when it comes to health care for aboriginals; the federal government has a fiduciary obligation to aboriginals. I am not denying that the federal government can intervene on matters of defence and the military; the federal government is responsible for the Canadian military. I am not denying that the federal government can intervene when it comes to research; the Supreme Court has recognized it as a valid power.

However, the federal government cannot intervene to provide health care services in hospitals, in research institutions or in university facilities. That is not right.

That is what the Bloc Quebecois finds reprehensible. We want the Criminal Code to contain clear provisions to prevent cloning. Imagine living in a world where everyone started cloning and that threatened every human being's uniqueness.

The bill goes much further than that. It allows for changes to the Criminal Code, but it also makes other changes.

Madam Speaker, given the good news I just announced, would you please see if there is unanimous consent in the House for me to extend my speech for ten minutes? I would appreciate that, and it would be a fitting tribute to the child that Jean-François is expecting.

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March 18th, 2003 / 11:35 a.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Monte Solberg Canadian Alliance Medicine Hat, AB

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise and speak to the bill and these motions.

I wish to congratulate my colleague from Mississauga South for the motions he has brought forward, the passion he has brought to the debate, and his analysis of the issues. He has done a tremendous amount of work on all of this and he deserves to be recognized for it.

I wish to acknowledge my friend from Calgary Southeast who is very interested in the bill. He has done a tremendous amount of work on this issue and has done his best to draw public attention to the bill. I also wish to acknowledge the member for Yellowhead, the Canadian Alliance critic for health. They have all done a lot of work on the bill. I appreciate their efforts to draw attention to some of these issues.

When we talk about these issues we should talk about them in a tone of humility. We are talking about the essence of human life here. Sometimes we are completely cavalier in how we approach this whole subject.

In the group of amendments that we have before us right now there is talk about paying people to be surrogate mothers. In the previous group of motions my friend from Calgary Southeast was seeking to prohibit the use of embryos for research and the commodification of human embryos for research. The member who spoke a moment ago was talking about those sorts of things.

When we see where Bill C-13 is going, and how the government is specifying particular ways for industry and in some cases individuals are specifying particular ways for private industry to come and commodify human life, we should be concerned. We should approach this with some reverence and some awe, and appreciate that there is a mystery at the centre of human life and science will never plumb the depth of it.

I am concerned when I see people acting in such a cavalier manner about these things that are greater and above individual people. There is something that springs from something greater and above this. Coming from a Christian perspective I would argue that it comes from God and I caution people to be mindful of this.

As I mentioned before, and I do not know if I said it very well, if a lab technician were asked to dispose of a human embryo would there not be a twinge of conscience there? Would there not be some apprehension about doing that? Would there not be a momentary pause wondering whether or not it was correct to dispose of a human embryo?

Even in the legislation the government says that these embryos may be disposed of up to 14 days. This suggests or implies that after 14 days all of a sudden there is some human dignity involved here.

Why is it 14 days? Why is there that cut-off? It seems rather arbitrary. I wonder if perhaps it does not suggest that the government on the one hand is troubled by the fact that it knows at some point that this thing, a human embryo, has some dignity. The government is afraid to say that it starts when that egg is fertilized. We should be cautious in how we approach this. We should approach it with some reverence and I do not think that we do that.

The member for Mississauga South made some excellent points when he spoke a moment ago. One of the things he has pointed to and it deserves the attention of the House and the public almost as much as anything else in this legislation is his reference to the fact that the bill does not ban human cloning. He has laid out all kinds of examples.

I submit that when the Raelians had a press conference not very long ago, just at the beginning of the year, where they were claiming that they cloned a human person, people were horrified around the country and around the world that this could happen.

We need to move with tremendous speed to ban all kinds of human cloning, to close off all opportunities for human cloning. My friend from Calgary Southeast talked about this as well. We must ensure that any legislation that comes forward does not leave a loophole for this to happen because the nature of science is that if it is possible to do it, scientists will do it. To be fair to scientists, science is about finding the limits of human knowledge. It is about exploring things to the limits of human knowledge. That is what scientists do today and it is what they have always done. They do not always think about the ethical and moral considerations, so if there is any kind of a loophole it will absolutely be found.

The members for Mississauga South, Calgary Southeast and others have pointed to some of these problems. We should be extraordinarily careful about proceeding while we have these kinds of clouds of uncertainty hanging over our heads as parliamentarians. I would hate to say that I had participated in the crafting of a bill that allowed human cloning and I am just worried that perhaps that is where we are headed.

I want to address some of the specific motions in Group No. 3. There are things that my friend from Mississauga has proposed, for instance, that there be no buying or selling of human reproductive materials. Let me clarify that Motion No. 32 would add a prohibition on the purchase of fetuses and fetal tissue.

As I mentioned at the outset, I am concerned again that what this bill would do is allow the commodification, the industrialization, of human life. Some people seem to be okay with that. We have some people who are arguing that it is not a problem to pay surrogate mothers all kinds of money to go out and have children. I personally am deeply concerned about that. Motion No. 32 seeks to stop the selling of fetuses or fetal tissue. Any kind of extra protection we can give to that is very important.

Another thing that the member for Mississauga South is proposing to do is to block the transfer of the ownership of a human embryo from the parents to, for instance, a fertility clinic. The member for Mississauga South gave a very specific example of that. When talking about something as precious to people as their children, or a potential child--depending upon how we look at it, I think of a human fetus as an actual life--members can imagine the potential for lawsuits and disputes if this is not made clear in the legislation. The member for Mississauga South has made it very clear that there is a huge loophole and that we need to find ways to close that up. He has pointed to other problems as well.

In closing, members of Parliament should approach this issue with a little humility, a little awe, and a little reverence for the dignity of human life. We should ensure that all possible prohibitions are in place to ensure that cloning is not permitted in any way, shape or form. We should not allow some of the nightmare scenarios about which many people have already talked about. We should take into account some of the common sense proposals from different members around the House who are speaking on this and advocating particular points of view to ensure that human dignity is respected. That is what we are asking.

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March 18th, 2003 / 11:20 a.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Madam Speaker, this is the last group of debate at report stage. This is a very important bill. We are dealing now with the controlled activities but the linkages are enormous to the entire bill. The prohibited and controlled activities are the most important part of the bill.

I want to lay out for the House my concerns with Bill C-13. I hope that members will seriously consider what I am suggesting today.

First, the bill does not ban all forms of human cloning. If the bill does not ban all forms of human cloning, there is only one disposition of the bill, and that is to put it in the garbage.

I asked an hon. member this morning what he thought about the bill if it did not ban cloning. He said that it did. He said that clause 5 stated that “no person shall knowingly create a human clone”. What could be more simple? Absolutely, but what is a human clone?

There is a definition in there of human clone so that we cannot just take that statement on its face and say that it is a human clone as we all understand a human clone; a genetic identical organism to someone who is either living or deceased. The government's definition of human clone is stated in the bill and it includes an important word. It says chromosomes from a “single” embryo, fetus or fetal tissue.

It came to my attention on February 27 that members of the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to ban human cloning. How did they address it? They said that a human clone could not be created. However, their definition of human clone means human asexual reproduction accomplished by introducing nuclear material from one or more human cells into an embryo. Our bill states from a “single” cell, a single human being. It talks about one.

Dr. Dianne Irving presented materials to the health committee. She said that we had a bill that had problems with its definitions and terms used. With regard to cloning, she laid out that things like somatic cell nuclear transfer, parthenogenesis and twinning, et cetera, were not prohibited by the bill, and Health Canada finally got it.

At clause by clause, after all the witnesses and all the expert testimony, it tabled an amendment to the definition of human clone. However the definition it put in was still not comprehensive. In fact we have a definition now that still permits four different types of cloning. It still permits: pronuclei transfer; formation of chimeras and backbreeding; mitochondria transfer; and DNA-recombinant germ line transfer or, in other words, eugenics.

The parliamentary secretary said earlier that the scientists were moving very quickly and that they were coming up with new ways of doing this. Why have we redefined human clone to be something specific rather than to say that it is asexual reproduction that creates a genetic identical organism to someone who is living or deceased? Why can we not be clear? Why did the officials do that? Why have they changed the medical definition of human clone? Why have they changed the scientific definition of human clone to be something else?

The same exists with regard to chimera. Chimera is the combination of an embryo and a cell. It is also referred to generally between humans and animals that cannot be combined. The bill says that creating a chimera is prohibited. The medical and scientific dictionaries say that chimera means animal into human or human into animal. If we look at the definition in the bill, it says we cannot create a chimera. The definition of chimera is that a non-human life form cell cannot be put into a human embryo, but it does not prohibit putting human cells into a non-human life form, a non-human embryo.

Why has the bill changed the medical definition of chimera? Why has it changed the scientific definition of chimera? The terms and the definitions in the bill are wrong. They should have been reviewed more carefully and they have not been.

The United States bill shows clearly that it must be the asexual reproduction by one or more cells. We only have a definition that says one. The conclusion is this bill does not ban all forms of cloning. It is a problem that must be fixed if this bill is ever going to see the light of day.

For further evidence of that, the New Jersey state assembly also in the last month had a bill to ban cloning. That bill was also withdrawn because Dr. Irving, who advised our health committee also advised the state assembly and pointed out the problems and they could not fix it. They had to yank the bill and will have to rework it to make sure that the bill accomplishes the objectives.

Conflict of interest is a very serious issue in this matter. An agency is going to be set up. That agency is going to have members on the board of directors. Our bill right now has the provision that a board member cannot be a licensee or an applicant for a licence or have a relationship with anyone who wants to be a licensee. That is all it says.

The health committee said that did not go far enough. What we should do is prohibit anyone who has any pecuniary interest in anything that goes on beyond the researchers and fertility clinics. I am talking about pharmaceutical companies, biotech companies and those who are going to commercialize the research of genetic technology. The bill should make sure that there is independence in the board of directors.

The minister has a motion before this place to delete that health committee amendment. That means the Minister of Health would like us to approve a bill which says that pharmaceutical companies and biotech companies can be members of the board of directors of the reproductive agency. Pharmaceutical companies and biotech companies can be members of the board. How ludicrous.

The justice officials advising Health Canada were told, “We would like to see these people file conflict of interest statements and declarations”. What did they say? “They are not paid enough and they will not do it. They are only part time. It is only the president and the chairman that are full time. It is a real inconvenience for the part time members”.

I am sorry, but I thought every member of the board of directors had one vote. I thought every vote was important and that their decisions were important. Why is it that if it is too inconvenient for a member of the board of directors to file a conflict of interest statement that we would not look to someone else who was prepared to put on the table what his or her pecuniary interests were in the research that he or she would be making decisions on?

The bill does not define what is necessary research. It was probably the single most important question that members raised. In the minister's statement to the House on what I believe was Bill C-56 at the time, she said that a research ethics board or a reputable ethics board was going to determine whether it was necessary. That is not what the bill says. The bill says that the agency will determine whether research is necessary. The Standing Committee on Health in the report on the draft bill said that necessary should mean that there is no other biological material that could achieve the intended research objectives.

That makes sense. It probably should be expanded to also include the fact that if research has already happened in that area, we should not be repeating research that has already been done. It makes so much sense but we do not want the definition of “necessary” in the bill. Why is that? We must have the definition of “necessary” to determine whether or not research on embryos or any part of embryos is necessary. We are talking about human beings.

When we looked at this meaningful research, one of the things that came out was that Dr. Françoise Baylis said that only half of the frozen embryos would survive the thawing process. She estimated that there were only about 500 embryos in storage in Canada today and only half of those would be available or qualify for research. Of those 250, 125 would die, would not survive the thawing process. Of the 125, she went on to say that only nine of them would have the ability to generate a stem cell line that would be useful. Of those nine only about half, so let us say five, would be able to produce stem cell lines which met the quality requirements of the researchers.

The situation in Canada right now is there are 500 embryos and out of the 250 that might be available for research, only five or 2% of those embryos are going to generate enough research material. If there are not enough embryos to sustain meaningful research, we should not be killing embryos, period. Why do we not have that?

The science is being developed to freeze or to store women's eggs, the ova. If we have the science to freeze or to store women's ova and only fertilize those eggs that are necessary for in vitro fertilization, there will never be any surplus. Why does the bill not say that should the ova storage techniques be as successful, i.e., only 50% successful, as it is with embryos, this would be the process that would be used and that we could not store human beings cryogenically?

That is one of my motions. I believe we should do it. It would be our full and final declaration that human embryos should never be created for research purposes. If we are able to store ova but we continue to store embryos, it is indeed someone's intent to use human beings for research purposes. It is just not acceptable.

Regarding informed consent, the bill defines consent as whatever the existing laws of Canada say. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research provided guidelines in March 2002. They went so far as to say that consent has to happen before anything happens. Before there is any contribution of any sperm or eggs, they have to be informed. Not only that, they have to be informed of which researchers are going to get the embryo. They have to know what contracts and what institutions that research has a relationship with. There have to be declarations right down the line and there has to be consent at every benchmark point. Those people can back out at any point.

What does the bill say now? The bill will not even define who the donor of an embryo is. The donor of the sperm and the egg are the human beings who donated them but when they are put together to make an embryo, the bill says the donor of an embryo is not the couple who created that embryo; it is whoever we say it is in the regulations. What nonsense.

Does that mean we are going to follow up with the Ottawa fertility clinic and say that if it does not pay its rent, then we own and control its embryo, we own that human being? Where are the principles in the bill? We need to deal with those things.

I cannot do this subject justice in the time remaining. I know other members want to talk and I want to hear them talk.

Finally, this bill permits the implantation of human genetic material into non-human life forms. The minister has put out a piece of paper explaining that we have to do this for research. We should not be putting human life form or any genetic material into non-human beings.

Dr. Baylis at the UNESCO parliamentary round table said that down the road she could see that we would be granting personhood, moral status to hybrids of humans and non-humans. This is where the research mind is. They are doing it because they can do it.

I have worked on the bill. I have done the best that I can. I have nothing left to offer other than that tomorrow, members will be receiving in their offices, in both official languages, in plain language the intent or effect of each and every one of the 50-some report stage motions on which they will be asked to vote so that they will know the essence of those report stage motions.

I believe that many of those motions must be passed in order to save the bill. The bill is on life support and very soon it will be on the death watch. If we do not make substantial progress in dealing with the definitions and in passing many of these important report stage motions, I do not believe that I will be able to support Bill C-13.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

March 18th, 2003 / 11:15 a.m.
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Liberal

Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC

moved:

Motion No. 51

That Bill C-13, in Clause 12, be amended by adding after line 22 on page 8 the following:

“(3) No person shall reimburse a surrogate mother for a loss of work-related income incurred during her pregnancy, unless

(a) a qualified medical practitioner certifies, in writing, that continuing to work may pose a risk to her health or that of the embryo or feotus; and

(b) the reimbursement is made in accordance with the regulations and a licence.”

Motion No. 95

That Bill C-13, in Clause 65, be amended by replacing lines 12 to 14 on page 30 with the following:

“(e) for the purposes of subsection 12(1), respecting the reasonable expenditures that may be reimbursed under a licence;

(e.1) for the purposes of subsection 12(3), respecting the reimbursement of a loss of income;”

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

March 18th, 2003 / 11:15 a.m.
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Liberal

Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON

moved:

Motion No. 46

That Bill C-13 be amended by adding after line 38 on page 7 the following new clause:

“10.1 (1) No person shall, except in accordance with the regulations, pay consideration to a female person to be a surrogate mother, offer to pay such consideration or advertise that it will be paid.

(2) No person shall, except in accordance with the regulations, accept consideration for arranging for the services of a surrogate mother, offer to make such an arrangement for consideration or advertise the arranging of such services.

(3) No person shall, except in accordance with the regulations, pay consideration to another person to arrange for the services of a surrogate mother, offer to pay such consideration or advertise the payment of it.

(4) No person shall, except in accordance with the regulations, counsel or induce a female person to become a surrogate mother, or perform any medical procedure to assist a female person to become a surrogate mother, knowing or having reason to believe that the female person is under 21 years of age.

(5) This section does not affect the validity under provincial law of any agreement under which a person agrees to be a surrogate mother.”

Motion No. 49

That Bill C-13 be amended by adding after line 7 on page 8 the following new clause:

“11.1 (1) No person shall, except in accordance with the regulations, purchase, offer to purchase or advertise for the purchase of sperm or ova from a donor or a person acting on behalf of a donor.

(2) No person shall, except in accordance with the regulations

(a) purchase, offer to purchase or advertise for the purchase of an in vitro embryo; or

(b) sell, offer for sale or advertise for sale an in vitro embryo.

(3) No person shall, except in accordance with the regulations, purchase, offer to purchase or advertise for the purchase of a human cell or gene from a donor or a person acting on behalf of a donor, with the intention of using the gene or cell to create a human being or of making it available for that purpose.

(4) In this section, “purchase” or “sell” includes to acquire or dispose of in exchange for property or services.”

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

March 18th, 2003 / 11:10 a.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

moved:

Motion No. 32

That Bill C-13, in Clause 7, be amended by replacing line 26 on page 6 with the following:

“for the purchase of an in vitro embryo, a foetus or any foetal tissue; or”

Motion No. 33

That Bill C-13, in Clause 7, be amended by replacing lines 26 to 28 on page 6 with the following:

“for the purchase of an in vitro embryo, or any part of one; or

(b) sell, offer for sale or advertise for sale an in vitro embryo, or any part of one.”

Motion No. 36

That Bill C-13, in Clause 7, be amended by replacing line 28 on page 6 with the following:

“in vitro embryo, a foetus or any foetal tissue.”

Motion No. 39

That Bill C-13, in Clause 8, be amended by adding after line 16 on page 7 the following:

“(4) A donor may not transfer to another person the ownership, or any of the rights or obligations of ownership, of an embryo or any other human reproductive material.”

Motion No. 44

That Bill C-13, in Clause 10, be amended by adding after line 38 on page 7 the following:

“(4) No person shall, except in accordance with the regulations, adopt an embryo for the purposes of human reproduction.”

Motion No. 45

That Bill C-13, in Clause 10, be amended by adding after line 38 on page 7 the following:

“(4) No person shall, except in accordance with the regulations and a licence, use human reproductive material or an embryo, or any part of one, for the purpose of providing education or training related to assisted human reproduction.”

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

March 18th, 2003 / 11:05 a.m.
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Liberal

Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON

moved:

Motion No. 30

That Bill C-13 be amended by deleting Clause 7.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

March 18th, 2003 / 11:05 a.m.
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Liberal

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.”

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

March 18th, 2003 / 11:05 a.m.
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Liberal

Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON

moved:

Motion No. 28

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

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

March 18th, 2003 / 10:50 a.m.
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Madawaska—Restigouche New Brunswick

Liberal

Jeannot Castonguay LiberalParliamentary 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.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

March 18th, 2003 / 10:30 a.m.
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Canadian Alliance

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--

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

March 18th, 2003 / 10:20 a.m.
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Canadian Alliance

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.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

March 18th, 2003 / 10:10 a.m.
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Canadian Alliance

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

March 17th, 2003 / 11:20 a.m.
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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 ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2003 / 1:50 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

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.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2003 / 1:40 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

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.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2003 / 1:30 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

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.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2003 / 1:20 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

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.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2003 / 1:10 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

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.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2003 / 12:35 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

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.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2003 / 12:25 p.m.
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NDP

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.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2003 / 12:15 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

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.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2003 / 11:45 a.m.
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Bloc

Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2003 / 11:25 a.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Watch out if I get excited, Mr. Speaker.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2003 / 11:15 a.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2003 / 11:05 a.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

moved:

Motion No. 18

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

“(e) perform any procedure or provide,”

Motion No. 20

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

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

Motion No. 21

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

“(h) make use of any human reproductive”

Motion No. 22

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

“life form;

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

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

Motion No. 23

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

“life form;

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

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

Motion No. 24

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

“life form;

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

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

Motion No. 26

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

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

Motion No. 27

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

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

Motion No. 40

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

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

Motion No. 47

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

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

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2003 / 11:05 a.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Jason Kenney Canadian Alliance Calgary Southeast, AB

moved:

Motion No. 17

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

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

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2003 / 11:05 a.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

moved:

Motion No. 13

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

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

Motion No. 14

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

“purpose other than human reproduction”

Motion No. 16

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

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

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2003 / 10:40 a.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Carol Skelton Canadian Alliance Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2003 / 10:30 a.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Andy Burton Canadian Alliance Skeena, BC

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our minority report recommended:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is absolutely essential.

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

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

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

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

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

February 27th, 2003 / 10:10 a.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

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

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

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

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

Questions on the Order PaperRoutine Proceedings

February 21st, 2003 / 12:40 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Jason Kenney Canadian Alliance Calgary Southeast, AB

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

Business of the House

February 21st, 2003 / 10:05 a.m.
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The Deputy Speaker

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

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

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

Business of the House

February 21st, 2003 / 10:05 a.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

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

Business of the House

February 21st, 2003 / 10:05 a.m.
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Glengarry—Prescott—Russell Ontario

Liberal

Don Boudria LiberalMinister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

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

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

Business of the HouseOral Question Period

February 20th, 2003 / 3 p.m.
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Glengarry—Prescott—Russell Ontario

Liberal

Don Boudria LiberalMinister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

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

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

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

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

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

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

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

February 17th, 2003 / 5:50 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Gerry Ritz Canadian Alliance Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Canada Health ActPrivate Members' Business

February 11th, 2003 / 6 p.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Madam Speaker, I am a very big fan of private members' business, especially when it involves proposed legislation which I consider to be wise and well thought out. Bill C-202 in the name of the member for Ottawa--Vanier is a very good piece of proposed legislation.

The member is the chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages. He has spoken out very passionately in this place as recently as the debate on Bill C-13 to get that piece of legislation subject to the Official Languages Act. As a consequence, the government even supported the motion and his reasoning. Even on a voice vote the House embraced it. It is a signal from this place that the Official Languages Act has a very special place in Canada and that all our legislation, all our agencies and all of those organizations which touch the fibre of Canada should be covered under the Official Languages Act.

I congratulate the member wholeheartedly for presenting Bill C-202. This will add the principle of respecting linguistic duality to the Canada Health Act specifically, but it is also a signal that we are ready to clean up all of the other areas. I am sure that the government will consider the member's recommendations.

The member spoke very eloquently to this bill. He wanted to ensure consistency in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Canada Health Act and the Official Languages Act. We have to put our constitution, our legislation and our Official Languages Act on the same playing field because they fit very well and serve Canada very well.

The member gave a number of arguments. One was that effectively we would be adding a sixth principle to the Canada Health Act. We operate now under five principles but that sixth element is equally important. The Canada Health Act guides us in all the legislation to do with health. It provides the foundation on which all Canadians can get the services they need; comprehensiveness, accessibility, portability, et cetera, and in both official languages without hesitation. That is as important as effective delivery.

The member indicated that the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology held hearings on this matter and issued a report. A number of testimonials came from the provinces.

The federal government provides leadership in many ways but when the provinces come forward and say that this is a good idea and it is what we should be doing, then it is pretty important. When there are key players in each of the provinces who are prepared to make testimonials on behalf of the proposal that the member has raised and on which the Senate committee had hearings, those things are very powerful and should not be ignored.

Mr. Paul d'Entremont from Nova Scotia stated:

In Nova Scotia, there exists no provincial law or policy stipulating that services must be offered in French. This explains why access to health care in French is so very limited, and where such services are offered, they are provided thanks to the dogged persistence of individuals and community organizations.

That is very important. They are trying to get around it but they do not have the tools to make it happen. The quote continues:

Existing French services have often been put in place by chance, randomly, and the community fears losing them. The comments gathered during the recent consultation of the Acadian francophone population in our eight Acadian regions such as in the recent study carried out by the FCFA, bear witness to the fact that there is very little access to services in French.

That was the Nova Scotia representation. Nova Scotia does not have adequate access to services in French. Mr. d'Entremont went on to recommend that the federal government add a sixth principle to the Canada Health Act on linguistic duality.

In Ontario we have similar support. A representative from Ontario said specifically:

The data show that half the time, francophones living in minority situations have little or no access to health care services in their own language. In other words, a great deal remains to be done before we achieve equality as regards health care services for francophone minority communities.

Therefore Ontario has the same situation. The Ontario representative also supported a sixth principle on linguistic duality and the protection of minorities. We have again a very important reference from credible people who represent the interests of people in their provinces.

In British Columbia, Ms. Yseult Friolet, who is the Executive Director of the Fédération des francophones de la Colombie-Britannique in her testimony stated:

When we think of British Columbia, we often think about mountains and the sea, but we may forget that there are 61,000 francophones living in our beautiful province.

She went on to say:

There is also a large community of people who speak French as their second or third language. There are close to 250,000 people in our province who can speak French, which is roughly 7 per cent of the population.

She went on to add her support for a sixth principle for the Canada Health Act. She also appeared before the Romanow commission and made the same argument.

In Prince Edward Island it is a very similar situation. In representations by Ms. Élise Arsenault of the Centre communautaire Évangéline, she stated:

The community now wants the federal government to assume a leadership role in this regard by providing financial support to the provinces that wish to offer more health services in French and to include a sixth principle in the Canada Health Act.

From sea to sea to sea I could read testimonies from Quebec, from New Brunswick, from Yukon, but I believe that many members here would like to join in this debate to lend their support to the proposal that we should have this sixth element in the Canada Health Act because it is important to Canada. It is a constitutional issue. It is a minority rights issue. It is a parliamentary issue. Specifically, in the proposed bill it is also a health issue. I am very sure that once we deal with this aspect it will provide the springboard effect that is necessary for us to move forward in other legislation and with regard to the operations of other agencies.

As can be seen, the members of the official language communities are expressing their support for health care services in both official languages. Through a number of spokespeople, they have requested that the Government of Canada add a sixth principle to the Canada Health Act. Numerous communities have also spoken. They want to see their constitutional rights guaranteed when it comes to health.

We as members of the House of Commons are in a position to make that happen and I urge all members to vote in favour of Bill C-202. Let us make it unanimous, let us do it all stages and let us make this the law in Canada.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 11th, 2003 / 1:45 p.m.
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Progressive Conservative

Greg Thompson Progressive Conservative New Brunswick Southwest, NB

Mr. Speaker, we are on Group No. 6 and the various amendments relating to that. I am not sure what I can add at this point to some of the comments already made but I do want to put some of my own thoughts into the bill.

First, I want to thank the member for Richmond—Arthabaska who was the member of the committee and our health critic at the time when the bill was introduced to the House. We then had a subsequent change in critic roles.

I was not around during the early stages of the bill when it was developed in committee. The committee travelled from one end of Canada to the other hearing expert testimony. It received ideas on what should be in a bill that is as controversial or complicated, which is probably a better word, as this bill which deals with assisted human reproductive technology.

It might be interesting for the House and the listening public to have a small sense of the history of the bill and how far back it reaches into the workings of Parliament. The response to this was a result of the Baird commission when it reported to the House of Commons in 1993.

As you were in the House at the time, Mr. Speaker, you will remember that the Baird commission was set up in the late 1980s under the government of Brian Mulroney. In fact, the wife of the current leader of the Progressive Conservative Party was a very important member of that commission. The commission did good work and as a result of that good work Bill C-47 was introduced in the House in 1996.

I do not have to remind you, Mr. Speaker, but that bill died on the Order Paper, which often happens around this place. Then, of course, after the election in 1997 a subsequent bill was introduced, Bill C-247, which basically was the same bill, but it failed the test of scrutiny and did not go any further.

Finally, in 2001, and that was when the member for Richmond—Arthabaska was our health critic, the bill was studied by committee and then reintroduced into the House as Bill C-56. However, with the prorogation of Parliament last fall, the bill had to be reintroduced again. Now we have it as Bill C-13.

The other interesting thing about the bill is that I do not think the government recognizes success when it has it within its grasp. Much of the good work that was done on Bill C-13 in committee has been objected to by the government. I will give some examples of that. I am talking about the member for Winnipeg North Centre who sits next to me and who represents the NDP in this place. She was the former health critic for her party.

I just want to give an example of how the government gets overtaken or consumed by its own sense of power and invincibility.

The member for Winnipeg North Centre worked very hard, as did the member for Yellowhead and the member for Mississauga South on the government side, to introduce thoughtful recommendations and motions at the committee stage which would have improved the bill.

One recommendation by the member for Winnipeg North Centre would have actually changed clause 26(8) to guarantee that the board of directors of the agency, which would control the bill, would have no pecuniary or proprietary interest in any business relating to the field of reproductive technologies. The wording for that amendment was based on other legislative initiatives that were very similar in make-up to the present bill.

The committee agreed to the member's amendment. However, despite the fact that the all party committee supported the amendment, when it came to the floor of the House of Commons at report stage the government eliminated that change. It overpowered the opposition and the thoughtful amendments put forward by various members of Parliament. Basically, the government used its power to defeat a logical amendment to the bill.

Not to stop there, the member put forth another amendment. In praise of that member and the hard work that she did, she put forth an amendment dealing with the agency that would oversee the regulatory side of the bill. The member said that the agency, which would consist of 13 members, should be made up of at least 50% women. The reason for that was that some of the biological aspects of the bill involved onerous procedures and medical procedures which had more to do with women than men. The committee agreed to the amendment she put forward and it was passed by the all party committee, only to be re-thought by the government and defeated here in the House in committee of the whole.

The government decided that it did not want it, that it would find a way to fix it and that it would find a way to control opposition to the bill in any respect.

In terms of clarifying the bill, in March 2002 tensions arose between the standing committee and the federal funding agency over embryonic stem cell research. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research, which distributes about $580 million annually for medical research, revealed their own guidelines for funding research on aborted fetal tissue and surplus embryos. This is important. CIHR announced that they would accept proposals involving stem cell research on fertility clinic created embryos as long as the owners had given consent based on full information.

This is where it ran afoul of the committee. The president of CIHR told the committee that the health minister was aware of their guidelines indicating that they were being used to anticipate public reaction for the proposed bill. Faced with charges that they were trying to circumvent Parliament, the CIHR then said that they would not distribute money until April 2003, allowing time for debate and the passing of the legislation. They also promised to change their guidelines if they did not match what was contained in the final legislation.

It is again the minister and her department pre-empting what might happen here on the floor of the House of Commons, assuming the bill will take a particular shape or form before it is passed by the House of Commons.

This fits in nicely with the point that I was making to you, Mr. Speaker, on Friday in terms of contempt of the House and the principles on which debate takes place in the House and what debate is all about. Basically, it is a violation of the rights of the House of Commons. It is a contempt for the House, assuming the bill will take a particular shape before it is passed by this place.

That is the situation in which the government now finds itself. I think many of the parties on this side of the House, at the initial stages of the bill, were prepared to support it. However, after witnessing the heavy hand of government, I think they have had a change of heart, particularly the party sitting next to ours at this end of the Chamber. I think I can say the same for the Bloc and certainly the same for the Canadian Alliance.

When the government tries to stifle intelligent debate on the floor of the House of Commons, assuming a bill will take a particular form or shape where the substance of the bill will only be what the government wants, there is something wrong with the process. It is not the first time the minister has displayed that kind of contempt for the House of Commons.

My argument would be that it should be a free vote in this place on a bill that is as controversial as this one. Our party will be having a free vote on this bill because there are some areas of conscience, ethics and morality. It would be interesting to see what would happen on the government side of the Chamber if all of its members were allowed to vote freely on the merits of the bill. I think we would be surprised at the outcome.

Let us take a look at some of the members on the other side. The member for Mississauga West brought forward very thoughtful recommendations on the bill on how it can be improved so that outcomes are improved. One of the recommendations that came from the other side of the House was on how the bill should be split. I think most of us would have no problem with that. I think it would make it a lot easier for some of us to support the bill if it were split. It was recommended by at least one party, if not two parties in the House, that it would be desirable if the bill were split between prohibited activities, like cloning, for example, and controlled activities, like embryonic stem cell research.

If we were to look at it from the government's point of view, it would be caving into the opposition. It certainly could not do that but that is a very thoughtful recommendation and one that government members should entertain. If they did that we would find that more people on this side of the House would be more supportive of the bill. Of course, that would not be in keeping with the government's record of engaging parliamentarians on both sides of the House, listening to thoughtful debate and responding accordingly.

We will be having a free vote on this. I look forward to second reading and I look forward to debating further amendments in Group No. 7.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 11th, 2003 / 1:30 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Peter Goldring Canadian Alliance Edmonton Centre-East, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-13. We support a number of the aspects of the bill. We fully support bans on reproductive and therapeutic cloning, animal-human hybrids, sex selection, germ line alteration, buying and selling embryos and paid surrogacy. We support an agency to regulate the sector although we do have several changes that we would like to make to it.

The health and well-being of children born through assisted human reproduction must be given a priority. Human individuality and diversity and the integrity of the human genome must be preserved and protected. We support the recognition that the health and well-being of children born through assisted human reproduction should be given priority.

The health committee has already come up with a ranking of whose interests should have a priority in decision making around assisted human reproduction and related research. The first priority should be to children born through assisted human reproduction. Next should be the adults participating in assisted human reproduction procedures. Finally, in the list of priorities would be the researchers and physicians who conduct the research.

While the preamble recognizes the priority of assisted human reproduction offspring, other sections of the bill fail to meet this standard. Children born through donor insemination or from donor eggs are not given the right to know the identity of their biological parents. The bill's preamble does not provide an acknowledgement of human dignity or respect for human life. The bill is ultimately connected with the creation of human life and yet there is no overarching recognition of the principles of respect for human life. This is a grave deficiency.

Our party's 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 the respect for life.

There are a number of amendments that have been proposed and it is worth reviewing them and going through the amendments one after another.

Motion No. 92 would place reasonable requirements on the equivalency agreements where the health minister negotiates with the provinces. This amendment was a health committee recommendation in “Assisted Human Reproduction: Building Families”. Transparency and accountability in this area are needed. The public must be consulted on draft agreements and the text of such agreements must be made public.

Motion No. 93 would delete subclause 66(5) which says that if a proposed regulation is being altered after initial tabling it need not be laid before Parliament once again. Since the regulations initially must come before Parliament, it is inconsistent that the amended regulations need not come to Parliament once again.

Motion No. 94 would remove the ability of the governor in council to make regulations respecting transgenics, which are animal human combinations.

Motion No. 96 is a procedural amendment respecting a Canadian Alliance amendment passed in committee. Our amendment, now clause 15, specifies that a licensee who transfers an in vitro embryo to another licensee shall notify the agency of the transfer in accordance with the regulations. The minister's amendment follows from our amendments mentioned in accordance with the regulations.

Motion No. 98 is rather a minor amendment specifying reference to “the” appropriate committee of each House rather than to “an” appropriate committee, minor but still necessary. What is important is that the regulations shall be referred to a committee of the House of Commons, something that our party has fought for and won at committee. Previous wording said regulations may be referred to House committees. We have fought for enhanced accountability and transparency.

Motion No. 99 would make minor changes to the wording of the French version of clause 66.

Motion No. 100 would require equivalency agreements to be renewed whenever there is a change in any relevant federal or provincial legislation. This seems appropriate and reasonable. For example, if Bill C-13 is ever amended to enable children conceived through donor insemination to know the identity of their biological parents, any equivalency agreements that may be in place should also be renewed to reflect such a change.

Motion No. 103 would delete clause 71 which would allow the grandfathering of controlled activities until a day fixed by the regulations. As currently worded, this clause would allow scientists to engage in controlled activities once the act takes effect, thereby avoiding licensing requirements and prosecution provisions. This could result in a stampede toward controlled activities, for example, embryonic research, before the bill takes effect.

The current clause would allow the governor in council to exempt controlled activities through regulations. Controlled activities must not be grandfathered. There are important reasons why controlled activities otherwise require licences and why violations are subject to prosecution because they involve the creation and manipulation of human life.

At the very least, the bill should specify a time limit on grandfathering and not leave it simply to the regulations.

Motion No. 104 specifies that the grandfathered activities should only be permitted as long as such activities have no change in scope or purpose. The intent here is to prevent researchers from changing the scope of activities after they have qualified for grandfathering under the bill.

Motion No. 105 is similar to Motion No. 104, but adds a requirement that grandfathered activities should require a licence if there are changes to the scope or purpose of such activities.

Motion No. 106 specifies that controlled activities should only be permitted for 90 days after the coming into force of this act. A 90 day limit on grandfathering is far superior to the open-ended “until a day fixed by the regulations” statement.

Embryonic research is ethically controversial and divides Canadians. Embryonic stem cell research would inevitably result in the death of the embryo, early human life. For many Canadians this violates the ethical commitment to the respect of human dignity, integrity and life.

An incontestable scientific fact is that an embryo is early human life. A complete DNA of an adult human is present at the embryo stage. Whether that life is owed protection is really what is 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 include: umbilical cord blood, skin tissue and bone tissue. Adult stem cells are a safe, proven alternative to embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells are easily accessible. They 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 should focus 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 says embryonic research can be undertaken if the agency is satisfied that such research is necessary.

During its review of draft legislation, the health committee recommended that such research should be permitted only if researchers can demonstrate that, “no other biological material can be used for the purpose of the proposed research with the promotion of healing therapies as its object”.

I hope this important bill receives the utmost consideration and that due consideration and attention are given to the proposed amendments. The amendments are a very necessary part to our party voting in favour of the bill.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 11th, 2003 / 1:20 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Rick Casson Canadian Alliance Lethbridge, AB

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and speak to Bill C-13 again today. We have tried to address most of the groupings of amendments as they have come forward. As the previous speaker said, interest in the bill has been quite high. There have been times when we have dealt with legislation that does not really catch the imagination or interest of Canadians, but this bill certainly has.

We have all received hundreds of letters, e-mails, phone calls and visits on this issue and have been presented with a wide variety of concerns. I had a letter this morning from a constituent in Lethbridge who had picked up on the different amendments and had an opinion on them. I appreciate that input. As we go through this process, it is important that Canadians have that ability.

This legislation was tabled, went to committee where the best witnesses on the subject were brought forward. Our former leader, Preston Manning, headed up the issue for our party. He brought some people together on Parliament Hill, and I was able to get to that meeting. It was an enlightening experience trying to understand a bit more about what this was all about. We are not all experts on everything and we have to learn, along with everybody else, about some of the subjects with which we deal.

In committee experts are brought together and different positions are put forward. The committee listens and comes up with amendments. However there is a possibility that everything which has been done in committee can be changed by the cabinet. Regulations can be created, things can be reversed and a different scope put on the legislation other than what was originally intended by the House and by Canadians in general. Hopefully we will vote for what we think is right and for what our constituents believe is right.

A lot of the amendments in this group deal with some concerns. One concern is the fact that the government is trying to take away the powers of committees and the House and is giving it back to cabinet. If we have a bill in front of us, it concerns me when I am told that the regulations will be done after the bill is passed. That is not good enough.

Some regulations deal with how the legislation will be implemented, how it will be handled and how it will be interpreted. In the past we have sometimes run into trouble with the legislation that has come out of the House. It has been challenged in the courts, that is, interpreted freely by judges as not being tight enough. It is very important that the House consider the bill and the regulations in their entirety. It is important that we do not give the parameters to cabinet to make changes after.

Motion No. 92 in the Group No. 6 deals directly with equivalency agreements that the health minister must negotiate with the provinces. It is very important that this be addressed and that some kind of reasonable requirements be put on this. In the past, results of negotiations between the provinces and the health minister have not always been good.

We know this has been a long time coming. As recently as a few days ago, the first ministers were in town to try to come to agreement with the Prime Minister on health care. This almost fell apart, and many of them went away very unhappy. It is important that this aspect be addressed. It is important that the health minister be given some reasonable limits on coming up with these agreements with the provinces because that is critical.

It is important that the public be consulted on these equivalency agreements with the provinces with regard to transparency and accountability. It is important that the public be allowed to look at the text of draft agreements. All of this is a very important part of the whole public debate on allowing Canadians to look into this process to ensure the government does the right thing and that it comes up with legislation that is meaningful and acceptable.

Motion No. 93 would entirely delete clause 65. It would remove the power that the governor in council would have to make regulations. We are saying to take out clause 65 and take away the power that the bill would give to cabinet to make regulations.

This regulation would actually be the vehicle for which the bill would be put into law. We have some serious concerns with that and so we support the amendment to take out clause 65. Subclause 65(bb) would allow the governor in council to exempt controlled activities from the provision of the act through regulation. If it is in the act, why on earth would we want to give the cabinet the power to exempt some of these controlled activities?

Motion No. 95 was again an amendment that deals with the shift in power to the cabinet by the governor in council.

Motion No. 98 is a minor amendment specifying that regulations should be referred to the appropriate committee of each House, rather than an appropriate committee, which is just a small thing, but another part that is important is that regulations “shall” be referred to a committee, an appropriate committee of the House of Commons.

It was something that we fought for and won at committee. Previous wordings said regulations “may”. This is really important as we go through legislation. The word “shall” implies that it should be done, but “may” that it may not be done, it does not have to be. But when it is changed to “shall” then that is something that the legislation says must be done. We fought for that and are encouraged that it is here. We are going to support that. It was brought forward by the health minister. Anytime we can enhance accountability and transparency in the House, it is a step in the right direction.

Motion No. 103 was brought forward by the member for Yellowhead and would delete clause 71 which would allow the grandfathering of controlled activities until the day fixed by the regulation. That indicates that anything that is happening can be grandfathered until the legislation is implemented.

As currently worded the clause would allow scientists to engage in a controlled activity once before the act takes effect and thereby avoid licensing requirements and prosecution provisions. We were concerned that this would create a huge stampede to start into one of the areas, embryonic stem cell research for example, that the bill is looking to control in some way, and then all of these activities would have to be grandfathered.

We are saying controlled activities should not be grandfathered because there are important reasons why controlled activities, otherwise requiring licences and violations, are subject to prosecution. That is because they involve the creation and manipulation of human life.

That is where we get back to the issue that is important in the bill, that the dignity and sanctity of human life be respected throughout this entire process.

I suppose many of the letters or comments I have received on the bill are aimed at that specific item almost entirely. At the very best the bill should specify a time limit, not just be open ended on grandfathering and not leave it to the regulation.

Motion No. 105 does the same thing. It refers to Motion No. 103 and it is similar to Motion No. 104. But again, it says that grandfathered activities should require a licence if there are changes in the scope or purpose of such activities. That just makes sense. If somebody has been doing a certain type of research and all of a sudden that research is expanded or changed in scope, just to get underneath the grandfathering window, then we need to address that issue.

There are some positive things in the bill. The fact that assisted human reproduction would be more tightly regulated, making it safer and more effective for prospective parents, is good.

Some of the things that need to be addressed are being addressed, but we believe that there is a lot that needs to be taken into account. Regarding the amendments that we are bringing forward it is important that they be looked at and considered, and not just put aside by the majority vote that the government has on these issues.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 11th, 2003 / 1 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Gurmant Grewal Canadian Alliance Surrey Central, BC

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to rise on behalf of the constituents of Surrey Central to again participate in the report stage debate on Bill C-13, an act respecting assisted human reproductive technology and related research.

I would like to share with my colleagues the fact that many of my constituents have contacted me on this issue and almost all of them want me to oppose the bill unless it is amended.

I would also like to acknowledge that many members in the House have worked hard on the bill, specifically the hon. member for Yellowhead and the hon. member for Mississauga South, as well as the former leader of our party. They have worked really hard, along with our other caucus members.

Human reproductive technology is an area clouded by a high degree of moral ambiguity. There is little agreement about the harms and benefits of the relevant technologies. Still, virtually all Canadians would agree that there is a pressing need for laws to oversee the entire area of reproductive genetics.

Since 1997, when the proposed human reproductive and genetic technologies act died on the Order Paper, we have had Dolly, the cloned sheep, the discovery of stem cells, and the completion of the mapping of the human genome. A lot has taken place since then and what the next years hold in store is anyone's guess.

Thankfully, the government has finally seen fit to begin the process of regulating these complicated and controversial issues. Earlier the government was sitting on the fence, not being decisive, but now finally it has recognized that it has to deal with these controversial issues.

The Group No. 6 amendments we are debating today consist of 11 motions, all of which I support as improvements to the present bill. I will go over one by one some of the motions that I deem particularly necessary in this debate.

Motion No. 92, for instance, places reasonable requirements on equivalency agreements that the health minister negotiates with the provinces. All of us are aware of the negotiations that recently took place. In “Building Families”, this amendment was a health committee recommendation. Transparency and accountability in this area are needed. The public must be consulted on draft agreements and the text of such agreements must be made public. It is a good amendment and we will support it.

Motion No. 93 deletes clause 65 entirely, thus removing the power of the governor in council to make regulations for carrying into effect the purposes of the bill. This is a good amendment because we have serious concerns with one of the subclauses in clause 65. We support this amendment. It allows the governor in council to exempt controlled activities from the provisions of the act through regulations. I have spoken enough about how the government does not govern but rules through the back door by way of regulations. This amendment will limit the ability to rule through the back door.

There are important reasons why the controlled activities listed in the bill require licences and why violations are subject to prosecution: because they involve the creation and manipulation of human life. Cabinet should not be permitted to exempt certain activities through regulations. This is a get out of jail free card. It is a very serious, dangerous subclause.

Motion No. 94 in the group amends the bill to remove the ability of the governor in council to make regulations respecting transgenics, the subject of clause 11. Transgenics are animal-human combinations. Again this is very important and I am sure my constituents will appreciate my support for this amendment.

Motion No. 96 is a procedural amendment respecting a Canadian Alliance amendment passed at committee. Our amendment, now subclause 15(3.1), specifies that:

A licensee who transfers an in vitro embryo to another licensee shall notify the Agency of the transfer in accordance with the regulations.

That will allow tighter control and I support that. The minister's amendment follows from our amendment's mention of “in accordance with the regulations”.

Motion No. 98 again is a minor amendment specifying that regulations shall be referred to the appropriate committee of each House, rather than to “an” appropriate committee. What is important here is that regulations shall be referred to a committee of the House of Commons, something the Alliance fought for and won at committee. Previous wording said that regulations “may” be referred to the House committee, but if this amendment passes they will be referred to a committee of the House. We fought to enhance accountability and transparency and we won.

In Motion No. 100, again the amendment would require equivalency agreements to be renewed whenever there is a change in any relevant federal or provincial legislation. This seems appropriate and reasonable. For example, if Bill C-13 is ever amended to enable children conceived through donor insemination to know the identity of their biological parents, any equivalency agreement that may be in place should also be renewed to reflect such a change. It is an important change. Children born through the process need to know their biological parents.

Motion No. 103 deletes clause 71, which allows the grandfathering of controlled activities “until a day fixed by the regulations”. As currently worded, the clause would allow scientists to engage in a controlled activity once before the act takes effect, thereby avoiding licensing requirements and prosecution provisions. This could result in a stampede toward controlled activities, for example embryonic research, before the bill takes effect.

The current clause is a get out of jail free card. It allows the governor in council to exempt controlled activities through regulations. Controlled activities should not be grandfathered. There are important reasons why controlled activities otherwise require licences and why violations are subject to prosecution: because they involve the creation and manipulation of human life. This should not be allowed. At the very best, the bill should specify a time limit on grandfathering and not leave it to the regulations. That is why I support this amendment.

In Motion No. 104 the amendment specifies that grandfathered activities should be permitted only as long as such activities have no change in scope or purpose. The intent here is to prevent researchers from changing the scope of activities after they have qualified for grandfathering under the bill, similar to Motions Nos. 105, 103 and 104. We support them for these reasons. Motion No. 104 adds the requirement that grandfathered activities should require a licensee if there are changes in the scope or purpose of such activities.

These amendments will ensure tighter control and therefore the manipulation of human life or creation would be under watch.

Similarly, Motion No. 103 specifies that controlled activities should only be permitted for 90 days after the coming into force of the act. The 90 day limit on grandfathering is far superior to the open ended “until a day fixed by the regulations”.

Since my time is over, I would like to conclude by saying that the public debate surrounding assisted human reproductive technologies signifies this issue's importance to Canadians. The provisions of Bill C-13 carry great consequences for individuals, families and therefore society as a whole. It is imperative that members be allowed to vote their conscience on the bill. An issue with such high ethical implications should not be decided upon through strict party discipline. The Prime Minister should indicate that there will be a free vote on Bill C-13.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 11th, 2003 / 12:50 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Leon Benoit Canadian Alliance Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to the Group No. 6 amendments to Bill C-13, an act respecting assisted human reproductive technologies and related research.

The issue has a lot to do with stem cell research. Most members have referred to stem cell research. I have never had so much reason to be optimistic about medical research in my lifetime than has been caused by the whole issue of stem cell research. It is an exciting opportunity to finally find treatments and cures for some of the more serious diseases that we face as human beings.

Probably every one of us has someone in our family who is suffering from a disease and we are all desperately hoping for a treatment or a cure for that disease. We all should be very optimistic about the potential of stem cell research and I think we are. It is something to be excited about. I know I am, as is probably everyone who is taking a look at this. It is therefore important that we get it right.

In the Group No. 6 amendments we are talking about government oversight of the legislation. It is a very important aspect of the legislation. Before I get into talking about that, I want to look at the changes these amendments would make to the bill should they be passed.

One of the most critical and difficult aspects of the bill, as the former speaker said, is the issue of whether or not we should be moving into the area of embryonic stem cell research. Most companies which put money and resources into this type of research at first put them into embryonic stem cell research because it seems that there is so much potential in that area. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on research on embryonic stem cells. So far, unfortunately, researchers have come up empty handed in that category.

On the other hand, research using adult stem cells, stem cells which are readily available and are clearly far more stable than embryonic stem cells, has shown not only a lot of promise, but has already delivered, at least in the early stages, some treatments and cures. That is very exciting. From the testimony the committee heard and from information I have heard and read, clearly the most promise comes from adult stem cell research.

Embryonic stem cell research carries some obvious problems. The cells have proven over time to be very unstable, which has caused problems. For example in laboratory testing on mice, many have developed brain tumours when embryonic stem cells were used because of the cells being so unstable or for other reasons. If embryonic stem cells are used in the human body, we do not know whether the recipient, the person who is hoping to have a cure or a treatment that will help him live with a very serious disease, will be required to take anti-rejection drugs for a long time and possibly for the rest of his life. These drugs of course have a negative impact on the individual and they are also very expensive.

There are a lot of serious problems attached to embryonic stem cell research. Another very serious difficulty in using embryonic stem cells for research is that many people feel for religious reasons or moral reasons that it is an improper use of human life to use human embryonic stem cells in research. We have already seen promising and quite amazing results from adult stem cell research. There is so much potential there. Let us focus our resources on that and stay entirely away from this moral dilemma we face. Why have that split, why allow this research to go on when it causes that split in society?

I would suggest that there will be people desperately ill, looking for a cure or a treatment, who will be forced to go against their moral values and positions on this issue because they are desperate for a cure. Again, the adult stem cells show a lot of promise. We have already had some wonderful things happen with adult stem cells. Let us focus on what the Canadian Alliance and I believe the committee suggested. First, there should be a three year moratorium on research with embryonic stem cells. We should focus on adult stem cells. I am absolutely certain we will see some wonderful results in the future.

I think that this is the way to go. Unfortunately the legislation has not properly dealt with it. In the Group No. 6 amendments, Motion No.103 put forth by the Canadian Alliance health critic points to part of the problem when it comes to government oversight. The motion shows that there is a problem with government transparency and accountability, because too many decisions will be allowed to be made behind closed doors just through regulatory changes, which usually go unmonitored. Certainly at the time there is no pre-approval given to them in most cases.

Motion No. 103 would delete clause 71 of the bill as it is before the House right now. Clause 71 allows grandfathering of controlled activities “until a day fixed by regulations”. It is grandfathering control behind closed doors by order in council, in effect by the cabinet or in reality by the minister. Already we are dealing with an extremely sensitive issue. Many say that it allows humans to almost become God. When we are dealing with such sensitive issues I do not think it is proper that one individual, such as the minister, should have the kind of control that is allowed in the bill. This is an issue of openness, transparency and accountability.

As clause 71 is currently worded, it allows scientists who engage in a controlled activity once before the act takes effect to thereby avoid licensing requirements and prosecution provisions. But if it is wrong in the future, why is it not wrong now? Why would they be allowed once to get around the regulations that are supposed to control in the way that Parliament and, hopefully, Canadians want? Why would we allow this one time avoidance of the issue?

This could result in a stampede toward controlled activities, especially embryonic research, I suggest, before the bill takes effect, just so scientists can be involved in this activity once. I think that this shows clearly the moral dilemma in having the minister in effect control this. Some of the concerns to do with that are I think quite obvious.

The current clause is really a get out of jail free card. This is the way our critic has referred to it. I think that is a fairly accurate description, as it allows the governor in council to exempt these controlled activities through regulation instead of having legislation passed in the House that clearly states what we will do and what we want to do.

Our argument is that the controlled activities should not be grandfathered. That is what Motion No. 103 would do. It would prevent them from being grandfathered. There are important reasons why controlled activities otherwise require licences and why violations are subject to prosecution. That is why they are there in the first place. They are not there for a frivolous reason. They are there for a very important reason: because they involve the creation and manipulation of human life, a very serious and sensitive issue indeed.

We do not want to do anything to stand in the way of this effective research that is taking place. In fact, just the opposite: We want to have legislation that will allow that to happen as freely as possible, only putting in place the restrictions that the committee of the House of Commons put forth on behalf of Canadians. That is what I know the committee certainly attempted to do and in large part I think the committee did it effectively. Unfortunately, this is one part where it simply was not done effectively. There is not a proper transparency. There is not a proper accountability with the way the government has chosen to stray from the committee's recommendations and to put this in the legislation.

This is a concern that I see the government becoming involved in, well beyond this legislation. I do not have time to talk about that now, but when we look at it we can see that it is the same type of doing things behind closed doors that is very common with the government. The war in Iraq is an example. The government's statement to the public for some time has been that there would be no war, period. Then it was that there would be no war unless the UN sanctioned it, while all the time the government knew that it would in fact--

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 11th, 2003 / 12:40 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Keith Martin Canadian Alliance Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-13 and the amendments in Group No. 6. I compliment the government for bringing this bill forward. It has many laudable goals such as the banning of human cloning. I want to deal with a few other issues that perhaps muddy the waters on this sensitive topic, such as the issue of choice, abortion, and the definition of human life. In my view, and I am speaking personally, some things muddy the waters on this extremely sensitive issue.

Make no mistake about it, much of the opposition to investigations into embryonic stem cell research comes from individuals who are completely entitled to have the view that an embryo is a human life. They must be respected for their view. That issue has to be removed from this subject. We are dealing with the potential to do investigations, to do research that will save people's lives.

It is very easy for those of us who are healthy, who do not have multiple sclerosis, who are not suffering from Parkinson's disease, who do not have cancer, to say we should not be doing research based on a certain moral viewpoint that people are entitled to have and should be respected for having. We cannot apply a moral decision, a moral choice on the issue of the definition of human life and apply that to the ability for us to prevent researchers from doing critical research into lifesaving procedures that hopefully will provide the cures for those scourges that kill millions of Canadians every year.

Having seen many people die from many of those illnesses, I cannot help but be somebody who strongly supports research using adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells. I am not opposed to defining the regulations under which that could be done. Many individuals across the country who have respect for the material we are dealing with have put forth eloquent suggestions, as have members of my party, which can be respected and introduced. However, we cannot allow moral viewpoints, moral definitions and moral arguments to impede what I would consider to be a hard moral argument and that is the protection of people who are living today, the saving of their lives.

We should put ourselves in the shoes of somebody whose wife, husband or child is dying of cancer. If that research into embryonic stem cells provided the solution, the cure, we would have a very hard time saying no to embryonic stem cell research.

It is true that adult stem cell research has made leaps and bounds in the applications that exist but there is absolutely nothing that can take the place of the information that we will have on differentiation of cells, communication between cells, how cells migrate through the body and indeed from that, learn important lessons in how we can cure and prevent cancer. Absolutely nothing takes the place of that. It would be a huge mistake for us to invoke any kind of ban on embryonic stem cell research.

Motion No. 94 talks about animal-human clones. I completely understand and support the notion of banning animal genes being introduced into the human genome. No one knows where that could lead but it could lead to enormous biological and medical problems later on. What about the reverse? What about the introduction of human genes into animals? Are we going to ban that? I would suggest not, for the following reason.

In our country today, 170-plus people die every year from a lack of organs for transplant. That number will increase as our population ages, as the incidence of diabetes increases and the damage to people's kidneys and other organs increases. The number of people who will require kidney transplants will actually increase over the years. Indeed it will be an explosion is numbers that normal cadaveric transplants, transplants from humans, will not be able to meet. The need for organs exceeds the number of organs that are available today.

There has been incredible research into introducing human genes into certain animals, for example pigs, to provide heart valves and organs for transplanting into humans to save lives. That research must continue. It is exceedingly important. That research enables us to produce organs that would not be rejected by individuals. Lifesaving organs truly could be the gift of life. It would be an enormous mistake to ban that type of research.

Then there is the issue of assisted reproductive technology and surrogacy. A lady who was in her forties wrote a very eloquent paper on the fact that she was not able to have children of her own. She paid money to a relative to be the surrogate.

The bill indicates that only payment for expenses should be allowed. A woman who undergoes surrogacy gives up more than nine months of her life. She undergoes pain and suffering and experiences a lack of work and is simply recompensed for the expenses. A person should not be criminalized for actually getting paid something more for the time and the pain and suffering involved in producing a baby for another. That should not be banned. That should be a decision between the people involved, the surrogate and the person or persons who are asking that woman to give up part of her life to have a child on their behalf. To criminalize that would be a huge mistake.

The penalties in the bill are $500,000 or up to 10 years in jail. Mr. Reyat, who is responsible for murdering nearly 300 people, just got five years in jail and could be out on parole in 18 months. Why should we criminalize somebody who wants to be a surrogate and potentially put the person in jail for up to 10 years? That is a huge mistake.

Furthermore, the issue of donor anonymity is too much of a hammer and should be dealt with. I understand the purpose is so the child will know the medical history. It is a completely reasonable and worthy endeavour. However, forcing the donor not to be anonymous would greatly shrink the number of individuals who would be donors. All those couples who cannot have children would not have the opportunity to have children in the future. This is a very serious problem.

The way to deal with it is to ensure that every donor would be anonymous but the medical records would be available to the child. In that way the mother and the child would know the pertinent medical history while ensuring that anonymity continued. That would not dry up the individuals who donate their time, their efforts and their sperm or ova so that others can have children.

It might be easy for those of us who can have children to completely ban this type of activity, but there are those people who cannot have children. For some of them, adoption, which is so difficult in our country, is not an option because of finances or simply because there are not enough children available. It would be inhumane for us to use such a big hammer and prevent them from having children.

There is so much more to talk about on this exceedingly sensitive bill. I understand completely those who take a moral and ethical viewpoint on it with respect to those who are against abortion and those who are pro choice, but let us remove that from the bill. Let us not forget that respect for the individuals who are born is exceedingly important but so too is the respect for those who donate their time and their lives to ensure that others can have children.

This is a sensitive issue which must be dealt with sensitively. Banning human cloning is good, but we should not stand in the way of legitimate medical research that will pave the way in the future for those cures that will save many other lives.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 11th, 2003 / 12:30 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Myron Thompson Canadian Alliance Wild Rose, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to this bill and to this group of amendments. I am pleased to do that because I know every member in the House of Commons, probably including yourself sir, has received a number of submissions from Canadians throughout the country.

In my riding I have received literally hundreds of petitions, e-mails and letters asking me not to support Bill C-13 without significant amendments. My constituents want all Canadians to know that in no way will they ever support any kind of activity allowing embryonic stem cell research. There is no way they want Canada to engage in any activities whatsoever regarding cloning.

My constituents feel we are off base in even thinking about this without looking at alternatives to deal with this entire situation. I certainly agree with these petitioners, in particular, with regard to the use of embryos for research and efforts to clone human beings.

I commend members of the committee in their efforts to try and reflect the will of Canadians in the legislation. I also commend members of the House of Commons for proposing amendments such as some of the ones in Group No. 6. I support these amendments because I believe they will add a lot of credibility to the whole issue. I encourage all members of the House to look at these amendments and seriously consider what will happen if they do not support them.

Motion No. 94 removes the ability of the governor in council to make regulations respecting transgenics. The whole discussion about animal-human combinations should be stopped in its tracks. A number of people who have written to me feel the same way.

Under the legislation, it is unbelievable the number of times the governor in council can make regulations regarding so many of these activities. This really concerns me. If many of these amendments are put in place, they will delete the ability of the governor in council to make decisions regarding the regulations on how we will proceed with this important issue.

I have been in this place for nine years and I have seen a lot of legislation come forward. The ability to make decisions to change regulations with regard to proposed legislation is overwhelming and wrong. I refer to old Bill C-68, the gun legislation, which caused great debate across this country. No less than 74 times in that legislation did the governor in council or the minister by order in council have the authority to make any changes they saw fit and at their whim. Throughout this legislation the same thing is happening over and over again. The ability to regulate what we do with regard to animal-human combinations is in the hands of one individual by order in council.

Motion No. 93 would delete subclause 66(5) which would remove the power of the governor in council to make regulations for carrying into effect the purposes of the bill. We support that amendment. Subclause 66(5), if not deleted, would allow the governor in council to exempt controlled activities from the provisions of the act through regulations.

Controlled activities requiring licences and the reasons why violations would be subject to prosecution were put in the bill for a very good reason. They involve the creation and the manipulation of human life. In no way should anything be in the hands of one individual in regard to controlling the activities through regulation of that nature. To me it is absolutely astounding that anyone would suggest that would be possible. Cabinet should not be allowed to exempt certain activities through regulations. That is a really dangerous clause and Motion No. 93 would delete it. I am certainly in support of that.

As well, we have an amendment that would delete clause 71 which would allow the grandfathering of controlled activities until a day fixed by regulations. Once again, the current clause 65(bb) would allow the governor in council to exempt controlled activities through regulations. Controlled activities cannot and must not be grandfathered. Why? They deal with the manipulation and the creation of human life. That cannot be in the hands of such a minimum number of people through order in council.

When we head down this path, we had better be very cautious of where we are going by allowing certain things to happen in regard to the licensing and the permitting of activities simply because the bill would allow it to happen through order in council. That has been demonstrated on a number of occasions to be completely out of control in a lot of legislation and we cannot allow that to happen in this bill.

I will be supporting the motions in Group No. 6 because they would eliminate a lot of the proposals and remove the power of the governor in council. That is an absolute must. What we need to do more than anything is take into consideration all the petitions, letters and e-mails which we have received from our constituents throughout the country. We need to move in the direction that society as a whole has called for in regard to these issues.

Research in adult stem cell and umbilical cords has indicated many things. There are a number of ways we can deal with this kind of research in a manner that does not manipulate human life and does not deal with the creation of life or the destruction of such. I would encourage members to do everything we can to go down that path rather than the path of creating embryonic cells to be used as research, or the cloning of human beings.

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February 11th, 2003 / 12:20 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Reed Elley Canadian Alliance Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from the NDP for her excellent speech and I particularly want to echo her sentiments and concerns with regard to the bill and to people with disabilities.

I have a little child who is in a wheelchair and I am always very conscious of legislation like this that could possibly interfere with the vulnerability of people who find themselves in this position in our society.

This is a very important bill. It brings forward moral dilemmas like this for us. One of the huge moral dilemmas that it raises for me is the whole issue of embryonic stem cell research; notwithstanding the fact that I think perhaps there is a lot of pressure from the multinational pharmaceuticals to continue and increase the research with embryonic stem cells because of the need for anti-rejection drugs, whereas adult stem cells do not require that kind of drug therapy. Notwithstanding that, we have the whole question of human life itself.

It brings a moral dilemma to many Canadians and to many of us in the House. In a speech earlier today my hon. colleague from Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot, for whom I have a good deal of respect, spoke about his moral dilemma. We have spoken about it privately. He said that the dilemma for him was that if these embryos were human life how should we approach that in this instance in terms of reproductive technology. I may want to speak to him further about this, but he seemed to come to the conclusion that one should come down on the side of embryonic stem cell research and that embryos would provide opportunities for much needed research to heal diseases. He said that if this little innocent life, and I presume he was saying that if that innocent life could express itself and somehow speak to us about this, it would want to help in this way. I found it somewhat startling that he would think that an embryo, which has the potential to live a very full life, would willingly decide to be aborted to be involved in embryonic stem cell research.

What that kind of reasoning does not take into account is the fact that it is quite possible that in the past we have indeed aborted and destroyed embryos that could have grown up to be great Canadian scientists who would find the cures for the very diseases that we are hopefully trying to cure.

I think there is something wrong with that argument. It just seems to hide the real fact that the legislation would allow the production and use of embryos that had their lives terminated. We have to ask ourselves whether that is a correct moral decision for us to make. I suggest that it is not and that there is something wrong with that kind of philosophy.

Then again that is only one of the many reasons that the bill is so important and the debate surrounding it is so important. We have to take the time in the House to get this right. A number of members have said over and over again that we have to take the time to get this right. We are walking down a path that the generations behind us will then be forced to walk upon. We are making decisions for countless Canadians who have not yet been born.

Motion No. 6 calls for the replacing of line 31 on page 2 with the following:

“with the applicable law governing consent and that conforms to the provisions of the Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Research Guidelines released by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research in March 2002, as detailed in the Regulations.

This amendment expands the definition of consent to include provisions made in the Canadian Institutes of Health Research stem cell research guidelines and certainly has my support. Why? Because I believe that while Parliament must have the ultimate decision making authority in Canada, we must rely upon the expertise, advice and recommendations that professionals can provide for us in this very important matter.

Motion No. 80 calls for the replacement of line 5 on page 21 with the following:

--proposed research and the Agency has, in accordance with the regulations, received approval from a research ethics board and a peer review.

Again I support the motion. The amendment specifies that research using human embryos should not only be approved by the agency, but by a research ethics board and a peer review.

Even by being as thorough throughout this debate as we possibly can, we simply see that the technology is developing so quickly that we do not know what issues will arise in the near or long term future. It is very important that this legislation include the requirements of an ethics review. The seriousness of embryonic research requires us to support any extra level of oversight or review.

I must note the fact that the Speaker has reorganized the amendments themselves and I do agree with this step. However I also note the number of amendments that are within this group alone. I am certain every member here today would have relished the opportunity to speak at even greater length. Perhaps even further groups could have been made, thus allowing even greater debate on these issues. However I go back to the motions.

I intend to support Motion No. 92. I agree that we should place reasonable requirements on equivalency agreements that the health minister negotiates with the provinces. This was a recommendation from the health committee report entitled “Building Families”, and it is a valuable addition to the legislation. We must ensure that full transparency and accountability is a part of the process, that the public is consulted on all draft agreements and that the texts of these agreements are released to the public.

I also support Motion No. 93 which deletes clause 65 entirely. The governor in council should not have the power to make regulations for carrying into effect the purposes of the bill. This is what the 301 members of Parliament and their respective standing committees are elected to do.

There are important reasons why the controlled activities in the bill require licences and why any violations must be subject to prosecution. We are of course dealing with the creation and manipulation of human life. This is not something that any of us can take us lightly.

In turn cabinet should not be permitted to exempt certain activities through regulations. This defeats the democratic process and should not allow a get out of jail free card, in effect. In short I believe that this is a very serious subclause and should therefore be deleted.

Members of the Canadian Alliance will also be supporting Motion No. 94. This amendment removes the ability of the governor in council to make regulations respecting transgenics, which is the subject of clause 11. For those who do not know what transgenics are, transgenics are animal-human combinations and I believe that they are ethically wrong. On any level of which I can think, they are simply wrong.

Motion No. 96 is a procedural amendment that respects a Canadian Alliance amendment which was passed at committee. This amendment, now clause 15(3.1), specifies that a licensee who transfers an in vitro embryo to another licensee shall notify the agency of the transfer in accordance with the regulations. The minister's amendment follows from our amendment's inclusion of “in accordance with the regulations” and will therefore have my support.

Motion No. 100 calls for equivalency agreements to be renewed whenever there is a change in any relevant federal or provincial legislation. This seems appropriate and reasonable and has my full support. For example, if Bill C-13 is ever amended to enable children conceived through donor insemination to know the identity of their biological parents, any equivalency agreements that may be in place should also be renewed to reflect such a change. Without such a clause the legislation may be in disagreement with itself.

The next several motions are all closely aligned with each other. Motions Nos. 103, 104, 105 and 106 all have my support. Included in these amendments is the allowance of the grandfathering of controlled activities until a day fixed by the regulations. Under the current wording, this clause would allow scientists to engage in a controlled activity once before the would act take place, therefore avoiding licencing requirements and prosecution provisions.This could result in a virtual stampede toward controlled activities, that is, embryonic stem cell research, before the bill takes effect. I do not believe controlled activity should be grandfathered.

There are important reasons why controlled activities otherwise require licences and why violations should be subject to prosecution. They require utmost attention because they involve the creation and manipulation of human life as does this whole bill.

I ask my colleagues to take these amendments under consideration and vote according to their conscience.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 11th, 2003 / 12:15 p.m.
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NDP

Wendy Lill NDP Dartmouth, NS

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure today to speak to Bill C-13. The New Democrats have worked long and hard on the bill because we believe the time is long past that we have a bill governing reproductive technology.

The bill is overdue, it is important and there are several issues that must be addressed. We have fought long and hard in the committee that they be addressed.

At the committee stage, the New Democrats proposed 13 amendments to improve the bill. Although the language was not as strong as we had hoped, we were able to add the protection of the health and well-being of women to the principles. We also fought that the donors be provided with independent information before participating. We fought for the concept that the public needs to be informed on the risk factors relative to infertility.

It also was important that the board of the assisted reproductive agency of Canada, called CARA now, be made up of at least 50% women. We feel that this is important because women's health issues are central to this whole issue. We have to be sure that women are making the decisions and that their sensibilities and understanding are totally engaged. We must ensure that we are communicating with women, that we know their needs and that they are informing the board at all times on how everything is working and how we are doing in this area.

We also felt it was important to add a comprehensive conflict of interest clause governing the board. However we were unsuccessful in adding the precautionary principle to make safety an overriding concern in the whole bill.

The committee also voted down the NDP amendment to tighten up the commercial sale of reproductive materials and to make the agency more accountable by stipulating what it would do, rather than what it may do. This is a very important distinction.

Finally, we tried and failed to facilitate donor identification in recognition of the needs of children born through reproductive technology.

Unfortunately and incredibly, since that stage we have seen the bill come back. The government has ignored many of the recommendations made by the committee. That point has already been made today in the House. In the last draft of the bill the government overturned some important recommendations. This is very discouraging.

One of the main issues that the government overturned was the issue of equity and women's equity on the board. The second issue it overturned was the conflict of interest guidelines. At the present time it would be possible for large biopharmaceutical corporations to sit at the table and make decisions that would be very much a conflict of interest. They would have very much to do with the profits and the directions their companies were taking on the issue.

It defies reason that those important recommendations would hit the cutting room floor at this point in this important legislation.

Some of the improvements that have been made to the bill's principles have to do with the reference to women's health. The fact that the precautionary principle, which is a tool for ensuring that women's health is primary, is still not incorporated in the bill. It is not in the overriding principles in such a way to reflect the actual governance of the CARA board.

The rights and health of women must be the first consideration in regulating reproductive technologies. Our approach to reproductive technologies must be grounded solidly in the concepts of women's reproductive freedom.

It is clear that we are concerned about the bill and that we will be making recommendations against it at this point in time.

As the New Democratic Party critic for persons with disabilities, I must say that persons with disabilities and families of persons with disabilities always have a concern when it comes to reproductive technology and what is coming our way in terms of creating designer children and potentially a designer species. It is important that we always keep front and centre the human dignity of persons with disabilities, who are living now and will continue to live, contribute and be incredibly important to our society, even as they struggle with their disabilities.

Although some people do not understand the linkage between reproductive technology and disabilities, the linkage is clear to those people who have disabilities. They see a society that often ignores them and seems to be running ahead to deny them their rights, as opposed to recognizing them and allowing them to plan for the future and to live their lives in a more substantial and respectful fashion.

At this point the New Democrats will be voting against Bill C-13 at report stage. We will continue to fight for the precautionary principle, that we have equity for women and that the issues around disabilities and the conflict of interest issue are dealt with and strengthened in the legislation.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 11th, 2003 / 12:05 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Gerry Ritz Canadian Alliance Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise again to speak to Bill C-13. We face a huge dilemma as parliamentarians on issues of this type that come before us. I guess the bottom line question on Bill C-13 is, when is it okay to use cellular material? There are huge ramifications if we do not get this right this time around.

This particular bill would allow for experiments on human embryos under four conditions. First, only in vitro leftover embryos from the IVF process could be used for research. Second, embryos cannot be created for research with one exception. They can be created for purposes of improving or providing instruction in assisted human reproduction technology. Third, written permission must be given by the donor, although donor is in the singular, and for research on a human embryo if the use is necessary. Necessary is undefined in the legislation so it kind of leaves the door wide open to abuse. Fourth, all human embryos must be destroyed after 14 days if not frozen.

That is what is in the bill. Another huge question is, how do we maintain human dignity for the sufferers of disease who see this as the ultimate answer, as well as the unborn who would become the playground for scientists in trying to resolve some of these issues? How do we come to grips with all of this in the stark reality of legislation?

Part of the problem, in typical government fashion, is that it takes forever to get through legislation with all of these dilemmas attached.

The minister, in her wisdom or lack of it,--and again there has been a change in health minister--has chosen to ignore many of the committee recommendations, and some of the amendments that we see negate the work and effort that the committee spent so many hours on. We just heard the parliamentary secretary welcome the results of the committee and thank it for its work and yet on the other hand the government ignores it or says that it does not like what the committee said and so it will go its own way.

The committee is an all-party committee. It is made up of members who represent their constituencies across the country. They are taking input from the members of their communities, bringing it forward, and in the last write-up of the bill, the minister said no, she is better, the officials know, bang, and away we go. That is where one starts to question the other dilemma causing issues.

During the committee review of Bill C-13 the committee tried to restore some of the recommendations with an amendment specifying that healing therapies should be the object of such research. That is all. There would be no embryonic research for the development of cosmetics or drugs, as we have seen done in other countries, or providing instruction in assisted human reproduction procedures.

That has been left by the wayside and left out. We can look at some of the information that came forward from Suzanne Scorsone, a former member of the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies. The government is big on studies and commissions. We have seen hundreds of millions of dollars spent and they are piled up in the basement of the library and nobody ever refers back to them. But there is an excellent quote from her and I would like to read it into the record. She said, “The human embryo is a human individual with a complete personal genome and should be a subject of research only for its benefit”.

We were all embryos once. Of course we were. This is not the abortion question, it goes beyond that. When an embryo is not physically inside a woman there is no possible conflict between that embryo and the life situation of anyone else. There are many across the spectrum on the abortion question who see the embryo as a human reality, and I agree, and hold that to destroy it or utilize it as industrial raw material, is damaging and dehumanizing, not only to that embryo but to all human society. We have crossed the bridge. We are on the thin edge of the wedge and it is a pretty slippery slope from there.

Also in true government fashion as we have come to see here, the governor in council would be used to end run a lot of the recommendations that come out in this bill. Perhaps worst of all, the minister would require that the advisory council of the assisted human reproduction agency, her little group,--itself a good idea as we need some watchdog--to report to her alone rather than Parliament and that the council take every ministerial directive as an order.

It is bad enough that Parliament is basically playing God with this research, but now we are going to appoint the Minister of Health as God herself. That flies in the face of everything that a democracy stands for.

There is a one-time, three-year review. That is it. We can never go back and look at this again. Those could be ongoing reviews. That is what democracy and representation is all about, ongoing review. We see that lacking in so many pieces of legislation that the government has brought forward.

We only have to go back a couple of months to the gun registry. If there had been an ongoing review in a situation like that we would not have squandered a billion dollars. It could not have happened because the review process would have kicked out the flaws in that particular piece of legislation.

We also see that as a red flag in this type of legislation. There is no continuing review. The minister herself controls the whole process through her regulatory agency, which we do not disagree with, but she commands complete and total control over what is going to happen to this legislation afterwards. We see that as wrong.

Some of the amendments in Group No. 6 deal with the idea that deliberations and decisions should be open and accountable. What a good idea. Motion No. 93 would delete clause 66 which would allow the governor in council to write regulations after the fact. That could exempt some experimental activity not specified in the act. Accountability and transparency demand that cabinet not hold itself to the privilege of writing exemptions for activities the bill attempts to restrict. However, the way this legislation is written, that can happen.

Motion No. 100 calls for equivalency agreements that would keep changes between federal and provincial legislation in lock step. We see that particular situation break down again and again with the overlap of government to government. We just saw it during the huge debate on health care costs. We saw the Prime Minister whip the premiers into line by saying take the money or else: “My way or the highway”. Most of them, having to go back and deal with their own constituents, took the cash. They had no choice.

The same situation applies in this legislation where the federal government becomes over and above everyone else. It is provincial legislation that we are trampling on here. The problem we can have with it being provincial is the concern of the ability of children conceived through these artificial means to find out about their heritage. Some provinces would allow it and some would not. Therefore there would be a huge mishmash of problems across the country. Some people could be born in Ontario, move to Alberta, or vice versa, and in one province they could find out their lineage but not in another. There are some huge problems with this.

Motion No. 103 attempts to delete the grandfather clauses that might allow undesirable lines of experimentation to carry on. Parliament would decide against them in this bill. Motion Nos. 104 and 105 are related to this. The grandfathering must be limited in time and require licensing, otherwise we open up a huge problem with everybody leaping into these activities before the bill becomes law, and we are not there yet, this is report stage.

Cabinet could exempt certain activities through regulations. Basically it is a get out of jail free card before this becomes locked down in a legal situation. We have some serious, dangerous subclauses. We saw that with the Kyoto protocol, an accord that we ratified that has not been implemented yet, where the auto sector received an exemption. We would see the same type of thing here; politics at its worse. That is what we have seen in other legislation and it does scare us a bit.

Members of Parliament and people who have made representations on this do not have to have a religious agenda. A lot of that is thrown back at us that it is our conscience not that of our constituents. However, I have had hundreds of interventions, e-mails, letters and calls from constituents. I know everyone has. I have seen some of the headings on the e-mail lists.

Canadians are deeply concerned about where society and our economy is going. They are concerned with chemicals in the environment. They are concerned with genetically modified foods, government secrecy, and with the huge databases we are developing. Canadians need to be reassured that we can take a thoughtful, insightful look at legislation like this and come out with the best for Canadians. We need to have this legislation.

The problem with some of the sections of the bill that the Liberals have rejected would make the advisory council less political. They have shied away from that, and we see that as a huge problem. Politics has no business in this type of legislation, but here we see it again and again. The Liberals even rejected a recommendation to ensure that the board members of the new assisted human reproduction agency would not have conflicts of interest. They have left that out.

Therefore, at the end of the day we have some huge problems with this legislation. The Prime Minister must allow a free vote on legislation like this in order to best serve the interests of our constituents.

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February 11th, 2003 / noon
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Madawaska—Restigouche New Brunswick

Liberal

Jeannot Castonguay LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to participate in this debate. Clearly, this is a far-reaching bill affecting almost all Canadians from one end of the country to the other. There is strong interest, because the subject is clearly very complex and very significant. That said, it is very important to have legislation on assisted reproduction and related research activities.

I first want to talk about Motion No. 92. In seeking to apply the same parameters to enforcement agreements and equivalency agreements, this motion is mixing apples and oranges somewhat. The enforcement agreements in the current act are standard administrative agreements set in motion by simple contractual procedures, and are amended or rescinded in accordance with the contract in question.

However, the equivalency agreements change the legal system applicable to assisted reproduction in the province in question, while ensuring equivalency so that all Canadians receive the same protection in terms of health and safety. This bill sets out in detail the approach applicable to important intergovernmental agreements of this type.

I see this is a debate that interests you, Madam Speaker. I am very pleased to see the clear interest you have in this bill.

Several other motions from Group No. 6 address regulation. In fact, regulation is at the heart of Bill C-13. It is the mechanism allowing us to control assisted human reproduction activities in order to assure Canadians that their use of these techniques to build their families will not put their health at risk.

I would now like to talk about Motion No. 93, which suggests deleting subsection 66(5).

Subsection 66(5) simply says that between the time the regulation has been revised by the House committee and finalized, there is no need to revise the regulation a second time even if it has been changed.

However, it is very important to look at subsection 66(4) which in fact requires the minister to lay before the House a statement of the reasons for not incorporating the changes.

We cannot ignore subsection 66(4) and just take the clause that suits us. Nevertheless, all the regulations that are written in the future and all the amendments to the regulations must be laid before the House under clause 66.

In terms of Motion No. 103 to delete clause 71, it should be said that without clause 71 in this bill, all assisted human reproduction activities will have to stop as soon as the bill is passed. Imagine how upsetting this would be to couples who use assisted reproduction services. Without clause 71, fertility clinics will be forced to stop all treatment until an agency is created and the regulations are written. Motion No. 103, if passed, puts an indefinite hold on any hope of having a family through assisted reproduction. Why ask couples to postpone their dream of having a family when this is unnecessary?

Motion No. 103 would only add to the heartache of infertile couples, which goes against the government's intention of reassuring Canadians who use assisted reproduction services.

By reducing to 90 days the time allotted to drafting the regulations, Motion No. 106 does not acknowledge either the scope of the regulatory process or how serious it is. It is too important to be time-limited. It is not some kind of race against the clock. What is important is the quality of the regulations, not the speed at which they are produced. For there to be quality, there must be time taken to consult stakeholders, that is clinic staff, infertile couples and all others involved.

By retaining clause 71, we are acknowledging that regulations on assisted reproduction will require sustained efforts of the utmost quality. By retaining clause 71, we are acknowledging how important it is to avoid any interruption in the assisted reproduction services being provided to all Canadians using such services to create a family.

As for amendments 96, 98 and 99, these are of a technical nature, and aimed at enhancing the clarity and transparency of the bill. In fact, they are in response to the wishes of the Standing Committee on Health, which did such an excellent job on the bill.

Moreover, I must thank all of the committee members who devoted so much time to processing all the information provided to us. My thanks once again to all of the members for their contributions, as well as all the members of this House taking part in the debate.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 11th, 2003 / 11:50 a.m.
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Canadian Alliance

James Lunney Canadian Alliance Nanaimo—Alberni, BC

Madam Speaker, it has been an interesting process working through this very important bill. Bill C-13 is entitled an act respecting human reproduction and related research.

The scope of the bill is very broad and relates not only to in vitro fertilization and assisted reproduction. The intent of the bill is to help people, couples who are having trouble because of infertility to have the families they want. It is because of that the health committee, in doing its work on the bill, entitled the study “Building Families”, which is the focus.

There are many controversial aspects of the bill. Part of it is the related research that spins off as a consequence of the in vitro process. The bill contemplates allowing so-called surplus embryos or left over embryos--frankly, even the terminology is offensive to consider--to be used for research purposes.

The bill discusses important issues which we have yet to debate. The amendments in Group No. 2 will be coming up later, and deal with anonymous donations for example and surrogacy. Donations of gametes and issues like that are also covered in the bill.

The subject today largely deals with some of the regulatory aspects. There are 11 amendments in Group No. 6, among them Motion No. 92 brought forward by the member for Mississauga South. These amendments deal with the regulatory body, the governor in council, how regulations shall be set up and some of the responsibilities of the Minister of Health.

Motion No. 92 brought forward by the member for Mississauga South has a number of subclauses. It deals with the equivalency agreements with the provinces. Various provinces may wish to develop their own bills. The province of Quebec already has some regulatory measures in effect concerning reproductive technology, and other provinces may have some also. The clause deals with equivalency agreements with other provinces. The member has very astutely observed that it is quite a loose arrangement in terms of equivalency and the amendment would tighten up the responsibilities. It specifies what an equivalency agreement would look like and the responsibilities that would come with making such changes.

The hon. member has brought in amendments which are quite reasonable. Motion No. 92 states in part:

Equivalency and enforcement agreements shall be subject to the following safeguards:

(a) the Minister shall be accountable to Parliament for all equivalency and enforcement agreements;

That is a very important clause. Ultimately, what is the purpose of our going through this exercise as a federal institution to develop a law for Canadians if someone is not responsible and accountable to the legislators who put the bill in effect in the first place? The motion further states:

(b) the public shall be actively consulted on draft agreements before they are finalized;

The members of the committee who worked on the bill put a lot of work and effort into it. We heard from Canadians across the country. The committee received the bill in draft form and went to great lengths to tighten up this very important area.

We are dealing with human life. Children will be produced from this technology, children who will want to know about their identity later in life. We are dealing with some very profound emotional and moral issues relating to this research. The minister needs to be responsible and accountable and the public needs to be consulted. The motion further states:

(c) the draft agreements, together with the comments made by the public, shall be tabled in both Houses of Parliament for comments and recommendations;

There are a few other accountability measures mentioned in Motion No. 92. An important one is item (g):

(g) five years after this section comes into force, and at the end of each subsequent period of five years, a committee of the House of Commons, of the Senate or of both Houses of Parliament is to be designated or established for the purpose of reviewing this Act.

That is a very reasonable thing to do. This area of science is expanding at an amazing rate. The possibilities that come out of reproductive technologies are profound and have great scientific and health implications but also great moral implications. It is a very important motion. I hope all members of the House will give it due consideration and will vote appropriately. We certainly will be supporting this amendment.

Motion No. 94 also moved by the member for Mississauga South addresses a very important issue. It deals with the issue of transgenics or so-called chimera. A lot of Canadians are probably wondering what that is all about.

We wrestled with this issue at committee. We might wonder about this and I have raised this question repeatedly. There is a tremendous and resplendent array of genetic material available to us as human beings with some six billion of us on the planet. If we look around, a tremendous variety can be found within the human genome, from the little ones among us to the great tall ones who play basketball for great sums of money, from the ones of us who are a little slow to the ones who are really fast in terms of athletic prowess and ability.

I had the pleasure this week to watch an accomplished pianist at a concert. It was amazing to see that woman sit at the piano and play without looking at a note on a musical score. She could play this tremendous array of music from memory. I watched her hands fly across those keys.

It is amazing what human beings are able to accomplish. All that tremendous ability is available to us within our human genome. I have a hard time relating to why we need to mix animal and human genes. What would we hope to accomplish by putting a gene from a lower life form into a human cell or by mixing cell parts from animals and humans or by mixing genes from animals and humans? The bill allows for this under a licence.

The amendment would change it so that the regulations relating to chimera and transgenics could not be changed by the governor in council or by the minister. That is a very important amendment. If we are going to go this way at all, it needs to be tightened up so that this area is very significantly supervised and regulated.

Motions Nos. 96, 98 and 99 are procedural amendments which we would support. They are tidy-up amendments and we certainly agree with them and support them.

Motion No. 93 is an important amendment. It would delete clause 65 entirely, removing the power of the governor in council to make regulations for carrying into effect the purposes of the bill. Clause 65(bb) would allow the governor in council to exempt controlled activities from the provisions of the act.

There are important reasons that controlled activities in the bill require licences and that violations are subject to prosecution. It is because they involve the creation and manipulation of human life. Cabinet should not be able to simply overrule these regulations in a closed cabinet meeting. We certainly support the motion and feel it is very important.

Turning to Motion No. 103, clause 71 deals with transitional provision and grandfathered activities. This is a very important motion. It would delete lines 5 to 12 on page 35. This, as I said, has to do with the grandfathered activities. An agency that had done an activity as little as once would be allowed to do it if it had done it in the period preceding the adoption of the regulations.

The regulations could take some two years to come into effect. There is another motion coming forward, Motion No. 106, which is related to this that would require 90 days as a limit for grandfathered activities to be accomplished.

I hope all members will give these motions serious consideration and we certainly support the amendments brought forward.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 11th, 2003 / 11:40 a.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Jason Kenney Canadian Alliance Calgary Southeast, AB

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in debate on the motions in Group No. 6 at the report stage of Bill C-13, an act respecting assisted human reproduction.

I am glad we are taking a deliberative approach to these many important amendments that have been placed before the House. I will attempt to address each one in the group in the time allotted to me.

All these amendments deal with the clause in the bill regarding enforcement and the regulations. As we often say, the devil is in the details, and that is why this is an important clause in the bill.

The first amendment brought forward by the member for Mississauga South seeks to place reasonable requirements on enforcement agreements that the Minister of Health may make with other governments, such as provincial governments.

As we know, often in federal law the federal ministry is delegated power by Parliament to make enforcement agreements with the provinces or other levels of government. Clearly, this is the case with criminal law where the power of enforcement for most criminal law is delegated to provincial attorneys general. I believe this is the model contemplated under the bill.

What the member for Mississauga South is seeking to do with Motion No. 92 is amend clause 59 of the bill to ensure that the minister is accountable to Parliament for any enforcement or equivalency agreements with other levels of government, and to ensure that the text of all final agreements be included in a public information registry. In a sense, there are several provisions in this motion that would make the enforcement agreements more transparent and more accountable to Parliament and to the public which we represent.

Most important, item (g) under this motion would require a five year parliamentary review of the bill, if enacted, which is a fairly routine provision in most statutes and ought to be incorporated into the bill. I support Motion No. 92.

Motion No. 94 is very interesting. What the member for Mississauga South is seeking to do in this motion is eliminate the ability of the Minister of Health to make regulations regarding transgenics. Clause 11 of the bill permits transgenics. Transgenics is the very troublesome practice of combining human genetic material, human genomes, with other species. Clause 11 states:

No person shall, except in accordance with the regulations and a licence, combine any part or any proportion of the human genome specified in the regulations with any part of the genome of a species specified in the regulations.

In other words, the bill contemplates and permits, admittedly within the regulatory framework, a very troublesome practice which I believe is an ethical matter and ought to be clearly prohibited in the bill and not simply controlled or regulated. That is part of what the member for Mississauga South is seeking to do through this motion.

What the bill contemplates in clause 11 and elsewhere is the legal possibility of cross-breeding between humans and other animals. We do not need to read the large body of fictitious, science fiction work about the kinds of gruesome consequences of this kind of pseudo-science.

Let me say as a matter of first principle, as someone who has studied philosophy, that even contemplating this reflects a very profound philosophical mistake, a very profound misunderstanding about the nature of man.

Humankind is not a species of the same nature as any other animal species in creation. Humankind is of a different kind altogether. We possess uniquely in all of creation the power of reason, which is expressed by theologians in all traditions as having been created in the image and likeness of God. That is to say, man has a particular dignity rooted in his capacity for reason which makes human life something which cannot be confused with the nature of other non-rational, non-human but sentient life. To suggest that science somehow can or should combine man with beast is, I submit, a fundamental philosophical and ethical error. Therefore I support this motion.

Motions Nos. 96, 98 and 99 are procedural motions brought forward by the Minister of Health to clarify the technical language in the bill pursuant to amendments which were accepted at committee. I will accept all of these motions. They are not substantive.

Motion No. 93 in the name of the member for Mississauga South would delete clause 66(5) from the bill. Essentially this is an effort by the member to enhance accountability when it comes to the regulatory process pursuant to Bill C-13.

Motion No. 100 is an amendment that would require equivalency agreements to be renewed whenever there is a change in any relevant federal or provincial legislation, again enhancing in the bill accountability to Parliament and the people. I will support it.

Motion No. 103 in the name of my colleague from Yellowhead is an important amendment to which he spoke moments ago. It would delete clause 71 which allows the grandfathering of controlled activities until a day fixed by the regulations.

As currently worded, the clause would allow scientists to engage in a controlled activity once before the act takes effect and thereby avoid licensing requirements and prosecution provisions. It could result in a stampede toward controlled activities, such as embryonic research, before the bill takes effect. The current clause is a get out of jail free card which allows the cabinet to exempt controlled activities through regulations.

I submit that controlled activities ought not to be grandfathered. If they are controlled in the bill, that should apply to activities which had begun before the bill's implementation. I support the deletion of clause 71 as contemplated by Motion No. 103.

Motion No. 104 is in the name of the member for Mississauga South. It would specify that the grandfathered activities should only be permitted as long as such activities have no change in scope or purpose, the intent being to prevent researchers from changing the scope of activities after they have qualified for grandfathering under the bill. Again I think this is sensible.

I see I am running out of time so let me just say briefly that I will also support Motions Nos. 105 and 106. Altogether, the amendments seek greater accountability and would seek to control abuses which I do not think is the intent of the legislation to permit. We ought to take these amendments very seriously.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 11th, 2003 / 11:30 a.m.
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Bloc

Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to participate in the debate on Bill C-13. I was discussing this issue with the member for Lotbinière—L'Érable, and obviously we are both aware of how important it is.

I want to remind members how much time the committee spent on Bill C-13, and how hard we worked on this most important bill.

Bill C-13 is a bill that affects a wide range of values. It affects the notion of the family, the issue of the availability of leading edge technologies, our perception of sexuality, our perception of human relationships, and also practices prohibited under the Criminal Code.

During the holidays, we all witnessed what happened with Clonaid. It was quite shocking, even if proof was never provided, to learn that it was scientifically possible to clone humans.

The committee heard testimony about how mice, rats and sheep have been cloned. Of course, it was a different kind of success because, in a certain number of cases, premature aging occurred. Other times, the embryo was aborted. But we know how to make clones.

For a long time now, the Bloc Quebecois has been quite concerned about these issues. Shortly after being elected in 1995, and then again in 1997, 2000 and even in 2002, the member for Drummond introduced a bill specifically on cloning.

It is surprising that it has taken so long, and I must blame the government because the Baird commission tabled its report nearly 10 years ago. How could the government have waited so long to take action in an area such as this?

This bill is extremely controversial. There is a whole side to the bill that we fully agree with. Of course, we strongly support a bill such as this in terms of banned practices. With regard to creating chimeras and maintaining embryos in vitro, and therefore outside a woman's body for more than 14 days, we agree that such practices should be banned.

Maintaining an embryo outside the body of a woman after the fourteenth day should be prohibited because the nervous system begins to develop on the fifteenth day. The consensus in the international community is that this causes risks to viability.

We agree with prohibiting chimera. We do not want an embryo into which a cell of any non-human life form has been introduced or vice versa. We are of course opposed to human cloning and we are opposed to cloning for treatment purposes. We understand the need to say that a pregnancy must serve altruistic purposes. No one wants to live in a society where a monetary value is placed on pregnancy or it becomes a commercial transaction.

If the bill dealt strictly with the prohibited activities, we would have quickly voted in favour of it. For each prohibited activity carries ethical considerations.

Why are we opposed to cloning? We are opposed to it because we think that in human development and psychogenesis, it is not desirable for a parent and a child to have exactly the same physical appearance and genetic makeup.

How could we meet our parental responsibilities? How could a child develop normally, in the healthiest manner, if at all the significant stages of his life he is the spitting image of his father or mother?

No one has studied these questions. But account must be taken of the fact that in human development and psychogenesis, this is not something that is desirable.

At the beginning of the year, and last year, the Bloc Quebecois moved a motion to split the bill. We could have voted on the 13 prohibited activities and there could have been provisions under the Criminal Code such that if someone engaged in one of the prohibited activities in a public or private laboratory, there would have been recourse.

Let us not forget that if we had learned in November or October that Clonaid—which has a subsidiary in Quebec or in Canada—had conducted experiments that resulted in successfully cloning a human being, we would not have had any legal recourse.

The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, who is the member for Outremont, might not have liked it, but he would not have been able to do anything but make sorry excuses to Canadians because there is no provision in the Criminal Code to punish or lay criminal charges against anyone.

Thus the importance of this bill. Obviously there are colleagues in the House, who shall remain nameless, who would have made this a pro-life and pro-choice debate. I think this is ill-advised. This is not a pro-life and pro-choice debate; this is a debate about prohibited practices and specific regulations.

It is true that under the bill, the regulatory agency could obtain authorization allowing it to conduct research on embryos. Obviously if a woman were to give her informed consent and go to a fertility clinic or any other place that does artificial insemination and say, “If there are extra embryos in my ovulation cycle, I agree to let them be used in a carefully planned research project that has been approved by a research ethics committee”, then in this case it is true that research could be done.

We need to be able to do research on stem cells because there are major degenerative diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's and cerebral palsy, and we must improve the human condition. There may be situations where current reproductive material or knowledge does not allow us to conduct new research without new studies on embryos.

It is true that the use of stem cells requires destroying embryos. Depending on one's definition of life, there may be some who, for religious reasons, or who, because of their convictions, claim that destroying a human embryo is homicide.

However, that is not the case under the law. The Supreme Court has ruled: an embryo is not a human being. A human being exists from the moment it is declared living and viable, outside of its mother's body and once it has taken its first breath. That is the law.

I believe that this is a balanced bill because it requires proof that there is no other way to conduct this research other than using embryos to provide stem cells.

My time has expired. I will have further opportunity to comment during this debate. We have concerns about the regulatory agency and I will comment on these concerns when the other groups of motions are being debated.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 11th, 2003 / 11:15 a.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Rob Merrifield Canadian Alliance Yellowhead, AB

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak on this group of amendments. We have been at this for a while and I hope that the people watching across Canada get a sense of the urgency of this piece of legislation, because it is extremely important. It really does go to the heart of the nation and challenges the ethics of our nation as to how far we will go and how we will treat human life, especially at its most vulnerable stage.

That is one of the reasons why it is so important that we stand and speak on this group of amendments. To give people a recapture, we are now on Group No. 6. We started with five groups, but we have split Group No. 2 into two, so Groups Nos. 2 and 3 are yet to be spoken on, and we are now in Group No. 6. There have been three or four days during which we have had the opportunity to speak to these amendments.

We are now starting on the Group No. 6 amendments. Every group has a significant number of amendments and they are not there by accident. They are there because this piece of legislation is so very important to the House and to the nation. Every party in the House has suggested that this legislation should come forward soon so that we can have some parameters around this whole area of reproductive technologies, especially in light of the cloning or supposed cloning that has been happening around the world, or because of those groups that say they are going to do cloning. We need to put some limits on where scientists will go in this whole area of reproductive technologies. Therein lies the urgency for this piece of legislation.

There are some prohibited activities in this piece of legislation, all of us agree, and if we brought in a separate bill that would deal with just those prohibited activities it would pass as fast as the raise in salaries of MPs passed, which was in about 72 hours. We would have it through and we would have some safeguards in place in Canada around this area of reproduction.

That was actually proposed. In fact, I introduced a motion in committee to have that happen and it got shot down immediately for no good reason. Everyone knows that we should prohibit certain activities within this whole area of reproductive technologies, such as cloning, both reproductive and therapeutic, stem line alteration, or chimera or animal-human hybrids. We know that we should be prohibiting all of these areas. I do not think there is any argument across this nation with regard to that. That piece of legislation would pass immediately, but some wanted to piggyback all of the other stuff with the controlled areas into a piece of legislation that challenges the parameters of where we should go as a nation.

If we look to Great Britain as an example, which has a regulatory body similar to the one in this legislation, we see that even under that regulatory regime the ethics in Great Britain and what is allowed under this agency have changed in the last decade. Britain had a very difficult time when trying to stop the idea of therapeutic cloning and in fact it has been allowed as of last spring. Also allowed is the creation of embryos solely for the purpose of research.

These are areas that this piece of legislation would prohibit, and yet we hear a massive cry from the scientific community to hold it and maybe re-examine reproductive cloning. That community is saying that this is not really reproductive cloning but nuclear transfer, so let us call it that instead of cloning to disguise what it is actually trying to do.

We have to be very careful of those who would like to push us into areas that as a nation we should not go into. This piece of legislation will allow that, which is why this group of amendments is so important. I would like to speak to my amendment in particular, Motion No. 103, which speaks to that issue, because in essence it is a get out of jail free card that scientists can use. The power then would not lie with the agency but actually with the governor in council, the cabinet of the House, which would allow them to grandfather in procedures that are deemed to be in a controlled area.

Controlled activities are very important. That is why we would have an agency and that is why we have to go through a tremendous amount of examination and determination to decide whether that controlled activity should proceed.

In fact, when we as a committee first looked at this we had 100 witnesses from across the country and around the world come in and explain to us what should and should not be allowed. At the conclusion of the committee stage, they very eloquently and accurately said that we as a nation should not go into the area of embryonic stem cell research. We were very shy about recommending it at all. It was only at the demand of the minister that we should allow embryonic stem cell research that some committee members changed their minds on this legislation and on how the wording should be as to what we would allow to be under control and what we would allow to go ahead and use embryos for.

The committee was so determined not to allow something that was inappropriate that the wording was very tight. It said that if we are going to go down this road of killing life for the sake of research, then let us say that we should not do it if there is other biological material that could be used for that same research. I think that is reasonable. The committee said “only if no other...material can be used for the...research” should we then entertain the idea of using an embryo.

Some committee members, and I was included, said that this is where we should not go. We called for a three year moratorium on it, to put our emphasis on the non-embryonic stem cells because there is a great amount of research being done there and a great number of cures that have happened, even in the last 12 months. We need to move down that road for the next little while in this whole area of exciting medical research into stem cells that is taking place. Before we go to the embryo, we should move down that road much further so that we can be much more intelligent about where we are going.

If we are to decide on a piece of legislation that will actually determine where we go as a nation, then we should be on the cautious side. If we err in this legislation, it should be on the conservative side. We should be very cautious and tread softly in this area because it has such far reaching implications.

When we get into the area of what the cabinet could allow under this grandfathering clause, we see that it could be abused in an unbelievable way before the legislation is even enacted and before the agency is even up and going. The cabinet could allow scientists to carry on an extreme amount of embryonic stem cell research without any scrutiny of why they are doing it. The cabinet could allow it without any controls as to whether it is in the best interests of the nation and in the best interests of science. These are all the questions that an agency will have to reflect upon and very wisely determine. Whether it is something we should or should not do would all be a moot point under the clause if we do not allow this amendment to go forward.

There should be a limit as to how much should be grandfathered, if we want to grandfather anything at all, and it should not be outside the scope of the legislation we have before us. This amendment is absolutely crucial if we are to do that.

Let us go back to the actual wording of what Bill C-13 is calling for. I mentioned a few minutes ago that our wording was only if no other biological material could be found, but I suggest that this was overturned in this wording. Because of Bill C-13, the wording is not “if no other biological material” can be found. The wording is if it is deemed to be “necessary”. The minister explained to me that the reason why she had to change the wording was that “no other biological material” was so tight and restrictive that they could not define it. Therefore, they used the word “necessary”, meaning if it is necessary to use this material for the research.

I said that was fair, but if we are to use that terminology then let us then determine what “necessary” is. Let us define in the bill what would we sense and decide on as being necessary for carrying on with a procedure that would destroy a human embryo for the sake of research. Nonetheless, the definition of necessary is not in the legislation and if we do not have a definition of necessary, then necessary could mean anything.

That is exactly what was said by the witness at committee, Dr. Bernstein. I asked him directly, because he is a scientist who works with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. He deals with the majority of federal funds that go into this area of research, although not all the funding because Genome Canada has federal funds as well. I asked him what he in his wisdom would determine to be not necessary for the sake of research, if he could think of something that would be disallowed. If we say we should do this research only if it is necessary, then obviously we are implying that some things are not necessary. I was trying to determine where he would draw the line or what line scientists would not cross over. His comment to the committee was that he could not identify something that would not be necessary.

This means that in his mind everything is necessary. If everything is necessary, then what are we doing with the legislation? What parameters does it lay in front of the Canadian people? I would suggest none, and I would say that we must tread very cautiously with this legislation and adopt these amendments or defeat the bill.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 11th, 2003 / 11:05 a.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

seconded by the hon. member for Yellowhead, moved:

Motion No. 104

That Bill C-13, in Clause 71, be amended by replacing line 6 on page 35 with the following:

“person who undertakes or continues to undertake a specific controlled activity with no change in scope or purpose”

Motion No. 105

That Bill C-13, in Clause 71, be amended by replacing line 12 on page 35 with the following:

“until a day fixed by the regulations. Once sections 10 to 13 are in force, changes in the scope or purpose of such controlled activity shall require a licence.”

Motion No. 106

That Bill C-13, in Clause 71, be amended by replacing line 12 on page 35 with the following:

“until 90 days after the coming into force of this Act.”

Madam Speaker, I have a number of motions in this group. I would like to comment very briefly on them and use the remainder of my time to focus on the issue in general.

Motion No. 92 outlines some detailed provisions whereby equivalency agreements can be set up. The bill says that a province has the right to establish its own regulations and legislation with regard to the matters dealt with by Bill C-13. Therefore if it is deemed that the provincial legislation is compatible and covers it adequately, that legislation will override the federal legislation.

This would be an absolute nightmare in my view. The members from the Bloc Québécois probably will quote me on this, but the provinces have jurisdiction with regard to delivery of health care and certainly to the regulation of fertility clinics and researchers, even with regard to whether or not cloning, for instance, might be permitted within a province.

In fact the province of Quebec immediately came out and banned embryonic stem cell research. It was very clear from the beginning that the province of Quebec had some problems with the whole idea of the federal government starting to legislate in provincial jurisdiction.

We must address very carefully some of these equivalency agreements. We have to make sure the provinces are on side because we need to have some uniformity across the system to make sure that the intent of parliamentarians is applied uniformly across the country. Motion No. 92 lays out some features that the equivalency agreements should have, features that presently are not in the bill and which I believe should be.

Motion No. 93 seeks to delete clause 66(5). It says that if a regulation is new or altered after we pass the bill and after we promulgate the regulation, if we come forward with any new regulations or amendments to the regulations, they would not have to come back to Parliament like the original ones. Every regulation to this very important bill, whether it is a new regulation or an alteration of an existing regulation should have the consent and the review of Parliament before it is promulgated.

Motion. No. 94 is a consequential motion to delete clause 11. That is explained by virtue of the fact that Motion No. 47 moves the content of clause 11 to another clause. Motion No. 95 is similar so I will not speak to that.

The next motion I wish to talk about is Motion No. 100. The bill says that if there is a change in federal or provincial legislation, we do not have to renew the equivalency agreement that was entered into with the provinces. It appears to me that if there was a change in federal legislation it should come here. If we are allowing provincial legislation to override it if there is equivalency, then ipso facto, if there is a change in provincial legislation we must also have that amendment reflected in the new agreement the federal government would have with the province.

There has to be continuity. We cannot do something with regulations or changes in legislation when the bill is passed and for the first round but ignore it subsequently. That would allow legislators to get through the back door what they could not get through the front door.

It is a consistency motion. The motion also says that we should be consistent and treat everything the way we would treat in the original bill.

Motion No. 103 is very important. Some members would like to delete clause 71. It has to do with transitional provisions. It says that when this bill is promulgated we will have a situation where the enforced date on prohibited activities will be a date specified by order in council. It would be very shortly after the bill received royal assent. However, certain parts of the bill, in particular controlled activities, will not have royal assent until the agency is established and until the regulations guiding all of this legislation are put in place.

Testimony from the health officials confirmed on two occasions that it would take at least two years. This is very important for members to know. After the bill receives royal assent, it will probably take as long as two years before most of the bill comes into force.

Clause 71, which is a transitional provision, says that once the bill comes into force, anybody who has done anything under the bill at least once during the past year is grandfathered and can continue to do it without a licence and without the scrutiny of the legislation. There is a motion at report stage which says that this is something that is asking far too much. If someone is out there doing a prohibited act or a controlled activity which is not in accordance with the provisions of the bill and the person continues to do it, this is problematic.

I understand that fertility clinics will be licensed and they are an ongoing and continuous activity. I believe that they are aware of this legislation. They will have ample opportunity to make the appropriate application. I believe that they are legitimate operations with no problems under whatever regulations guide them now, which I understand are very limited. If they are reputable fertility clinics, they would apply and they would ensure that they were operating in accordance with the provisions of the legislation.

I tend to support eliminating this transitional provision. It is very qualified, the idea that if one has done it at least once in the last year one is grandfathered. I have never seen that before.

I think the different in force dates is somewhat problematic. The regulations are going to specify these dates. We have no idea when the controlled activities sections will come into force, but it will be a long time.

Members should understand that if this bill were to receive royal assent and the prohibited sections come into force earlier, that means we would prohibit cloning, genetic alteration, surrogacy for profit, and purchase and sale of human reproductive material, but the rest of the bill would not be in force until the agency, the unique body about which I have grave reservations, was put together. I will explain why I have grave reservations.

The Standing Committee on Health had a discussion about conflict of interest. The Minister of Health spoke extensively. She said that there was a provision in the bill which said that one cannot be a member of the board of directors if one has a relationship with a licensee or an application for a licence and that should certainly cover it.

The health committee after doing an extensive review and hearing from witnesses and so on, decided that commercialization and commodification of human reproductive material had to be nailed down very strongly. The committee very strongly supported a new clause which said that one cannot be a member of the board of directors if one has a possible pecuniary interest somewhere down the chain, whether it be a licensee, a fertility clinic, or a researcher. We even talked about pharmaceutical companies, biotech companies, those companies that generally would be involved in the whole process of taking research and development and creating patents and pharmaceuticals and all kinds of things.

There is no question that the whole concern is that commercialization may lead to patenting. Patenting may restrict research and may restrict the ability of others to turn that research into therapies and cures.

The minister has not seen the potential impact. I am not concerned about the board of directors' decisions somehow being influenced by fertility clinics or researchers. It is beyond that. I have grave concerns.

If the government has already decided that 50% will not be women, I take it as a signal that the members of the board of directors of this new reproductive agency have already been selected and are just waiting for their appointments. That is the only explanation I can possibly give for why the government would not recognize that the bill has to do with women's issues, with women's health issues and women's social and economic issues, and that it is important that women have at least half the representation on this board. Apparently somebody believes that is not the case.

I hope that members will speak on these very important issues in Group No. 6.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 11th, 2003 / 11:05 a.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Rob Merrifield Canadian Alliance Yellowhead, AB

moved:

Motion No. 103

That Bill C-13, in Clause 71, be amended by deleting lines 5 to 12 on page 35.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 11th, 2003 / 11:05 a.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

seconded by the hon. member for Yellowhead, moved:

Motion No. 93

That Bill C-13, in Clause 66, be amended by deleting lines 9 to 12 on page 33.

Motion No. 100

That Bill C-13, in Clause 68, be amended by adding after line 40 on page 33 the following:

“(2.1) Notwithstanding subsection (2), any such agreement must be renewed whenever there is a change in any relevant federal or provincial legislation.”

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 11th, 2003 / 11:05 a.m.
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Etobicoke—Lakeshore Ontario

Liberal

Jean Augustine Liberalfor the Minister of Health

moved:

Motion No. 96

That Bill C-13, in Clause 65, be amended by adding after line 15 on page 31 the following:

“(s.1) respecting the notification of the Agency under subsection 15(3.1);”

Motion No. 98

That Bill C-13, in Clause 66, be amended by replacing line 22 on page 32 with the following:

“Parliament shall be referred to the appropriate”

Motion No. 99

That Bill C-13, in Clause 66, be amended by replacing, in the French version, lines 32 to 43 on page 32 and lines 1 to 9 on page 33 with the following:

“(2.1) Pour l'application du paragraphe (2), le comité compétent de la Chambre des communes est le Comité permanent de la santé ou, à défaut, le comité compétent de la Chambre.

(3) Le règlement ne peut être pris avant le premier en date des jours suivants:

a) le trentième jour de séance suivant le dépôt;

b) le cent soixantième jour civil suivant le dépôt;

c) le lendemain du jour où le comité de chaque chambre du Parlement a présenté son rapport.

(4) Le ministre tient compte de tout rapport établi au titre du paragraphe (2). S'il n'est pas donné suite à l'une ou l'autre des recommandations que contient un rapport, le ministre dépose à la chambre d'où provient celui-ci une déclaration motivée à cet égard.”

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 11th, 2003 / 11 a.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

seconded by the member for Yellowhead, moved:

Motion No. 92

That Bill C-13 be amended by adding after line 35 on page 28 the following new clause:

“59.1 Equivalency and enforcement agreements shall be subject to the following safeguards:

(a) the Minister shall be accountable to Parliament for all equivalency and enforcement agreements;

(b) the public shall be actively consulted on draft agreements before they are finalized;

(c) the draft agreements, together with the comments made by the public, shall be tabled in both Houses of Parliament for comments and recommendations;

(d) the text of all final agreements shall be included in the public information registry established by this Act;

(e) all agreements shall be subject to termination or revocation upon reasonable written notice given by either party;

(f) the Minister may intervene under a saving clause that would enable him or her to take any action deemed necessary for the administration or enforcement of the Act;

(g) five years after this section comes into force, and at the end of each subsequent period of five years, a committee of the House of Commons, of the Senate or of both Houses of Parliament is to be designated or established for the purpose of reviewing this Act; and

(h) as a condition precedent to the signing of an agreement, a government that enters into an agreement with the federal government must agree to comply with the same reporting requirements that apply at the federal level. The other government must also agree to transmit the related data to the Agency for inclusion in the federal personal health information registry and the public information registry.”

Motion No. 94

That Bill C-13, in Clause 65, be amended

(a) by replacing line 4 on page 30 with the following:

“(c) for the purposes of section 10,”

(b) by replacing line 8 on page 30 with the following:

“(d) specify-”

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 11th, 2003 / 10:40 a.m.
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Liberal

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

Madam Speaker, in the late 19th century, H.G. Wells wrote a book called The Island of Doctor Moreau , which is largely forgotten now I suppose. However it dealt with was a mad scientist who occupied an isolated island and he experimented with humans and animals. The technology of the 19th century was pretty primitive, so the scientific story is relatively primitive. The impact of it was that Doctor Moreau was taking parts of animals and attaching them to humans, and vice versa. In the end he created, out of animals, semi-humans.

This novel had a huge impact in the 19th century because the message, and why Doctor Moreau came to an untimely end, was that he was playing God. Even in the late 19th century it was appreciated that scientific advances were going forward so quickly that it would not be too long before man would be able to act as God and create human life.

That sort of concept is like a pebble in a pond. That novel sent a shiver through western society and faith-based groups, and we still feel the repercussions now. One reason why this debate we are having on reproductive technology is so sensitive is because instinctively, all of us, regardless of what faith we practice or indeed regardless of whether we are practising a faith, realize that when one starts tampering with life at the embryonic stage in any sense, man is playing God. Of course we feel that this is a very dangerous thing to do.

Yet science has advanced so much that we see almost unlimited opportunities to save lives. Scientists, with gene research, particularly the various research that has advanced medicine so enormously in the 20th century, see enormous opportunities to save human lives. We have seen advances in vaccines and antibiotics that have pushed into retreat many diseases.

Now with stem cell research, scientists are seeing an enormous opportunity to address diseases that are primarily genetic in origin. Anyone who knows someone who is suffering from Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis or any of these diseases, which would appear to have their basis in original genes, would only want science to advance quickly to save those people.

Even though we look to science with a great deal of caution, because science is always a two-edged sword that can save lives but can also take lives, any time we look at somebody close to us who is suffering from one of these terrible genetic diseases, particularly children, our hearts go out to them and we want scientific research to proceed and help these people and save them.

Therefore we find ourselves in this debate in the House of Commons now where we realize that scientists have advanced to the point where they see enormous opportunities in stem cell research. They see those opportunities, in particular, with the possibilities that are attached to embryonic stem cells. Science is not entirely sure that ordinary adult stem cells cannot provide all the information and opportunities that they might want in order to do the research that may address these genetic diseases. However, from the stated knowledge now, it appears apparent that embryonic stem cells also offer great hope for researchers to make breakthroughs to address some of these terrible diseases like Parkinson's.

We find ourselves in the situation where, despite the fact that many faith based groups are very strongly against the use of embryos in any kind of research, we are torn by the prospect that these embryos may shorten the time if we are able to use these embryonic cells. I should make it very clear that we are talking about embryonic cells. Should these embryonic cells shorten the time that it takes to find cures for these terrible genetic diseases, then many lives will be saved.

We have a moral dilemma in which we now have a bill before the House that seeks to give opportunities to researchers to access embryonic stem cells, while, at the same time, putting real limitations on how they might be collected and how they might be used.

This is very important because, as in the case of the famous story of Dr. Moreau creating human beings out of animals, science always has the temptation of going too far. This is where Parliament comes in. It is up to us as parliamentarians to define the limits, and this is what Bill C-13 would do. It makes it very clear that embryonic stem cells are not to be deliberately created for research purposes. It makes it very clear that embryonic stem cells are to be used for research only if they are to be discarded otherwise.

I submit that there are those of some faiths who feel that embryos are human beings from the moment of conception. If that is the case, and one has that view, then surely an embryo is the most innocent of individuals, and that most innocent of individuals would surely want to see its short time on earth being used to save lives rather than being merely discarded.

I support, in principle, the idea that if embryonic stem cells are going to be discarded and can be offered to researchers who in turn can turn the information gained from them into saving lives, then I do not see, morally, how any of us should stand in the way of that very fine principle.

The bill does have problems and this is one of the reasons that we have to debate it so carefully. I support some of the motions that are before the House now which suggest that the assisted human reproduction agency, which oversees fertility clinics, should set very tight standards in how eggs might be created in these fertility clinics so that surplus eggs will not be deliberately created in order to provide material for research. Very high standards should be spelled out in the legislation, in my view, that sets the parameters on the oversight procedures that the assisted human reproduction agency should follow.

I draw the House's attention particularly to Motion No. 88. Motion No. 88 very emphatically and effectively states that the agency should be required to set standards that Parliament approves when it comes to the methods of encouraging egg production in women and how they are harvested. It is that kind of thing, I think, that is the role of parliamentarians, to take the legislation when it comes before the House after committee and to move this kind of motion. I urge all members to support Motion No. 88 when it comes up for a vote.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 11th, 2003 / 10:30 a.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Gerry Ritz Canadian Alliance Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to join my colleagues in speaking to Bill C-13 on human reproductive technologies. It is one of the most controversial pieces of legislation that we will deal with in this session of Parliament, and my colleagues have touched on that point. It really does divide Canadians on the direction we should take. What can be more important than how Parliament approaches the subject of science and human reproduction on behalf of our constituents, Canadian society as a whole? There is a fine line between those.

The Alliance supports some of the aspects of the bill. As in any Liberal legislation that I have seen in the two terms I have been here, there is always a bit of good mixed in with a lot of bad. The trick always is to try to separate the wheat from the chaff and come up with legislation that is in the best interest of Canadians.

We fully support, for example, the ban on human and therapeutic cloning. I think everyone across the country wants feels the same. On animal-human hybrids, why would anyone want to go there? Sex selection, germ line alteration, buying and selling of embryos and paid surrogacy are the types of things that people are e-mailing my office about, by the hundreds. Our e-mails are lighting up.

The petitions I have seen tabled in the House in regard to this legislation rival other issues such as the young offenders bill and things like that when Canadians leapt to their feet and said that they wanted changes. They are trying to get changes to this legislation before it becomes law.

Work has been done with non-embryonic adult stem cells. When we talk about adult stem cells, we are even talk about cells from an umbilical cord. A lot of people would think that it is part and parcel of the embryo but it is not. It is considered to contain adult stem cells. There have been tremendous advances made in research along that line and tremendous good has been done. They are finding less rejection with adult stem cells as opposed to embryonic cells. It is a tremendous dilemma.

We also see in the legislation a huge flaw. We see it again and again in some of the legislation that the government brings down. It is a failure to look after the best interests of children as its first priority. The government talks the talk but it does not walk the walk. We saw that in Bill C-20 that was tabled recently. The legislation is meant to protect children but a clause on artistic merit on child pornography has been left in the legislation and the age of consent has been left at 14 of age.

We see the same theme coming through in this bill where the best interests of our kids are not looked after. Under the bill, children conceived through donated sperm or eggs do not have the right to know the identity of their biological parents. We see that as a huge loophole. The donor offspring community gave moving testimony at the Commons' health committee on the need to fill in the missing gaps of their lives. People need to know their history. All of us use that as a foundation. That is what defines us as individuals in society. To leave that out is a huge and glaring hole.

We also have grave concerns over the accountability. The bill allows the minister to give any policy direction she likes to the agency, which she hand picks, and it must follow without question. We have seen that in other legislation where order in council does this, the minister has the right to do that and there is no overview. As parliamentarians, we represent our constituents.

All Canadians are represented by an MP whether they like it or not. We have seen things go astray when ministers have that type of power. We have seen that with the gun registry and in other failed ambitious legislation that those guys take on, where they give ministers sole discrepancy and they hand pick folks they like. We have seen things go off the rails in no time at all. We see that as a huge stumbling block. Whether one likes the legislation, that would be grounds enough to say “Wait a minute, let us take another look at this”, and we should.

Making the agency fully independent and accountable to Parliament as a whole would curb the political appetite that seems to permeate a lot of these things. It would ensure in the long run that it would serve the needs, aspirations and desires of Canadians.

Those two points alone would be enough for anyone of conscience to say that we have to step back and take a look at this.

Having scientists study and propose experimental methods for creating human life disturbs many Canadians. That has been shown in the petitions, e-mails and letters which we have all received. I know we are in the neighbourhood of approaching a thousand hits on this, just since the bill was tabled.

The problem with this legislation is it lets the genie out of the bottle. It is a reality with which we have to deal. The rest of the world is taking steps and moving in certain directions. The Americans have taken a certain direction as have the Europeans. As I pointed out, our Canadian legislation has some large flaws in it. We have problems and concerns with it.

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops sent a memorandum to every MP. In its presentation to the Standing Committee on Health the conference outlined its vision of a human embryo as a human being who should be protected as a person.

The bishops are of the mindset, and always have been, that an embryo from the point of conception is a human being. Many people would argue this but that is a reality. Even the scientists who came before the health committee said that. An embryo is of no use to them if it is not alive.

By giving the green light to research on embryos that remain after fertility treatments, Bill C-13 fails to protect the human embryo. We see that as a huge flaw.

The Canadian Conference of Bishops is urging members of Parliament to strengthen Bill C-13 by amending it to prohibit research on embryos. We have had tremendous inroads and great gains on adult stem cell research. We do not have to use embryos. It is just that it is easy.

The conference of bishops made several points and I would like to review a couple more. Some argue that the embryos that remain after fertility treatments will die anyway, so why not do some good. We have heard that line from several different sources.

It is not necessary that we do something with these embryos so that some good or meaning will be given to their lives. They have already had meaning in their lives simply because they are intrinsically human, which also means from a faith perspective that they are known and loved by God. That is what the Catholic bishops said. I cannot disagree with that and I do not think anybody can.

It is unnecessary to search for meaning on their behalf, especially when such a search is really nothing more than a way of justifying the decision to release human embryos for research purposes. The bishops are saying that it is not required and that there is no need for embryonic stem cell research.

The Minister of Health, in speaking to the bill at second reading, said, “outlaw the creation of human clones whether for purposes of reproduction or research”.

Some questions have been raised as to whether the bill does exactly that. Does the bill go where she intends it to go? Are there some weasel words in there and some wiggle room that again we will see this challenged in the courts? We seem to be making laws for lawyers again and again. At the end of the day does this serve Canadians well? The Alliance does not think so.

The bishops are urging members of Parliament to ensure that the bill captures all forms and possibilities of cloning. Do not leave any wiggle room is what the Catholic bishops are saying. I do not think anybody can argue with that. They have put a lot of study and a lot of time into that.

I have an article that was in the Ottawa Citizen on February 10. Françoise Baylis, a medical ethics and philosophy professor, says that she has done some study on that. She suggests that the federal government could face a possible shortage from heavy pressure from Canadian researchers to remove any ban on the creation of human embryos for research purposes. She is saying that there will not be enough embryos.

At the end of the day her argument is a little self-serving. She is looking for a cash grant from the federal government to study this. It is a little bit more self-serving. She is raising the alarm so that she can go in and fill the void. We have certainly seen that done at government levels for that matter. They create a crisis and then they rush in as the white knights saying that they are there to help. It is a cause and effect situation. I do not think there is a lot of credibility in that treatise which was put forward.

Part of the situation we find ourselves in with a lot of what it out there is that we have been talking about this for 10 years. In that 10 years a lot of people have questioned if we have we got it right. I quoted some of the comments of the Catholic bishops. Many people from my riding and across the country have written me and have said the very same thing. They have asked if we have got it right? I guess at this point I would have to say we do not.

When we look at the number of amendments that have come forward on the bill, and a lot of good points in those amendments, will they be taken seriously? Will the minister, in her monopoly on handling this, take a look at those amendments? Will the minister agree that they strengthen the bill and make the bill better? Will she agree to vote those amendments through?

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 11th, 2003 / 10:20 a.m.
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Canadian Alliance

David Anderson Canadian Alliance Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK

Madam Speaker, it is good to be here addressing Bill C-13 and in particular the Group No. 5 amendments. I will begin by speaking generally about the bill and then come back to the amendments as my colleague has just done.

This is one of the most important bills that has come forward in the House since I was elected. It is also the most important that has come forward in a long time because of the potential it has to affect our society and our culture over the next decades.

It is important to note that there are a number of aspects of the bill that are worthy of support in the bill. We support the ban on therapeutic cloning. It is important to have restrictions immediately. We support the ban on chimeras, animal-human hybrids, and sex selection that would be done deliberately. We support the ban on germ line alteration. We support the ban on buying and selling embryos. We think those kinds of things need to be prevented in Canada.

We support the idea of an agency which would regulate this sector. We want changes to the type of agency that has been presented, but it is essential that there be an agency that oversees this sector and what would become this industry.

It is important that the agency be directly accountable to Parliament. I had the opportunity to sit in on a couple of health committee meetings. The director for the Canadian Institute for Health Information appeared before the committee. It seemed that he really felt that he was allowed to run ahead of the legislation. The attitude that I saw that day was that the scientists should be making the decisions and the legislators should be sitting aside. I disagree with that. We have been given the responsibility to oversee legislation and to oversee what is going on in the country.

The preamble of the bill highlights a couple of things. First, it talks about the health and well-being of children, in particular the children that will be born through assisted human reproduction and the fact that those children must be given priority. The second point highlights that human individuality and diversity, and the integrity of the human genome must be preserved and protected. We agree with those concepts, but we also have concerns in those areas.

We support the recognition that the health and well-being of children born through assisted human reproductive technology should be given priority. In fact, the health committee in its deliberations came up with the ranking of priorities for the decision making around this technology. It stated: first, that children born through AHR need to be considered; second, that adults participating in these procedures need to be considered; and third, that the priorities of researchers and physicians that conduct AHR must be subject to both the children who are born and the adults who are participating in those procedures.

We realize that the preamble recognizes the priority of assisted human reproductive offspring. Other clauses of the bill fail to meet the same standards, the standard of children born through donor insemination or through donor eggs are not given the right to know the identity of their biological parents. There was a discussion in the chamber last week about the importance of those children who are born through reproductive technology needing to have some connection to their biological parents. The bill does not address that.

The bill's preamble does not provide an acknowledgement of human dignity or a respect for human life. I think it is important for that to be in the bill.

In my last speech on the bill I spoke about human life and that generally scientists have come to the conclusion and agree that life begins at conception. It really begins when the DNA package is created and there is little disagreement about that. The disagreement is in what value we give to that life once it is created.

I spent some time speaking about how important it is that we give value to human life and that we see it as valuable from conception right through to the end of natural life. The bill's preamble does not acknowledge human dignity or the specific respect for human life.

It is interesting that it is intimately connected with human life and the creation of it. Yet there is no overarching principle of the recognition of the value of human life. As I pointed out in a speech the other day this is a grave deficiency in the bill.

In our minority report from this side of the House we recommended that the final legislation clearly recognize that the human embryo is a human life and that the statutory declaration include the phrase “respect for human life”. We would say it is important that it be legislatively defined. We need to make an amendment to the bill. The preamble and the mandate of the agency should also be amended to include a reference to the principle of respect for human life.

In our motions today we are talking about research using human embryos. The bill would allow a number of things with human embryos. It would allow experiments on human embryos under five different conditions. First, only in vitro leftover embryos from the IVF process could be used for research; and second, embryos could not be created for research, with one exception: they can be created for purposes of improving or providing instruction in AHR processes. I would think that exception is too broad as it really does open up the door to almost anything.

Third, written permission for experimentation on human embryos must be given by the donor, although in this case the donor is singular, not plural, and it should be plural; and fourth, research on human embryos is permitted if the use is necessary. Again, necessary is undefined.

This takes me back to the problem the government seems to have in defining legislation. I think back to the debate that we had on child pornography where the courts ruled that artistic merit was allowed and in John Robin Sharpe's case it was a good enough defence for his material. The government came back in response to that and suggested that we need to replace the defence of artistic merit with the public good. The member for Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam pointed out the other day that the definition of public good would broaden the allowance for child pornography rather than narrow it. We have a number of situations in places where the government is unable to make the definitions necessary to put boundaries in these situations.

The research on human embryos is allowed if the use is necessary, whatever that means. The bill would also allow for experiments on human embryos if those human embryos were destroyed after 14 days.

We have some concerns about embryonic research. I have some concerns personally as well. The research is definitely controversial as it divides Canadians. There are numerous petitions being tabled in the House weekly regarding the situation. Clearly, it is an issue that is very important to Canadians.

The embryonic stem cell research inevitably would result in the death of the embryo. Life would not go on. For many Canadians this would violate the commitment to respect human dignity, to respect integrity, and to respect human life.

Embryonic research would constitute an objectification of human life. It is very important that we do no move into that direction. Life cannot become a tool which can be manipulated and destroyed for other ends.

The amendments today deal with a number of those things, but we have great and grave concerns about the movement toward embryonic stem cell research, particularly when adult stem cells provide far better means and opportunities for scientists to do their research.

In fact, a lot of the embryonic stem cell research has had some terrible results where cells have begun to grow out of control. People have had tumours where operations have been done in which embryonic stem cells have been inserted. Operations have had to be performed to reverse the effects of what had been done.

In conclusion, I would say there are some things that are good about Bill C-13 that we would support, but there are many areas in which the bill needs to be improved, particularly in the area of embryonic stem cell research.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 11th, 2003 / 10:10 a.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Reed Elley Canadian Alliance Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC

It is my pleasure to rise again on Bill C-13 as we now debate the Group No. 5 amendments. I believe that the bill is actually one of the most important bills that the House will debate in this session and perhaps in this Parliament.

While the government has been tardy in bringing forward this debate since the 1993 royal commission, I caution the government not to attempt to rush through this legislation without allowing full debate and with every aspect of the bill being carefully looked at.

This legislation will greatly affect the lives of many present and future Canadians. We must take the issue very seriously and fully understand the implications that go with it. We are not discussing the price of a commodity or the engineering of a highway. We are debating legislation that affects the day to day lives and, even more, the very history of individuals. We must not and cannot take this lightly. We must ensure that we get it right.

I currently have some very strong concerns that the government has once again failed in its duty to the Canadian people. For instance, the current wording states that embryonic research can be undertaken “if the Agency is satisfied” that such research is “necessary”

I am very concerned with this wording and what the definition of “necessary” may include. When we permit such subjective language to become legislation that involves an issue such as reproductive technology, I believe that we permit the possibility of abuse and personal hidden agendas. While the health committee recommended that such research should be permitted “only if” researchers can demonstrate that no other category of “biological material can be used for the purpose of the proposed research”, the amendment offered by the Canadian Alliance restores the health committee recommendation and specifies that “healing therapies” should be the object of such research.

While I personally do not believe that embryonic research is acceptable at all, when it is being used for the development of cosmetics or drugs I believe that the practice breaches all moral and ethical boundaries.

With regard to the Group No. 5 amendments, I would like to speak to each of them in turn.

Motion No. 6 calls for the replacing of line 31 on page 2 with the following:

with the applicable law governing consent and that conforms to the provisions of the Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Research Guidelines released by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research in March, 2002, as detailed in the Regulations.

The amendment expands the definition of consent to include provisions made in the Canadian Institutes of Health Research stem cell research guidelines and has my full support. I believe that while Parliament must have the ultimate decision making authority in Canada, we must rely upon the expertise, the advice and the recommendations that professionals truly can provide to us.

Motion No. 80 calls for the replacement of line 5 on page 21 with:

proposed research and the Agency has, in accordance with the regulations, received approval from a research ethics board and a peer review.

Again I support the motion. The amendment specifies that research using human embryos should be approved not only by the agency but by a research ethics board and a peer review. Even by being as thorough as we possibly can throughout this debate, the technology is developing so quickly that we do not know what issues will arise in the near or long term future. It is therefore imperative that the legislation include the requirement of an ethics review. The seriousness of embryonic stem cell research requires us to support any extra level of oversight or review.

The next amendment proposed, Motion No. 81, specifies that Bill C-13, in clause 40, be amended by adding after line 5 on page 21 the following:

(2.1) No person may use an in vitro embryo that was in existence before the coming into force of this Act for the purpose of research unless it conforms to the criteria set out in the Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Research Guidelines released by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research in March, 2002, as specified in the Regulations.

Again, as parliamentarians we must review and use the recommendations that come from expert witnesses and groups such as the CIHR. The clause adds further controls on the use of human in vitro embryos for research, namely that those in existence before the coming into force of this act shall not be used unless they conform to Canadian Institutes of Health Research guidelines. Again I fully support the motion.

Motion No. 82 calls for an amendment to clause 40 by adding after line 5 on page 21 the following. Again this is referred to as subclause 40(2.1):

A person who wishes to undertake research involving stem cells from in vitro embryos must provide the Agency with the reasons why embryonic stem cells are to be used instead of stem cells from other sources.

This amendment places the onus on researchers to explain to the agency the reasons why embryonic stem cells are to be used instead of those from other sources. This is similar to the original recommendation of the Standing Committee on Health that research on human embryos be permitted only if no other biological material is available.

Once again I want to remind the House how very frustrating it is for members of committees to do a thorough job, to make almost unanimous recommendations that are sent on to the minister, and then to have many of those recommendations and amendments simply thrown out. It thwarts the democratic situation in the House and once again adds to the democratic deficit that we have in this country.

I wish to remind the House that adult stem cell research is much more promising and does not involve the ethical problems that surround embryonic stem cells. I remind hon. members that adult stem cells are being used today to treat Parkinson's, leukemia, multiple sclerosis and many other ailments. The results from adult stem cells have been very positive, whereas the use of embryonic stem cells has been very problematic and has not shown the same process.

Of course we also have the problem of rejection. The use of embryonic stem cells requires the use of massive doses of anti-rejection drugs. That is not the case, of course, for adult stem cells. We often can use our own adult stem cells and bank them accordingly. I strongly recommend that researchers should focus their efforts on adult stem cell research and avoid the ethical and moral dilemmas that can arise from using embryonic stem cells.

In the same vein, Motion No. 83 calls for the following amendment:

The Agency shall not issue a licence under subsection (1) for embryonic stem cell research if there are an insufficient number of in vitro embryos available for that research.

Embryos should be used for the creation of life, not destroyed in the process. I support the amendment.

I support Motion No. 86, which states that clause 40 should be amended by adding after line 21 on page 21 the following:

Every licence involving deriving stem cell lines from in vitro embryos must include, in the prescribed form, the obligation on the licensee to provide the Agency with samples of the resulting stem cell lines.

This amendment attempts to control potential co-modification of human life or stem cell lines by requiring licensees to submit samples of derived stem cell lines to the agency.

Motion No. 88 calls for a series of additional clauses relevant to in vitro fertilization procedures. This amendment recognizes abuses and the potential for abuse that can and does occur in some fertility clinics.

In turn it would require the agency to establish limits for IVF procedures on: the number of ova that can be harvested or fertilized, the number of IVF embryos that can be implanted at any one time, the number of embryos that can be stored for later use, and the length of time that an embryo can be preserved.

I note that the Standing Committee on Health did recommend that limits be placed on these activities. Furthermore, the amendment seeks to protect the health and well-being of women and children. That certainly has my full support.

Motion No. 89 would revise clause 42 to be amended from “the agency may” to say “the agency shall”. The remainder of clause 42 reads:

...in accordance with the regulations, amend, suspend or revoke the licence of a licensee who contravenes this Act or the regulations or the terms and conditions of the licence or who fails to comply with any measures ordered to be taken under this Act, and may prescribe conditions for the restoration of a suspended licence.

I believe that this amendment has merit and is relative to the issue at hand. Given the gravity of assisted human reproduction it seems appropriate that licensees found guilty of contravening the act should have their privileges suspended.

Lastly, I support Motion No. 90 that adds a right of appeal to licensees who have had licences suspended for alleged violations to the act. If the regulation has the right to suspend, it is appropriate that the right to appeal is equally available.

The amendments that we are discussing today make up an integral part of the total package concerning reproductive technology. I believe they are reasonable and worthy of serious consideration by all members of the House.

Business of the HouseOral Question Period

February 6th, 2003 / 3 p.m.
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Glengarry—Prescott—Russell Ontario

Liberal

Don Boudria LiberalMinister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I will start with the rest of this day and then go on with the future agenda.

If the opposition follows through with its offer, as promised during question period, to withdraw its motion today on the strength of the commitment made by the Prime Minister to, on the first day following military deployment should there be one which we all hope of course there would not be, call a votable opposition day that would free up the rest of the day.

Following that, this afternoon we would then deal with Bill C-19. Should there be any time left we would call Bill C-22, although I suspect that there would not be that much time, and perhaps Bill C-19 would take us close to the end.

Tomorrow we shall begin the third reading stage of Bill C-6, the Specific Claims Resolution Act, followed by Bill C-2, an act to establish a process for assessing the environmental and socio-economic effects of certain activities in Yukon.

Monday next, and Thursday as well, shall be allotted days.

Tuesday morning, we shall be resuming consideration of Bill C-13 on assisted reproduction. After oral question period, we shall begin consideration of Bill C-24 on political financing. Wednesday, we shall resume consideration of any unfinished business, with the possibility of continuing debate on Bill C-24.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 5th, 2003 / 5:15 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Art Hanger Canadian Alliance Calgary Northeast, AB

Mr. Speaker, thank you for this opportunity, which is indeed an opportunity to express viewpoints that are shared by many Canadians. I too have received numerous calls from constituents in my riding.

A lot of them centre around the fact that the issue is so complex that I do not believe most Canadians really understand the complexities of the bill. I do not understand all the complexities of the bill and I have the privilege of sitting here and listening to many who have researched the issue in depth.

Given the fact that we sit in the midst of those with knowledge, and I know the member for Yellowhead has followed this extensively through the committee and listened to many experts, and given the mere fact we are still seeking a great deal of knowledge as to its implications for our society, I feel that most Canadians will take some time before they bone up on the whole issue themselves.

There is no question Bill C-13 is an attempt to fill a vacuum, a void where no law exists in certain areas in dealing with the matter of stem cell research. There is no question that a clear law is required, with clear prohibitions and clear penalties for those who want to violate those prohibitions. Matters of life and death, human cloning and embryonic stem cell research land squarely in the area of ethics and morality. I think we have heard much of that expressed over the days that the bill has been in the House.

I am trusting that many of the amendments put forward, and those that we are debating today in Group No. 5, will be adopted. I am certainly expressing that viewpoint as one member here and I encourage other members in the House to look closely at these amendments.

Going back to the general context of Bill C-13, we do in fact support a number of aspects of the bill. We support the ban on reproductive or therapeutic cloning. I heard the President of the United States express that very sentiment two days ago: Cloning is out. We support the ban on chimeras, the injection of an animal cell into a human embryo, and on animal-human hybrids, uniting human eggs with animal sperm, although there is some concern right at this point about an animal egg and whether there would be freedom to inject it with a human sperm. It does not cover that aspect of experimentation. We support the ban on sex selection, germ line alteration, the buying and selling of embryos and paid surrogacy.

It is interesting to look at the list of possible violations of ethics, morality and just violations overall and to think that some people would want to engage in that. I guess some would, but I can see out of that list alone that there would be a need for a strong agency. We do support the need to have an agency that will regulate and control those prohibitions and will charge if necessary. In that area we certainly support the list of prohibitions.

The bill in the overall picture deals with the health and well-being of children born through assisted human reproduction: that they must be given some level of priority, that their human individuality and diversity and the integrity of the human genome must be protected.

Those are the highlights of the bill and now I will look at some of our concerns, which I know are addressed in the motions before the House.

We support the recognition that the health and well-being of children born through assisted human reproduction should be given priority. In fact, here is where there is some breakdown now. The health committee came up with a ranking of whose interests should have priority in the decision making around assisted human reproduction and related research. Of course they are the children, the adults participating in these procedures, and the researchers and physicians who conduct assisted human reproduction.

Where this all starts to break down is in the area of those children born through donor insemination or from donor eggs. In this case they are not given the right to know the identity of their parents. There is no protection. There is protection for the donor, but there is no real protection for the child as far as knowing who his or her biological parents were. In this case, the right of the donor supersedes the right of the child, so the child who is born will never know.

If we look at some recent claims, there is ample evidence of children who are now seeking that knowledge, yet the bill would shut that out completely. They would be left, maybe going to their graves, without the knowledge of who their parents were.

The bill's preamble does not provide an acknowledgement of human dignity or respect for human life. Here again we talk in the realm of ethics, of morality. It is devoid of that acknowledgement. The bill is intimately connected with the creation of human life, yet there is no overarching recognition of the principle of respect for human life. That, in our opinion, is a grave deficiency.

In our minority report, we recommended that the final legislation clearly recognize the human embryo as human life, and that the statutory declaration include the phrase “respect for life”. As I explained earlier, just to recognize the human embryo as life would allow clear legislation and a prohibition that would define what scientists can and cannot do when it comes to dealing with that embryo. Right now with the way the bill is outlined, they actually could take that life, that is, kill the embryo and take stem cells from that embryo.

We believe, therefore, that there has to be a substantial inclusion in the preamble of this document: a statutory declaration that would include respect for human life. These amendments cover that.

Embryonic research is ethically controversial and it undoubtedly will divide Canadians. In the House we have been very much aware of the number of petitions that have been tabled pertaining to this research. I encourage all the members of the House, as we on this side already have agreed to do, to support these amendments that are coming up. I know that there will be an interesting debate to follow.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 5th, 2003 / 5 p.m.
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Liberal

Clifford Lincoln Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC

Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a few remarks about an amendment in Group No. 5, namely Motion No. 80. It states:

That Bill C-13, in Clause 40, be amended by replacing line 5 on page 21 with the following:

“proposed research and the Agency has, in accordance with the regulations, received approval from a research ethics board and a peer review.”

The reason for this proposed amendment stems from the draft bill produced by the health committee, which recommended that research be carried out only if there was not another ethical alternative to achieve the same objectives.

The purpose of this recommendation was simple and clear. The idea was to remove the possible conflict of interest of the agency itself in having to decide subjectively that research on embryonic stem cells should be necessary in the absence of objective research into possible alternatives like adult stem cells.

The bill, as presently written, would give the agency total licence to decide on its own volition, without any checks and balances, that research on embryonic stem cells was necessary. It would become judge and jury at the same time.

The purpose of my colleague's amendment would be to set up some checks and balances so that any decision made as to whether such research was necessary would only take place after a peer review. A peer review would, from a scientific standpoint and on a totally scientific basis determine whether or not it was justified. A research ethics board would recommend whether in its totally objective and fair view there was an ethical consideration, and all ethical considerations would have been observed and respected before such research was carried out.

My reading of this issue, the question of stem cell research, has shown that in cases that have been tested and proven in actual practice, not only in research but practical application, stem cells have proven highly successful as a medium time and again in eradicating diseases that have still to be proven correctable by embryonic stem cells.

The idea of my colleague's amendment would make it a statutory requirement that there should be two reviews before an agency could deem, by itself without any regard to outside considerations or peer review, that there was a necessity for research in embryonic stem cells. Therefore there would be two basic conditions: an ethical board review and a scientific peer review.

I support this amendment very strongly because I feel it goes in the direction and the spirit of the health committee's recommendation that research into embryonic stem cells should be carried out only if no other ethical alternatives exist. This is the spirit in which this amendment has been crafted. I would like to ask for the support of the House in carrying it out.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 5th, 2003 / 4:40 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Garry Breitkreuz Canadian Alliance Yorkton—Melville, SK

Madam Speaker, thank you for allowing me to speak on Bill C-13. This is one bill that needs much thought and consideration because of its ethical issues. Our answers to these ethical questions will help to define our society.

Bill C-13 is related to reproductive technology. The bill is a very broad bill and contains many areas of concern to Canadians, including cloning of human beings, therapeutic cloning and the importing and exporting of human gametes. There are numerous issues that need to be considered before the passing of the bill.

In Bill C-13 there are some excellent statements already in place, but there are others that need to be thought out and revised. I fully support the bans on reproductive and therapeutic cloning, chimeras, animal-human hybrids, sex selection, germ line alteration, the buying and selling of embryos, and paid surrogacy.

Just because we are now able to do something in reproductive technology does not necessarily mean we should. Human life is like that of no other creature on this earth. There are additional dimensions to the human life because of the human ability to think, to feel and to have all kinds of emotions. Human life is valuable and should not be treated lightly.

I also support the proposal that there should be an agency to regulate this sector. Although changes still need to be made, the people who would sit on the board of directors of the agency would be selected through orders in council, which needs to be subjected to some form of scrutiny. Currently there are not enough checks and balances in place for regulating the agency. With this issue and many others, we need to be aware of the conflict of interest. This situation needs to be avoided at all costs by not allowing any oversight of the board of directors when it comes to the agency.

I support the recognition that the health and well-being of children born through assisted human reproduction, or AHR, should be given priority. However, the priority of AHR and other sections of the bill fail to meet my standards. The bill specifies that the consent of the donor of a human embryo be required in order to use a human embryo for experiments, but the bill leaves it to the regulations to define “donor”. On top of this, there are two donors to every human embryo, a woman and a man. Both parents should be required to give written consent for the use of a human embryo, not just one.

I believe that the children born through donor insemination or from donor eggs should be given the right to know the identity of their biological parents. These sperm and ovum donors make a conscious, intentional choice to assist in the creation of life. This is contrary to adoption, where a decision to adopt a child is usually made after an unintentional pregnancy has begun. These children would be deprived of their history and the roots of either their biological mother or father. Such a vital chapter of the child's life would be denied.

There are other questions that also arise. How would people know that they were not marrying their brother or sister? If their biological heritage were unknown, then how would they know? This could all be avoided if we were to just tell the truth. An identified donor is a responsible donor. If all donors had to be willing to be identified, then people would donate for the right reasons, not for money.

Dealing now with the issue of embryonic stem cell research, embryonic research is an ethical topic that divides Canadians. Embryonic stem cell research always results in the death of an embryo, an early form of human life. To many Canadians, this is murder. This violates the ethical commitment to respect human dignity, integrity and life. There is also a very high chance that the body would reject the embryo because it is foreign tissue and subject to immune rejection. As well, even if medical therapies had been developed using human embryos, people might refuse them if they do not believe that this is ethical.

Why would embryonic stem cell research be able to continue in Canada when we know that adult stem cells have already been proven to be far superior?

Adult stem cells are very easily accessible and are a proven alternative to embryonic stem cells. The huge advantage is that they are not subject to tissue rejection and pose minimal ethical concerns.

With adult stem cells, there is usually tissue taken from a person's own body. Adult stem cells can be taken from the umbilical cord blood, skin tissue, bone tissue and other areas. This would eliminate the years of anti-rejection drug therapy that embryonic stem cell patients would require.

Adult stem cell researchers have already found many great possibilities with adult stem cells. They say that some day adult stem cells could replace bone marrow transplants in humans and also that stem cells circulating in the blood stream could grow new tissue in the liver, gut and skin. At Duke University Medical Centre, researchers have already turned stem cells from knee fat into cartilage, bones and fat cells. At the University of Minnesota it has been shown that adult bone marrow stem cells can become blood vessels.

Today, adult stem cells are being used in the treatment of Parkinson's, leukemia, multiple sclerosis and other conditions. However, embryonic stem cells have not been used in the successful treatment of a single person. Researchers need to be focusing on a more promising and proven alternative like adult stem cells rather than ethical non-proven embryonic stem cells.

Turning now to the issue of the regulatory agency, there is a problem with the assisted human reproduction agency of Canada not reporting to Parliament but only to the minister. It should therefore be made an independent agency.

In Bill C-13, clause 25 allows for the minister to give any policy direction to the agency and it must in turn follow it. The clause also ensures that everything must remain secretive. This clause could be completely eliminated if the agency were an independent agency answerable to Parliament.

I strongly feel that the health minister has it all wrong with wanting to undo committee amendments to subclauses 26(8) and 26(9). The clause requires that the board members of the assisted human reproduction agency must come under the conflict of interest rules. On the other hand, the health committee got it right in saying that the board members should not have commercial interests in the field of assisted human reproduction or related research.

I hope that members will consider seriously that there are amendments to the bill that need to be changed while others should be supported. This issue has many ethical concerns and needs to be treated with great care. It is also a matter that needs to be taken very seriously.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 5th, 2003 / 4:30 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Leon Benoit Canadian Alliance Lakeland, AB

Madam Speaker, as I said when I started my presentation just a few minutes ago, I am happy to once again be speaking to Bill C-13 and specifically to the Group No. 5 amendments.

It is interesting that all of the amendments in this group are from a member of the governing party. He was very dissatisfied with much of what was and was not in the legislation when it came before the House. He did not feel that it accurately reflected what the committee said in some cases, and he felt that it just was not suitable legislation to deal with such a sensitive, serious and important issue. Because of that, the member brought forth these amendments and I believe all of them will be supported by most, possibly all, Alliance members. These amendments are important to producing better legislation than that which the government has tabled.

It is important for people to take a careful look at what Bill C-13 really is about. It is of course, in very basic terms, about human reproductive technology. It is, as I have said before in presentations, an issue which carries with it some very controversial matters, at least in the way it has been presented to the House.

One of those matters, which I spoke to last time, is whether stem cell research should be allowed immediately on embryonic stem cells as well as adult stem cells. What I said in my presentation last time is that so far, against all predictions, the best results in terms of stem cell research have come in the area of adult stem cell research.

The research has not been focused on adult stem cell research for long. It has been focused for much longer on embryonic stem cell research and, quite frankly, the corporations involved in doing the research fully expected the best results to come from embryonic stem cells. They felt that strongly enough that they put their money into embryonic stem cell research, but reality has shown something entirely different. First of all, it has shown that research on embryonic stem cells has not been productive. There is not one cure or effective treatment to date coming from research done on embryonic stem cells. I am sure that some of the corporations that were involved are extremely disappointed. Of course they are going to continue to push the issue because if they put millions and even billions of dollars into embryonic stem cell research, then they certainly are going to want results to come from that research.

We have seen a much newer type of research on adult stem cells being far more effective. Just over the few months that it has been concentrated on, we already have had some incredible results. We already have found effective treatments in some areas and some things that are very close to cures in other areas, and I think it is really exciting.

I want everyone to know that our party fully supports stem cell research. We think there is an almost unimaginable potential for dealing with some of the most serious diseases and problems that Canadians face and that in fact people around the world face. It is exciting. Anybody who is really interested in science, who has a scientific approach to things and likes to let their mind go sometimes and imagine what can be done, has to be excited about stem cell research, not only about the potential but about how already after such a short time of research the results from adult stem cell research are just remarkable.

It is exciting and I think Canadians should expect that legislation which regulates stem cell research would in no way inhibit that research which is most likely to bring those exciting results.

Our party also says, in fact, that we should not allow research on embryonic stem cells to continue until we can be quite certain that adult stem cell research will not bring about the cures being sought. One of the main reasons we have said to stay away from the controversial issue of using embryonic stem cells is the whole issue of pro-life and pro-choice. This is one of the most divisive issues in the country. What we say is let us not make this legislation something that brings that type of division to the country or that exacerbates that division. Why do we need that? I do not think we do.

Let us give it three years and look at the results from adult stem cell research. So far there have not been exciting results from embryonic stem cell research. In fact, we have seen some huge problems with embryonic stem cell research. It has been found that embryonic stem cells are too unpredictable and during experimentation brain tumours have been produced in mice. There is just too much instability in this. I do not think we would want to try such uncertain cures on humans until such a time that they are well proven. In the meantime, with all the exciting results coming from adult stem cell research we should go full bore with that. I believe that in three years we will probably find that this is where the research should be focused.

My party has talked about some of the problems we have with the bill but there are things we support in the bill as well. It is important to make it very clear that we fully support the bans on reproductive or therapeutic cloning, chimeras, animal-human hybrids, sex selection, germ line alteration, buying and selling of embryos, and paid surrogacy.

We also support having an agency to regulate the sector, although we want changes to that agency. From what I have seen and heard, everyone in the House supports the agency and it is only a matter of how we think it should operate. That can be extremely important. We have to get it right when setting up this agency. There are some amendments to the legislation that deal with this.

We do have concerns about human embryonic research and I have talked about the controversy this causes as well as its instability. Last time, I talked about some of the remarkable and exciting cures that have been found through adult stem cell research.

We also have concerns about the regulatory agency. I will mention a few of the highlights. The bill would create the assisted human reproduction agency of Canada which would issue licences for controlled activities, collect health reporting information to advise the minister, and designate inspectors for the enforcement of the act, which I think we all feel is important. The board of directors would be appointed by the governor in council with a membership that reflects “a range of backgrounds and disciplines relevant to the Agency's objectives”.

One of the highlights of the regulatory agency, which was amended at committee, is that it would require board members to have no financial interests in any business “regulated or controlled” by the act. The health minister is now trying to undo these conflict of interest provisions. We certainly do have a problem with that, as I think most members of committee do who dealt with this issue in depth. When we are looking at this regulatory agency, we should not see the health minister, who is the minister responsible, entirely overruling without any appropriate explanation the good work the committee did. Yet that is what we have seen.

When it comes to this agency we have to undo the harm being done by the minister. We have to respect the committee in that regard. We have to deal with some of these important issues and I will be speaking about some of them later.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

February 5th, 2003 / 4:25 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Leon Benoit Canadian Alliance Lakeland, AB

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to speak on Group No. 5 motions which, if passed, will amend Bill C-13.

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February 5th, 2003 / 4:20 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Grant McNally Canadian Alliance Dewdney—Alouette, BC

Madam Speaker, I too would like to start by giving my support to the amendments proposed by my colleague from Mississauga.

I want to talk generally about Bill C-13, the assisted human reproduction act and begin by saying that there is always an important ethical question inherent in any discussion around embryonic research.

Embryonic stem cell research inevitably results in the question that was raised earlier by our colleague from St. John's, that being the death of the embryo, early human life. For many Canadians, this violates the ethical commitment to respect human dignity and it is a hard question for many people in relation to this bill.

It is an incontestable scientific fact that an embryo is an early human life. It has the complete DNA of an adult. The DNA is present at the embryo stage. Whether that life is owed protection is really at issue. Other members made the argument that life should be protected, and I would agree with that. That is one of my great concerns with the bill. While the bill attempts to regulate human reproduction, it raises many questions of this ethical nature by members on all sides of the House.

For that reason, many of my colleagues have suggested in earlier speeches that we focus on adult stem cell research instead. In doing so we would take away the divisive nature of the embryonic stem cell research debate altogether.

Adult stem cells are a safe and proven alternative to embryonic stem cells. Sources of adult stem cells are in the umbilical cord, skin tissue, bone tissue and many others. We recently have seen some companies develop the ability to preserve the umbilical cord should it be needed in the future, not only for that baby but also for any other family member who might be in need of stem cells. That is a resourceful answer to this question as well, one that should be explored and expanded upon.

Adult stem cells are easily accessible and they are not subject to immune rejection if they are the individual's own stem cells. Embryonic stem cell transplants are subject to immune rejection because they are foreign tissues while one's own adult stem cells, which are used in different therapies, are not subjected to the same rejection question.

As my colleague for Calgary—Nose Hill just noted, adult stem cells are being used today in the treatment of Parkinson's, leukemia, MS and other conditions.

On a personal note, our own son is battling leukemia right now and has been for a number of years. I know my colleagues in the House have been very supportive of that. I thank them for their words of encouragement and thoughtful comments and prayers. I also thank my constituents and my board at home. Our son will be undergoing a transplant very soon so this is a question that is of utmost importance to me personally. He will be receiving transplant from another donor. He will be receiving adult stem cells.

Medical technology has taken us a long way from where we once were and leads us to all kinds of promise. However we need to frame these important questions, ones that seek to put in context those ethical questions I raised earlier. If we do focus on adult stem cell research, we alleviate a lot of those questions and concerns individuals have about issues of life which have been raised and will continue to be raised.

I know my colleague from Vancouver Island mentioned earlier, and I am loosely paraphrasing, the ability to patent different technologies with embryonic stem cell and that ability to patent them was not easy to do. Thereby the whole issue of profit in developing medical technologies with stem cells becomes a driving force behind whether we pursue adult stem cell research or embryonic stem cell research. That should not be the question, a profit driven question, that leads our medical researchers down one path over another. The adult stem cell path is one that satisfies the ethical question and provides hope for many people in treating many diseases, and in the whole area of human reproduction as well.

I would urge the government, in strong terms, to focus on that path in pursing Bill C-13.

As my colleague noted, we are one of the last countries to address this question. It certainly should have been addressed much sooner. Individuals have been calling for this for many years. We are behind because of the low priority the government has put on this topic.

We should examine the bill in detail. We have pointed out the considerable problems we have with the bill, some which have been addressed through amendments. Upcoming amendments will be talked about in Group No. 6 in the next part of the debate.

Before supporting the bill, we should ask the right the questions. In asking the right questions, we must ensure that we get a bill that puts us on the right path and does not unlock doors about which we have not thought. When a bill is before us in the House, it is incumbent upon us to ask hard questions and to get it right, particularly in such sensitive area as embryonic stem cell research and assisted human reproduction. If we do not get it right now, we know the process will be long and convoluted to remedy it. We need to get it right the first time.

We are generally not supportive of the bill because there are many questions that remain unanswered. If the bill is passed in its current form, down the road it will open all kinds of unlocked doors in terms of ethical questions and in terms of putting us on the right footing.

I would encourage all members to look closely at the bill. I urge them to tell the government that it needs to put in place a framework that focuses on adult stem cell research, not embryonic stem cell research.

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February 5th, 2003 / 4 p.m.
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Progressive Conservative

Elsie Wayne Progressive Conservative Saint John, NB

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak about embryonic stem cells and how we should protect embryos because we are talking about protecting the children of this country.

I must say that the argument for the use of embryonic stem cells for research, ESCR, is based on three serious misunderstandings. First, the idea that the fundamental principles of ethics are appropriately based on a consensus of interested persons who express their opinions in regard to moral choices rather than on the divine law is understood by human reason and is given in Revelation.

Second, there is a failure to realize that a human being, innocent and possessing the inherent right to be protected and not killed or harmed in any way, comes into existence at the moment of fertilization of a human ovary by a human sperm. This fact had been denied by those who promote ESCR when they define the beginning of life at implantation rather than fertilization, which is a minimum of seven days. That human life begins at fertilization is attested to in current standard world textbooks and medical dictionaries. It is there; it is a proven fact.

Third, the misrepresentation of scientific and medical facts in regard to the practicality, therapeutic promise, and results in the dangers to both health and life of ESCR in comparison with adult stem cell research. Those are three misunderstandings.

There is a difference between embryonic stem cell research and adult stem cell research. We are not opposed to the adult stem cell research, but we are certainly opposed to taking a little baby out of the womb, using it and killing it. There is no way this should be happening.

When I look around the House of Commons and see all these young people coming up on the Hill, I ask myself, would we have harmed any one of them? Would any one of us have harmed them? No, we would not, but if we allow Bill C-13 to pass we would be harming the future of our country and the young people out there, God love them, who need to be protected and need some voices.

The case against embryonic stem cell research is that a human embryo is a human being. The fact that the one cell human is a member of the human species, a human being, has been established since the 1880s and is accepted by embryological science today. The retrieval of embryonic stem cells from the human embryo kills the embryo. Since the embryo is an innocent human being and has the inherent right not to be killed or harmed in any way, it is not morally acceptable to obtain to stem cells from embryos.

We in the House of Commons are here to protect the young. We are here to protect all the people in Canada from coast to coast. However, we would not be protecting anyone if we were to allow this to happen. This is a step in the wrong direction.

There are problems and they have been spelled out by Dr. Peter Andrews of the University of Sheffield, England, who said, “Simply keeping human embryonic stem cells alive can be a challenge”. Doug Melton, a Harvard University researcher, has said, “In my view (human embryonic stem cells) would degrade with time”.

Human embryonic stem cells have never been used successfully at any time in clinical trials. They have a lacklustre success in combating animal models of disease and carry significant risk, including immune rejection and tumour formation.

This is a matter that concerns every member of the House. I do not know of any member in the House who would want to kill a child. I do not know of anyone. However, this is exactly what we are talking about when we talk about embryonic stem cell research.

We are in favour of adult stem cell research. Adult stem cells have been used in many clinical trials with great success, when it comes to multiple sclerosis, severe combined immunodeficiency, Crohn's disease, cancer and others. As far as embryonic stem cell research and human cloning, we are totally, completely opposed to it.

There are two types of cloning: reproductive and therapeutic. The cloning process is the same in both types, only the intended use of the manufactured embryo is different. In the one case, reproductive cloning, the embryo is intended to be implanted and to live. In the other, therapeutic cloning, the embryo is designed to be killed. The process of producing the embryo, somatic cell nuclear transfer, is the same no matter what use is made of the embryo.

There are great problems with the bill. We have so many people coming forward with concerns and I know many of our colleagues have said that as well.

Motion No. 82 seeks to amend clause 40 to require research applicants who wish to use surplus embryos to do research on embryonic stem cells to provide reasons why they cannot use stem cells from other sources. Non-embryonic stem cells are readily available and used extensively in research with substantial success. If a non-embryonic stem cell can achieve the same research objectives then embryonic stem cells are not necessary and the application should be denied.

Motion No. 83 would add a new subclause in clause 40 to the effect that if there were insufficient surplus embryos to sustain meaningful research then no further licences should be issued for embryonic stem cell research. Since only about one in one hundred embryos can produce stem cells which meet the quality requirements of researchers it would be totally inappropriate to destroy so many when they could be made available for adoption by infertile couples.

There are so many people today who want to adopt children, who want to look after young people, and give them the foundation for their future and the future of Canada. However that opportunity would not be there if we were to allow embryonic stem cell research to take place.

It bothers me when I think about all the little children who I used to work with through the school system. I look at them today and wonder, would we have hurt any one of those children? Would we have killed those children? No, we would not and I cannot think of any members in the House, if they understand what embryonic stem cell research means, that would vote in favour of the motion without the amendments that are being put forward by our people.

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February 5th, 2003 / 3:55 p.m.
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Bloc

Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleagues and the government. Clearly, anything is possible with good faith, and the parliamentary secretary is not the least charming member of this House.

I think that it is worth repeating that Group No. 5 of Bill C-13 is very important for parliamentarians. First, Bill C-13 is important in and of itself. We can, perhaps, remind people listening that the genesis of Bill C-13 has been fraught with difficulties; since the Baird commission tabled its report, 10 years ago, it has taken quite a while to get to the legislative stage.

Understandably, it was not easy to legislate reproductive technologies. These technologies must be carefully considered, because one in five couples in Canada experiences some form of infertility. It is clear that legislators, in proposing solutions, must come up with the right ones.

One can ask why the federal government, which is not, in principle, responsible for programs related to health and social services, intervened with regard to reproductive technologies. I understand that the federal government did so under its authority set out in subsection 91(27) of the Criminal Code prohibiting certain practices.

Furthermore, if there is an aspect of this bill on which the House is unanimous, it is that of having a certain number of practices prohibited.

On this point, the Bloc Quebecois was obviously quite comfortable. Witnesses—the parliamentary secretary will remember—came to tell the committee that we should have had fines only and summary convictions.

I think that this would have been a bit irresponsible, given the potential offences and the stakes. Imagine if, in a federal clinic or private research lab, people conducted experiments in the absence of a research protocol that had been approved by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, for example, and there were experiments in reproductive or therapeutic cloning. What kind of situation would we find ourselves in then?

All this to say that it was up to legislators to establish a link with criminal law. We have done so by prohibiting some 13 practices, including, of course, cloning for reproductive and therapeutic purposes, the creation of chimeras, and conserving an in vitro embryo outside the body of a woman for more than 14 days. The clause contains approximately 13 practices that were agreed upon, as the member for Charlevoix knows.

That said, we were somewhat saddened, even hurt to see that the federal government took advantage of subsection 91(27) of the Criminal Code to establish an assisted human reproduction agency.

I would like to draw the attention of the Minister of Labour, who seems very taken by this debate, to the fact that the regulatory agency may not have been the solution. In fact, the regulatory agency will create extremely important regulations that will interfere with existing practices in the areas of health and social services.

Allow me to provide an example for my good friend, the Minister of Labour: the preservation of sperm. Everyone knows what sperm is. There is not one person in the House who has not had some contact with sperm. Even our friends in the Canadian Alliance know about sperm, even the purest of them know what sperm is.

The issue of sperm preservation is one that is hotly debated. And it is already covered by existing regulations. Sperm cannot be donated any way, anywhere, and in any condition, without any regard for its preservation. Are we to believe that the Government of Quebec, the excellent government led by the Parti Quebecois, would have left an issue as sensitive as this one unregulated?

Of course not. There are regulations on preserving sperm and embryos. Even the practices of health care professionals are regulated. That is why, not so long ago, the National Assembly amended section 112 of the Act respecting health services and social services.

We are in an unfortunate position with regard to the government's wish to establish a regulatory agency. This agency will receive $10 million per year and will subject health professionals, at least those in Quebec—I am less familiar with the situation in Ontario and the other provinces—to two sets of regulations.

Another extremely important issue has to do with payment for surrogacy. The Civil Code has very clear provisions on this. Motherhood is an altruistic act. When a woman decides to get pregnant and to bring children into the world, it is certainly not for commercial reasons. No one wants to live in a society where children are bought and sold.

The Chair is indicating that my time is up. Time goes quickly when one is among friends. I will finish during the debate on motions in Group No. 6.

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February 5th, 2003 / 3:55 p.m.
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Bloc

Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. When we were talking about Group No. 5 of Bill C-13, the Speaker interrupted me because we had to proceed to oral question period. If I am not mistaken, I had six or seven minutes remaining to finish my speech.

I was unable to do so within the timeline projected in the standing orders, but I think that, given the spirit of collegiality that reigns in this House, and if you were to seek it, we could obtain consent for me to continue my still much anticipated speech.

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February 5th, 2003 / 3:45 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Deborah Grey Canadian Alliance Edmonton North, AB

Madam Speaker, I thank the House for the opportunity to speak in the debate. This is a huge issue that has gone on for many years.

I would like to pay tribute to a former colleague, Preston Manning, who stayed in the House longer than he had actually planned so that he could participate in the debate in committee and in the research that was done. The House owes him a debt of gratitude. I would also like to pay tribute to my present colleague from Yellowhead, our senior health critic, who has done an amazing amount of research.

Not one of us in the House of Commons is an expert in this field. I know some members have more training than others and some have done more research than others, but I do not claim to be an expert at all in this field. However as legislators we need to be wary of what it is we are passing and what the long term ramifications will be for families, for children and for research over the next several years.

The debate would not have happened 10 or 15 years ago because we simply did not have the mechanisms and the research available to us. Interestingly enough, I find myself participating in the debate although I am not an expert on the issue and do not make any bones about that.

When I think of technology from when I was first elected in 1989 until the present, it is amazing how, because of science and technology, we are even having this debate. I watched the royal commission on reproductive technologies for some years.

Therefore, as we look at this we need to think about the positive attributes of Bill C-13. We in the Canadian Alliance share some concerns as I am sure members of the government do as well. We need to come up with the best possible legislation that will provide the best possible situation for researchers and for communicators, because this is such a huge field, as well as for adults who want to start a family but are unable to do so. Bill C-13 would affect not only families but all kinds of people right across the spectrum in our society.

When the bill was introduced I was relieved to see that cloning would be completely banned and prohibited. I was a little concerned about it beforehand because I was not sure where it was going. It is easy for people to say that research and technology is available so society might just as well move in that direction but I think that would have been a grave mistake. I believe in the sanctity of life from the moment of conception through to natural death. For some government to say that cloning would be allowed would be a very dangerous move.

Therefore, when the actual legislation came out I was grateful to see that cloning would not be legal. It will be interesting to see what the upshot and the ramifications of that will be on some of the groups that have claimed to have cloned a human being.

I think about what it is that we actually want to accomplish with the bill. In an all candidates forum during an election campaign if one of the voting public asked what it was we were attempting to do with the legislation I would be interested to hear what government members would have to say about that.

By introducing Bill C-13 we are attempting to accommodate what and whom? We are interested in accomplishing what? These are huge questions. When we see legislation like this that will affect real people, I think we need to be able to answer those basic questions. I am not sure I have heard an answer to those questions.

We should be saying that we are not sure what all the bill would accomplish but that some of the positive aspects of the bill are that we would be helping families who are having difficulty bearing children. We would see people with real illnesses, many of whom have been mentioned already, such as people with MS and Parkinson's. I recently met with some people with juvenile diabetes. The bill could contain practical measures that would solve some of these problems.

Of course the debate rages on about whether stem cell research with adult stem cells would be better, but with the remarkable technology and research we have these days I think we can see that there are some amazing accomplishments happening regarding both. I suspect that the debate will carry on and rage regarding stem cell versus adult stem cell research, but we need to celebrate that it is going on at all because, as I said earlier, we would not even have had this debate when I was first elected here 14 years ago.

When I think about the bill and some of the things it is going to accomplish, I must say I am concerned that the preamble of the bill does not provide an acknowledgement of human dignity or respect for human life. It seems to me that if we are going to build a foundation for all these other things, we need to have a rock solid, firm foundation about what it is that life is all about anyway. I think this would be very beneficial in the preamble of the bill, for everyone, regardless of people's feelings about it. We are not going to go off into the abortion debate about when life actually starts, but it surely starts at some time before birth. Just a general statement about the dignity of human life would be a very smart thing to have in the preamble.

I also mentioned this earlier. It is not a surprise to anyone, or a secret, and I am not ashamed to say it. I do believe in the sanctity of life from the moment of conception through natural death. That stems from my deep regard for life as well as my most deeply held religious beliefs. I think we need to celebrate how important this is, not just for this research to go on, but for families, for instance, for a couple who wants children but is simply not able to bear children. There are not just these kinds of issues in reproductive technologies. There is even the simple option of adoption. My younger brother Shaun is adopted and I cannot imagine what our lives and our family would be like without him.

These are possibilities for people. If we are looking at it from the family aspect, it is important for people to be able to celebrate human life. I am very grateful to somebody somewhere for giving birth to my brother Shaun. I do not know who she was and I am not sure about her mate, but I do know that he is alive and that because that human life was respected before he was born and when he was born, I have a kid brother who is now 46 years old and I am very grateful that he is a part of our family.

These are the real life emotional issues with which we have to deal when we are looking at this particular legislation. The government certainly would do well to acknowledge the dignity of human life in its preamble.

When we look at some of the things that we are grappling with in terms of genome research, in terms of how we actually write up a bill like this, I think we can see that many people have put excellent things on the table. There are many amendments coming from the opposition side. There are many amendments coming from the government side as well. Again I would caution all sides of the House to look at them on their merits and probably not pay too much attention to which political party they come from. People should take them on merit alone and define what it is we are trying to come up with, because when we bring in legislation it is going to be pretty long term. Not only is this historic, but it is leading the way for future generations as well as leading the way in what will happen with technology. We have seen such monumental steps taken in technology in the last few years, and it probably is going to continue at a pretty exponential rate.

When we put these guidelines and this legislation in place, I know how important it will be to make sure that we are on the right track. Celebrating families and human life is surely what has to be the firm and solid basic foundation of this piece of legislation. It seems to me that if we get that right, then everything else flowing out of it also will be solid and firm for future generations as we continue to work with this legislation.

Let us make it the very best we can right now. Let us get it right now so that when people come along after us they will at least say that we did something right when we brought in the legislation.

Points of OrderGovernment Orders

February 3rd, 2003 / 3:35 p.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, I apologize to the members for interfering with their business. These have to do with the report stage of Bill C-13.

On Thursday, January 30, Hansard reference 2949, on a vote on report stage Motion No. 64, the Chair called for yeas and nays but did not announce whether the yeas or nays carried. He simply concluded that the motion was carried. Because he did not say that in his opinion the yeas had it, members did not know whether five members on one side or the other side would have to stand to cause a deferred recorded vote. This is clearly on the tapes and in Hansard of last Thursday.

Subject to check by you, Mr. Speaker, or the officials, I would therefore ask that Motion No. 64 be put again when report stage on Bill C-13 comes back to the floor later today.

The second item relates to a motion of mine, Motion No. 101. In your statement, Mr. Speaker, of January 28, reference Hansard 2766, you stated that the motion was not selected because it was lost in committee. I have gone through this matter with the officials of the Journals branch and the legislative council. The amendment, which was lost in committee, is an amendment to require a parliamentary review every three years from the date at which clause 20 becomes in force.

My motion, Motion No. 101, which is on the order paper says that the review of Parliament shall be every three years, using royal assent as the date. There was confusion between royal assent and in force.

The bill as it presently stands, and it was proposed by an Alliance motion at committee, would have meant that Parliament would not have been able to review this until about five years after the date on which the bill was dealt. My motion would say that the parliamentary review would happen three years after royal asset, that would be three years after the bill is passed.

On the basis that there is a substantial difference between three years and five years, and there is a difference between in force and royal assent, I would ask that you reconsider, Mr. Speaker, the disposition, based upon the opinion of legislative council and the Journals branch, that they are in fact different, that it was not lost at committee and that since this matter would go in Group No. 6, which is still to come up, that this motion be allowed to be put as part of Group No. 6.

Let me give the short version because I know I am taking up the members' time. Motions Nos. 28, 30, 46 and 47 have been put on the report stage motions by the member for St. Paul's. I have reviewed this fully with the Journals branch and with legislative council. They are aware of the details. I would simply say that, based upon the discussions, these motions were moved by a member who was on the committee, that member had every opportunity to make such motions at committee, and that they should not have been put as report stage motions.

There is a confusion in the Journals branch that these motions were a move of a clause from one paragraph to another section of the bill. In fact the motions to delete the clauses from one section and put them in another section of the bill also require that an amendment to the addition of those clauses would be put in, saying “except as in accordance with the regulations”.

I would submit that the change or the addition of a clause requiring the addition of the phrase “except in accordance with the regulations” is a substantive resolution which is much different than simply a move. Therefore the member had an opportunity to do this in committee by defeating the first motion in committee and then adding the replacement motion in the desired spot when it came up. This is the advice I received from Mr. Yanover in the government House leader's office, and I raise it to you for consideration.

This is a very serious motion and a very serious change to the bill. I believe that due consideration should be given as it would appear that these motions are out of order and should not be on the report stage motion paper.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 30th, 2003 / 5:20 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Ken Epp Canadian Alliance Elk Island, AB

Mr. Speaker, we are here once again speaking about the genesis of life or the beginning of life.

Some time ago I read an interesting article in which the issue of when life begins was debated. There are some who believe it begins right at the moment of conception. There are others who say that it is somewhere around the end of the first trimester or during the second trimester. Then Canada has an absurd law that states that human life does not begin until the totally formed child is exuded from the mother's body. That is a very inadequate definition, especially in view of the fact that even those who argue the viability argument, which I also reject, know that a pre-born child is viable any time between eight or nine months after fertilization. We are in a real bog when we ask when does life begins.

A very interesting statement about in vitro fertilization was made in this article by a researcher from France, whose name I unfortunately do not remember. He was speaking about in vitro fertilization and inadvertently used a phrase which settled the issue. He said that the moment that the sperm was injected into the egg, in the little Petri dish, lo and behold, cell division began and life began. He was not a pro-lifer or anything like that. He was involved in research and gave very little regard to the moral value of human life. He came to the conclusion that there was life even in that cell.

Bill C-13 deals with the whole issue of human reproduction and assisted reproduction for couples who have difficulty having children. We are dealing with the issue of cells springing to life. Once there is life, there is a special and sacred quality to that chemical mix. Suddenly there is an actual life there. It is an intriguing idea.

Inanimate objects do not have life. We stand in here surrounded by tables, desks and other inanimate things. Beautiful as the stone work is, it is inanimate. It is not living. If it someday crumbles and falls, as we believe it will sometime in the next two or three thousand years, it will be sad. If it is a nice building we will regret it, but it is not the end of the world.

I remember not long ago one of my friends was in a car accident. I did not ask how the car fared. Instead asked him if he was okay or if he was injured. I asked if anyone else had been seriously hurt or if anyone had been killed. We immediately think of the humans involved in these kinds of things. Vehicles, whether they are nice or not, are replaceable or repairable.

We recognize the presence of life in other entities. For example, for many years we have been talking about endangered species. Even when I was a youngster, I remember the talk about the expiration of the whooping crane. They were an endangered species back then and I believe they still are today, although measures have been taken to preserve them.

Many strong penalties were brought in to preserve their lives even in the embryonic stage. The penalty was very high for anyone caught interfering with a nest of whooping crane eggs. The penalty was in the thousands of dollars and even subject to jail time. It was recognized there that unhatched egg represented, even though not fully developed, another whooping crane.

When we deal with the human genome, as it is called, it is another human being. I believe that very strongly and that is the basic definition we must come to grips with and grapple with when we make decisions that are so important to us.

Using these entities then for research is part of the subject of the bill. The bill deals not only with assisted reproduction but also with research and helping to find cures for diseases and other things. An embryo is not as clearly defined as a full grown adult or at least a fully developed child at birth. It is less developed than that, along various stages, along that long continuum of cell division and development. We must recognize that it is human and we must treat it with great dignity.

All the motions in Group No. 5 were proposed by the member for Mississauga South and deal with the dignity of human life. As such, I have absolutely no hesitation but to declare that I am ready to support every one of these amendments. They are very worthy.

I presume that I will have still about three minutes left when the debate on this bill resumes.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 30th, 2003 / 5:10 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Deepak Obhrai Canadian Alliance Calgary East, AB

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to rise and speak again to Bill C-13. Yesterday I spoke to the motions in Group No. 4. Today we are dealing with motions in Group No. 5 proposed by the hon. member for Mississauga South and my colleague who spoke just before me and who went through each and every motion giving his support. In general, I do not want to go back and say the same things that he has said.

As I said yesterday, the issue of reproductive technology has created much concern among Canadians and, as such, we need to look at it. As my colleague mentioned, the former leader of the Reform Party took a keen interest in this issue while he was a member and came up with a lot of recommendations. At the same time a committee was set up to study the whole issue of reproductive technology and it came up with recommendations.

We have all been concerned about this issue for a long time but our concerns became bigger when, as I mentioned yesterday, we were advised that the first human cloning had been done by Clonaid. We are concerned that unless and until we have rules and regulations in place, we will not know in what direction this new research will go. Therefore, by introducing this bill, the government is attempting to address some of the concerns surrounding this issue.

However, as I stated yesterday, the concern we have with the bill is that it has left a lot of loopholes. These loopholes can allow the concerns people are expressing to fall through the cracks and we would not know what direction it will end up going.

Yesterday I stated my concerns about the transparency of the agency and about allowing the minister to appoint people to it who may or may not have a conflict. Even though he or she may or may not appoint people who have a conflict of interest, I fail to understand why the legislation could not include clearcut guidelines as to who can serve on those agencies because that agency, at the end of the day, will be the one that will set guidelines, rules and ethics on this subject.

There are two points on this subject that many of my colleagues have talked about. One has to do with the availability of the adult stem cell as well as research using human embryos. Unanimously on both sides of the House, no one seems to have any difficulty with adult stem cell research because of its availability and a lot of other things. However the bill also talks about using human embryos to a certain degree. I would like to read this so that those who are listening and watching television will know what the bill is proposing in reference to using human embryos.

The bill would allow for experiments on human embryos under four conditions: first, only in vitro embryos left over from IVF process can be used for research; second, embryos cannot be created for research with one exception, that they can be created for the purpose of improving or providing instructions in AHR procedures; and third, written permission must be given by the donor, although the donor in this case could be singular. As we know there are two donors, a male and a female, but all the bill mentions is a single donor. Fourth, all human embryos must be destroyed after 14 days if they are not frozen.

When we talk about human embryos, we were all human embryos. It is a matter of concern as to how far we can use human embryos. Because of this concern, there needs to be further and more thorough debate on the issue. As such, the Canadian Alliance has asked for a three year moratorium so that when the first review of the bill comes up, we can look at this and see in what direction we want go. We should go down the path of adult stem cell research first and put a moratorium on human embryo research. Then we can see where that one leads us before we venture into human embryos.

There are a lot of pros and cons to this. I am sure that there perhaps is better use of human embryos for medical purposes but I am extremely uncomfortably even with the thought of using human embryos at this given time.

The bill lays the foundation for the use of human embryos. We need to stop that at this stage, vote for the adult stem cell and wait three years, as has been recommended in committee. Then we can see where we have gone before we venture out and under what conditions and stronger guidelines we do that. I do not want the situation that has happened this year, as was stated yesterday, that somebody could announce the cloning of a human being.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 30th, 2003 / 5:05 p.m.
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The Deputy Speaker

The Chair would like to take a moment before resuming debate. As we have proceeded through the debate on Bill C-13 and upon closer scrutiny of the publication of the Order Paper and Notice Paper, some clerical and typographical errors have come to light. I want to keep the House up to speed as we go through this, as they come to light and corrections are made.

For instance, in Motion No. 90, article 42(1) reads “The Agency may, in accordance with”. The line should read “The Agency shall”. The word “may” is removed and is replaced by the word “shall”.

I would like to repeat this for the French. Motion No. 90, which is a motion to amend clause 42(1), reads as follows:

“42.(1) L'Agence peut, conformément aux”

The word “peut” should be struck and replaced with the word “doit”. Line 36 would then read as follows:

“42.(1) L'Agence doit, conformément aux”

We have one other matter to deal with. I want to bring to your attention a correction to Motion No. 93 in Group No. 6 standing in the name of the member for Mississauga South.

Motion No. 93 should read:

That Bill C-13, in Clause 66, be amended by deleting lines 9 to 12 on page 33.

In French, the motion should read as follows:

Que le projet de loi C-13, à l'article 66, soit modifié par suppression des lignes 10 à 12, page 33.

Consequently, the voting table will be adjusted accordingly.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 30th, 2003 / 5 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Gurmant Grewal Canadian Alliance Surrey Central, BC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak to the Bill C-13 report stage motions in Group No. 5. Earlier I stood on behalf of my constituents and addressed my comments with respect to the other groupings. Bill C-13 is an act respecting assisted human reproductive technologies and related research. We oppose the bill unless it is amended.

There are various amendments in Group No. 5. I will go over them one by one. It is just coincidence that all the amendments happen to be from a Liberal member, who has worked very hard on this whole issue. Likewise, the members of this caucus have worked very hard, particularly the former leader of our party, Mr. Preston Manning. Our chief senior health critic, as well as the deputy health critic, has also worked very hard on this issue as have many members from other parties.

The bill proposes prohibitions through the Criminal Code on certain assisted human reproduction practices and would authorize the regulation of other issues under licence. It would create an agency to operate a licensing regime, monitor activity and keep records.

I would like to reiterate the recommendation of the Canadian Alliance in the minority report:

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

Human embryos are early human lives that deserve respect and protection. I would request that a three year moratorium be imposed on experiments on human embryos until the potential of adult stem cells can be fully developed.

I strongly support health sciences research and development and research on adult stem cells. We must narrow the conditions of research. AHR should be more tightly regulated. I support an agency to regulate the sector. AHR clinics would have to be licensed and regulated by an agency created by the bill.

This is an international race of scientists on biotechnology, embryonic research, stem cell research and other fields of human research or biotech research, to accomplish what? To accomplish certain things, to find better cures for various diseases, cancers, MS and many other diseases. Why not do it in a way that is more efficient and without any sacrifice? That can be done by stem cell research rather than embryonic research.

The same results could be accomplished by stem cell research, or at least at the embryonic stage of scientific research we have in this field at this moment. We would like to explore the possibilities of accomplishing as much as we can through stem cell research. We are requesting a moratorium on embryonic research so that stem cell research can be fully explored. We need to completely fund the research and encourage scientists to go that route.

There are various motions that need to be specified. I would like to particularly comment on a few of the motions. Motion No. 80 specifies that research using human embryos should not only be approved by the agency, but by a research ethics board and a peer review. Also, because of the gravity of embryonic research, any extra level of oversight or review should be supported. We strongly support that motion.

We also support Motion No. 82, which places the onus on researchers to explain to the agency, “ the reasons why embryonic stem cells are to be used instead of stem cells from other sources”.

Similar to the original recommendation of the health committee, the research on human embryos can only be permitted if no other biological material is available. Since adult stem cell research is much more promising and there are no ethical problems, why not fund, develop and enhance the scientific activities in that field of scientific research? Adult stem cells are being used today to treat Parkinson's disease, leukemia, MS and other diseases. Therefore researchers should focus their efforts on adult stem cell research.

On Motion No. 89, a clause already exists in the bill which states that the agency may suspend the licence of a licensee who violates the act in accordance with those regulations. Motion No. 89 states that the agency should suspend such a licensee in accordance with the regulations. Given the gravity of assisted human reproduction, it seems appropriate that licensees found guilty of contravening the act should have their privileges suspended. That is the regulatory control we want the agency to have so that it can be effective in implementing its mandate.

Motion No. 90, which we support, adds a right of appeal to licensees who have had licences suspended for alleged violations of the act. That seems to be appropriate. In other words, we need to have effective control keeping in mind the ethical issues involved. By promoting stem cell research, I am sure we are not only exploring that field of science which could be effective without any sacrifice or damage to human life, but at the same time exploring the possibilities where stem cell research can find better cures and more diversified usage.

I support a ban on therapeutic cloning, animal-human hybrids, sex selection, germ line alteration, the buying or selling of embryos and paid surrogacy. All these issues are very important. There is a huge area of ethical issues involved. I am sure that many of my colleagues who have already spoken on this issue have highlighted those issues.

Another concern is that children conceived by AHR will not have the right to know the identity of their parents without the written consent by the parents to reveal it. I think it is very important for future children, who will be born through this process, to have the right to know their parents.

Our party, which is more concerned about family issues than other parties in the House, want to strengthen the institution of families by taking those things into consideration. I am sure stronger families make stronger communities and stronger communities make a stronger nation. We have to look at this type of issue to strengthen the institution of families.

With regard to surrogacy, repaying surrogate mothers could result in effective commercial surrogacy. Becoming a surrogate is a very serious matter, to the extent that the health committee saw fit to amend the bill to prohibit surrogacy for women under the age of 21. The research highlights the importance given by the health committee, and I am sure that the government must look to that recommendation.

Surrogacy can also have profound effects on relationships between husbands and wives, within families, between the surrogate and the adoptive parents, not to mention the surrogate children themselves. All these things will affect the institution of family and the relationships of different members in the family. As I have already highlighted, it is one of the most important issues to strengthen a nation.

I will conclude by saying that we should encourage stem cell research and put a moratorium on embryonic stem cell research. All these ethical issues must be taken into consideration. Therefore I support all the motions in Group No. 5.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 30th, 2003 / 4:40 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Larry Spencer Canadian Alliance Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-13, an act respecting assisted human reproduction.

Before I begin I would like to commend the hon. member for Mississauga South for his outstanding work on this portfolio, the bill and these recommendations that have been put forward. The health committee also has done outstanding work. The health critic for the official opposition along with the member for Nanaimo—Alberni have done great work in keeping this party informed. I want to express my sincere appreciation to them.

Before I start I want to give the conclusion, because I usually get cut off before I conclude.

I have heard that diabetes is a fatal disease. I suppose I will find out some day, because I have it. Knowing that I have it and knowing that diabetes is one of the diseases targeted for possible cure through stem cell research, I still make this conclusion in spite of that. Even though there are many needed aspects to the bill, especially if amended properly, I still cannot support a bill that opens the door to the intentional destruction of innocent human life. Now I have said that. That is where I stand.

We have had information about the bill provided to us. The bill allows for human embryos to be used for experiments under four conditions: first, all embryos must be byproducts of the AHR process, not created solely for research; second, if written permission is given by the donor; third, research on a human embryo if the use is necessary; and fourth, all human embryos must be destroyed after 14 days if not frozen.

I think we are creating a great dilemma for ourselves. We all value life. Just prior to this, the member spoke of the value of human life. Not one of us would fail to value human life, especially if it is our own life. Somehow or another God has built within every one of us that desire to survive, to survive well and to be healthy. We can even observe it in the animal kingdom. If we corner an animal that thinks it is in danger of losing its life, the fight comes out in that animal like it will not be observed in any other manner. That is a natural thing.

However, we are talking about sacrificing other lives in order to benefit our lives. That is what embryonic stem cell research is permitting. We all appreciate technology. Or at least we appreciate the benefits of that technology. We like the conveniences of the modern life. We like the many things that happen because of technology. But sometimes technology goes awry. Technology becomes, in part, a curse on humanity rather than a blessing. Running in my mind is the example of gunpowder or dynamite. I have been told that its inventor is very sad to see that it is now used for such destructive purposes. Yet I come from a part of the country where there are many rocks, quite similar to what we would find in Nova Scotia, and the roads built through those hills and chiselled out of those rocks required the use of dynamite. That is a proper use of that technology. When we use it to kill and to take away other lives, that is an improper use. We appreciate it, but we do not want it to become an instrument of death such as it has in many cases.

I think back to the days of my youth. I remember growing up on the farm where we of course had a variety of animals. It was my job to take care of some of them. We had quite a number of brood sows. We raised pigs, fattened them for the market and sent them away. That was a part of our cash income on the farm. I remember that on one or two occasions in that operation we had a brood sow that took on a particularly destructive trait, which was that as soon as the newborns hit the ground she would turn around and eat at least one or two of them. When that tendency did not stop, we of course eliminated that particular specimen from our herd. We attribute that to a low animal that does not understand.

However, what are we doing as human beings when we take the lives of our own embryos, our own offspring, and excuse it because we need to find a cure for diabetes?

We cannot assist human reproduction at any cost. There has to be a limit. There has to be a place where the cost becomes too high. There has to be a place where we say stop. We all appreciate the need to assist couples who do not have children. They are childless and they are anxious about having a child in their home. We appreciate that very much. I understand the desire in the heart of these people to have children. I appreciate so very much my own children, and let me say that one of my four children was adopted. There are the means of acquiring children besides natural birth. It is not impossible for people to have children if we do not go ahead with investigating all the technology available.

The bottom line is this: assisted human reproduction, yes, but not at any cost.

Motion No. 88 is a very needed motion. I again commend the member for his work in putting forth these motions. The amendment recognizes abuses that can and do occur in some fertility clinics and the potential for abuse. I know that already some sort of limits are implied and now there are going to be more specified limits on this kind of thing, but there are always those words “as necessary” written in, which are open to interpretation.

I appreciate the remarks of my colleague who indicated that there was a need for the opportunity to do an unlimited number of fertilizations or have an unlimited number of implants. That is the cost I am talking about: not at the cost of human life. We must not create human life in order to play God, sort through it, choose the life we want and destroy the rest or even do research with it. There is a better way to avoid this dilemma. I have with me copies of three articles which emphasize the fact that non-embryonic stem cells are very promising, much more promising than the embryonic stem cells.

I see that my time is running out. It always happens, I do not know how. I will skip to another important statement, one from the Law Reform Commission of Canada in a working paper from more than 10 years ago: “It is a scientific error to refer to the human embryo or foetus as a potential human; it is a human with potential...”. If that one statement could sink through into our heads, in fact, it would change our approach to this.

The present code has a curious provision in section 206 to the effect that a child does not become a human being until it has proceeded completely from its mother's body and is breathing. Thus, far from being a proper definition of the term, it runs counter to the general consensus that the product of human conception in the womb or out of the womb is a human being. There is no question of that and we should remember that any time we allow the destruction of a human embryo.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 30th, 2003 / 4:30 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Philip Mayfield Canadian Alliance Cariboo—Chilcotin, BC

Mr. Speaker, I am here today with pride on behalf of the riding of Cariboo--Chilcotin to speak to Bill C-13 on human reproductive technologies.

I find it interesting the manner in which the issues of great ethical and moral concern are dealt with in this place. It is not that they reach an impasse, but that after months and years of study, that study can be set aside and a whole course of action can be put in place and no one really understands the roots or origins of where the changes have come from, but one can guess.

I find it also interesting that at this particular time while we debate this serious ethical issue of the origins of life, of correcting genetic mistakes by using both adult and embryonic stem cell research, we are also in the ethical dilemma of how to conduct our affairs in another part of the world as we consider the Iraqi situation and our relationship with our allies and neighbours. These too are the result of deep moral concern and division.

What concerns me is that we come to this place and while we take part in the exercise, it is as though the end result has already been determined and the debate in the House is only filling up space. I hope there are people who are concerned about this legislation. I hope they are concerned about what it is going to accomplish. I hope there are members of the government who are carefully listening and understanding the depth of concern of people here on these moral issues.

At this moment I am concerned about the issue of embryonic research. It is an issue that divides Canadians. It is an issue that has attracted much attention. Many petitions have been tabled in the House expressing people's concerns, hundreds and hundreds of petitions representing thousands and thousands of Canadians. I wonder what benefit the petitions have been in the process of determining in which direction our country will go in setting out guidelines, in legislating the details of how this research will be conducted, of how the benefits of this research will be used.

It disturbs me when I realize that as part of the legislation there will be an agency that will not be responsible to the representatives of the people, to Parliament, but in fact will be responsible to the executive branch of the government, to the ministers at the cabinet table. In fact, that agency will be susceptible to directions from that executive group and these may be secret instructions that no one has an opportunity or a way of knowing anything about.

This really is not clarity. It is not open government. This is clouding the issue of how the morality of our people can and will be expressed. It causes deep concern for me that we cannot do this in a transparent way where everybody knows the way the decision was taken, where everybody knows the course of action that was followed, where everybody knows how the rules apply to them specifically.

It is wrapped up in a cloud and we do not entirely understand why there is this lack of clarity. Is it because of the big minds and big egos of scientists who want to put their mark on a new area of research? Is it because of commercial considerations? Does somebody have an opportunity to obtain a patent on a process or gene, or a way of harvesting the cells that are needed?

These are issues that would add a lot of light in my understanding of what we are doing and would go a long way toward settling some of the concerns I have as we discuss these issues. What we are looking at is an objectification of human life. We have been proud to say that every person is absolutely unique. We talk about the uniqueness of a person's facial characteristics, their fingerprints and their DNA, yet what are we doing? We are making people far less than subjects, subjects of God or subjects of the country. We are objectifying people and making them clones, not in the cloning process, I hope, because we are absolutely opposed to that, but in using procedures so close to it that they are very terrifying.

Life is not a tool. Life is a gift. It is a gift as much to the unborn as it is to the born, as it is to the middle aged and the elderly. Life is a precious gift. That is the basis of many of the great religions of the world and certainly of the religion of Christianity, of which I am a part. Life is precious. Human beings are subjects. Human beings are not objects to be manipulated. That is the basis of our freedom. The basis of our freedom is that we are unique, that we have a means to act independently and express that uniqueness, and that we know we are cherished for that individuality, not manipulated and not subject to destruction for somebody else's purposes, unless that is a choice someone might choose to make.

We have virtues such as courage. People have taken that individual choice and have chosen to give their life for something very special. To give a life for a life is one of the most precious things that we can contemplate, but we are trying to play God by saying that we can make life and we can take it away. It is not interesting that we do not believe in capital punishment, that we do not believe in killing people who have done bad things, but we do believe in killing people for other purposes? Ethically, I find that most disturbing.

There is another thing that disturbs me. As we consider the benefits of embryonic versus adult stem cells, there is a way of pursuing the research and avoiding so many of the ethical snags we run into by taking life, for whatever virtuous reason. It is not a life that is given. It is a life that is taken.

I was happy to hear that Quebec is setting up a clinic to take umbilical blood for the harvesting of adult stem cells. This clinic will be one of a number around the world and of two in Canada. The other one is in Alberta, I believe. That is the way we should be going. We should not be trying to satisfy the curiosity of a scientist who says this can be done. We should not be trying to satisfy the curiosity of a scientist who would like to know how to do it and have the means to do it. At what cost to our society do we take such an immoral, in my opinion, course of action?

Embryonic stem cell research has caused many problems even in the research and the results of that research. We are still trying to follow that course. At what price? For what cause? To satisfy what ego, which would take a life that has not been offered, which would kill the innocence when there has been no opportunity for productive realization of that life?

While I am pleased to speak on this, members can tell that it is a matter of great urgency and of great concern for me. I plead with those who are responsible to keep our nation whole, to preserve the integrity of our nation, our people and our course of action, because unless we do have that integrity, upon what base will we continue to grow and thrive as one of the family of nations in the world that has something to offer the world?

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 30th, 2003 / 4:10 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Val Meredith Canadian Alliance South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, BC

Mr. Speaker, I rise again to speak to Bill C-13. It is no surprise that the bill has raised a number of controversies with the Canadian public. Some Canadians feel that the very use of stem cell research violates the ethical commitment to respect human dignity, integrity and life, and, in believing life begins at conception, that any use of stem cell research would be a violation of that.

There also are those who see the use of stem cell research as an advance in science and technology.

Appreciating the fact that we have these two ideologies, these two groups of people in Canadian society, the onus is on the government to tread very lightly, to be very sensitive to the different sides and the different concerns that people have, and to make sure the legislation acknowledges and deals with the concerns from various communities within Canadian society.

A lot of the proponents who would not like to see stem cell research used at all would suggest that adult stem cells are the ones that should be used. Unfortunately, we are dealing with reproductive technologies and reproductive technologies lead us into the discussion of embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells kind of fall outside of reproductive technology.

However the argument is, and one that certainly can be supported, that where adult stem cells can be used in research, they should be used. The onus should be on the government to make sure that if embryonic stem cells are used for research purposes that there are some protections.

The committee on health looked at this legislation before it was presented to Parliament and came up with a number of recommendations. Those recommendations were well thought out. The committee spent a lot of time looking at it and the minister would be wise to consider some amendments to this legislation that would better reflect what the committee recommended when it studied this before coming to the House.

Some of the comments that the committee came up with were very valid. One was that the protection of the rights and the health of the children who are a product of in vitro fertilization must be a priority. The other priority has to be the parents who have gone through this process in order to have a family. There must be an understanding of the stress, not only economically but the emotional stress, that is involved when two people have to go through a scientific process in order to conceive and have a child.

The government has to be sensitive, not only to the physical attributes of what this legislation will create but also to the emotional and the psychological concerns.

The bill deals with the control of not only the development of this agency and who will sit on it, but the control of how these clinics will operate and how the research is done. There is talk about controlling the volume of material that would be available for stem cell research. These are very sensitive issues.

It is very sensitive when a government tries to say that a person can only use so many ovum, so many Petri dishes, and can only implant so many fertilized eggs when the sole purpose of it is to create a child and create a family. It is pretty touchy because there are two sides. There is the couple who, in many cases, have waited a long time to conceive and are using this as a last ditch method, and are very anxious that they conceive this child before the natural clock takes over. The sensitivity from that standpoint, along with the sensitivity of other issues, has to be addressed.

The board that has to make those kinds of judgment calls will have to be very well selected. The members of the board need to be people who have the ability to use good reason, who are wise, compassionate, understanding, as well as people who can make decisions.

The selection of the people for the board is very important. They must be able to show that they will well represent the end response to this legislation, which is the protection of the child who is created and of the parents.

Another issue that comes up in this proposed legislation is the aspect of consent. Who gives consent for the unused embryos, the unused fertilized eggs to be used for research? Is it just one of the parents? Is it the donor of the egg? Is it the donor of the sperm? Is it a joint decision? What kind of consent should be required?

I think all of us are aware of many cases that have gone through the courts where a child has been conceived by a surrogate mother and the surrogate mother decides she wants to keep the child and then it becomes a legal wrangling. We know of where they have used frozen embryos in a bank and one of the people involved has died and the other person wants to resurrect it and there is the question of do they have the right. There are legal parameters that will come into play with this proposed legislation.

It is very important that the government be very sensitive to not only those issues but to the potential issues that this proposed legislation will create.

When we go beyond consent we then start looking at the issue: does this child, who is created through a process, have the right to know the donor? I would suggest, as an adoptive parent, that there are times when the information is necessary for medical reasons. Maybe the child is perfectly happy in his or her family but finds himself or herself with some kind of genetic disorder or illness and needs to know who his or her biological parents are for medical purposes.

As I understand it, the legislation does not allow for that. How do we accommodate that which may happen and, should the proposed legislation be amended, to keep in mind that the time may come for good, scientific medical reasons why that child needs to know the donor.

I think the legislation also goes into surrogacy and the parameters of how that works. Again, it is very touchy. We have situations where we have legal contractual arrangements for paying the expenses of an individual. Will it be deemed that the individual will be paid to bear that child, or is that paying for the expenses of what that individual will go through in order to bear the child? Is that a necessary process or is that just a chosen process?

Again, we are getting into a territory that the results of the bill will have an ongoing legal implication. I hope that the assisted human reproduction agency of Canada will be made up of people who will have the ability to see through all these different issues that will occur.

The final point I want to make is that with this kind of a bill, which deals with such a touchy issue that affects all Canadians, no matter what side of the issue they are on, whether they are offended by it or whether they support it, I would suggest that it is extremely important that the agency report back to Parliament. It is not good enough that the agency would report only to the legislative branch of government.

The reason I say that is the people are connected more closely to their elective legislative branch than they are to the executive branch of government. On an issue that touches Canadians in such a human and familiar way as the reproduction of children, it is essential that the agency report back to Parliament.

In wrapping up, many amendments need to occur to this legislation to make it acceptable to all Canadians. In order for this to be accepted by all Canadians, those amendments must be seriously considered by the government during report stage.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 30th, 2003 / 3:50 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Dick Harris Canadian Alliance Prince George—Bulkley Valley, BC

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to talk about Bill C-13.

My party has a lot of concerns about Bill C-13. My colleague from Nanaimo—Alberni has pointed out a lot of concerns and why our party would not support the use of embryonic stem cells in research. He has pointed out the alternatives and the medical scientific breakthroughs that have been made in adult stem cell research.

I want to mention some more concerns that we have. First, there are some things in the bill that we do agree with. For example, the bill does point out that the health and well-being of children born through assisted human reproduction must be given priority. We certainly would support that.

We support the bans on reproductive or therapeutic cloning, chimeras, animal-human hybrids, sex selection, germ line alteration, the buying or selling of embryos and paid surrogacy.

We support an agency to regulate the sector, although we want changes to it that we believe are necessary.

There has probably not been a bill put to this House in the last several years that has caused me to receive more mail in my office than the issue of stem cell research. I can say that the citizens of Prince George—Bulkley Valley have overwhelmingly expressed their opposition to embryonic research over the past several months and have asked me to speak on their behalf in the House of Commons.

Embryonic research is a very ethically controversial proposal and type of medical research. It is dividing Canadians. We have witnessed that in the House with the different views of members of Parliament supposedly speaking on behalf of their ridings. We have seen the numerous petitions that have been tabled in the House calling for ethical stem cell research.

It has been pointed out by my colleagues and in petitions that embryonic stem cell research inevitably results in the death of the embryo, which is the death of early human life. For many Canadians, this practice would violate the ethical commitment to respect human dignity, integrity and life.

There is an incontestable scientific fact that supports the statement that an embryo is early human life. It states that the complete DNA of an adult human is present at the embryonic stage. Whether that life is owed protection is one of the issues we want to talk about today and one of the issues that should be present in this entire debate.

Embryonic research also constitutes an objectification of human life where human life in a way can become a tool that can be manipulated and destroyed for other ethical ends. Adult stem cells, on the other hand, are a safe, proven alternative to embryonic stem cells. My colleague from Nanaimo on Vancouver Island has spoken about that at length.

There are innumerable sources of adult stem cells such as skin tissue, bone tissue, and umbilical cord blood. There is no shortage of a source for adult stem cells. We must question why some in Parliament and some in the medical community appear so determined to pursue embryonic stem cell research when adult stem cells are so readily accessible and have been proven to be beneficial in research.

Adult stem cells are not subject to immune rejection and pose minimal ethical concerns. Embryonic stem cell transplants are subject to immune rejection because they are foreign tissue. Adult stem cells used for transplants typically are taken from one's own body.

Adult stem cells are being used today in the treatment of Parkinson's disease, leukemia, MS and many other conditions, and are working very well in that type of treatment. Conversely I must point out that embryonic stem cells have not been used in the successful treatment of a single person. Given a lot of these facts, one must wonder why this drive to get into embryonic stem cell research is so ongoing.

In our minority report from the health committee we called for a three year prohibition on experiments with human embryos corresponding with the first scheduled review of the bill. It should be pointed out that the government disregarded many of the points that were made in the health committee in order to put forward Bill C-13.

When we look at the bill we see many things that were left out. Amendments pertaining to the regulatory agency have not been included in Bill C-13. The health committee recommended many things like an end to donor anonymity. That has been left out of the bill. Our minority report said that where the privacy rights of the donors of human reproductive materials conflict with the rights of children to know their genetic and social heritage, the rights of the children should prevail. That was not included in the bill. When the issue came up during the review, the Liberals defeated our amendment to end anonymity in a six to five vote, so there was a split among the government members.

The bill supposes to support the health and well-being of children born through assisted human reproduction and that must be given a priority. We do support that. We support continued research using adult stem cells in medical research and treatment, as we have seen it being successful now.

However, our party cannot support Bill C-13 as it stands. We have amendments that we will be putting forward at different stages of the bill and we trust that the Liberals and the other members of the House will see the wisdom in our amendments and support them.

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January 30th, 2003 / 3:40 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

James Lunney Canadian Alliance Nanaimo—Alberni, BC

Mr. Speaker, the debate on Bill C-13 has been going for a while now. We are currently debating the Group No. 5 amendments to the bill. The Group No. 5 amendments largely deal with clause 40 in the bill, which deals with the functioning of the regulatory agency.

I appreciate the remarks that other members have contributed to the debate already today, including the member from Calgary who just spoke. However I want to first go back to one intervention related to the Group No. 4 amendments since the minister herself stood just a few moments ago and addressed an issue related to an amendment that would strike section 26, clause 8, regarding the conflict of interest code.

I agree with the member from Winnipeg North who spoke just a few minutes ago on this matter. The committee took this quite seriously. The minister implied that subclause 9 of clause 26 is adequate for determining who is and who is not eligible to serve on this agency.

As a committee, we did not feel that the conflict of interest regulations were tight enough. For that reason the committee, after a lot of intense debate, included a clause that would restrict members of a board from having any pecuniary or proprietary interest in any business which operated in the industries related to reproductive technology. That was for a very specific reason. We felt this provision was necessary and that members should not support the striking of that clause.

Going on to the Group No. 5 amendments, these amendments deal largely with the regulatory agency, as I have alluded. The bulk of these amendments, beginning with Motion No. 80 up to and including Motion No. 90, deal with various aspects of the use of embryos for research.

In our minority report, the Canadian Alliance put forward the position that we would prefer a position that would make all these motions unnecessary, and that relates to the use for which cells will be used. We feel, as Canadian, we are dealing with this at a time when more information is available to us than other jurisdictions. Therefore it is incumbent upon us to make decisions that may be different from other jurisdictions that have gone before us, when scientific information on the alternatives to embryonic stem cell use were not as clear as they are today.

I want to underscore some of the reasons why we feel that it is wrong. The bill states that it is wrong to create embryos, in fact, it is forbidden to create embryos for research but what is happening as a consequence of the bill is precisely that.

I want to speak for a moment about adult stem cells because the committee heard abundant evidence, and there is abundant scientific evidence today. I will to quote from some of the top scientists who spoke to committee in just a moment . Briefly I want to say that 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, and I will talk a about that in a moment. Adult stem cells are easily accessible, are not subject to immune rejection and pose minimal ethical concerns, as opposed to embryonic stem cell transplants that are subject to immune rejection because they are foreign tissues. The body has cells that check licence plates, it checks the DNA and it checks out the markers on the other cells. Cells from another body will be rejected until one takes anti-rejection drugs.

Adult cells today are being used in the treatment of Parkinson's, leukemia, multiple sclerosis and other conditions, but embryonic stem cells have not been successfully used in the treatment of anything.

I make reference to some of the distinguished scientists who spoke at health committee.

Dr. Alan Bernstein, President of the CIHR, the Canadian Institute for Health Research, stated at committee November 26, 2002:

I would say that if one knew that adult cells would work in therapeutic settings... then there's no question that this would be the preferred route of treatment, as opposed to using embryonic stem cells, where one doesn't know about the transplant rejection situations and all that.

I thank Dr. Bernstein for that. Clearly adult cells are better. However there is the “if” word there.

Dr. Ronald Worton, who is the head of the Stem Cell Network at the University of Ottawa, “There is no question that autologous stem cells hold a lot of promise”. Those cells are taken from one's own body and put back into one's own body. He went on to say, “We believe a lot of the therapy that will be done with stem cells in the future will be done with adult stem cells”.

Dr. Prentice, University of Indiana, testified that he took stem cells that were isolated from his own blood for research purposes. Because these stem cells are smaller, they can be centrifuged and separated from other cells and can be used to grow in vitro and in Petri dishes.

I ran into a person in the city of Toronto just a short time ago, who is related to a person who is a very well known Canadian. I will not mention his name because I have no permission to do so. This man had a condition called multiple myeloma. That is a very serious bone cancer. Bone marrow cells had been extracted from him, then they isolated the stem cells. He had been given chemotherapy to kill the tumours in his bone. Then after the tumours had been killed with the chemo, his own stem cells were reintroduced, and he is doing just fine without medication.

Thursday, November 28, Dr. Freda Miller, now of Sick Children's Hospital in Toronto, spoke on the prospects for profit of adult stem cells. Dr. Miller was formerly from McGill University. She made a lot of headlines for her skin based precursors, cells which she isolated from the skin that were able to transform into stem cells and grow into other types of tissue. When the headlines on Dr. Miller's research hit the paper they said that researchers had found gold.

About the prospects for profit in adult stem cells, she said that they were very low. As a matter of fact, she said that she did not think that any company would fund the kind of dream scenario we were talking about, autologous transplantation for individuals.

Dr. Worton is saying that there is tremendous potential in autologous transplant, but Dr. Miller is saying there is not much money in autologous transplant. That will have to be funded by the public system, health charities or something as a purely medical treatment because there is not any money to be made.

The concern we have is that this important area of research should not be driven by money or by where profits are highest. The corollary is that there is a lot of interest from industry in promoting embryonic cells because if we can get it to work, it will have strings attached to it that may be patentable. Maybe the cells are patentable. Maybe the procedures are patentable to get something that is not a good fit to fit. We feel that this important area of research should not be driven by what will be most profitable for industry. It should be driven by what is most profitable for Canadians.

We have had petition after petition in the House from Canadians from all ridings. I have heard members opposite present petitions from their ridings asking Canadians to pursue adult stem cell research and make morally ethical research available to Canadians, the ones that show the most promise. That is the position of this party. I wish the members opposite would take this seriously so that we can advance what is in the best interest of Canadians. This is good science. It is not bad science or moral people trying to hold back good science. This is good science that would be better advanced by promoting adult stem cell research.

If we were to go that way, if we would follow the advice of minority report from the Canadian Alliance, these amendments would not be necessary. However the minister seems determined to keep the door open to use embryos, embryos that were intended to produce children. That was the whole focus of our draft legislation, building families, and the committee was determined to try to keep the focus on building families.

I applaud the member for Mississauga South who has brought in amendments that would require the agency to at least, if we are to go this way and use the most vulnerable people, the ones trying to produce babies, to encourage them to give up the surplus embryos to industry. At least this would require the agency to keep track of those embryos, to be accountable for them and to put requirements on the agency to monitor the use of these embryos and to try to restrict the commodification. We applaud the member for Mississauga South for his effort in bringing forth these amendments and I hope all members of the House will support them.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 30th, 2003 / 3:30 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Jason Kenney Canadian Alliance Calgary Southeast, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on debate at report stage of Bill C-13, an act regarding assisted human reproductive technologies and related research.

These amendments in Group No. 5 deal principally with the statutory framework for the agency created by the bill to provide licences to institutions or individuals, presumably scientists or scientific laboratories, who will be permitted to participate in in vitro fertilization as well as embryonic stem cell experimentation.

Most of the amendments under Group No. 5 seek to clarify the intent of Parliament to enhance protection for the parents of offspring by ensuring their consent for any scientific research, and also some of these amendments seek to strengthen the sanctions for licensees that violate the terms of the bill.

Let me go through these various amendments that I believe were all put forward in the name of the hon. member for Mississauga South, who has done yeoman's work in taking the legislative process very seriously with respect to the bill.

First I will turn to Motion No. 6, which seeks to amend the definition of consent. In the third clause of the bill, consent currently is defined as meaning:

...fully informed and freely given consent that is given in accordance with the applicable law governing consent.

The member's amendment states:

with the applicable law governing consent and that conforms to the provisions of the Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Research Guidelines released by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research in March, 2002, as detailed in the regulations.

Rather than simply leaving it to the new agency to create its own guidelines for consent, he is fixing it. The amendment proposes to fix in the bill an already extant proposal from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research on the question of donor consent.

Next, at Motion No. 80, the member for Mississauga South suggests that before a licence is granted to a scientist or a firm to engage in in vitro fertilization there be ethical guidelines and a peer review. Clause 40 states:

A licence authorizing the use of an in vitro embryo for the purpose of research may be issued only if the Agency is satisfied that the use is necessary for the purpose of the proposed research.

The amendment states:

...proposed research and the Agency has, in accordance with the regulations, received approval from a research ethics board and a peer review.

This seems sensible to me, to ensure that there are clear ethical considerations and a peer review, which is conventional of course for any scientific research, but it would be good if we were to make that a requirement in the bill, in my opinion.

Motion No. 81 would add to clause 40 of the bill a grandfather clause. It basically suggests that any embryos created prior to the coming into force of the bill, that is to say any embryos that are already perhaps frozen today, could only be treated in the future in accordance with the pre-existing CIHR guidelines. Essentially the member is saying that we will protect the existing embryos according to existing guidelines so that they do not end up in a kind of legal limbo, which could otherwise be the case.

Motion No. 82 seeks to amend clause 40 of the bill by saying that “a person who wishes to undertake research involving stem cells from in vitro embryos must provide the agency with the reasons why embryonic stem cells are to be used instead of stem cells from other sources”. This would place an obligation on the applicant for a licence to do this kind of research to demonstrate that embryonic stem cells are necessary and that the same results cannot be possibly achieved through non-embryonic stem cells.

I was not able to participate in the committee hearings, but anybody who has followed the matter will be very aware of the enormous new scientific potential posed by non-embryonic stem cells, be it stem cells harvested from umbilical cords of newly born babies or stem cells from infants or adults. I believe all these can offer far more significant scientific research possibilities than creating nascent human lives in the form of embryos in order to destroy, manipulate and research on them. Motion No. 82 would place that onus to demonstrate the necessity of using embryonic stem cells on the applicant for a licence.

Motion No. 83 says that the agency “shall not issue a licence under this section for embryonic stem cell research if there are an insufficient number of in vitro embryos available for that research”. This is a sensible motion.

No. 84 requires the written consent of the original gamete provider, that is to say the biological parent, before any scientific research can be done. This clarifies that the donor cannot become someone other than the biological parent. This is an important amendment which I will support.

No. 85 is a technical amendment which seeks to clarify the language.

I will turn to Motion No. 88 which is probably the most substance in this series. It says that the agency would insert the following under clause 40:

The Agency shall establish, for in vitro fertilizationprocedures, limits regarding, but not limited to, the following:

(a) the amount of all drug dosages that may be administered;

(b) the number of

(i) ova that may be harvested,

(ii) ova that may be fertilized,

(iii) in vitro embryos that may be implanted at any one time,and

(iv) embryos that may be cryogenically stored forreproductive purposes; and

(c) the length of time that an embryo may be stored.

These are critical issues and really central to the ethical consideration of our treatment of nascent human lives. Without this amendment, the bill would give virtual carte blanche to the agency to regulate these matters perhaps in a very lax fashion. We know from testimony and standard practice that in the whole field of in vitro fertilization an enormous number of nascent human lives are unnecessarily created because in a sense, as some might say in the vernacular sense, it is a numbers game. It is only a fairly small percentage of embryos created in vitro which will implant and come to term as children.

In some cases fertilization clinics are creating dozens of nascent human beings to have one successful baby come to full birth. This says that we would not allow these clinics to produce dozens, hundreds and cumulatively thousands of embryos which would end up being frozen and then end up being used for research purposes. This would close or at least limit a very large loophole which exists in the bill.

I look forward to speaking to other amendments as we continue consideration of the bill.

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January 30th, 2003 / 3:20 p.m.
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NDP

Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North Centre, MB

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on this group of amendments to Bill C-13. This is a very important group of amendments pertaining to the agency that will in fact provide ongoing oversight and a regulatory framework for developments in this field. We can see that the agency is a critical part of the legislation, and amendments pertaining to the powers and makeup of the agency are critical.

It was very interesting earlier today to hear the Minister of Health give her account of why she felt the motion, presented by me on behalf of the New Democratic Party to ensure the highest standard pertaining to conflict of interest matters, was entrenched in the bill.

It is to be noted from earlier discussions that the amendment was proposed by the NDP at the committee stage of the bill. The Standing Committee on Health agreed with the recommendation and the bill was printed with that amendment, which is, as read into the record, subclause 26(8). It clearly calls for guarantees that no appointment will be made to this new board of directors that has “any pecuniary or proprietary interest in any business” relating to this field of reproductive technologies.

The wording that was selected for this amendment was based on other legislative initiatives. It is not a new and imaginary approach to the issue. It is based on standard law and legislative wording pertaining to this issue about conflict of interest.

The minister today has tried to suggest that the wording of the amendment is so problematic and so difficult that in fact it might lead to the ludicrous situation whereby someone fixing the air conditioner in an office might be in a conflict of interest because that is part of the whole operation. The minister knows that this is not the intent of the amendment, that this is not how it would be interpreted, and that in fact it is precisely worded in a way to ensure that vested interests are prevented from having an influence over decisions pertaining to something as fundamental as the reproductive health and wellbeing of women.

There is no question: a bill can always be improved. I would certainly look to the Minister of Health or any one of her colleagues for better wording if there is a problem in any way with the proposal made by me and adopted by the committee, but for the minister to simply suggest subclause 26(9), which refers strictly to the licensee and spells out requirements in terms of vested interests in that regard, is not sufficient. We are not just talking about the actual fertility clinic or health institution that has been licensed to provide a service. We are not just talking about the front line delivery in this field. We are talking about the whole range of developments and discoveries pertaining to reproductive technology, most of which we cannot even anticipate because the science is changing so rapidly.

Therefore, it is ludicrous for the minister to leave the impression that what is in the bill, minus the good work of the committee and my amendment, is sufficient. There are no guarantees in terms of future developments. In fact when it comes to the responsibilities given the agency under the legislation, they are very extensive. It is not limited only to licensee activity, as foreseen in the amendments supported by the minister. It goes far beyond to include advising the minister on critical issues, to enforcing the law as it is written and will be proclaimed, to inspecting and monitoring developments in this area, and to offering general oversight and surveillance. So any amendment that is strictly limited to licensing provisions will not do it, will just not cut it. We still have a fundamental problem about the possibility of vested interests determining the direction of policies and practices in this very important area, an area of fundamental and critical importance to the women of this country.

Anything we can do to strengthen the agency in this bill is an important responsibility on the part of members of Parliament. It is certainly a role taken seriously by the health committee. Let me say, as many other observers have said, that the success or failure of our work in this area will really come down to the features of this new assisted human reproduction agency. As I have mentioned already, not only will it license clinics and research on human reproductive activities, it will also advise the minister on developments in this area and will be involved in monitoring, enforcement and surveillance. It will have responsibility for providing advice to the Minister of Health on a whole range of assisted human reproduction issues and will play a powerful role in shaping the future of Canada's regulations in this expanding area of social, health and economic policy.

Our concern today, the question we are asking, is this: Will this agency be absolutely independent? Will the directors be free from any ties to the interests of biotechnology companies or fertility clinics? These are fundamental questions. They are critical to the issues at hand.

In fact I would suggest to members in the House that the influence and profits of multinational biopharmaceutical companies are enormous. To presume a lack of interest on their behalf in this burgeoning field of technological innovations and genetics is absolutely naive. It flies in the face of the pharmaceutical industry's own declared intention to direct its activity to genetics products and sciences.

It is also worth nothing that the government's original version of the bill provided absolutely no conflict of interest protection at all, none, so it is not surprising that we are disputing the issue today. Conflict of interest is a concept on which this government has a curious track record. For instance, it does not recognize that there is the possibility of a conflict of interest when a person who is the director of a major provider of a for profit nursing care facility, Extendicare in this case, heads up a government study of health care options, including policy choices that could lead to more business going his way. It is not that someone is personally applying for a licence or a contract; it is that he has responsibilities to shareholders that could, and I say could, influence his policy decisions.

This amendment was approved by an all party committee. It ought to be upheld by Parliament. We ought to register our grievances to the government for the Minister of Health's interference and regrettable actions.

Let me also say that when it comes to the issue of women's involvement on the board, the government's actions have been equally offensive. The committee I worked on accepted an amendment put forward in good faith to ensure that there be at least 50% women on this board of directors that has so many important powers and responsibilities, for very good reason. We put that amendment forward because we knew that in this area that is so important to women's health and wellbeing, women must be represented on at least an equal basis and the expertise and knowledge that women bring to this field must be acknowledged and included in the process.

For the minister and the parliamentary secretary to suggest that they want to be open to all qualified people and that they do not want to discriminate is an insult to women. It is contrary to the notion of women's equality. I would suggest to members on the government side that they rethink this issue and come back to the House with a motion respecting the fundamental issue of gender parity and equality between women and men.

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January 30th, 2003 / 3:15 p.m.
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Madawaska—Restigouche New Brunswick

Liberal

Jeannot Castonguay LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to the amendments in Group No. 5.

First I would like to remind this House that Bill C-13 addresses the wish of all Canadians to know that the use of human embryos will be subject to the strictest supervision necessary. The use of an embryo, without exception, will require authorization from the Assisted Human Reproduction Agency of Canada.

Motions No. 6, 81, 82 and 86 are not necessary because they do not add anything to the agency's ability to decide who will be granted or denied authorization, and why. Let us not forget that researchers will have to convince the agency that the use of an embryo is necessary for the research they want to conduct. Bill C-13 will allow research using an embryo as long as it is in accordance with the regulations. These regulations are intended to allow beneficial research. This is also a government responsibility. That is the balance struck by Bill C-13.

With this bill, the door to research using embryos is locked. Only the agency will have the key to open that door. The agency will have to be accountable to Parliament and to the Canadian public any time it does so. Without Bill C-13, the door is wide open to research using embryos. At the present time, anything is allowed because there are no controls. This is a huge void that we wish to address, and that we must address.

There is one thing I would like to make clear. The purpose of Bill C-13 is not to control research with embryonic stem cells, let alone adult stem cells. The purpose of Bill C-13 is to control the use of surplus human embryos. That is the objective. For example, we want to control whether or not a researcher may derive stem cells from a surplus embryo. It was created for reproductive purposes. The couple can decide that they no longer need it for reproductive purposes and allow it to be used for research.

When stem cells are derived from the embryo, they lose they initial essence in that they can no longer become embryos. This is a scientific impossibility, as indeed are the polyspermic embryos addressed by Motion No. 9.

Since derived stem cells cannot become embryos, they do not, therefore, come within the scope of Bill C-13. The source of embryonic stem cells, meaning an in vitro human embryo, does.

I would add a word here about the need for research using the two types of stem cells, adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells. Bill C-13 does not hinder research on adult stem cells. It does not change existing government subsidies for this type of research.

The government is hearing what scientists are requesting, which is that all types of stem cell research be allowed. I shall quote Dr. Freda Miller, an internationally renowned adult stem cell researcher, who appeared before the Standing Committee on Health and said:

My...fear...is that my work with adult stem cells...would be used as a rationale for halting the work on human embryonic stem cells. Then, if the adult stem cells don't come to fruition, we're left with nothing...but by allowing the co-development of both sources, you're expediting the potential therapy that will be derived from adult stem cells, so that maybe one day we don't have to use the embryonic stem cells therapeutically.

I would like to be clear about Motion No. 88. If it is passed, doctors will be required to treat each of their patients the same way. This is an unacceptable approach that could put the health and even the life of some Canadians at risk. Motion No. 88 is reckless. It goes well beyond the scope of Bill C-13.

In terms of the guidelines for Canadian Institutes of Health Research, even the criteria and requirements set out in the document entitled Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Research: Guidelines , will be subject to the regulations of the Assisted Human Reproduction Act.

The legislation does not have to comply with the guidelines; rather, the reverse. That is not the case right now because such legislation does not exist. Therefore, it is important to pass Bill C-13 as soon as possible.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 30th, 2003 / 3:05 p.m.
See context

Canadian Alliance

Werner Schmidt Canadian Alliance Kelowna, BC

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege and an honour to enter the debate on Bill C-13. I know we are debating certain amendments, but I wish to address my remarks to the entire bill because a lot of the amendments deal with various provisions of the bill.

I would like to suggest that the seven principles that are enunciated at the beginning of the bill are rather comprehensive. I would like to summarize them as reading them in detail would take too long.

First, priority must be given to the health and well-being of children in the application of assisted reproductive technologies; second, in the application of assisted reproductive technologies the health, safety and dignity and rights of humans must be protected and promoted; third, the health and well-being of women in particular must be protected; fourth, free and informed consent must be promoted and employed in the use and application of assisted reproductive technologies; fifth, there must be no discrimination against those who undergo assisted reproductive procedures; sixth, the productive capabilities of men and women must not be exploited for commercial ends; and seventh, the human genome, human individuality and diversity must be preserved.

Those are lofty and worthwhile principles. I would like to look at the implications of the application of those principles to the body of the bill and the legislation that follows it as presented to the House.

The first principle states that the well-being of children must be preserved. It means, among other things, that all children are created equal. That does not mean that they are all the same. It means that they are equal in the basic rights and freedoms before the Constitution and the law. This means they have at least three fundamental rights: the right to life, the right to liberty, and the right to the pursuit of happiness. They also enjoy or should be given four freedoms: the freedom of speech and expression, the freedom of every person to worship God in his or her own way, the freedom from fear, and the freedom from want.

Three rights and four freedoms should be there for all children. I think principle number one clearly implies those kinds of freedoms. Are any of those rights and freedoms denied in the body of the bill? No, they are not. I think the bill is consistent in that area. Does that mean I find each of the other six principles to be that consistently applied throughout the bill? I do not think so.

Let us examine principle number four, which is subclause 2(d). It states:

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

The phrase free and informed consent deserves further investigation. Free and informed consent is considered as a principle that must be promoted and applied as a fundamental condition. Let us look at that in some detail. What are the provisions of the bill with regard to the application of that?

The first of these is the prohibition of certain activities. They are found in the bill as a general provision and I think that is good. There are certain activities with regard to reproductive technologies that are prohibited. Second, the bill would create an agency to enforce the bill and the provisions of the bill. I think that too shows foresight and recognizes that a bill like this, complicated as it is and difficult as the implications might be, does require a good and solid administrative structure.

At this point it is essential that we look at what constitutes the conditions under which this agency must carry out its responsibilities. Interestingly enough, as one goes through the operation of the agency, one discovers quickly that almost all of the agency's administrative provisions or obligations are subject to the regulations of the governor in council. That is an interesting provision. This is an agency that is to carry out the administration of this act but subject to the regulations of the order in council.

Let us look at the regulations with regard to free and informed consent. Free and informed consent, as far as the orders in council are concerned, are not the subject of consultation, and are not the result of the intense seeking advice and assistance from persons or experts outside of the government.

In fact, in a parliamentary system the government represents the people. The free, open and informed consent is the Government of Canada which is elected by the people, not the governor in council. The governor in council is the cabinet which is the arm of the Prime Minister.

How would this work in terms of the agency doing its work? Clause 65 of the bill has 28 subclauses. It states that the governor in council may make regulations in 28 particular areas.

I am going to look at this particularly as it affects clause 8. Subclause 8(1) reads:

8(1) No person shall make use of human reproductive material for the purpose of creating an embryo unless the donor of the material has given written consent, in accordance with the regulations, to its use for that purpose.

Under subclause 65(1)(b) it states:

  1. (1) The Governor in Council may make regulations for carrying into effect the purposes and provisions of this Act and, in particular, may make regulations

(b) for the purposes of section 8, respecting the giving of consent for the use of human reproductive material or an in vitro embryo or for the removal of human reproductive material;

We must observe here that the consent must be written by the donor for the use of human reproductive material for the purposes of creating an embryo in accordance with the regulations.

The regulations, if any, may be made by the governor in council. However there will be somebody immediately who will say “the agency shall require written consent and the governor in council may make regulation”. One could argue what if there are not any regulations? Then any form of consent literally would be recognized.

Is it realistic to assume that to be the case? I doubt it very much. For example, written consent might be the result of coercion of some form or it might not be current or there might be any number of reasons under which written consent might occur and it would have to be regulated according to the governor in council. I can see all kinds of reasons why the governor in council might make some regulations. I can see also why the agency might want to make them.

The point I am trying to make here is that the regulations themselves are secret. They would be created in secret and then perhaps made public, but they would not be the result of checks and balances in the debate of the House.

I would like to look at clause 10, although the regulations cover clauses 10 and 11. Subclause 10(1) states:

10(1) No person shall, except in accordance with the regulations and a licence, alter, manipulate or treat any human reproductive material for the purpose of creating an embryo.

Subclause 65(1)(c) states:

  1. (1) The Governor in Council may make regulations for carrying into effect the purposes and provisions of this Act and, in particular, may make regulations

(c) for the purposes of sections 10 and 11, designating controlled activities or classes of controlled activities that may be authorized by a licence;

Interestingly further down subclause 65(h) states that the governor in council also decides what the rules and regulations are with regard to a licence.

Therefore the business of allowing these kinds of activities would be determined not by the agency, but by the regulations first of all with regard to the activities and with regard to a licence. A person wishing to do this kind of manipulation would have to have both a licence and have the regulations as well.

We have a double whammy here as the governor in council would virtually be controlling the whole operation of the agency. Who would be in control? Would it be the agency or the governor in council? It is pretty clear by now that it would be the governor in council. It would run roughshod over the House of Commons because it would not have to consult the House. With regard to this kind of arrogance Jefferson in the declaration of independence said:

...to secure these rights, [the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The bill should be reconstituted before it is brought to the House so that indeed we can have free and informed consent as to the provisions for assisted human reproductive technologies.

Business of the HouseOral Question Period

January 30th, 2003 / 3 p.m.
See context

Glengarry—Prescott—Russell Ontario

Liberal

Don Boudria LiberalMinister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, let me start with the parliamentary agenda.

We will continue this afternoon with Bill C-13, the reproductive technologies bill, followed by, if there is time, Bill C-20, the child protection bill, as well as Bill C-22, the family law bill.

Tomorrow, we will call third reading of Bill C-3 regarding the Canada pension plan. The next item will be Bill C-6, the bill regarding specific claims for aboriginal people.

On Monday, we would return, if necessary, to Bills C-6, C-20 and C-13. We will continue this business on Tuesday morning, but in any case at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, it is my intention to call Bill C-22, the family law bill.

I will be consulting with a view to returning at some point to debate on the Senate amendments to Bill C-10A, the Criminal Code amendments.

On Wednesday, we will continue the debate on Bills C-13 and C-19 if necessary, at whatever stages they are at then.

I wish to announce that Thursday shall be an allotted day.

Colleagues across the way particularly have asked about what they claim to be a principle that military intervention has a vote. I have a number of them here.

For Korea in 1950, there was no resolution in the House and no vote. For Sinai in 1956, there was no vote. For the Congo in 1960, a recorded vote was asked for but no division was held. For Cyprus in 1964, there was a debate before deployment, the motion was agreed to on division with no recorded vote. For the Middle East in 1973, the motion was agreed to with no division and no recorded vote. For the UNIFIL mission in 1978, there was no motion and no vote. For Iran-Iraq in 1988, the motion was agreed to with no division. For Namibia in 1989, there was no vote. For the Persian Gulf in 1990, it was debated after deployment, with a recorded vote and a division.

There were many cases where there were no votes, no debate, no uniformity.

We have established the coherent system which we enjoy today. We have utilized it as late as last night.

I am also prepared to offer to other parties, should they want it at some point, perhaps as early as next week, yet another evening to debate the situation in Iraq. I know many colleagues on my side of the House would like that. We are quite prepared to offer that.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 30th, 2003 / 1:50 p.m.
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Bloc

Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC

Mr. Speaker, I believe that Group No. 5 gives me the opportunity to comment on what constitutes the Bloc Quebecois' main concern regarding Bill C-13.

With the sense of responsibility that has always characterized our party, we will vote in favour of Bill C-13. We understand it is important to put this ambiguity to rest and end the legislative vacuum that made practices such as cloning possible, such as those that gave us a scare right before the holidays.

We cannot ignore the fact that Bill C-13 clearly interferes in an extremely important area of provincial jurisdiction, that being health, of course.

I would like to inform the House that the very likeable and engaging Minister Legault sent a letter to the Minister of Health. Incidentally, he is one of the best ministers ever to have held this portfolio. Minister Legault indicated that the creation of the Assisted Human Reproduction Agency of Canada, with an operating budget of $10 million, is a significant encroachment on provincial jurisdiction.

I tried to tell the minister and the parliamentary secretary that we could very easily have split the bill in two. The Bloc Quebecois would have been very happy to vote on this matter a few weeks, a few months or even a few years ago. The member for Drummond had introduced a bill on this matter as early as 1995.

We could have dealt with a bill consisting only of sections 5, 6, 7 and 8 on the 13 prohibited activities, including cloning. That could have been the crux of the bill. But, unfortunately, in keeping with the Romanow report, the government has decided to use health to do some nation building.

If the Assisted Human Reproduction Agency of Canada is established the day after the bill is passed, we will have identified 14 fundamental pieces of legislation for Quebec under which there would be very serious discrepancies.

This is true for the Civil Code. The Civil Code bans compensating a surrogate mother, even with receipts and for any reason. In Bill C-13, surrogate mothers could be compensated under certain conditions with, of course, supporting documents.

This is not consistent with Quebec civil law. The government is using its power under section 91(27) of the Criminal Code to intervene.

It is inconsistent with Quebec's Civil Code and also with its Bill 112, an act respecting health services and social services. If Bill C-13 were passed, all the conditions governing where assisted reproductive technology services can be provided will be subject to additional regulation, and have to be recognized by the national assembly under Bill 112.

Mr. Speaker, I sense your impatience. When you get impatient, we all get a bit jumpy. Therefore, I will stop here with the knowledge that you will recognize me later.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 30th, 2003 / 1:50 p.m.
See context

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

seconded by the member for Souris--Moose Mountain moved:

Motion No. 84

That Bill C-13, in Clause 40, be amended by adding after line 8 on page 21 the following:

“(3.2) The Agency shall not issue a licence under subsection (1) for embryonic stem cell research unless it has received the written consent of the original gamete providers and the embryo provider in accordance with the Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Research Guidelines released by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research in March, 2002, as specified in the regulations.”

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 30th, 2003 / 1:20 p.m.
See context

Edmonton West Alberta

Liberal

Anne McLellan LiberalMinister of Health

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to provide some clarification on one of the motions seen earlier in our discussions, and that is in relation to conflict of interest. I was not able to be in the House before, and I want to take the opportunity to put on the record clarification in relation to this matter.

Let me say first that I do want to address a misunderstanding that may have arisen about the conflict of interest provisions in Bill C-13. There have been suggestions that removing subclause 26(8) would mean that the bill would not contain any conflict of interest provisions. Members have suggested that if this section were removed, directors of fertility clinics and scientists whose research work involves work on human embryos would not be able to be board members. Let me be clear: This is not true.

Bill C-13 now contains two conflict of interest provisions, subclause 26(8), which this motion would remove, and subclause 26(9). Subclause 26(9) sets solid conflict of interest requirements for all prospective and serving members of the board. No board member or applicant could hold a licence, be an applicant for a licence or be a director, officer, shareholder or partner of a licensee or applicant for a licence. These requirements are stringent and, I submit, appropriate. Board members will be addressing a number of profound and challenging issues. Canadians must be satisfied that they are doing their work free from conflicting interests. Subclause 26(9) provides that assurance.

Let me lay out for my hon. colleagues why the conflict of interest provisions in subclause 26(8) do not serve the interests of this House or of Canadians. Subclause 26(8) simply goes too far in excluding potential board members, far beyond genuine conflict of interest concerns. Its wording is imprecise and the ramifications of this imprecision likely go far beyond what members of the standing committee intended. If subclause 26(8) remains as it now stands, it will exclude from board membership whole classes of people from most backgrounds and disciplines. This would include ethicists, university professors, doctors, nurses, counsellors and their spouses, whether or not they personally have anything to do with assisted human reproduction.

Subclause 26(8) states that no board member

shall, directly or indirectly, as owner, shareholder, director, officer, partner or otherwise, have any pecuniary or proprietary interest in any business which operates in industries whose products or services are used in the reproductive technologies regulated or controlled by this Act.

The breadth of exclusions implied by subclause 26(8) has no precedents in federal legislation. It does not apply only to those with an interest in businesses that deal with licensees. Rather, it would apply to anyone with an interest in any business that operates in industries whose products or services are used by licensees.

Let us consider the types of products and services that an IV clinic might utilize. There are all the obvious basics: water, electricity, office furniture and office supplies. There are all the maintenance services for these items: electricians, plumbers and IT support. Try to find a doctor's office that does not use phones, Canada Post and courier services. Then there is the whole gamut of professional services: ethicists, accountants, lawyers and science advisers. There are suppliers of scientific and medical equipment. If any one IV clinic uses IT support services, subclause 26(8) would ban from serving on the board anyone who had any interest in any business whatsoever that provided IT support services. The whole industry is excluded because one business provides services. Is that truly what we want? Is that truly in the interests of Canadians?

It has been suggested that retired judges would be ideal candidates for this board. This is a worthwhile suggestion, but let us look at how subclause 26(8) might apply. Many retired judges undertake activities such as mediation or are called upon to provide advice to charities, government commissions or companies. Any retired judge who has done this, however small his or her honorarium, would be excluded from board membership because retired judges are lawyers, and lawyers work in an industry whose services are used by licensees. Also, any retired judges whose spouses are nurses, academics or employees of any other business might be caught in the enormous net of subclause 26(8) and they would also be excluded.

Members have also suggested that retired university professors would make valuable board members. Again this is a perfectly reasonable suggestion, but universities provide services and perhaps products to licensees, such as ethical advice, scientific support and so forth, and likely at least one university professor somewhere in Canada will be a licence holder, so any professor drawing a salary from a university or any retired professor drawing a pension from one would be excluded from serving on the board because they work or worked at an institution in an industry whose products and services are used by licensees.

The wording of subclause 26(8) is imprecise and too broad. Its application is potentially so broad that it would be very difficult to find anyone who could sit on the board. That is surely not what the standing committee intended, because of course the standing committee very eloquently spoke about the importance of this board to Canadians and to the safety of Canadians.

In contrast, subclause 26(9) is very clear. It would allow for no confusion about who could and could not be eligible for board membership, and who could and could not be appointed. That is how to have a transparent and accountable board that is free from any conflict of interest, and that is how to best serve the interests of all Canadians and all those who turn to fertility clinics in this country.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 30th, 2003 / 1:15 p.m.
See context

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

moved:

Motion No. 6

That Bill C-13, in Clause 3, be amended by replacing line 31 on page 2 with the following:

“with the applicable law governing consent and that conforms to the provisions of the Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Research Guidelines released by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research in March, 2002, as detailed in the Regulations.”

Motion No. 80

That Bill C-13, in Clause 40, be amended by replacing line 5 on page 21 with the following:

“proposed research and the Agency has, in accordance with the regulations, received approval from a research ethics board and a peer review.”

Motion No. 81

That Bill C-13, in Clause 40, be amended by adding after line 5 on page 21 the following:

“(2.1) No person may use an in vitro embryo that was in existence before the coming into force of this Act for the purpose of research unless it conforms to the criteria set out in the Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Research Guidelines released by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research in March, 2002, as specified in the Regulations.”

Motion No. 82

That Bill C-13, in Clause 40, be amended by adding after line 5 on page 21 the following:

“(2.1) A person who wishes to undertake research involving stem cells from in vitro embryos must provide the Agency with the reasons why embryonic stems cells are to be used instead of stem cells from other sources.”

Motion No. 83

That Bill C-13, in Clause 40, be amended by adding after line 8 on page 21 the following:

“(3.1) The Agency shall not issue a licence under subsection (1) for embryonic stem cell research if there are an insufficient number of in vitro embryos available for that research.”

Motion No. 85

That Bill C-13, in Clause 40, be amended by replacing line 14 on page 21 with the following:

“licensee or any other individual who is qualified to be a licensee under this”

Motion No. 86

That Bill C-13, in Clause 40, be amended by adding after line 21 on page 21 the following:

“(5.1) Every licence involving deriving stem cell lines from in vitro embryos must include, in the prescribed form, the obligation on the licensee to provide the Agency with samples of the resulting stem cell lines.”

Motion No. 88

That Bill C-13 be amended by adding after line 27 on page 21 the following new clause:

“40.1 The Agency shall establish, for in vitro fertilization procedures, limits regarding, but not limited to, the following:

(a) the amount of all drug dosages that may be administered;

(b) the number of

(i) ova that may be harvested,

(ii) ova that may be fertilized,

(iii) in vitro embryos that may be implanted at any one time, and

(iv) embryos that may be cryogenically stored for reproductive purposes; and

(c) the length of time that an embryo may be stored.”

Motion No. 89

That Bill C-13, in Clause 42, be amended by replacing line 31 on page 21 with the following:

“42. The Agency shall, in accordance with”

Motion No. 90

That Bill C-13, in Clause 42, be amended

(a) by replacing line 31 on page 21 with the following:

“42. (1) The Agency shall, in accordance with”

(b) by adding after line 38 on page 21 the following:

“(2) The amendment, renewal, suspension or revocation under subsection (1) or section 41 may be appealed.”

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 30th, 2003 / 1:10 p.m.
See context

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)

Pursuant to the statement of the Chair made earlier today, when the House resumes consideration of Bill C-13 we will recommence the voting on the motions in Group No. 4, starting with Motion No. 61 and then following sequentially through the other motions in Group No. 4, namely, Motions Nos. 64, 71, 72, 74. 75 and 77.

The question is on Motion No. 61. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Points of OrderRoutine Proceedings

January 30th, 2003 / 10:15 a.m.
See context

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I want to thank the Chair for taking the time to do the job properly. I know it was a very difficult time for the table and for the Chair with all of the confusion, and noise in the House at the time. It is very understandable. I believe, and I think other members will acknowledge, that the wisdom of the Chair is quite appropriate in this matter and we look forward to resuming our business on Bill C-13.

Points of OrderRoutine Proceedings

January 30th, 2003 / 10:10 a.m.
See context

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)

Before we begin orders of the day I have a statement arising out of the business of yesterday.

When the House last considered the report stage of Bill C-13, an act respecting assisted human reproduction, the Chair was in the midst of putting the question on the motions in Group No. 4. In response to points of order raised at that time, the Chair undertook to review the blues and to report back to the House when the bill was next considered. I am now in a position to do so.

I want to first deal with the point of order raised by the hon. member for Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour arguing that members must be in their seats if they are to be counted when rising to demand a recorded division on a question. I refer hon. members first to the text of Standing Order 45(1) which reads as follows:

Upon a division, the yeas and nays shall not be entered in the Journals unless demanded by five members.

Elaborating on this rule, Marleau and Montpetit states at page 483, footnote 241:

When a question arose as to whether or not members rising to request a recorded division were required to do so from their assigned places in the House, the Deputy Speaker stated that the rule does not impose such a requirement. Debates, June 23, 1992, p.12686)

Thus, there is no irregularity in members not having been in their place when they rose to demand a recorded division on any motion.

Now, to the results of the review of the blues. As the tape and the transcript clearly indicate, the question was duly put on the amendment to Motion No. 52, Motion No. 53 and Motion No. 55.

Then, an error occurred: the question was not put on Motion No. 61. Instead, the Chair went on to put the question on Motions Nos. 64 and 71. Members will recall that there seemed to be widespread confusion as to what motion was being voted upon. This confusion may have been caused by the error made when the Chair inadvertently skipped Motion No. 61.

Accordingly, in fairness to all hon. members and in an abundance of caution when we resume consideration of Bill C-13, we will recommence the voting at Motion No. 61 and then follow sequentially through the other motions in Group No. 4, namely Motions Nos. 64, 71, 72, 74, 75 and 77.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 29th, 2003 / 5:15 p.m.
See context

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, with regard to Bill C-13 report stage motions in Group No. 4, I have four motions that I have sponsored and I would like to briefly comment on one. Members have done an excellent job with regard to my motion, Motion No. 55, which requires standardized forms for fertility clinics.

There are 24 fertility clinics in Canada. Some are publicly funded and associated with hospitals like the fertility centre at the Ottawa hospital. However a number of other private fertility clinics, which members should be aware, refused to appear before the Standing Committee on Health to explain how they operated their businesses, to show us their forms and tell us how things were going. As a consequence, there are fertility clinics out there which are not sharing how they do their business with Parliament or with the people of Canada.

I believe it is very important for us to require standardized reports for all fertility clinics so that when our reproduction agency makes decisions on applications for research and all other matters related to the use of materials from fertility clinics, its judgments will be based on informed consent information which is standard across the entire industry. I hope I can have the support of all hon. members on Motion No. 55.

Motion No. 61 is with regard to requiring that this agency be subject to the Official Languages Act. I want to thank the member for Ottawa--Vanier, who is the chairman of the official languages committee of Parliament and who spoke very eloquently on it. I also give full credit to the member for Saint-Lambert who seconded the motion, but in fact it was her motion. As a member of the committee she was unable to make the motion. I made the motion on her behalf and I am pleased to advise the House that the government has agreed to support it.

Motion No. 75 deals with the chairman of the agency and how many times that three year appointment can be renewed. Presently how many times someone can be reappointed to that position is a little uncertain. I checked with the chair of the public accounts committee to inquire as to the standard terms with regard to the Access to Information Commissioner and similar agencies or quasi-jurisdictional bodies. As of today, we have agreed that a period in total of six years would be most appropriate and most in line with other agencies. I have proposed Motion No. 75 to say that the term shall be three years plus the option of one additional reappointment. That would put it up to a maximum of six years.

Motion No. 77 calls for a dispute resolution mechanism to be established for the agency. I cannot tell the House how sensitive some of these matters will be when talking about donors of sperm and eggs, donors of embryos, in vitro fertilization processes, fertility clinics, researchers and commercial ventures. There are many parties associated with the utilization of human embryos and the extraction of stem cells and their utilization down the line. There will be problems. People will have disagreements. There will be interpretations of this act. I believe it is very important that we have a dispute resolution mechanism built into the act which is a prerequisite for licensing. That will insulate the agency from extensive court actions that would be very disruptive to the orderly process of their operations.

I would like to comment on Motion No. 71. The Minister of Health has decided that she would like to delete the clause in the committee stage motion to establish gender balance on the board of directors. I do not think there is anybody who will argue that the particular act of drugging women to the maximum to get them to hyperovulate, to harvest their eggs, to fertilize them, to make them go through all kinds of invasive procedures and social and economic pressures is a women's issue.

There is no question in my mind that on this women's health and social issue that women must have at least 50% representation on the board of directors of this agency. I want to congratulate the member for Winnipeg North Centre who made that plea in committee and convinced the committee. We passed it on her behalf and I want her to know that we will support her 100% to ensure that the minister's motion to delete that clause will be defeated by the House.

Motion No. 72 from the same member, who worked very hard, says that conflict of interest in this matter is a serious issue. Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, the patentability of some of these technologies and the related technologies that would flow from this? There would be pecuniary interests to many people along the line, many of which we would not know.

The committee said that we do not want the board of directors of any agency filled with people who are totally immersed and involved and know everything about it. We want wise people. We want people with common sense. We want people who would be objective in their assessments. We want people who would make good decisions. We want people who have no direct or indirect conflict or interest or opportunity to have pecuniary interests as a result of any licence or research.

Motion No. 72, made by the Minister of Health, which would delete that excellent motion of the committee proposed by the member for Winnipeg North Centre is a very important motion. When we raised this issue an official told the committee that:

For the full-time members the code of conduct requires a very extensive disclosure of financial interests, which is normally not considered appropriate for part-time members of a board.

He went on to say:

But the part-time members are governed by the principles of the code of conduct. I believe the logic behind the way code of conduct operates now is that the consequences of a conflict for a part-time member are not as significant as for a full-time president, who in this case is the CEO of the agency.

Part time members of the board who have a full vote--their opportunity for conflict is less than someone who is a full time member. Nonsense, I say.

He added:

Requiring the very extensive disclosure of financial interests may act to discourage people from taking on part-time positions that have very limited remuneration.

We have an agency of 13 people. I will find 13 people who are prepared to serve on a very important agency and who are prepared to take the time to declare their conflict of interest and ensure they do a good job.

Motion No. 72, on behalf of the minister, to delete the conflict of interest provisions must be defeated. I ask the House for its support to defeat Motion No. 72.

Motion No. 52, on behalf of the minister, amends the bill related to the provision of counselling services. We had enormous testimony to say that people who go through the in vitro fertilization process have tremendous pressures and consequences. They told us they did not know what was going on. They did not get the information. We had witnesses who told us that nobody told them about what was really going to happen.

The committee came up with an amendment to the bill which said that the agency shall ensure that people who go through the IVF process will get these counselling services. The minister wants to erase that and say that we would just make the services available. We put in “must ensure” for a reason and that is because it is absolutely necessary.

I therefore move:

That report stage Motion No. 52 be amended to add after the word “person” the words “and ensure that the person receives them”.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 29th, 2003 / 5 p.m.
See context

Canadian Alliance

Rick Casson Canadian Alliance Lethbridge, AB

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-13 again with regard to this group of amendments. My hon. colleague from Souris—Moose Mountain mentioned some of the issues which seem so apparent that we should not have to be discussing them. Somebody in an agency that will govern this reproductive technology part of our society should not have a vested interest in, let us say, a fertility clinic. That just makes sense. Sometimes we are accused of not making too much sense when we form laws, but this one does.

Before I start I would like to recognize the fact that at present the member for Yellowhead sits on the health committee and is handling the bill for the official opposition, but previously, Preston Manning, the former leader of our party, took on this file for the party. The work he did in bringing all this together, the knowledge he brought to the table, and the people he brought in to present their views on this issue resulted in probably one of the best committees and one of the best reports that was ever put together in the House, certainly in my time. I just want to recognize the fact that Preston Manning had a lot to do with this investigation and this report.

The issue of surrogacy is one that is a really important part of all of this. We feel that Motion No. 52 brought forward by the health minister wants to undo an amendment that was made at committee, and here we go again. I bring this up time and time again. There is good work done at committee. People are brought in as witnesses and an all party committee decides what would be best based on the information that has been heard, but then the minister comes along and tries to reverse the committee's work. To me that is just wrong.

Here is what the health minister is trying to do on the issue of counselling for people who want to be surrogates. The health minister has been saying that counselling should just be made available where needed, that it should not be mandatory, that people who go into this should have counselling just when needed. However, on this whole aspect of the reproductive technology debate, we feel that it should be mandatory, that people should know full well all the ramifications and all the problems that exist. Examples from other countries can be brought forward in regard to how complex this is, how it affects the mother and father, how it affects the people who are adopting and the relationships that occur, and how it can open up a real minefield of legal problems.

It is important that a lot of counselling goes into this. It should be mandatory. People going into this surrogacy situation should be very aware of all the problems. We will be opposing Motion No. 52 on those grounds: that the committee had it right and the minister is trying to go back on that.

We will be supporting Motion No. 55. This is the one that my colleague was referring to previously. It deals with what are to me pretty common sense issues on the standardization of forms and information disclosures to be used in the case of a donation. It just makes absolute sense to have that in the bill. That is why the amendment is there. We will be supporting it. The forms should be used in all fertility clinics and in any other transactions involving human reproductive material.

There have been problems in the past with poor record keeping at some of the sperm banks. Sometimes there is no way to track who the donors were and what the ramifications were when something went wrong. It is very important to have uniform rules and to apply them to all aspects of the industry. Whether it is a fertility clinic, a hospital or the agency, everybody should be playing under the same rules.

Motion No. 72 is another one that we have some problems with. This is a motion whereby the minister is trying to undo what the committee has done. One of the things the committee wanted to be absolutely sure of was that anyone who is to sit on the agency that will control this reproductive technology system has no conflict of interest in any of the decisions to be made. One would think that would be a natural, but again it is not. It needs to be spelled out, but it is not. Let us just say that someone who runs a fertility clinic somehow gets on the board and decides on limits, such as how many embryo experiments could take place and so on. That needs to be clarified. It is not going to be in this legislation because the minister has tried to undo what the committee has done.

On the whole issue of the agency, the agency absolutely has to be separate from the influence of this industry. Limits need to be placed on how many embryos can be created. The problem I see in this is that if there is not some pretty strict control then we could be creating an industry trading in embryos. That is something we need to avoid at all costs. That is trading in human life.

There is also the whole aspect of the difference between an embryonic stem cell and an adult stem cell. Most of the advancement and good work and some of the hope that has been given to people with Parkinson's, MS and some of these terrible diseases have come from the work and research done on adult stem cells. The embryonic stem cell research is lacking. There are problems; people would have to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their lives. There has been so much advancement on the adult side that we feel there should be at least a three year moratorium on embryonic stem cell research until what has gone on and what is going on in the adult research side is explored in more depth.

Just in the last year there have been some startling and wonderful things happening in adult stem cell research. If we continue down that road and expend that effort to explore the adult side of it before we get into the embryonic side, we feel that there will be enough advancement and good things coming out that this whole embryonic issue, this aspect of creating life to destroy life, will not have to be brought into play.

These are just some of the concerns that we have with the bill and the amendments in Group No. 4. We will be speaking later on Group No. 5 as we move through the list of amendments.

However, once again, to me the whole aspect that a committee can sit and study and bring forward reports and amendments and then the minister can try to undo the committee's work is something that needs to be addressed, not at this point in time, but certainly it needs to be addressed in regard to the whole functioning of the House.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 29th, 2003 / 4:40 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Val Meredith Canadian Alliance South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, BC

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the report stage amendments in Group No. 4 to Bill C-13, the reproductive technology bill.

As has been mentioned before, our concern is that this new agency be held accountable, and that it have transparent procedures and processes that would allow Canadians to follow-through on how this legislation would affect them, and how the government would respond to the new changes in the legislation.

We are concerned with the changes that the minister has made that go contrary to the recommendations that came from the health committee when it studied this reproductive technology bill in great detail. The health committee was quite clear that this was going in a new direction, and that there were some practices and procedures that would cause some concern to Canadians. The committee was concerned that there be protection and some control over how this technology would be used.

The committee was quite upfront with how it saw the agency that would oversee this legislation. It was concerned how the agency would run its business, be held accountable and responsible, and report to Parliament. The minister, for whatever reasons, wants to hold control within her own department and within her own person over the response to Parliament and the accountability factor.

We have problems with that. We feel that in order for something to be accountable and transparent there is a need to separate it from politics as much as possible. There is a willingness on the part of this party to see that this agency be somewhat removed from the minister so it can do its job, look at the technology, look at how the bill would be utilized, how the regulations would be upheld, and respond in kind to that.

There was a concern felt by committee members that because of the issue there needed to be a presence of the female gender on the board. The committee felt it was important that women have the ability to be part of monitoring reproductive technology regulations in legislation. For some reason, and I find it quite surprising, the minister felt that was not necessary. She felt that an all male board would suffice. Even more startling, she felt that an agency consisting of one person might suffice. That causes us some concern.

There must be greater detail as to how this agency would be put together, who would become members and who it would represent. I for one think it is important that an agency of this nature dealing with the subject of reproductive technology be representative of some of the different groups of people with the knowledge and ability to monitor what happens from this day forward. The agency should have some medical persons on it. It would be sensible to have some scientific representation. It should have some lay representation, representing ordinary citizens and how they would feel on these issues. That is something we would like to see changed to better reflect what the health committee recommended in the first place.

We would like the minister to reconsider how she would form this agency and who she would appoint. We would like the minister to ensure that a female would be sitting on the board. Now would be the time to address these concerns and to amend the legislation to ensure that these concerns are considered.

Another concern that our party is expressing is that when people want to build a family and have children, and they use the new reproductive technologies that they are fully made aware of what options they have available to them. Different reproductive technologies are becoming more and more accessible. More individuals are aware that they can use these technologies to start a family. I am not sure that there is full disclosure as to what their options are, what processes are involved, and what some of the legal ramifications might be.

The Canadian Alliance feels that there should be some set-up where these individuals have not only available to them, but are encouraged to understand the legal issues. Mandatory is a harsh word. They should go into reproductive technology process with the full knowledge of what it means.

I do not think it is too much to ask that the minister ensure that all information is made available so that individuals would not end up in an unforeseen situation or one that they did not know about.

I will broaden the discussion by saying that we have seen where this has happened with pharmaceutical drugs, where individuals were referred to the use of a pharmaceutical drug without knowing in depth what the side effects might be and what harm could be caused. Now we are seeing a ramification in the legal perspective of how not having full disclosure of the risks taken come back through the courts. This is a very expensive process when something happens and a person was not made aware of what could happen.

We must take the same direction with reproductive technology that we should have taken with pharmaceutical drugs and the mandatory provision of the medical people to advise patients of what the risks are. We could avoid many legal parameters if issues were dealt with up front. If making it mandatory is the only way it can be done, then perhaps that is how the procedure has to be done.

Thus we could ensure that the individuals who are taking advantage of reproductive technologies know what they are getting into. I do not think that would be too much to ask. It is something that as we get into this whole new field that will change day by day, that we can provide that kind of background and knowledge to individuals seeking this method.

We are looking for change through Group No. 4 amendments. The two issues would be the agency and how it is put together, who is sitting on the agency and how it would report to Parliament, not the minister. The other issue is the mandatory counselling of every individual who is taking advantage of reproductive technology, or some kind of sharing of knowledge so that they fully understand and accept the dimensions of the procedures they would be undertaking.

I wish to encourage the government to have an open mind and not to shy away from making amendments to legislation to broaden it and make it more definitive, to change it so that it is a better piece of legislation, so we can avoid some pitfalls that we may find in the future simply by taking our time and doing it properly the first time.

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January 29th, 2003 / 4:05 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Deepak Obhrai Canadian Alliance Calgary East, AB

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise in the House of Commons in the new year on behalf of the constituents of Calgary East. I am very happy to speak to Bill C-13, an act respecting assisted human reproductive technologies and related research.

As we all know, at the beginning of the year the Clonaid company said that it had cloned a human being, the first cloned baby. This sent shock waves around the world. All religious leaders and people who want dignity given to human life were shocked and stunned by the news. I was stunned also. I hope we do not go along with that research.

The bill is an attempt to not go toward the route of cloning, but the route of research, the route of human reproduction technology. There are a lot of consequences for this research.

We tried to draft this in a bill in committee. A committee researched the issue and presented its report. The report indicated that we needed to address the issue and bring in rules and regulations and try to stop the free-for-all research which has the potential of going in the direction that society in general does not want to go and respect the basic principle of human life.

The government presented Bill C-13 to try and address the issue. While the intent is there to have some control and some rules and regulations, some sort of ethical behaviour and ethical dimensions to this point, nevertheless like anything else the government does, it is job that has only been half done. The bill tries to do everything and in the process, it ends up doing nothing. That is the essence of why the Canadian Alliance opposes Bill C-13.

My colleague has presented many amendments. We hope that these amendments will be accepted and will make the bill stronger. Then we can address all the issues and ensure that there are no loopholes or cracks in the system. This is a subject that is creating a tremendous amount of debate among Canadians.

In Motion No. 72 the government has created an agency that will be given the mandate to create some ethical guidelines as well as rules for doing research on stem cells, whether they are embryonic or adult stem cells.

The problem as usual is there seems to be a lack of commitment by the government. It is somehow afraid to take a tough stand. There are no conflict of interest guidelines. The minister has the power to appoint anyone to the board.

If the minister appoints a person who falls under the conflict of interest rules, what stops that person from having a conflict, such as working for a biotech company? Of course, the minister will say that it is not possible and they are going to do due diligence. But again what is the problem? Why can it not be put in the bill to make it transparent that a person who has a conflict of interest will not be appointed to the board? That is clear, plain and simple. Yet that is missing, and it gives the authority to the minister.

Canadians know very well the record of the government on transparency. They know about the boondoggle in the gun registry.

This afternoon the government introduced the bill on political party financing. In the dying days of his regime, the Prime Minister is now bringing in this legislation. He wants to leave a legacy but he has opened up to the fact that his Kyoto legacy is going off on a tangent and his African legacy is having severe problems. He wants to create that as a legacy, despite opposition from his own members. He is talking about bringing in transparency, but the government's record on transparency has left Canadians shaking their heads. With this bill, it is again showing up here.

It is amazing how the government is so afraid to step into the area where people are held more accountable. I do not know what the government is afraid of. The Prime Minister will not give accountability even to his backbenchers. Look at the vote we had on choosing the committee chairmen. The Prime Minister is the one who had problems with that.

The government's record on transparency and allowing openness is on the record and Canadians will not buy into it. The same thing is happening on the subject of stem cell research, which is a subject of the future. The potential for research and for finding cures for many of what ails the human race through stem cells is tremendous. There is a desire to see that this research carries on, but in a manner that is acceptable to the Canadian people. We do not want to go down the road of what we heard when that company came out of nowhere and said it had cloned a human being.

It is critically important as we debate this bill that we in the official opposition point out what we think are the flaws of this bill. Therefore, it is difficult for us support the bill.

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January 29th, 2003 / 4 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Gurmant Grewal Canadian Alliance Surrey Central, BC

Mr. Speaker, I rise again on behalf of the constituents of Surrey Central to complete my remarks on Bill C-13 on assisted human reproductive technologies and related research.

We oppose the bill unless it is amended. Before I continue my remarks I will summarize what I said yesterday.

The Canadian Alliance 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”. All human beings possess the fundamental human rights of life and freedom. I also said that it is in the best interest of every child to know who his or her parents are. No sperm or egg donors should be anonymous.

AHRs, assisted human reproduction clinics, would have to be licensed and tightly regulated. All regulations must be laid before Parliament and automatically referred to the health committee.

I also stated that I strongly support and encourage health sciences research and development, and research on adult stem cells. Thus, we are calling for more funding of adult stem cell research. I support provisions against human and therapeutic cloning, animal-human hybrids, sex selection, gene line alteration, buying or selling of embryos, and paid surrogacy.

Commercial surrogacy would be banned but the expenses of surrogate mothers could be repaid. Thus, surrogate mothers could result in effective commercial surrogacy. That is why we oppose Motion No. 52.

The health minister wants to undo the amendments made at committee which would make counselling for surrogacy mandatory and which were supported by the Canadian Alliance. It waters down the intent of members of the health committee that such counselling be required, ideally by a third party and not by a fertility clinic.

Becoming a surrogate is a very serious matter to the extent that the health committee saw fit to amend the bill to prohibit surrogacy for women under age 21. Surrogacy can have profound effects on relationships between husband and wife, within families, between surrogate and adopting parents, and most important, on the surrogate children themselves. Therefore counselling should be mandatory. I wonder why the health minister is not explaining or defending her amendment.

We also oppose Motion No. 72. The minister again wants to undo the committee amendment requiring board members of AHR agencies to come under conflict of interest rules. Board members should not have commercial interests in the field of AHR or related research, for example, fertility clinics, biotech companies, et cetera.

Imagine an employee or investor in a biotech company with a financial interest in embryonic stem cell research making decisions for Canadians on the regulation of such research, including the definition of the word “necessary” as specified in clause 40. Or imagine a director of a fertility clinic making regulations on the limits of sperm and egg donations or the number of embryos produced for IVF treatments. Such conflicts of interest need to be prevented in the legislation. The minister needs to explain and defend these amendments.

In a nutshell, we oppose the bill. On the particular motions I mentioned, I indicated whether we support or oppose them. I would like to make clear that I support stem cell research but we would like to put a moratorium on embryonic research for a period of three years.

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January 28th, 2003 / 5:35 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Gurmant Grewal Canadian Alliance Surrey Central, BC

Madam Speaker, I rise on behalf of the constituents of Surrey Central to participate in debate on the amendments in Group No. 3 at report stage of Bill C-13, an act respecting assisted human reproduction technologies and related research. We oppose the bill unless it is amended.

Before I begin my remarks, I would like to commend the work done by our caucus members on the bill, especially our former leader, Mr. Preston Manning, who worked very hard and diligently on this issue. He worked with a passion on this issue and we recognize that.

The Canadian Alliance 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”. Human embryos are early human lives that deserve respect and protection. All human beings possess the fundamental human rights of life and freedom. I will repeat the call, as per our minority report, for a three year prohibition on embryonic research to impose a three year moratorium on experiments on human embryos until the potential of adult stem cells can be fully developed. There is nothing wrong with doing that.

I strongly support and encourage health sciences research and development. I studied science when I was a student and I value the benefits of research done scientifically. However, I want to make it clear that I support stem cell research. We are calling for more funding of adult stem cell research. I will ask that the conditions of research be narrowed by requiring permission of both parents to destroy an embryo, by ensuring that creation of embryos for reproductive purposes is limited, and by identifying and reporting annually on numbers of embryos created and destroyed, et cetera.

Why do I want to limit it? Because for the benefits we would receive from embryonic research, similar benefits could be received from stem cell research. So why not give science or the scientific community a chance to develop stem cell research? That is why we need to provide a lot of funding for stem cell research: so that the same benefits can be obtained without causing any loss to human life.

I support provisions against human or therapeutic cloning, animal-human hybrids, sex selection, germ-line alterations, buying or selling embryos, and paid surrogacy.

Issues on which there is broad agreement are prohibitions like that on human cloning, issues of process such as the government sitting on the issue and failing to act for nine years, and the structure and accountability of the agency that is being created. Those are the issues where there is agreement.

Assisted human reproduction should be more tightly regulated, making it safer and more effective for prospective parents. I support an agency to regulate the sector. Assisted human reproduction clinics will have to be licensed and regulated by an agency created by the bill.

There are no provisions for regular reports to Parliament. This would be in Motion No. 78, which we oppose. An amendment would require the health minister to table an annual report to Parliament. We support an annual report. There must be transparency and accountability around the regulation of assisted human reproduction and its related research, but we would prefer that the agency itself produce such a report. We want an independent agency, not one directed by the health minister to produce such a report. If this amendment is amended with a subamendment replacing “the health minister” with “the agency”, I do not have any difficulty in supporting it.

The report to Parliament is important. All regulations must be laid before Parliament and automatically referred to the health committee, with the minister obligated to consider standing committee's recommendations.

I have been chairing the House and Senate Standing Joint Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulations. My observation has been that the government tables legislation which is usually very vague and shows only the intent of the government to do something. There is no substance. The substance to that legislation comes through the back door by way of regulations. About 80% of the law that we see in our country is brought in through the back door, so it would be appropriate to say that the government does not govern but rules through the back door.

In this case, the regulations are very important and must be submitted along with the legislation. They must be viewed and debated in this Parliament and then sent to committee for consideration.

Children conceived by AHR will have no right to know the identity of their parents without their written consent to reveal it. It is in the best interests of every child to know who his or her parents are. Sperm or egg donors should not be anonymous. A donor is not analogous to a parent giving up a child for adoption, because a sperm or ovum donation is intentional, with opportunity for a clear choice before the fact, whereas a choice on adoption is made after the fact, for example when an unintentional pregnancy is already in progress.

Commercial surrogacy is banned--

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January 28th, 2003 / 5:30 p.m.
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Liberal

Raymonde Folco Liberal Laval West, QC

Madam Speaker, I would like to speak to Bill C-13 and the Group No. 4 report stage amendments and specifically submit my comments on Motion No. 61 which reads:

That Bill C-13, in Clause 21, be amended by adding after line 3 on page 15 the following:

“(3) The Official Languages Act applies to the Agency.”

All Government of Canada agencies must and should comply with the Official Languages Act. In this debate, I would like to voice my opinion on a number of sections that appear in Bill C-13 and show why and where the Official Languages Act should be observed.

One of the objectives of the Assisted Human Reproduction Agency of Canada is to protect and promote the health and safety, and the human dignity and human rights, of Canadians. Therefore it is an agency that represents the Canadian public and speaks to the public. Any agency which represents the public and speaks to the public on behalf of the government must speak in both official languages and must be able to be understood in both official languages by the public it is consulting.

With respect to its powers, section 24 provides that the agency may:

(d) consult persons and organizations within Canada and internationally.

Across Canada there are communities which speak English and others which speak French. It makes perfect sense to me to require people who will be consulting French and English speaking communities to be able to do so in the language of those communities.

The agency may:

(e) collect, analyse and manage health reporting information relating to controlled activities;

Again, to collect, analyse and manage information, one must be able to do so with the consent of the public and with information provided by the public.

Paragraph 24( f ) provides that the agency will:

(f) provide information to the public and to the professions—

Again, I am repeating myself a fair bit, but to provide information to the public requires that the public be informed in the official language of its choice, either French or English, one of the two official languages of this country. Further on, we read:

(g) designate inspectors and analysts for the enforcement of this Act;

Again, inspectors and analysts must also represent both publics, who speak both official languages of this country.

Subsection 26(1) provides that:

There shall be a board of directors of the Agency consisting of not more than 13 members—

It seems to me imperative that the board of directors consist of people who speak French or English. Again, these people must be able not only to communicate with people who speak these languages, but also to understand the reality and culture behind the French and English languages across Canada.

In subsection 26(2.1)—and I would like to make a major point off topic, if I may—it is stated that:

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

I have just heard the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health say that he, and the minister, want this withdrawn. I am opposed to that. This is far off topic for me, since my topic is official languages. In the preamble, there is reference to the principles of this bill. It is stated in 2( c ) that:

while all persons are affected by these technologies, women more than men are directly and significantly affected by their application and the health and well-being of women must be protected—

It strikes me as totally obvious that at least half of this board must be female, since women—I will point this out despite how obvious it strikes me—will have experienced or could experience the consequences of this bill.

In my opinion, not only must at least half of the board of directors be women, they must also represent the culture and language of the two peoples of Canada.

If these people speak both languages, they will be able to hold consultations and meetings in accordance with clause 27, which are to be held throughout Canada. They will be able to readily meet with people, whether in Quebec, British Columbia or Manitoba, and whether they speak English or French. They will be able to hold meetings and consultations with these people in both official languages.

Clause 28 of the bill asks that the provincial deputy ministers of health be entitled to attend meetings of the board of directors. Once again, in the province that I represent here, the administration speaks French. I fully expect that the deputy minister of health from my province will be able to participate in the meetings of the board in the language of his or her choice.

I could continue on other clauses found in the bill, on advisory panels for example, on the vice chair of the board and on the membership of the advisory panel. I think my point is clear: the agency must reflect Canada. The Assisted Human Reproduction Agency of Canada must reflect the bilingual reality of our country, a reality for which we have fought hard. It has become a reality today. This agency must respect the founding people of this country, who spoke English and French, and it must also respect the Canadian tradition that was translated into the Constitution and this country's Charter or Rights and Freedoms.

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January 28th, 2003 / 5:20 p.m.
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NDP

Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North Centre, MB

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this group of amendments pertaining to Bill C-13.

At the outset, let me say that I have never seen such a disregard for democracy in this place and such an arbitrary, reactionary initiative on the part of the government. We are dealing with a set of amendments that include an attempt by the federal government and the Minister of Health to negate the work of the committee.

Our committee, the Standing Committee on Health, worked very hard to try to achieve consensus, to try to build the best possible legislation and to ensure that the issues pertaining to women, children and families were all raised front and centre and given the full protection of the law. On two very fundamental issues the government has decided to negate the work of the committee. I want to reference those two issues.

The first pertains to the matter of gender parity for the new agency to be created under the legislation. It has been our assumption in the New Democratic Party, and we had thought the belief of the Liberal Party, that gender parity on all boards, commissions and agencies of government was a reasonable goal and an important initiative to reflect the role of women in our society today and to ensure that women were able to participate equally in all decisions pertaining to public policy matters in general. We had assumed that the government took that principle seriously and was prepared to ensure gender parity wherever an opportunity presented itself.

We are not dealing with just any ordinary board, commission or agency. We are dealing with an agency that will make important decisions pertaining to a very important issue facing the women of this country. Even on that score when it comes to matters pertaining directly to women's health and well-being, the government has had the gall to deny that fundamental principle and to nullify the work of the committee in terms of requesting that there be gender parity on this new agency pertaining to reproductive technologies. It is an affront, a travesty of justice and democracy in this place.

The parliamentary secretary had the gall to stand in his place today and defend the minister's amendment to nullify our proposition to ensure gender parity, forgetting and denying the fact that he participated at the committee and supported the recommendation for gender parity. What kind of democracy is at play in this place? What kind of hypocrisy is here among us?

We are talking about women's health issues. Lest anyone forget, we are talking about reproductive technologies that happen to provide ways for women to circumvent the biological causes of their infertility. We are talking about what is clearly a women's issue. It affects all of us. It affects children and families, but first and foremost we must address this matter from the point of view of women's health and well-being.

For the government to deny the possibility of ensuring that the body which will regulate in this area and make important decisions in terms of the lives of women in years to come has 50% representation of women is a disgrace. It is an archaic move on the part of the government. It is going backward in time, not forward. It is not applying the notion of full equality in our society today. It is denying this fundamental notion of gender parity in terms of decision making bodies of this nation. When it comes to an issue pertaining directly to women's health and well-being, the government has decided it is not a principle that should be upheld.

We must join together in the House to oppose that amendment by the health minister. We must hold the parliamentary secretary to task for his commitment at the committee for this fundamental principle and now his about-face move in the House today.

The motion was presented to the health committee on behalf of the New Democratic Party as a fundamental issue of concern for us and one that was respected by all members of all other parties. The Alliance may not have given it wholehearted support but I think it would not get in the way of a basic initiative on our part to ensure equal representation by women in this agency. That is an affront. That is wrong. The good faith that was built up around the bill and the support that was tendered in terms of developing a consensus has been squashed and shattered.

The support of the New Democratic Party for the bill and the kind of unilateral, arbitrary move on the part of the Liberal government and the dictatorial, insensitive, callous initiative on the part of the Minister of Health are concerns that I have today.

The other concern has to do with another fundamental issue for which we found agreement at the committee. It has to do with ensuring that the new agency dealing with reproductive technologies is not open to any possible conflict of interest.

We presented a motion that is actually a standard provision in many pieces of legislation requiring that anyone sitting as a member on the board of this new agency has no pecuniary or proprietary interest in terms of the whole area of reproductive technologies. That is a reasonable request one would think given the kinds of issues we are dealing with, given the kinds of decisions that will be made in the future that will have an impact on women, children and families everywhere.

One would think above all else we would want to ensure that there is no hint of a conflict of interest, that there is no chance for vested interests to make decisions pertaining to the lives of women and children in our country. What has the government done? It has unilaterally and arbitrarily nullified that good work and those important recommendations. After all of the work done by the health committee with the draft bill, after the clause by clause analysis of Bill C-13 and after reaching a consensus, we made important inroads and the government has denied, rescinded it and nullified that good work. It is hard to imagine any greater disregard for members' rights and privileges in the House.

As long as the government intends to disregard the majority decisions taken by members of the Standing Committee on Health and refuses to recognize the democratic process, we will not support the government on this bill. These are fundamental issues. We are talking about women's health and well-being which demand there be gender parity on the new agency dealing with reproductive technologies. We would expect that the government would be more interested than anyone else with regard to ensuring that the appearance of any kind of conflict in terms of the decision making process is not present.

In conclusion, I am very concerned about the process, the disregard of the government for democracy in this place and its disregard for the hard work of the Standing Committee on Health. I want to say in substantive terms the government has done a great disservice to ensuring the best possible legislation with the greatest possible protections for women, children and families. It has done a great disservice by not respecting fundamental issues in terms of women's health and well-being and ensuring that vested interests will not be able to fundamentally alter the course of decision making in this field.

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January 28th, 2003 / 4:20 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Art Hanger Canadian Alliance Calgary Northeast, AB

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to address Bill C-13 and the amendments in Group No. 4.

There is no question that the unfolding events in reproductive technologies and some of the problems they pose are moving ahead at an alarming rate. We have seen in some of the recent newscasts that groups, cults or sects have claimed to be able to reproduce or to clone people. Such claims will probably increase as time goes on. As the technology spreads and becomes more understandable to different groups of individuals outside the medical world, there will be all kinds of violations.

I commend the committee that crafted Bill C-13 for recognizing there is a grave danger. The opening words of the bill's summary are as follows:

This enactment prohibits assisted reproduction procedures that are considered to be ethically unacceptable.

Those are the words in the bill. There are people outside the House, and maybe some might even sit in here, who might not realize what could happen, that there are people outside this environment who would do things that are ethically unacceptable. There are people who would use reproductive technologies that would not be acceptable in any way, shape or form and they would use people who were reproduced in such a fashion with this technology in an unacceptable way. There are people who would do that. I would suggest that is even happening today.

I commend the crafters of the bill for recognizing this very significant danger. The summary goes on to say:

Other types of assisted reproduction procedures are prohibited unless carried out in accordance with a licence and the regulations,

There is some control. I commend the crafters of the bill for limiting the powers of those who would fall under some sort of licence to carry out some reproductive procedures.

The creation and use of embryos for research purposes is also addressed in the bill and a privacy regime governs the collection, use and disclosure of health reporting information. Given that, we can step on to the next paragraph in the summary of the bill. It talks about the agency that will control all reproductive technology in the country.

Herein lies the importance of the agency. The agency would be granted significant powers. There is no question about it. As stated in the bill, the people who will sit on the board of directors of the agency will be selected through orders in council. That could be a concern in itself. Any time there is a selection of people for an agency that is completed by or falls within the framework of orders in council, it should be subject to some form of scrutiny.

Another agency which may not be very similar but which certainly has the same imprint as to its formulation and as far as the people who sit on the board is the Immigration and Refugee Board. Those appointments are done through orders in council.

Unfortunately, I do not see anywhere in the bill where there is a higher level of scrutiny as to who sits on the board, other than that they are appointed through orders in council. If there is, I would like someone to point it out to me. The scrutiny is through order in council. Even the individuals on the Immigration and Refugee Board are subject to a scrutiny by the immigration committee. There should be a higher level of scrutiny for everyone who sits on that board.

There will be people who will use reproductive technologies in an unacceptable and unethical fashion. There will be people who will use individuals that are reproduced in an unethical manner. We can be assured of that. I think the bill was drafted to counter any abuse that may happen and believe me, there will be abuse. There will be a strong need for enforcement.

In that sense, for those sitting on the board I would like to see further checks and balances. That agency is ultra important. Not only is the board of directors appointed in this fashion, but so is the president of the agency.

Again, where is the oversight as to the philosophical point of view of those two particular people, specifically the president and the chairperson of that board? It is very important. It is one to which Parliament should pay particular attention.

A Liberal member stood in the House and declared that the board of directors, which would also include the chairperson of the board, should be able to involve themselves in a business or maybe even hold a licence. I do not know what her total comments were, but certainly conflict of interest was not an issue for her.

Conflict of interest is a significant factor as to who sits on the board. There will be judgments made by the board. There will be directions to the inspectors to enforce certain aspects of the legislation when it becomes law. We cannot fall to that kind of argument and accept no oversight of the board of directors when it comes to the agency. This is a concern we will watch on this side of the House.

On order in council appointments and conflict of interest, no one should be tied to any business arrangement when it comes to reproductive technology and still have a position of influence as a board member or as the chairman of the board.

There is no question that we along with so many others are breaking new ground with this legislation. There is a need for reporting and in this case it is to the Minister of Health. It would be very astute of the House if that authority were placed on Parliament itself as opposed to a person who may or may not, as it was pointed out, have to report to Parliament about the procedures and the gathering of information by the agency itself.

I see some shortfalls in the legislation as it is written. However, I do agree strongly that those who crafted the bill were very much aware that there will be abusers who will attempt to capitalize not only on the reproductive technology, but also on those individuals who may grow up or come from the reproductive techniques.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 28th, 2003 / 4:10 p.m.
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Liberal

Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON

Madam Speaker, I will comment on one amendment in particular, but before that, I would like to join my colleagues who have congratulated the Standing Committee on Health for the work it has done. It was given a particularly complex and difficult task. When one is dealing with a technical and scientific subject such as this, in the context of morals, it is difficult to prevent discussions from becoming very complex and emotionally charged. I would like to congratulate the members of the committee for their work.

I had an opportunity to speak to this bill during the last session, when it was known as Bill C-56. My comments today are essentially the same as they were then. I will keep them very broad, and then come back to amendment number 61, which is a new amendment.

I had expressed the hope, like some colleagues opposite, and from this side of the House, that the bill would establish a certain balance when it comes to legislating or developing a legislative framework in a very complex field, assisted reproduction, without necessarily closing every door. I had expressed some concern that, while wanting to do the right thing, I hoped that the bill was not too restrictive and that it did not prohibit everything.

We are in a situation where science and knowledge about genomes, particularly the human genome, may some day allow us to improve the situation. We may not be able to do so right now, but as a race, we will certainly try to do so. For example, we should not forgo the possibility of eliminating one of the 4,000 existing genetic diseases if it requires genetic treatment.

This was the type of concern I voiced at the time. I also recognized that since the legislation was to be reviewed periodically, we would be able to make adjustments based on scientific progress.

What I would like to comment on now is amendment number 61, moved by the member for Mississauga South. He is proposing that Bill C-13 be amended so as to add a provision that would add that, and I quote:

The Official Languages Act applies to the Agency.

I am a member of the Standing Committee on Official Languages. I currently chair the committee, and it is as Chair that I would like to address this issue. This is an amendment that I hope will be approved by all of the members of the House, with the exception, perhaps, of the member for Saskatoon—Humboldt. He seems to systematically attack anything that has to do with official languages. I think it is important to comment on this amendment.

First, I think it is important to indicate the legislator's intent during debates on amendments to bills. There have been times when I have had to re-read past debates to find out the legislator's intent because it was not clear in the legislation. I think it should be said loud and clear that the legislator's intent, if I have understood it correctly, is to ensure that the agency be considered a federal institution within the meaning of the Official Languages Act. This agency would be subject ipso facto to the Official Languages Act, and everything that entails.

I would like this noted so that in years to come, if there is disagreement or uncertainty, Hansard can be consulted and the intent known.

I talked to one of the members on the committee, the member for Saint-Lambert , who also moved an amendment, Motion No. 12. It was rejected by the committee members. I preferred what she proposed because it was explicit. She proposed that the agency be considered a federal institution within the meaning of the Official Languages Act.

I think this is important. Some may think it is not necessary. I would like to take a moment to examine this because I hold the opposite view. I think it is necessary.

Over the past few years we have seen restructuring in the institution, in the federal body, with the result that some of the Government of Canada's duties are delegated to other levels of government, namely the provinces and in some cases, the municipalities.

In Ontario we saw a classic example where the two Houses of the Canadian Parliament had passed legislation handing over the administration of contraventions to provincial organizations and institutions. The Province of Ontario in turn handed it over to the municipalities.

There was a case where a legal decision was rendered by Judge Blais, where the Government of Canada had not complied with the Official Languages Act because we had delegated too many of our responsibilities in terms of respecting the Act. The Department of Justice is currently putting this right. In fact, it asked for an extension until the spring to do so. We will see that this is put right.

A study was also conducted by Mr. Fontaine, president of the Université de Moncton, entitled the Fontaine Report. The eight members of the task force did an extraordinary job, so good that the government, through the president of the Treasury Board, has now created and implemented a new policy regarding the devolution of responsibilities with regard to the enforcement of the Official Languages Act.

This was to show that there is perhaps a need, in the minds of some people, to state the rights they had already acquired. But I think that, sometimes, being explicit is not a bad thing.

This was the case, during the previous session, in the bill to amend the Immigration Act. At first, there was some reluctance about amending this legislation. The Official Languages Commissioner appeared before the Standing Committee, suggested some amendments that were finally adopted and incorporated into the act. Already, significant progress can be seen with regard to complying with the principle of the linguistic duality of Canada in relation to the Immigration Act and its implementation.

This is another example of the benefit of referring to this principle in bills such as this one. When a new agency is created, it should be subject to the Official Languages Act.

I think that we should not ignore these things, and this is why I wanted to rise and take a few minutes of my hon. colleagues' and the House's time to make this explicit.

I will summarize, if I may. I sincerely hope that the government will agree to Motion No. 61. I certainly intend to vote in favour of this amendment. I urge all my hon. colleagues to do the same because this way, legislators—meaning us, here today in the House—will clearly express their commitment to ensuring that this new agency, which will be created when this bill is passed and receives royal assent, will be considered a federal institution, subject to the Official Languages Act, with all the associated obligations, when it is called upon to serve the Canadian public by fulfilling the functions and responsibilities assigned it by the Parliament of Canada.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 28th, 2003 / 4 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Chuck Strahl Canadian Alliance Fraser Valley, BC

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak today on Bill C-13 and these particular groupings of amendments.

I do think, though, that it is necessary to at least tell the House why I have a set of principles that I like to apply to a bill like this to try to help me get my head around it and get a principled approach to what is a very difficult subject, one we are all struggling with. The ethical questions raised by accelerating knowledge in this area are enormous. Just because we are now able to do something in reproductive technology does not necessarily mean we should do it. Clearly there are ethical limits to our activities, and our answers to these ethical questions help to define our society. They expose our deepest beliefs about our world, our beliefs about our own existence and our beliefs about the value of human life.

That is the scope of the types of issues here before us. I would like to talk about the criteria I mentioned earlier. The first is that we have to have a profound sense of compassion, a compassion for those not yet born and for others involved in the reproductive process. This will require a careful balancing of the interests of the various stakeholders.

The second of these criteria is clearly the particular interest of children, simply because the bill deals throughout with pre-born children. Almost every clause addresses embryos and unborn children in various progressive stages of development. There are other interests to be considered, but the interests of children are an important part of and an important criteria in this debate.

The third is an acknowledgement of the dignity of human life as opposed to other forms of life. Animal and vegetable life are wonderful, beautiful, valuable and necessary forms of life, but human life shares something different. Human life is more. It is distinct. It is different. That is why we have such a problem with human and animal cloning or combinations thereof or genetic manipulation. Human life is special.

Because I am a Christian I believe that life is a gift from God. As Václav Havel told the House during his memorable address several years ago, “Government may be an invention of man, and a necessary one, but humanity is an invention of God”. It is special. It is something different. It follows, therefore, that at all stages human life must be treated with special dignity. To be human is to be noble, something of honour, something valuable. We are not worthy of this dignity because of something we can do; we are valuable because of what we are. We are humans. All humans, at whatever stage, are important. Humanity is and of itself a priceless identity and a valuable thing.

It follows, therefore, that we have to treat the dignity of the human life in the human body, which is what we are dealing with here today. Human life, all of it, and all parts of the body have to be given special dignity and special care, which is why not just today's debate on reproductive technology but the debate on health care in general have such important issues for Canadians. They deal with humans. They deal with people. The human body is important.

The next of the criteria is the important checks and balances in our society. In our own Constitution, for example, the judiciary acts as a check and balance on the power of the legislature. In the same way, wise Canadian legislators have historically allowed the private and public sectors in Canada to balance each other, acting to ensure that the powers of both the state and the marketplace are restrained for the sake of public interest. I would like to repeat that. We want to make sure that the marketplace is respected but that it is restrained for the sake of public interest.

I would like to explain that briefly and get to these motions. We can all agree, for example, that commercial trafficking in human life is abhorrent. One only has to look at the practices of history, to the slave trade, to the selling and buying of human bodies, which is repelling to all of us. To this day we find that repugnant. By extension, I would argue that the purchase and sale of human sperm, eggs, zygotes, embryos and so on is something that we cannot leave solely to the impersonal forces of the marketplace. We have an obligation as wise legislators to put our stamp on this, to ask how far we can go. What are the limits? This is not just a free trade zone on human bodies and parts of bodies. We need some regulation. We need to control it. We need to be wise. The laws of supply and demand do not take into account ethical considerations of dignity, of compassion, of human hurt and so on. We need to protect humans from the untrammelled forces of the marketplace.

On the other hand, before I get to these amendments, let me say that the state, including our own state of Canada and the provinces, does not have a perfect track record on protecting humans. The destructive forces that were in place in the early part of the last century are not something we are proud of. There was genetic manipulation and genetic decisions were made, both on this continent and others, which we look back on and condemn and rightfully so.

The answer in all of this, as we consider these amendments, is balance. How do we take the criteria I mentioned earlier and apply them to clauses of this bill, on some of the most important issues of reproductive technology, which touch all of us and will touch us even more in the years to come?

On the first grouping, for example, in Motion No. 52 we are talking about surrogate motherhood or surrogate parenting. We believe that this again is a profound arrangement, a profound departure from what we used to consider normal reproductive behaviour. Men and women got married and had kids. That was what was possible and what was done. It was a sad case when someone could not have children, but there was not much they could do about it. Those were the old days. Now of course we know that much can be done. Much technology can be brought to bear. Childless couples will go to any lengths to have a child of their own because it means so much to them. In one sense they have a unique understanding of how valuable life is, because they are not able to have children of their own in a normal, natural way.

On Motion No. 52, we suggest that counselling for surrogacy, which is part of the bill, not be just an ad hoc, take it or leave it part of the bill, but that it be mandatory. Surrogacy is a huge step, both for the husband and for the wife who may be thinking of that sort of an arrangement, and also for the expectant mother. It brings huge, tremendous pressures to bear on relationships, on the long term stability of those relationships, on what it is going to mean to them and how they are going to handle it. This is not something where we can step up to a window, slap down $10,000 and think that the problems are solved. In many ways, the problems are just beginning.

We think that counselling for surrogacy should be mandatory. It is not something that is hit and miss. This is a big step. This is not a marketplace issue. This is not something that people can do only if they can afford it. This is something to which we as legislators have to bring a balance. The marketplace alone is not enough. We want to ensure that the best interests of the child are maintained and enhanced. One of the ways we can do that is to oppose the idea that a person can take it or leave it. We think that counselling should be mandatory. It is in the best long term interests of everyone.

Motion No. 55 talks about standardized forms and information disclosure on the use and disposal of human reproductive material. Using all the reasons I listed earlier in my criteria, if we just think for a moment, let us ask ourselves, is human life important, is it special, do we need special protection, do we want to make sure it is handled with care? Of course, and that means we want to make sure that it is not cavalier, that there are not unregistered clinics, that there are not embryos created and then tossed aside at the whim of someone in an agency somewhere. We want to make sure it is done properly. This means that we need standardized forms and procedures. We need to make sure that human life, at whatever stage, is treated with dignity. In other words, fertility clinics, which are a growing marketplace business in the country, should have standardized forms. They should have to make certain information available to users of those clinics. We want to make sure that there is proper record keeping and that proper forms are kept. This is an easy amendment to support.

Motion No. 71 is a more technical one on the makeup of the committee. Should it be fifty-fifty women and men or should it just be the most qualified? Of course we want the most qualified people to look after this. Finally, we want to make sure the people who are involved in administering these types of important life-giving and life-taking decisions do not have a conflict of interest.

We want to make sure that the marketplace alone does not drive this. One of the ways to do that is to make sure that conflict of interest guidelines are strengthened. For example, we want to make sure that people who are in charge of reproductive tissue or reproductive clinics do not also have a foot in the door on the regulations. We want to make sure that respect is given to all people.

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January 28th, 2003 / 3:40 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

James Lunney Canadian Alliance Nanaimo—Alberni, BC

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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January 28th, 2003 / 3:25 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Jason Kenney Canadian Alliance Calgary Southeast, AB

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 28th, 2003 / 3:15 p.m.
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The Speaker

The second point of order concerns motions in Group No. 2.

The hon. member for Mississauga South contends that 10 minutes is insufficient for him to speak to the 19 motions he has in that group.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 28th, 2003 / 3:15 p.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

moved:

Motion No. 5

That Bill C-13, in Clause 3, be amended by replacing lines 25 to 28 on page 2 with the following:

“introduced;

(b) an embryo that consists of cells of more than one embryo, foetus or human being; or

(c) a non-human embryo into which any cell of a human embryo, human foetus or human being has been introduced.”

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 28th, 2003 / 3:15 p.m.
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The Speaker

I am now ready to rule on the points of order raised earlier today by the hon. member for Mississauga South concerning report stage of Bill C-13, an act respecting assisted human reproduction.

The first point of order concerns Motion No. 5 standing in the name of the hon. member for Mississauga South. The hon. member has said that the text of this motion is not the text he intended to submit.

Having checked with my officials, I understand that while this might not be the text the hon. member intended, it is indeed the text that was submitted to the Journals Branch, duly signed by him. Accordingly, I do not find any irregularity in the matter and will therefore have to put the question to the House.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 28th, 2003 / 1:50 p.m.
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Liberal

John O'Reilly Liberal Haliburton—Victoria—Brock, ON

Mr. Speaker, I want to point out a couple of items in the bill that bother me and that would make me want to support the amendments to the bill.

I noticed in the agency part of the bill that the minister in Motion No. 72 has actually moved to delete 10 lines on page 17. It appears to me that she is endorsing the conflict of interest part of this agency that we are fighting against. In other words, she would be endorsing the fact that anyone who sat on a pharmaceutical board, who was involved in research and could make a profit from the bill, would be allowed to do so with that particular deletion. I would have to look for a lot of clarification on that before I could consider that to be a good amendment.

I believe that conflict of interest to this House is an issue that we all take extremely seriously and that we should look at in the light that whether it is upcoming legislation that involves corporate donations or whether it is a simple thing like a ticket to a hockey game from a corporate sponsor for a member of Parliament, a person may ask “What is the next thing?”.

According to what I read in Motion No. 72, “That Bill C-13, in Clause 26, be amended by deleting lines 10 to 17 on page 17”, it would allow conflicts of interest among the board. I do not think that is right.

I also want to comment on the standardization, the forms and the agency that would be being formed here: the terms, conditions, options and so forth in Motion No. 55 in the name of the member for Mississauga South. The motion includes:

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

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

I have an adopted daughter. We have spent an inherent amount of time being private detectives trying to find out her history. No history is available, at least none that I know of. I searched everything from the birth mother's OHIP number, the old Ontario hospital insurance number, to searching CPIC to see if the person has a driver's licence but none of those exist. I have gone down the path of trying to find the history of someone in my own family. It is for their information not for mine. I am quite happy to accept everyone as they are.

However the fact is that she wants to know her lineage, her roots and what the possible connections could be genetically that cause us to be in certain forms, such as whether one keeps a good head of hair, like the member from Calgary, whether one is bald, or whether one is allergic to peas or to something else. Some of these things cannot be found out until it actually happens, whereas if there is genetic information available one can be on the lookout for it.

In my own case, all the men in the O'Reilly family, previous to me coming along, all died in their late forties and early fifties. No one knew why until we researched it and found out that there was a genetic problem that sets in around the age of 45 to 47 where blood pressure starts to elevate. Back in the forties and fifties blood pressure was not something that anyone looked at as a problem. Being able to trace that, knowing what to look for, seeking the proper medication and doing the things that can be done, we can preserve and make our lives longer.

I am most interested in the fact that transparency not be removed from the bill, that it be very transparent and that people will be allowed to know the health and the history of their parents.

As we go through the bill and the amendments to it, we should keep in mind that this bill deals with life itself. It deals with the reproduction of human beings. It deals with what can happen with the recent scandal over Clonaid and those people who pretended they cloned someone. We need to make sure that when we examine the bill that we examine it all the way through and that we look at every clause, not taking a particular line because someone is a right wing fanatic, or someone is a religious lunatic, or someone is maybe standing up for the rights of the unborn.

We have to look at the rights of people who, like myself, have adopted children. I think those children have a right to know their background. They have a right to know what they can expect in their growing years and what they can expect to find out from their genetics.

In conclusion, I just want the House to know, and certainly the people who have phoned my office with concerns about the bill, that we are reading it and going through it line by line. I look forward to debating Group No. 2, which, by the way, I cannot read because it is messed up. I hope we get to the bottom of that and find out that it is placed properly. I seconded the motions from the member for Mississauga South. I did it not just to fill in the numbers but because I believe in what he has brought forward.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 28th, 2003 / 1:20 p.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

moved:

Motion No. 75

That Bill C-13, in Clause 34, be amended by replacing line 12 on page 19 with the following:

“eligible for reappointment for one additional term of office only.”

Motion No. 77

That Bill C-13, in Clause 39, be amended by adding after line 34 on page 20 the following:

“(4) The Agency shall establish a dispute resolution process, which may include arbitration, to resolve any disagreement which may arise between the Agency, the donors, the licensees and any other relevant parties.”

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 28th, 2003 / 1:20 p.m.
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Western Arctic Northwest Territories

Liberal

Ethel Blondin-Andrew Liberalfor the Minister of Health

moved:

Motion No. 64

That Bill C-13, in Clause 24, be amended by replacing lines 31 to 35 on page 15 with the following:

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

Motion No. 71

That Bill C-13, in Clause 26, be amended by deleting lines 30 to 33 on page 16.

Motion No. 72

That Bill C-13, in Clause 26, be amended by deleting lines 10 to 17 on page 17.

Motion No. 74

That Bill C-13, in Clause 32, be amended by replacing lines 34 and 35 on page 18 with the following:

“its powers under section 40, 41 or 42 or any of its powers or duties”

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 28th, 2003 / 1:20 p.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

moved:

Motion No. 55

That Bill C-13 be amended by adding after line 27 on page 11 the following new clause:

“16.1 (1) The Agency shall prescribe standarized forms and information disclosures related to the terms, conditions, options and other information relevant to the donation, use and ultimate disposal of human reproductive material for use by all fertility clinics or other parties that obtain human reproductive material for human reproduction or research purposes in accordance with the regulations.

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

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

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

(3) All forms and information disclosures shall be approved by Parliament.”

Motion No. 61

That Bill C-13, in Clause 21, be amended by adding after line 3 on page 15 the following:

“(3) The Official Languages Act applies to the Agency.”

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 28th, 2003 / 1:10 p.m.
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Western Arctic Northwest Territories

Liberal

Ethel Blondin-Andrew Liberalfor the Minister of Health

moved:

Motion No. 52

That Bill C-13, in Clause 14, be amended by replacing lines 8 to 10 on page 9 with the following:

“(b) to the extent required by the regulations, make counselling services available to the person;”

Motion No. 53

That Bill C-13, in Clause 14, be amended by replacing lines 14 to 17 on page 9 with the following:

“(d) in accordance with the regulations, provide the person with the information that the Agency makes available to the public under paragraph 19(i).”

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 28th, 2003 / 12:45 p.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It has come to my attention by reviewing all of the documentation that one of the motions which I had submitted for report stage purposes has been inadvertently left out and replaced by another. It has to do with the definition of chimera, I believe it is report stage Motion No. 5.

I understand, since the deadline for submitting the report stage motions was 6 p.m. yesterday, that the officials and their support staff were here until 6 a.m. to try to put this together. I understand how this can happen and I suspect that there are some other items.

I also note that with the groupings that we were advised of this morning, that in Group No. 2 I have 10 minutes to speak to 14 motions. I could not even read them in 10 minutes. I believe that if I had an opportunity to talk to the legislative counsel and to the Speaker that there could be some accommodation at least for splitting a group into subgroups so that at least a minute or two could be spent on each motion.

Our staff is not available because they have gone home to sleep. We need to sort this matter out because we have some other contradictions or issues, and I know members are concerned about what happened to their motions, We are trying to get it settled.

I wonder if the House would agree to defer the further consideration of Bill C-13 report stage motions in Group No. 1 until these questions could be asked of the appropriate staff or officials to get clarification so that members will know what they are talking about.

I cannot address 14 of my report stage motions, which I spent a lot of time during the Christmas break developing, in only 10 minutes. I think the grouping is unfair and in fact will constitute a breach of my privileges as a member of Parliament to do my job.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 28th, 2003 / 12:20 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Reed Elley Canadian Alliance Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the merits of Bill C-13 on human reproductive technology.

It is hard to believe that the government has taken so long to even begin addressing this important issue. It was 10 years ago that the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies reported. Since that time the government, at best, has paid lip service to this issue. In the meantime technology has been changing rapidly and there has been no legislation to regulate the industry. Indeed, the government has shirked its duty and once again has relied on outside agencies to set quasi regulations rather than be proactive and set legislation in place. We are very glad we are at this point in the debate in the House today.

I am proud to say that some of the strongest voices on this important issue come from my own riding of Nanaimo--Cowichan. Shirley Pratten and her daughter Olivia have appeared before several standing committee meetings. They have expressed their opinions in a clear and concise manner and have added immeasurably to the debate. On behalf of all members I want to thank them for their insight and commitment to this important issue.

Simply put, the bill is about improving human health. As a member of the Canadian Alliance, as a father and a foster parent, I strongly support research that is compatible with the promotion of dignity and the value of human life. I would like to speak to some of the amendments that are before us today.

The preamble sets the tone for the remainder of the bill. In turn, I believe that the preamble should state unequivocally that the bill refers to the promotion and the protection of human life. I find it ironic that while Bill C-13 deals with the creation of human life, the preamble does not even reflect this, so I urge the House to adopt that amendment.

I would urge also that the House adopt the proposed subclause (h) in clause 2 which would recognize that persons with disabilities can lead full and satisfying lives and enrich the lives of those around them. We must simply ensure that reproductive technologies are not to be used as a tool for eugenics. The screening of in vitro fertilization embryos for the purpose of eliminating those cells that may contain some disease or disability simply is not acceptable. It sends a terrible message to the disabled community of Canada. It is very important to recognize that disabled people are not lesser persons than the rest of us. We need to see that the House clearly states this in the legislation.

I have had the pleasure of being a foster parent to over 145 children and the adoptive parent to three. All of these children have added much to our family. I firmly believe that families are the cornerstone of our society and that adoption is an alternative means of building families, one with many benefits for all involved and one that should be recognized in the bill.

I note that in clause 3 there is only recognition for one donor. Let us remember that there are two parents for each embryo. This clause should be amended by replacing lines 40 and 41 on page 2 with the recognition of each biological parent of the embryo. Any decision making with respect to in vitro embryos should not rest with only one donor.

I also strongly support the proposed amendment to clause 5 which calls for the deletion of lines 33 and 34 on page 4. The existing clause would allow for the creation of embryos solely for the purpose of improving or providing instruction in assisted reproduction procedures. Simply put however, we oppose the creation of embryos for research purposes. Life should not be created in order for it to be destroyed.

One of the more important issues that the bill has denied concerns the identity of donors. In turn, I support the amendment to clause 18 on page 12 that calls for the recognition of the donors' identities.

We are all unique individuals, yet we are all a product of our biological parents. It is important to allow children born through donor eggs or sperm to know the identity of their biological parents. Under the existing draft of Bill C-13, this is prohibited. Donor offspring and many of their parents want to end the secrecy that has shrouded donor anonymity and currently denies children the knowledge of an important chapter of their lives.

Liberals have made the claim that they want to put the interest of children first, but in this case they have allowed the desires of some parents to trump the needs and interests of all the children conceived through reproductive technology. In reality, the government has attached a greater weight to the privacy rights of donors than to the access to information rights of donor offspring. In doing so, I believe that the government has this backward.

Listen to some of the statements that Olivia Pratten made to the health committee when she appeared before it on October 25, 2001, and told committee members what it felt like to be conceived through an anonymous donation. She said:

I have never had access to any of my medical or genealogical histories. I don't even know if I have any half-brothers or half-sisters. I'm quite doubtful my doctor ever maintained proper records, and even if he did, it's unlikely they still exist...With the fact that I don't have my medical information, and it's very unlikely I ever will, I almost feel like I was created in a back alley. It's like I wasn't good enough or wasn't worth keeping the records for...an anonymous system violates our human rights, as stated in article 8 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to “undertake to respect the right of the child to preserve his or her identity.

Canada, incidentally, ratified this convention in 1991.

She went on to state:

As for myself, born of an anonymous system, I'm completely in the dark about my donor. I have no possible way to find him or find any information about him... I'm always left pondering, trying to put the pieces together of who this man was and how this relates to who I am today. If I could somehow know who he was, it would not alter the essence of who I am. I know that already, but it would alter the way that I look at myself.

I would like to see a system where donors cannot donate unless they are willing to be identified if the child requests this when he or she comes of age at 18. The donor enters the program knowing this before donating. After all, he entered into this voluntarily; as offspring, we never asked to be put into this situation.

Those are elegant words from Olivia Pratten.

I believe that Olivia has provided a great deal of wisdom in those and the other statements she made to the standing committee and we should certainly heed them.

The very last issue that I wish to make comment on today refers to clause 70 and the proposed amendment. This amendment calls for a three year prohibition on experiments with human embryos, corresponding with the first scheduled review of the bill. Embryonic stem cell research is ethically controversial and it divides Canadians.

I have received hundreds of e-mails and petitions from concerned Canadians stating their opinion on this particular matter. Today during petitions we heard from four different members all tabling Canadians' wishes for a focus on adult stem cell rather than embryonic stem cell research. Let us remember that embryonic stem cell research inevitably results in the death of an embryo, an early human life. For many Canadians, this violates the ethical commitment to respect human dignity, integrity and life itself. It also constitutes an objectification of human life, where life becomes a tool which can be manipulated and destroyed for other, even ethical, ends.

I have come to learn that adult stem cells are easily accessible, are not subject to immune rejection and are being used today in the treatment of Parkinson's, leukemia, multiple sclerosis and many other conditions.

I believe that the government has been far too long in addressing this issue. I am pleased to see it come forward, however, I must urge all members that if we are going to address this issue, let us be certain that at this time we get it right. The current draft of Bill C-13 does not have it right in many respects and it requires change. Now is the time to correct it. I hope members in the House will have the intestinal fortitude to do it.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 28th, 2003 / 12:10 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Rick Casson Canadian Alliance Lethbridge, AB

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege and an honour to speak to Bill C-13 at report stage. This is a critically important bill. We deal with a lot of important issues here but this bill talks about life itself, the definition of how life can be created and how it is handled after it is created. A wide range of issues need to be addressed.

In addressing the amendments in group one, I will aim my comments mostly at the issues of donors and the control of them. Some of the amendments deal with that.

The bill is really about improving human life. We strongly support that and the research to that end, but it has to be done keeping in mind the dignity and value of human life. The Canadian Alliance as the official opposition will work to protect that dignity and value. What more important thing could we possibly address ourselves to?

It is about the best interests of children born from assisted reproductive technologies. I will address some of my comments to that. It also addresses access by prospective parents, that they should have access to the best technology available, but done ethically and with the value of human life front and centre.

When we get into the issue of donors, it really becomes complex. There is no limit on how many times a person can donate to reproductive technologies. A donor could make multiple donations and could have dozens or even hundreds of genetically related children. This is all right if everybody is healthy and everything goes well, but the donor may be unhealthy and it may not be detected at the time but it may show up later. There needs to be some limitation on how many times one person can be involved in donating.

The Standing Committee on Health made a recommendation both on the number of donations from the same donor and on the number of babies born through that same donor. The government must put something in the bill to require those limits.

As we look at the rights of a child to know his or her heritage, let us think about the number of people who have been adopted. I have had an experience in this. An adopted person needed to know the medical history of the biological parents because of some medical problems that had arisen. Not only is it important for peace of mind but it is important medically. Doctors sometimes ask about a family's medical history so they know what to look for. When a person does not have that information it creates a problem. In the instance with which I am familiar, the person was able to find out this information. It was of great help to the person to know what the history was. There were some things that were immediately disregarded and there were other factors that could have an impact. It was important to know that information.

What this bill means to do is to stop that. In the preamble the bill states that the health and well-being of children born through the application of these technologies must be given priority in all decisions respecting their use. Certainly that statement needs to be made. We agree with this but the government does not. The bill protects donors by giving them complete anonymity but does not protect children who need to know their heritage. That needs to be addressed and it has not been.

The agency that is going to be established to deal with the records will have all of this information. The information has to be given but it will not be forthcoming. At present it will not be given out.

I firmly believe that children have the right to know what their heritage is and in some instances it is critically necessary for medical reasons. That is why anonymous donors of sperm or ovum should not be allowed. It is critical that the records be complete so that down the road, if questions arise about health issues, they can be answered. They cannot be answered if anonymous donors are allowed.

Reproduction should take place within the context of a human relationship and should not be divorced from that. That is something we have to be very careful of. If we remove all of the human aspect to this, then where are we? If we do not know who the donors are and cannot go back on that in years to come, it takes out all of the relationship that is built around the creation of life. It can remove a whole group of people from those who know their lineage. It creates further problems in society.

The bill goes directly contrary to the recommendation of the Standing Committee on Health which said that it believes that only donors who consent to have identifying information released to offspring should be accepted. It went on to state:

We feel that, where there is a conflict between the privacy rights of a donor and the rights of a resulting child to know its heritage, the rights of the child should prevail. We need a system of responsible donation and greater public awareness. We want to end the current system of anonymous donation.

That recommendation came from the Standing Committee on Health. However as in many instances, committees meet, bring forward expert witnesses from all aspects of the issue and when recommendations are put forward, they are ignored by the government.

I feel very strongly that we need that amendment in, that a child created has the option of knowing his or her history and lineage.

We get back to the point about adopted children who want to discover what their origins are but are unable to do so. I have a lot of sympathy for those people. As I have stated, someone very close to me was able to find the biological parents and put at ease some of the health issues.

A whole section of society will be unable to do that. They will be a separate class of people, those whose history starts from the day they are born. They will not be able to go back any further than that to find out where they came from. I have English, French and Scottish heritage. Those people will be unable to do that.

We also think that a donor who is not anonymous is a responsible donor. There would be certain responsibilities that went along with becoming a donor. If people had to be willing to be identified, they would be donating for the right reasons. That is so important to the whole moral aspect of what is being proposed here.

Unfortunately, one of the driving forces for anonymous donations is money. If we factor that into this whole system then it will really become bizarre. If it becomes a commercial enterprise in that payment can be received for however many fertilized eggs are developed, that opens a whole new can of worms.

We certainly support some of the amendments in this group. We will not be supporting Motion No. 11, but we will support other ones. It is important that this debate take place and that Canadians realize there that much needs to be done to the bill before it becomes law.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 28th, 2003 / noon
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Canadian Alliance

Jason Kenney Canadian Alliance Calgary Southeast, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in debate on Bill C-13. This of course is a bill of great moral gravity which, if passed, will have tremendous implications for the legal status of human life as it is assaulted by new and emerging technologies and as we seek to harness those technologies to advance the dignity of human life in certain respects.

It is unfortunate that this legislation has been so long in coming. Of course, as we heard in debate earlier, the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies was appointed in 1989. It is now nearly 14 years after that date. Indeed, many of the horrific Frankenstein-like technologies which were at that time of an almost fictitious nature have now apparently become all too real.

Today, unfortunately, this and previous governments have avoided taking swift enough action on some of the issues addressed in the bill upon which there is a broad social, moral and ethical consensus, such as banning cloning and banning human-animal hybrids and the like.

I would also like to say at the outset that I regret that the government has chosen to ignore the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Health, which spent nearly a year in an exhaustive review of draft legislation. That committee of course recommended that the bill's provisions be split between those on which there was a general consensus, such as the prohibition of cloning and animal-human hybrids, and more contentious and difficult issues, such as the treatment of embryonic stem cell research, upon which there still is no social consensus. Had the bill been split, I believe that all members of the House speedily could have passed legislation restricting these most offensive practices, while more closely debating the need for statutory protection for nascent human life and the prohibition of creating life for the purpose of manipulating it and destroying it.

Let me further say at the outset that the bill is not founded on sound philosophical principles. It is imperative in a legislative exercise of this importance that first philosophical principles be established explicitly in the bill, preferably in the preamble, as a guide to us as legislators, to the regulators who will interpret and apply the bill and indeed to the courts who will adjudicate it.

For instance, the bill fails in its preambular section or anywhere else to assert the sanctity of human life per se. The bill clearly fails to assert the inviolable dignity of the human person. The bill fails to attribute to nascent human life, embryonic human life, the clear status of human life, let alone of personhood. Therefore, I believe, as do many who have critiqued this legislation, that it is founded on weak principles which will lead to weak application of the law if passed.

Let me turn to the amendments in Group No. 1 now before the House. I have no objection to the first and second amendments put forward by the Minister of Health, which are technical in nature. I would like to speak in favour of Motion No. 4 brought forward by my colleague from Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, which seeks to remove from the bill the language in clause 2, paragraph (e), which states:

persons who seek to undergo assisted reproduction procedures must not be discriminated against, including on the basis of their sexual orientation or marital status;--

I object to the inclusion of this provision, and not because I support unjust discrimination because indeed I do not, but I do believe that we discriminate, if that word is properly defined, to make choices. We choose to give preferential options in legislation every day in this place to advance the social good. That we might call just discrimination, discrimination in favour of a social good. The social good in whose favour I think we ought to discriminate is the social good of the human family.

I submit that the focus of this legislation ought not to be the putative rights, the rights claims, of adults who seek to benefit from certain reproductive technologies, but rather the human beings, the children, who will be created by these technologies. It is their rights and their best interests which ought principally to govern this legislation, not the whims of individuals already seeking to use this reproductive technology.

In this respect I believe it is a self-evident and essentially irrefutable fact of human history, sociology and anthropology that the human family with a mother and a father is, generally speaking, the best environment in which to raise children, children with a sound and loving environment. That of course can be provided in non-traditional families, but the evidence is overwhelming that children benefit most, on average, in a family that includes a mother and a father. I believe that the focus of the bill ought to be to give that kind of environment to the children whose lives are in part created through reproductive technology. I will vote in favour of Motion No. 4.

Motion No. 5 put forward by my hon. colleague from Mississauga South is critically important, because it seeks to clarify that chimera may include animal-human hybrids. The definition of chimera in clause 3 now states “an embryo that consists of cells of more than one embryo, foetus or human being”, but this motion would amend that to include “a non-human embryo into which any cell of a human embryo, human foetus or human being has been introduced”. We know that there are researchers who seek to explore animal-human hybrids, and this of course has very troublesome ethical, moral and physiological implications, which I think the bill clearly should prohibit and which Motion No. 5 seeks to do.

Motion No. 7 clarifies the definition of a donor and makes it clear that ownership of an embryo cannot be transferred away from its human parents. This, I think, is the intent of the bill. The motion is a positive way to clarify its intent.

Motion No. 9 seeks to extend protection to polyspermic embryos, about which the bill as currently worded is mute. Essentially, polyspermic embryos are deformed embryos. I would hope that this Parliament has learned the lessons of the history of eugenics in the 20th century and understands that imperfect or flawed human lives deserve statutory protection, which is what Motion No. 9 seeks to do.

My time is coming to a close, so I will simply say that I look forward to speaking to other groups of amendments. I hope the government will take serious consideration of the thoughtful amendments that colleagues have brought forward.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 28th, 2003 / 11:45 a.m.
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Bloc

Jocelyne Girard-Bujold Bloc Jonquière, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today on this very important bill. During the holidays, I received calls for a great many people in my riding. The media also sought my opinion on the publicity done by Clonaid over the Christmas period.

I told my constituents and the local media that I was against human cloning. There was also the issue of the use of human embryos for research purposes. Bill C-13 is addressing to a fair extent concerns I had in my heart about human cloning.

I would like to take this opportunity to salute and congratulate the hon. member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve for his excellent work on this issue in the Standing Committee on Health and for the insight he has given Bloc members into this bill. I also wish to join him in congratulating my hon. colleague from Drummond.

I want to point out that, sometimes, if opposition members were not there to question the ruling party and confront them with the aggravating circumstances found in society, governments would often get pretty set in their ways. Over these past years, my colleague, the hon. member for Drummond, has repeatedly raised the point with all Liberal health ministers that the government ought to take action to prohibit human cloning. In 1989, the Baird commission was established. Four years later, in 1993, it tabled its recommendations. The government has done nothing ever since.

On a personal note, my nephew is a cancer researcher in Montreal. Every time we get together, he tells me, “You cannot imagine how fast research in this field is advancing”. He also said, “You parliamentarians will have to be up on what is going on right now; you are already falling behind”.

I think, therefore, that this bill reassures Canadians and Quebeckers that human cloning will finally be made illegal in Canada. In my opinion, human conception does not begin with taking DNA. As a woman, I think that human conception begins when a sperm and an egg meet. I am very religious and, according to my principles, human beings are created by God. He gives us the ability to give birth to other human beings.

Many people in my riding wanted me, as the member for Jonquière, to take a stand. So it is with pleasure that I tell them what that stand is, because I am sure that many of them are listening to me today. I told them that I was going to speak this morning in the House on Bill C-13 to tell them that, finally, the government has decided to ban human cloning.

In fact, I support the objections raised and the reasons why this bill should be passed. Bill C-13 proposes banning, for any reason, unacceptable practices such as creating human clones. It also prohibits the creation of an in vitro embryo for any purpose other than creating a human being or improving assisted reproduction procedures, the creation of human and non-human hybrids for the purpose of reproduction, the provision of financial incentives to induce women to be surrogate mothers, commercial surrogacy, and selling or purchasing embryos or offering property and services in exchange. Bill C-13 bans these practices.

This bill also authorizes the regulation of assisted procreation activities and related research such as research into the causes of infertility and improving fertility techniques. We are seeing that women are increasingly unable to procreate. This will authorize research to determine the exact cause.

Research will be allowed into problems that are unrelated to fertility, such as birth defects, as well as to find treatments for serious illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease and cancer.

Two of my friends passed away over the holidays, one from cancer and the other from Alzheimer's. I would have liked to have seen more research on embryonic stem cells because it has been proven that this is how scientists will make the greatest advances in finding cures for illnesses.

However, it should be noted that the bill proposes to rigorously regulate stem cell research. This is why I say that a code of ethics will be required to guide this process.

It was clear from Clonaid's announcement during the holidays that ethics were in short supply. The odd thing is that although they told us they had cloned three humans, we have not seen them yet.

I think a stop must be put to all this. We must follow the lead of the European countries. In 1998, President Clinton had also declared a five-year moratorium on human cloning.

We are going further. I think that the bill will pave the way for discussion with the provincial governments since they are responsible for health.

It will foster the well-being and safety of all Canadians and Quebeckers. It is with pleasure that I add my voice to that of my colleague, the hon. member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, and tell him and the people of Quebec that human cloning will be prohibited in Canada when this bill is passed.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 28th, 2003 / 11:40 a.m.
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Bloc

Antoine Dubé Bloc Lévis-Et-Chutes-De-La-Chaudière, QC

Mr. Speaker, thank you for giving me this opportunity to express my views at this stage of Bill C-13.

First, I would like to mention, like the hon. member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, the groundwork done by the hon. member for Drummond. She introduced a private member's bill on this subject several times. Of course, the throne speech ensured that all the bills died on the Order Paper. However, her interest in this issue is long-standing. I remember working with her on the Standing Committee on Health. She was already making representations on this.

This issue itself is not new, since, in 1989, the then federal government appointed the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies, known as the Baird commission. This commission, after having spent or used $28 million and questioned over 40,000 witnesses, which was phenomenal, tabled a report in 1993.

In 1995, this government implemented a voluntary moratorium on the issue, not that that made much difference. This became significant with regard to public opinion in 1997, when British scientists succeeded in cloning a sheep they named Dolly.

This has caused so much concern to scientists and officials worldwide, including UNESCO, that in November 1997 this UN organization issued a universal declaration on the human genome and human rights. According to UNESCO, human cloning is an attack against human dignity and, as such, must be prohibited.

We have witnessed recent events, after the three announcements by Clonaid, a firm associated with the Raelian movement, and all the publicity surrounding these announcements.

This bill was introduced last December, belatedly, if you ask me. It was not for lack of studies. As I said, it has been under consideration since 1989. Why have waited so long? Granted, this is a sensitive issue. But at the same time—because it was and still is a sensitive issue—it was important that the Parliament of Canada look into it. It is now doing so. Better late than never, I suppose. The issue is now before Parliament.

At this stage, we can say that the bill to prohibit reproductive technologies, or cloning, is pretty clear. As the hon. member for Richmond—Arthabaska just said, it remains a debate about values. He is right about that. We can feel it even in our ridings, regardless of our affiliation.

In my riding, supporters of my party have different opinions, and they have made them known. There are also people who, while they do not support our political option, share their concerns with me as their MP. This is great, because that is how I have always envisioned the role of member of Parliament. First and foremost, as representatives of our ridings here in Ottawa, we must take a stand on bills or motions, as we are now.

I have always shared the member for Drummond's concerns about cloning. However—and I am not implying that she will disagree with what I am about to say—I feel it is both prudent and correct to leave open the possibility of stem cell research.

This can, of course, turn into a debate among experts, particularly concerning the point at which an embryo ceases to be an embryo and becomes a fetus, and so on. There are criteria in the legislation, which we shall address a little later on.

The idea of research being authorized by ministerial order is both pertinent and appropriate, since it is known that there are a number of diseases, such as Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, diabetes and others, for which research might one day find a remedy or rather a solution.

Of course, there would have to be guidelines, ones that were as specific as possible, because we must not allow things to be done indirectly because people do not want them done directly.

In this connection, there are many in my riding who share my view that it is wise to address the issue of research within a very precise framework, not for the purpose of human cloning but rather to allow stem cell research with a view to finding solutions for certain illnesses.

That was the view I wanted to express at this stage of the debate, both for myself as an MP and also for the riding I represent, in connection with this bill.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 28th, 2003 / 11:20 a.m.
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Canadian Alliance

James Lunney Canadian Alliance Nanaimo—Alberni, BC

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-13 is the subject of our debate this morning. The title of the bill is an act respecting assisted human reproductive technologies and related research. One of the first amendments we will be considering in this block today is about the very title, and we will be addressing that momentarily.

This bill has been a long time coming and Canadians have certainly been interested in the debate. If we go back historically, as we heard the member from Winnipeg earlier describe, interest in this area goes back at least 10 years to the Royal Commission on Reproductive Technologies. It travelled the country, studied the issue indepth and made some widespread and strong recommendations that regulations be brought in to control and regulate this area of assisted human reproduction because of the epidemic of many couples who were having trouble conceiving and naturally having their own children. This involves rather invasive procedures to help a woman who is infertile to ovulate and produce ova that can then be fertilized and reintroduced or by a variety of reproductive technologies help a family to have a child.

When the health committee took the draft legislation from the minister, it was heralded as a real breakthrough for democracy. Rather than receiving legislation and then coming to committee to try to change and alter it, the minister of health of the day referred in draft form the legislative package, the ideals of the government in terms of which way this legislation should go, and left it to committee to consult Canadians and come up with recommendations on how we should proceed. I was pleased to serve on that health committee, and we did indeed hear from many Canadians. We heard from scientists, interest groups and infertile couples.

The bill covers a wide range of subjects and I will talk about them briefly. It is a very complex subject and it is very wide in its scope. We are talking about issues such as surrogacy. We are talking about the import and export of gametes. We are talking about the related research that comes out of this, such as words like the member for Mississauga South just used, chimera, words that are not commonly used on the street in Canada and that even many members of the House likely would find confusing. On committee we spent a lot of time discussing the ramifications, the parameters and what the language really meant. There are very complex issues associated with the bill.

Our committee titled its report on the draft legislation, “Building Families”. We wanted to ensure that the focus of this technology was about helping people who were having difficulty, because of reproductive failures, to build the families for which they so longed. That I think was the focus that we hoped all members would retain. Somehow we feel that we have gone a little off track in some areas of the bill on that ground. If the focus is building healthy families, we want ensure that all aspects of the bill drive in that direction.

The bill also deals with related research. One of the very important spinoffs that comes out of this is the issue of embryos for research, the promise of stem cells for the potential for healing and the tremendous breakthrough. Although it has taken 10 years to get us to this point, perhaps one of the benefits that comes from that lengthy delay is that we have had access to information on the stem cell debate that other jurisdictions and other countries that considered this before us did not have.

We now have today information about the tremendous potential within our own bodies to harvest cells that can offer the cures that were promised from embryos but without the complications, not only morally but scientifically and clinically, that come from taking cells from embryos which require the necessity for anti-rejection drugs. As well we have the moral dilemma of using embryos that were intended to become human beings for other purposes such as research and the implications that has. We hope to address that further in a later block on this issue.

There are many challenging issues associated with this research. Another issue of course in “Building Families” is the children, keeping the focus on the children who would be produced from these technologies and whether we would adopt in Canada an open system or a closed system of donation. Nations before us have gone away from a closed system of anonymous donors which has created real problems for the children produced from the technology. We hope to address that in more detail as we get further into this debate on other blocks of amendments.

The issue of whether we pay surrogates or how we would reimburse people who help another person deliver a child is also a very challenging. The committee wanted to ensure that this was not turned into a commodification exercise, one that turned into another industry with great dollars and people choosing it as a career using their bodies to produce children for other people. We wanted to keep it altruistic and an initiative to help people, not one for profit or vulnerable to being exploited for commercial purposes.

In this block of amendments one important issue which has come up is the fourth amendment by the member for Saskatoon—Wanuskewin. It has to do with the preamble. It is a very important issue. I will read subsection (e) at the top of page 2 which was added at committee. It said that the purpose of it was to help people with failed reproduction to have healthy children. The following words were added at committee, that:

persons who seek to undergo assisted reproduction procedures must not be discriminated against, including on the basis of their sexual orientation or marital status;

I believe the member has raised a very valid issue in bringing forth a motion to delete these words because they take the bill in a direction that was not intended from the beginning. The bill is intended to help those with failed reproductive challenges, not those who have healthy reproductive system but who look for a way to circumvent nature and have a child another way. I feel that is not the intent of the bill and therefore we support the motion. We hope all members will support it and keep the bill on track for the purposes for which it was intended.

Very sensitive issues will come up on the importing of gametes. We have to ask why we would import sperm from other countries such as the United States. We do not know from where it comes. Health Canada purports to certify it is safe but we have heard evidence that we are importing sperm from U.S. prisons. That shocked most members on committee and I believe it would shock most Canadians. If we are trying to ensure a healthy, wholesome effort to help people with tragic circumstances, why would we allow anonymous donations from other countries that we cannot possibly control or regulate except to examine the product and try to determine whether we can detect something wrong with it. We feel we have no shortage of reproductive material in Canada. There are 33 million of us. We have the resources among us. We should not be importing sperm from other countries.

There are many items like this in the bill that need to be debated and Canadians need to be engaged. I am disappointed that the amendments I brought forth at committee on this subject, and in fact amendments we brought forth to be discussed at report stage, have been disallowed by the chair. It seems the government is determined to keep this current system in place with the flaws and risks that leave Canadian women exposed to the import of gametes from other countries. That is a disappointment.

We will be discussing more of these issues as we get further into the debate and I hope that all members will take these matters seriously.

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January 28th, 2003 / 11:10 a.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, the report stage debate on Bill C-13 deals with assisted reproduction and related technologies. I have four report stage motions in Group No. 1. I would like to address each one to relate to the House precisely why these motions are there as each of them in their own right is extremely important.

Motion No. 6 seeks to amend the definition of donor. Presently the bill that came out of committee states that in regard to an embryo the donor would be a person who is specified in the regulations. In regard to gametes, the sperm and the egg, the donor would be the human being who contributed those. I ask the question, why is it that the donors of the sperm and the egg that created the embryo are not the owners and, therefore, the donors?

One of the fundamental principles of the bill is the non-commodification of human beings. This definition would lead us to believe that the donor of an embryo has to be someone other than the genetic mother and the father of that embryo. Motion No. 6 seeks to establish that the donor of an embryo would be the donor of the egg and the sperm which created that embryo. To do otherwise would in fact transfer the ownership of a human life from one person or persons to others. This is a total contradiction of one of the fundamental principles of the bill.

Motion No. 5 has to do with the definition of chimera. Chimera is basically a multiple joining of embryos where, for example, one had genetic material from two embryos and put them together or one had a human embryo and non-human cells and put them together. These are something more than a basic embryo.

The bill seeks to define chimera. However I noticed that one of the items it did not address was whether or not chimera included transferring human reproductive material into an animal. The bill in fact is silent. The current definition of chimera is silent on whether it is permissible to put human genetic material into an animal. Members should think about it. If the purpose of the bill is to ensure that we are not mixing human and non-human species of genes, then we should clearly amend the definition of chimera with the related clause to mean that in the bill one is not permitted to mix human and animal reproductive material.

The reverse is in the bill, that one cannot put animals into a human embryo, but any activity which would take human reproductive material and combine it with any non-human reproductive material or cells or anything like that would be totally inappropriate and should be corrected in the bill.

Motion No. 9 wants to expand the definition of embryo to include polyspermic embryo. I do not want to get too technical, but this basically is an embryo, with its chromosomes et cetera, that has been affected by more than one sperm. From what I understand from the experts it means that this embryo would not ultimately be viable but is still living. It is like a disabled person. It is like someone who has disabilities. I am sure there are parallels with born children.

By including the polyspermic type of embryo in the family of embryos generally, it would ensure that research on these disabled embryos or non-viable embryos would be covered under the same rules dealing with other human embryos. That is basically to say a human embryo is a human embryo regardless of its abilities or disabilities. That is the purpose of this. I hope the health officials will look carefully at that. They may know that Françoise Baylis recommended that.

I believe that the final report stage motion in Group No. 1 is Motion No. 10 which has to do with defining the human genome. As laid out in the report stage motion, it is the entire DNA sequence of the human species. It is not presently defined. There are very serious concerns about the possibility of polluting the human genome by the combination of non-human and human cells, et cetera. The bill makes reference to human genome but the definition of it is not there and I seek to have that introduced.

Those are the four motions. I hope that I will have the support of the parliamentary secretary, the health minister and others to make those important changes to protect the integrity of the principles on which this bill was based.

In the remaining discussions on the other groups, one issue that will come up often will be the existence of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research guidelines for pluri-potent stem cell research. This agency of the Government of Canada is responsible for public funding of research on a broad variety of matters, including stem cell research.

In these guidelines, which I would be happy to provide members, it says that people donating sperm or eggs for the purpose of in vitro fertilization who also specify that if there are any embryos created and stored that they subsequently do not need for reproductive purposes, must give their informed consent for research purpose. These guidelines go very extensively into the disclosures that have to be made by a fertility clinic and by subsequent researchers as to the authorized uses.

Presently the bill before us does not designate or specify what informed consent constitutes. Informed consent is just relegated to what we always understand, which is informed consent as in the laws of Canada. This material, the guidelines of the CIHR, clearly lays out the importance of having a clear idea for the providers of gametes as to what the terms and conditions are for the use of their reproductive materials if they are not used for their own reproduction purposes. If they are to be used for research, these guidelines say that the donors of the gametes must know. In fact these guidelines say that the researcher has to disclose their conflict of interest, their commercial relationships and all kinds of these things to the gamete providers prior to the donation even being made.

The bill as it comes out says that the donor of an embryo could be somebody other than the parents. It is totally contrary to the guidelines of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. I think we will find in the debate that there are very serious differences between what the Canadian Institutes of Health Research will operate starting on April 1 of this year in terms of public funding and what this bill says.

I believe it is incumbent on the government to explain the real status of these guidelines. We cannot have two different rules of the game. We will either respect the peer review process, the tri-council policy statement or the CIHR guidelines with respect to reproductive technologies, informed consent, commercialization, non-commodification and all other aspects which are clearly laid out. I hope the government will lay out and explain to the House the status of these guidelines on this very important bill.

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January 28th, 2003 / 11 a.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Maurice Vellacott Canadian Alliance Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK

Mr. Speaker, my amendment is to delete subclause 2(e). Clause 2 is the statement of principles that is supposed to underlie the whole of Bill C-13. The statement of principles in clause 2 begins with:

The Parliament of Canada recognizes and declares that

and then these declarations are listed. They include:

(a) the health and well-being of children born through the application of assisted human reproductive technologies must be given priority in all decisions respecting their use;

Subclause 2(f) reads:

(f) trade in the reproductive capabilities of women and men and the exploitation of children, women and men for commercial ends raise health and ethical concerns that justify their prohibition;...

Subclause 2(g) states:

(g ) human individuality and diversity, and the integrity of the human genome, must be preserved and protected.

I propose to delete subclause 2(e) which I note at this point was added in committee. It was not part of the original drafting and that subsection reads as follows:

(e) persons who seek to undergo assisted reproduction procedures must not be discriminated against, including on the basis of their sexual orientation or marital status;

Before dealing with my main points I want to stress that this amendment was added in committee. It was inserted at the committee stage. It was not included in the original bill as presented by the government.

This means that the principle in subclause 2(e) was not necessarily part of the fundamental ideas considered when the bill was initially drafted.

If we want to articulate a statement of principle in terms of access to IVF procedures, it should reflect a commitment to limit access to natural and secure families. If we as parliamentarians are committed to passing a bill that protects the best interests of children we should be making decisions that are consistent with the scientific data, and I will cite some in the time that I am allotted.

Providentially, last Friday the Globe and Mail , which is hardly a hot bed of radical conservative sentiment, reported on yet another study which demonstrates the higher incidence of negative outcomes in children who are raised in single parent family situations.

This is not a slight against single parents, but it is rather an indication that they are real heroes; those who are in those situations and those who are 24/7 parents. Many single parents are the victims of circumstances not of their own doing, such as death of a spouse or various other factors. I emphasize that many single parents do a valiant job against the odds. However, that is the point. They are fighting against the odds.

Many will tell us that all things being equal they would rather not be doing the job of parenting on their own. They would rather have someone else assist them in that most crucial of all roles. Most single parents either find themselves living in poverty, on welfare to be able to stay home to raise their children, or sacrificing a huge amount of time during which they would rather be caring for their children instead of working full time to make ends meet.

Notwithstanding the cruel effects of the government's oppressive tax regime, two parent families have greater flexibility in the choices they can make for raising their children and living above the poverty line than does a single parent.

The recent Globe and Mail article which reported on a study published last week in The Lancet , a British medical journal, reported that children growing up in single parent families were twice as likely--this is some of the difficult and disturbing but nevertheless very thorough results that came out--as their counterparts to develop serious psychiatric illnesses and addictions later in life. Experts say that the latest study is important mainly because of its unprecedented scale and follow-up. It tracked about one million children for a decade into their mid-20s.

There was also a Swedish study released by Sweden's national board for health and welfare. Some of the findings of the study were that children of single parents were twice as likely as others to develop a psychiatric illness such as severe depression or schizophrenia, to kill themselves or attempt suicide, or to develop an alcohol related disease. The study also found that girls were three times more likely to succumb to drug related diseases such as addiction if they lived with a sole parent, and boys were four times more likely.

Those are somewhat disturbing results but very thorough in that one million children were tracked for a long period of time through their mid-20s.

Another Swedish study found that adults raised in single parent homes were one-third more likely to die over the 16 year study period than were adults from intact families. I want to emphasize that we are talking about functional, healthy families, because people right away sometimes want to make a comparison with a dysfunctional family, and I would say that is not a fair comparison.

This and numerous other studies were discussed in a book published in 2001 written by Linda Waite and renowned researcher Maggie Gallagher. In the book entitled The Case For Marriage the authors examined hundreds of studies that cast light on how family formation affected children's health. In their conclusion they say divorce appeared to be literally making some children sick. For example, one study tracked the health of children before and after their parents' separation. The authors found that divorce made it 50% more likely a child would have health problems.

My colleague from the government side, the member for Mississauga South, has for many years openly addressed the benefits to children of intact families. He has pointed out that study after study showed that children from stable family environments had better lifelong health outcomes than children who were not in those relationships. That does not mean that a kid coming from a bad or broken home, or a lone parent situation cannot turn out to be healthy. We have wonderful examples of that, even possibly colleagues and members across the way. That is a real tribute to the parents who raised those children. They turn out to be healthy, well adjusted, contributing members of society, and they are truly heroes. However, the probabilities are very clear in terms of the overall spectrum.

Early last year a report by Britain's centre for policy studies produced data showing a sharp distinction in the effects on children of marriage over those of cohabitation. The research, “Broken Hearts Family”, chronicles the decline and the consequences for society. It found out that while over 50% of cohabiting couples break up within five years of having a child, only 8% of married couples split after a child is born and the children from single parent families are more than twice as likely than those from two parent families to experience some form of mental disorder. The research also found that children of both lone and cohabiting parents are more likely to suffer physical abuse than the children of married couples and are more likely to turn to drugs, to commit crime, and to run away from home.

The internationally respected Heritage Foundation in the U.S., in a study in April of last year, showed the significant impact marriage had in protecting mothers and children from domestic abuse. Among the findings of the study were that children of divorced or never married mothers were 6 to 30 times more likely to suffer from serious abuse than children raised by biological, married parents, and that the rate of abuse was six times higher in step families. It was 14 times higher in the single mother family and 20 times higher in cohabiting, biological parent families. Ottawa Families , a community newspaper distributed free in the National Capital Region, recently reported on data provided by the Toronto based Institute for the Study of Anti-Social Behaviour in Youth. It noted the important role that fathers play in the lives of their children:

Kids are more inclined to exhibit violent behaviour if their biological father is absent from their lives, according to a study released by the Institute for the Study of Anti-Social Behaviour in Youth. The presence of a stepfather does not change this behaviour.

Very few people question the essential importance of mothers in the nurturing and raising of children. This quote points to that solid body of research that demonstrates the vital role that fathers play in the best interests of parenting, the need for a biological or adoptive parent, a mom and a dad.

I am running out of time so I will not be able to say much about the issue of same sex parents but the same arguments would apply. Same sex relationships are equivalent to cohabitation, or at least that is the argument made by gay people. Using their very own leverage that they have exerted on the courts and legislatures to extend benefits to their relationships, those cohabitation facts would apply as well. I do not claim to be original with respect to that.

I would like us to delete that subclause because of the overwhelming scientific evidence. I believe that Parliament wants to make a statement about access to in vitro fertilization. It should be one defining limited access. If we do not delete this subclause we abandon the best interests of children for the sake of a remarkably narrow ideological agenda that is increasingly being exposed as errant by the international scientific community.

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January 28th, 2003 / 10:55 a.m.
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Madawaska—Restigouche New Brunswick

Liberal

Jeannot Castonguay LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House this morning to speak on Bill C-13. For several months, the committee worked very hard and vigorously on this bill to try to come up with a reasonable bill that would meet the needs of Canadians. Today, we are finalizing details and putting forward legislation that meets the needs of Canadians.

Some will say that the government did not listen to the committee. Personally, I had the privilege of sitting on the committee from the beginning and I would say we had very interesting discussions, which were quite spirited at times. Views were expressed in all earnestness by committee members. Consequently, we have today a bill that reflects the committee's position. I do not agree that anyone tried to push without earnestly listening or considering what others had to say. I therefore differ on this.

As regards Motion No. 4 currently being debated, here is a great example of the extent to which committee members listened to the presentations. This is why we feel we ought not to support Motion No. 4. We feel that in an advanced society like ours, there should be no discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. It used to be the case 50 years ago, but in our advanced society, we are recognizing that individuals are entitled to their particular sexual orientation; we cannot even tell whether it is a matter of choice or whether such is their nature.

I am very pleased to participate in the consideration of this bill in the House of Commons in order to finalize a number of details. I am convinced that all parliamentarians will have a chance to take part in the debate. All are welcome to express their opinions on this bill.

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January 28th, 2003 / 10:45 a.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Rob Merrifield Canadian Alliance Yellowhead, AB

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to rise and debate the first group of amendments to Bill C-13. We need to start by laying out exactly where the bill has come from, why we are discussing it and the importance of report stage.

Over the years we have discussed different issues and different pieces of legislation in the House for different reasons. Many of them involve dollars and cents and the protection of individuals and the economic welfare of the nation. Others are that we are trying to protect the freedoms of individuals by passing laws that are better for the entire nation.

This legislation is all about life and death no matter which side of the argument one is on. Some individuals understand that some of the research that will come out as a result of this legislation will create great advancement in technologies and in the lifestyle of individuals. Research will also provide some of the cures that we long for. Some diseases have the potential of being cured because of this legislation. With regard to embryonic stem cell research, some people have great hope for the reproduction aspects of having a child through advancements in some parts of this legislation.

There is also a negative side to this legislation. As we look at this first group of amendments we have to understand what we are really talking about, particularly when we think of what has been in the news in the last little while regarding the Raelian cult that has been looking at cloning a human being. There is a vacuum in legislation in this whole area and it is about time that our country had something. Bringing legislation forward on this issue has been a 10-year ordeal.

We stand here today to talk about the first group of amendments at report stage. It is very important to note that we are talking about the title of the legislation. The first amendment I wanted to propose was with regard to what we would call the bill. When looking at this legislation and understanding what we are trying to accomplish, we realize it is not about new technologies. Some amendments were made in committee and the title was changed to “an act respecting assisted human reproductive technologies and related research”. We are not assisting technologies; we are assisting reproduction. We should change the title to “an act respecting assisted human reproduction and related research”. This legislation has nothing to do with technologies.

With regard to cloning, my hon. colleague just spoke about whether or not it was a real clone which is a moot point. If that group did not create a clone, we know that other groups will. There is certainly a craving internationally and a drive in the science community to be the first to create a clone. We hear many voices saying they will potentially do it to make a name for themselves internationally.

It is an appalling situation when we think of the human clone, not so much because of the clone itself but because of the appalling practice. There is almost a 300% failure rate for any individual cloned. Dolly the sheep is a clone. That means 300 human lives would be sacrificed for one healthy clone. If we understood what cloning was all about and how it takes place, we would find that identical twins are much closer genetically than an actual clone would be.

The quest for what people are trying to do is not achieved in the outcome of actual reproductive cloning. This piece of legislation will ban reproductive cloning. It will also ban therapeutic cloning.

It was my privilege to sit as the vice-chair of the health committee as we went through this piece of legislation. Over the last two years the best witnesses from across Canada and around the world came before us. We had the opportunity to ask them important questions regarding the details of this very complex legislation. It is important that we in the House understand how complex this legislation is because members will be asked to vote on it. It is important that we discern what it is all about.

One example happened in the fall when an individual was healed of leukemia from umbilical cord stem cells. The preamble to that story on the national evening news was a poll that was taken on how the people of Canada are for embryonic stem cell research. It talked about how wonderful embryonic stem cells were and all the cures that could be provided through embryonic stem cells. Yet when we saw the rest of the news story, it had nothing to do with embryonic stem cells. It was about umbilical cord stem cells which obviously are not embryonic stem cells. They are termed adult stem cells. I would prefer to use the term non-embryonic stem cells because they can come from embryonic fluid and other places.

Much success is being found in the non-embryonic stem cell research. Some phenomenal things have happened over the last year. Last summer there were instances where stem cells from bone marrow could be turned into any organ in the body. Even individuals such as the president of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Dr. Bernstein, have suggested that this would change the thinking of how we should be driving for embryonic stem cell research.

When we look at the whole piece of legislation and this group of amendments, we have to understand what we are doing. The bill is not talking about the technology; it is talking about reproduction. The bill should have been split in two. It has a scientific side and a reproduction side. The reproduction side is all about the quest for individuals who cannot have children to produce children from their own genetics.

People go to in vitro fertilization clinics where they are hyperovulated and produce up to 30 ova which are then fertilized. Those become embryos that are put in storage. Some of them are used in the in vitro fertilization process. The others are held in storage for a period of time until it is known whether the person will produce a child from the first procedure. There could be four, five, six procedures. We heard from a witness at the committee who said that there are individuals who have tried as many as 16 times before a child was produced.

The question now is what is done with the other embryos that are in storage. That is what this piece of legislation tries to address. Some people say we should be able to grow them in a Petri dish for 14 days and then kill them, take the stem cells and produce research. We call those stem cell lines. In the United States over 60 stem cell lines were produced before the U.S. legislation came along and said that they would not create life in order to destroy it.

That is the background to this piece of legislation. It is very important that we understand that we are not talking about economics or freedoms. We are talking about life and death. I hope that is the sobering thought as members rise in the House and decide whether this is the right piece of legislation for Canada at this time.

We are crossing a line that we have never crossed before as a nation. We have never before decided to destroy human life for the sake of saving other lives. When we cross that line, we are on a very slippery slope. Where will this stop? What arguments will we use when scientists come to us in three years and say that we have to open this up to therapeutic cloning?

Members will then be asked what is the difference between therapeutic and reproductive cloning. There is no difference. They both start exactly the same way: we take an egg; we take a nucleus from a cell and put that into a hollowed out egg, it is given an electric shock and it grows. The only difference is that one will be killed at 14 days and stem cells will be taken from it. The other will be planted into a womb and will grow into a human being.

It seems that scientists want one and not the other. This piece of legislation at least bans both of them for now. When we know where we are going with this group of amendments, we have to start with the title. The title should reflect what the bill will actually do.

Everything is grouped together in the bill. We were not successful in splitting the bill between the science side and the reproductive side. Nonetheless, we are trying to discern what would be the wisest way to amend it so that we can go forward with the best piece of legislation.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 28th, 2003 / 10:45 a.m.
See context

Progressive Conservative

Loyola Hearn Progressive Conservative St. John's West, NL

moved:

Motion No. 11

That Bill C-13, in Clause 3, be amended by replacing line 14 on page 4 with the following:

““Minister” means the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada.”

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 28th, 2003 / 10:35 a.m.
See context

NDP

Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North Centre, MB

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity finally to address long overdue legislation in the House on a clause by clause basis. I totally agree with my colleague from the Bloc who outlined the incredible importance attached to the legislation and the need for urgent action.

Given the incidence and reports of developments pertaining to human cloning over the past month, particularly in the context of the Raelian example, there is no question that we are compelled to act as urgently and as quickly as possible. Whether there is truth to that organization, whether the incident of human cloning happened, we know that science is progressing rapidly and that the possibilities of an actual cloning of a human being is real and could be taking place as we speak.

It is imperative that we have legislation that clearly reflects the views of Canadians and the hard work of parliamentarians over a decade on this matter and assert as quickly as possible a complete prohibition on human cloning. I believe there is general support, perhaps unanimous agreement in this chamber for that. The question though for all of us is why has taken so long to get to this point and why, as we begin the serious issue of clause by clause analysis of the bill and address a number of amendments at report stage, has the government continued to mire us down in details in terms of its own particular opposition to the hard work of members of the health committee over a long period of time.

What is so critical today is that we are beginning a process of receiving a number of amendments, some of which were made in the spirit of constructive amendment and improvement to the bill. Some though, as members will note, were proposed by the government of the day and the Minister of Health to negate the good work of the committee.

The obstacles that the government has put in the place of parliamentarians concerned about the issue have been extraordinary over the past year or more. The committee spent a great deal of work studying draft legislation and made a very comprehensive report to the government for improvements to that draft legislation, some of which were included and many of which were totally ignored. It was then in the process of clause by clause analysis of Bill C-13 by members of the health committee that we were able to reinstate some of those good recommendations to make positive changes. Lo and behold we now find that the government of the day is coming forward with amendments to negate the good work of the committee.

At every stage of the process the work that was done by members of parliament to ensure that we had the best possible legislation, acknowledging that there was some give and take required and some need to include a wide variety of views to reach a position of consensus, the government ignored all that.

At the outset, we are in January 2003 looking at, exactly one decade since the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies, the Baird commission as we all know it in the House. For 10 years we have been grappling with the issue. The government for 10 years has ignored the suggestions of the women's movement, of people committed to action in this area and to the broad community that wants to see the government put in place a strong regulatory framework to ensure that women are protected, that the offspring of reproductive technologies are ensured of full protection under the law and that we have a mechanism in place to protect the health and safety of Canadians as new and future developments occur in our society today.

We have raised a number of concerns from day one around the process and today we still are concerned because of the failure of the government to respect the wishes of the committee and to include some very positive suggestions. Our concerns have focussed around four or five areas and in all areas we remain unconvinced that the government has addressed those concerns to the fullest extent possible.

We have raised concerns about health protection because we knew that women involved in reproductive technologies ought to be assured at every step of the way that the drugs and treatments they took would be safe beyond a reasonable doubt. Based on testimony and expert witnesses before our committee, we know that women must have access to independent information and counselling at critical times when they may be vulnerable to pressure from promoters of technologies that may put them at risk. We will see through the course of this consideration of the bill at report stage that all those concerns have not been fully addressed.

We remain concerned about commercialization in this sector. We know that much of reproductive technology remains the private preserve of giant life sciences and drug corporations with patent protection taking precedence over the public good and with private for profit interests dominating the field of reproductive technology. The health committee of Parliament recommended to the government that in the context of the bill it review and amend the Patent Act to ensure that the genes and genetic sequencing developments that were part of the human body were not matters for intellectual property rights and for profit of giant life sciences corporations.

Another concern relates to the off-loading of key policy decisions to an agency. At the committee members worked very hard to ensure that this new agency, to be enacted with the proclamation of this legislation, would be constituted to ensure that there was no possibility of conflict of interest and to ensure that the board reflected the concerns of Canadians, particularly women who were most directly affected by this legislation.

As we proceed through this report stage process, members will see that the government has ignored many of the very good suggestions made with respect to ensuring that the agency is not a toothless wonder or an arm of the government, but is an independent body able to do the necessary work required.

We also have raised very serious concerns about the need for us as a health committee and the Parliament of Canada to reflect the fact that we have a diverse society and that we ought to acknowledge that people live with disabilities and that those people can lead full and satisfying lives. Our committee recommended that one of the proclamatory statements in the bill include reference to the fact that people living with disabilities ought to be referenced in the bill. It should be said that persons living with disabilities can lead full and satisfying lives and enrich the lives of those around them. That was taken out of the bill by the government of the day. Regrettably, an amendment which I proposed to assert that idea at this final stage of Bill C-13 was ruled out of order.

I regret that situation but want to say that as a Parliament we must address the concerns of organizations and individuals dealing with issues of importance to people with disabilities. We must ensure that those concerns are reflected in this bill, that we have an appropriate response to the issue of eugenics and that we work as hard as we can to develop a national strategy to protect individuals from the negative consequences of eugenics. We must ensure that people from all backgrounds, with all different abilities, are respected and their contributions acknowledged to the work we do today.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 28th, 2003 / 10:20 a.m.
See context

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

moved:

Motion No. 5

That Bill C-13, in Clause 3, be amended by replacing lines 25 to 28 on page 2 with the following:

“introduced;

(b) an embryo that consists of cells of more than one embryo, foetus or human being; or

(c) a non-human embryo into which any cell of a human embryo, human foetus or human being has been introduced.”

Motion No. 7

That Bill C-13, in Clause 3, be amended by replacing lines 40 and 41 on page 2 with the following:

“(b) in relation to an in vitro embryo, the original gamete providers and the embryo provider who created the embryo.”

Motion No. 9

That Bill C-13, in Clause 3, be amended by replacing line 3 on page 3 with the following:

“purpose of creating a human being, and further includes polyspermic embryos.”

Motion No. 10

That Bill C-13, in Clause 3, be amended by adding after line 33 on page 3 the following:

““human genome” means the totality of the deoxyribonucleic acid sequence of the human species.”

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 28th, 2003 / 10:20 a.m.
See context

Canadian Alliance

Maurice Vellacott Canadian Alliance Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK

moved:

Motion No. 4

That Bill C-13, in Clause 2, be amended by deleting lines 1 to 4 on page 2.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 28th, 2003 / 10:20 a.m.
See context

Edmonton Southeast Alberta

Liberal

David Kilgour Liberalfor the Minister of Health

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-13 be amended by replacing the long title with the following:

“An Act respecting assisted human reproduction and related research”

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-13, in Clause 2, be amended by replacing, in the English version, line 15 on page 1 with the following:

“individuals, for families and for society in”

Assisted Human Reproduction ActGovernment Orders

January 28th, 2003 / 10:20 a.m.
See context

The Speaker

There are 107 motions in amendment standing on the Notice Paper for the report stage of Bill C-13.

Motion No. 102 will not be selected by the Chair as it was ruled out of order in committee.

Motions Nos. 12, 34, 35, 37, 54, 56, 58, 67, 70, 87 and 107 will not be selected by the Chair because they could have been proposed in committee.

Motions Nos. 3, 8, 15, 25, 31, 38, 41 to 43, 48, 50, 57, 59, 60, 62, 63, 65, 66, 68, 69, 73, 79, 97 and 101 will not be selected by the Chair because they were lost in committee.

Motions Nos. 9, 76 and 91 will not be selected by the Chair because they were proposed in committee and withdrawn.

In my statement of March 21, 2001, concerning the new guidelines for report stage, I mentioned that the reasons for non-selection of amendments will not routinely be provided by the Chair. However, today I would like to expand on this approach and share the reasoning that I have used for certain motions from the hon. member for Mississauga South.

The Chair notes that the member for Mississauga South attended the clause by clause meetings of the Standing Committee on Health but was not an official member of the committee. Furthermore, the member contends he was not able to have his amendments proposed by any official member of the committee.

Of course, the Chair recognizes that our parliamentary system is party driven and that the positions of parties are brought forward to committees through its officially designated members. The Chair also recognizes that some members may want to act on their own.

The Chair has examined the note to Standing Order 76.1(5), which reads in part,

The Speaker will normally only select motions that... or could not be presented in committee.

Consequently, the Chair is of the opinion that certain motions by the hon. member for Mississauga could not be presented during the clause by clause study in committee and should therefore be studied at the report stage.

All remaining motions have been examined and the Chair is satisfied that they meet the guidelines expressed in the note to Standing Order 76.1(5) regarding the selection of motions and amendments at the report stage.

The motions will be grouped for debate as follows:

Group No. 1: Motions Nos. 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 and 9 to 11.

Group No. 2: Motions Nos. 13, 14, 16 to 18, 20 to 24, 26 to 30, 32, 33, 36, 39, 40, 44 to 47, 49, 51 and 95.

Group No. 3: Motions Nos. 52, 53, 55, 61, 64, 71, 72, 74, 75, 77 and 78.

Group No. 4: Motions Nos. 6, 80 to 86 and 88 to 90.

Group No. 5: Motions Nos. 2 to 94, 96, 98 to 100 and 103 to 106.

The voting patterns for the motions within each group are available at the Table. The Chair will remind the House of each pattern at the time of voting.

I shall now propose Motions Nos. 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 and 9 to 11 in Group No. 1 to the House.

Points of OrderOral Question Period

January 27th, 2003 / 3:05 p.m.
See context

Glengarry—Prescott—Russell Ontario

Liberal

Don Boudria LiberalMinister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, while being totally happy about the continuing support we will be getting from the opposition for our legislation, let me indicate to the House the legislative program for the following days.

This afternoon we will continue the consideration of Bill C-20, the child protection legislation. If and when this is completed, we will then turn to Bill C-19, the first nations' fiscal bill in the name of the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

Tomorrow we will commence report stage of Bill C-13, the reproductive technologies legislation. On Wednesday we will call report stage of Bill C-6, the specific claims bill. On Thursday we will resume consideration of legislation not completed and add to the agenda Bill C-22, the family law bill. On Friday, my present plans are to call Bill C-3 respecting the Canada pension plan.

Consultations have taken place between the parties. I believe that you will find unanimous consent for the following motion that I would now like to move for a take note debate.

I move:

That, Wednesday, January 29, 2003, a debate pursuant to Standing Order 53.1 shall take place concerning the situation in Iraq and, that after 9:00 p.m. on the said day, the Chair shall not receive any dilatory motions or quorum calls.

Government of CanadaOral Question Period

December 13th, 2002 / 11:40 a.m.
See context

Liberal

Don Boudria Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Mr. Speaker, not only have we had six days of debate on the throne speech, we have had: the successful Kyoto resolution, which was adopted by the other place yesterday, I might add; the implementation of the Prime Minister's ethics package, by a draft bill, of the independent ethics commissioner; a code of conduct for parliamentarians; the Romanow commission report; the passing of Bill C-8 on pest control; the passing of Bill C-13 on human reproduction, as we did yesterday; and the Species at Risk Act having royal assent.

Mr. Speaker, no doubt you will recognize a supplementary so I can add to this.

HealthOral Question Period

December 12th, 2002 / 3 p.m.
See context

Liberal

Bonnie Brown Liberal Oakville, ON

Mr. Speaker, members should know by now that the standing committee's first responsibility is to review legislation sent to it by the House. We did that, and this morning I reported on Bill C-13. It might have been faster, except for the obstructionist tactics employed by the Alliance members during clause by clause.

In addition to that, three times in the last two weeks Alliance members asked the committee not to meet due to social events they had to attend. Once again they want to have it both ways. It cannot be done.

Prebudget ConsultationsGovernment Orders

December 12th, 2002 / 11:20 a.m.
See context

NDP

Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North Centre, MB

Mr. Speaker, since this may be my last opportunity to speak in the House before rising for the Christmas break, I want to give you my best wishes for the holiday season. I also want to say a special thank you to everyone who has made our jobs easier this past session: the table officers, the pages, the interpreters, the security personnel, the messengers, the food providers and everyone who made it possible for us to do our jobs.

Those thanks are particularly in order since this has been such a raucous session, with so many uncertainties about the legislative agenda of the government and with so much division and conflict around deepening scandals and information about fiscal mismanagement.

We have expressed in the past and we will again today our concern with the government's ability to manage fiscally and to provide a meaningful legislative agenda for Parliament and for the country. To use an old expression, I think it can be said that the debates this session have been a bit like the mating of pandas. There has been a lot of commotion but not much has happened.

It is very important, in this period of prebudgetary consultations, that we discuss the question of accountability and transparency. It is very hard to give concrete suggestions around budgetary alternatives if we know before we even start that so many of our recommendations will be disregarded, and where there are so many questions and doubts about how the government is actually spending the money that we authorized in the Chamber in the past.

In the last few weeks we have had ample evidence from the Auditor General, through the media and from other sources indicating that the government is suffering from three phenomena that are very worrisome.

First, there is clearly a culture of secrecy that runs rampant through the government.

Second, there is an arrogance of power that makes the government believe it can keep important decisions away from Parliament.

Third, there also is evidence of rotten management of public funds, of taxpayer dollars, whether we are talking about the Auditor General's revelations with respect to the billion dollar gun registry; or we are talking about the billion dollars plus in terms of GST fraud; or we are talking about the Auditor General's revelations pertaining to the corporate use of tax havens, which has cost millions of dollars; or we are talking about the recent news of a $20 million expenditure to build a refugee jail or a fortress for people coming into Canada seeking immigration status or refugee asylum.

Example after example reveal that the government is secretive, unaccountable to the public and disrespectful of Parliament.

I hope, as we lead up to the process of the next budget, the government will take those concerns very seriously, start acting on those concerns and will truly try to find ways to become accountable to Parliament and transparent with the public.

The Auditor General made a suggestion that the problems were not all a result of government mismanagement, that MPs themselves were derelict in their duties in terms of active scrutiny of government expenditures. I think the Auditor General has a point but only to a certain extent. That argument only holds true if members of Parliament and the committees of the House are given the opportunity and the information to adequately scrutinize government expenditures.

I know of numerous standing committees of the House that were not given the opportunity to scrutinize the supplementary estimates. As per our rules, those estimates were deemed accepted and approved even though there was no debate and no scrutiny by the many committees.

That is not a problem of individual members of Parliament. That is a result of a government that wields authority throughout this place and which has very cleverly managed to ensure that by controlling the membership and the actions of its own members on committees it makes it impossible for us to do our jobs.

I want to say that was absolutely the case in terms of both the health committee and the immigration committee, two committees of which I am a part. Neither of those committees studied the supplementary estimates and therefore no recommendations are coming forward, even though we are talking about two large areas of government expenditure and two areas where there are questionable practices on the part of government.

I will reference the health committee. This is a committee that ought to be having a say in this prebudgetary period and ought to be discussing the implications of the royal commission by Roy Romanow on the future of health care, and yet our committee adjourned yesterday immediately upon completing the study of Bill C-13. No attempt was made to schedule meetings pertaining to Romanow, despite a motion being passed at that committee to do just that.

We did not have a chance to scrutinize the department's budgets, even though we heard, through media sources and community activists, that the government was up to some dubious practices. I want to reference for the benefit of the House some evidence suggesting that the Minister of Health is planning to raid tobacco control funding to pay for other health initiatives. It would appear that the Minister of Health is preparing to take $13 million out of the anti-smoking initiative and putting it, as we understand it, into her study on obesity to meet her requirements to study the issue of obesity in Canada today.

No scrutiny in this place occurred around those initiatives. I would suggest that the problem rests with the secrecy and manipulation of the government and not with the integrity and hard work of individual members of Parliament on all sides of the House.

I also want to reference the immigration committee where we also did not deal with the supplementary estimates. We learned through the media that the government has proceeded with tendering for a contract worth $20 million to build a detention centre in the vicinity of Pearson airport. The detention centre has specifications that appear to make it a fortress and a jail for refugees, not a low risk security centre.

At the same time that we hear of the government proceeding with that with no accountability to our committee, we know the minister of immigration is saying that he does not have the money, the courage or whatever to implement the refugee appeal division aspects of the immigration and refugee legislation passed by the House. We have legislation passed by the House and the minister says that he cannot proclaim parts of the bill to ensure due process and rights for refugees because he does not have the money, yet he has the money for a prison for refugees.

It also should be noted that there are many areas where the immigration minister should be spending money to ensure family reunification in this country but he has failed to do that. I want to reference in particular the fact that the immigration department has tremendous backlogs in many areas, particularly in terms of family reunification and sponsorship of spouses. We know that the waiting time for just basic acknowledgment and initial approval used to be 90 days. It is now well over eight months or even up to a year.

Here we are talking about prebudgetary consultations when the government is not prepared to be forthcoming. It is ignoring the wishes of Parliament.

Finally, with respect to health care, it is clear that the government has the resources, the latitude and the will of Canadians to move forward with the expenditures recommended by Roy Romanow. We are talking about a reasonable proposal that will ensure stability in our system. It will give the kind of involvement by the federal government to ensure that the provinces and the federal government can participate on a cooperative basis for the future.

I would suggest that the government has no legitimacy in suggesting that the cupboard is bare and that it cannot address the number one priority of Canadians. I would suggest to the government that it commit today to including in the next budget the expenditures recommended by Romanow so we can ensure a sustainable future for medicare.

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

December 12th, 2002 / 10:30 a.m.
See context

Liberal

Bonnie Brown Liberal Oakville, ON

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present, in both official languages, the first report of the Standing Committee on Health.

Pursuant to its order of reference dated Wednesday, October 9, 2002, the health committee has considered Bill C-13, an act respecting assisted human reproduction. The committee agreed on Tuesday, December 10, 2002, to report it with amendment.

I wish to thank the members, the witnesses and the staff who assisted us through these deliberations.

Criminal CodeAdjournment Proceedings

December 4th, 2002 / 7:10 p.m.
See context

Liberal

Jeannot Castonguay Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB

Mr. Speaker, along the line of what I was saying earlier, when I talked about Bill C-13, which my hon. colleague is very familiar with, I think this is another bill that reinforces existing measures, while perhaps still allowing people to slip through the cracks.

We must realize that no matter how many laws we have, there will always be people who manage to skirt around them. Obviously, if we have bills that at least allow us to penalize these people when we catch them, hopefully this will improve the situation.

Again, I am convinced that we are heading in the right direction with Bill C-13, which will be debated in the House shortly, and I am very happy with my hon. colleague's participation in this debate.

Business of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

November 22nd, 2002 / 1:10 p.m.
See context

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Madam Speaker, the member is also very knowledgeable. He has been on this file since the very beginning. Maybe Canadians do not know but he knows that the United States already wrestled with this one. With an election of presidents, the position of the U.S. government changed from President Clinton to President Bush. Individually, they have different views.

The current position of the United States of America with regard to the embryonic stem cell research is that there will be no more killing of embryos, no more killing of human beings. However, it did allow researchers to get public funding for the purposes of purchasing pre-existing stem cell lines that had been harvested from embryos prior to it coming to its position. It identified that there were some 14 cell lines around the world that were available. Oddly enough, I was very much surprised to find that the cost of a vial of stem cells was only $3,000. If people can get what they want by purchasing vials of embryonic stem cells to do their research, that raises some question about why they would even want to go through the hassle of establishing an agency or the regulatory framework to ensure that there is this control.

The member also mentioned the U.K. Last night I printed off its bill. It actually had its genesis back in 1990, and there have been amendments since. I looked specifically at schedule 3, an excellent schedule on informed consent. In fact Dr. Françoise Baylis recommended that we should have a similar schedule 3 in Bill C-13 to deal with the complicated issues related to what consists of informed consent, when that occurs, et cetera, and the implications.

We definitely have to apprise ourselves of the work that has been done in other jurisdictions. We do not want to have to reinvent the wheel but we want to make it consistent with the intent of the legislation and compatible with the laws of the land, as they are a combination of federal and provincial laws and regulations. Respect for the jurisdictional aspect is extremely important.

We have asked at committee that a representative of the Government of Quebec, we were hoping either the minister of justice or the minister of health and social services, be invited to come to committee to help us to better understand the Quebec position. We know that Quebec was very quick to review the matter and to give its preliminary view. I understand its first step was to ban embryonic stem cell research outright. Subsequently I understand it is open to following the CIHR guidelines on it, but I am not sure.

We will see some other things happening too. Dr. Leon Kass is the head of President Bush's advisory council on biomedical research. Dr. Kass is eminently qualified and highly respected in the field. He is on record as recognizing that human life begins at conception as an undisputed biological fact.

The President has specifically asked Dr. Kass and his advisory committee to pursue as vigorously as possible research related to the storage of ova, women's eggs, so that there would not be any surplus embryos from IVF and this entire debate on the ethical level could be dispelled.

Business of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

November 22nd, 2002 / 12:50 p.m.
See context

Mississauga South Ontario

Liberal

Paul Szabo LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services

Madam Speaker, as you know, this matter does not fall under my minister's portfolio but it is one in which I have played an active role in by informing myself about Bill C-13 and some of its important provisions.

The member who has just spoken has moved a motion in the House that would call on the Standing Committee on Health, which is presently studying Bill C-13, an act on reproductive technologies, assisted human reproduction, to have the bill split in two so that it can deal with matters related to the criminalization of practices such as cloning and have that handled in a separate bill.

I believe that the motion is relevant. This is a very, very complex bill. It is a bill that in fact has its genesis in a royal commission from at least 10 years ago. The response of the public to it, certainly with regard to certain aspects, for instance cloning, I think was fairly definitive, but the science was evolving with a rapidity that the public was not able to really be fully aware of.

There was an attempt in 1997, I believe, to have a bill that responded to the royal commission. It did not get through the legislative process before the subsequent election. It was not until this Parliament that a legislative effort actually came forward.

It is interesting that after a number of years of having a royal commission, of certainly many people having advocacy positions with regard to reproductive technologies, both with regard to prohibitions and support for other aspects of reproductive technologies, the then minister of health came forward with a draft bill. That draft bill went through second reading here and to committee, where over 100 witnesses were heard on a variety of aspects. That is very significant. Hearing 100 or more witnesses on a bill indicates that it is not an insignificant bill.

I have to credit the committee with having prepared one of the most comprehensive, thoughtful and constructive reports of a standing committee, and on a very tough bill. That report was tabled in the House in December 2001. The response of the then minister of health was to not address specifically the 34 recommendations of this report on the draft legislation. In fact, on the last day on which it was possible for the minister to respond, the minister, and I believe it was on May 9 of this year, tabled Bill C-56 in response to the draft report.

There have been changes made between the draft bill and this one. One of the things I noticed was that in many of the clauses there was this standard phrase, for instance, “this is prohibited”, and then “unless otherwise provided for in the regulations”. If we were to look at this bill we would find that reference to the regulations spread throughout the entire bill, to the extent that I am not entirely comfortable that I know what the bill stands for in all regards and what I would be voting on if I were to vote for the bill, because I will not see the regulations until after the bill is passed and receives royal assent. This is backwards. I would like to see the regulations before the bill is passed.

I believe the relevance here is that the member has raised an issue with regard to jurisdiction. It is an issue, particularly with regard to criminalization related to the prohibitions. It is a relevant question and has been argued by others back at the beginning of the debate on Bill C-56, which transformed itself into Bill C-13 after prorogation.

There were calls for the bill to be split between the reproductive technologies part, i.e. cloning, genetic alterations, surrogacy issues, et cetera, and another part which dealt with issues, such as the restrictive use of stem cells from embryos for research purposes, a very difficult issue for many Canadians because of the ethical implications.

This particular bill, as the mover of the motion laid out, includes provisions whereby if provinces have existing legislation and regulations in place that address elements of the proposed bill, Bill C-13, that with consultations and negotiations the provincial legislation or regulations would be the relevant or the operative jurisdiction on those matters where there was an agreement. Therefore there are these kinds of provisions in there.

It is a rare case where federal jurisdiction and federal law would be seconded to a province. At any point in time we can imagine what would happen if there was a case before the courts and somebody asked what the federal law said on it. The federal would say “This you cannot do, blah, blah, blah”. However it is subject to whether or not there is an equivalency agreement. The fine line of the law being what it is, the interpretation of whether or not there was an offence, criminal or otherwise, could be very fine. Therefore a significant effort would have to be made to ensure that should there in fact be any equivalency agreements, that those clearly reflect the legislative intent of the federal legislation.

The member who moved the motion did not mention it specifically but I thought it was interesting to note that the Quebec minister of, I believe, health and social services announced very quickly after the bill was tabled in the House that the province of Quebec would be banning the utilization of embryos for harvesting stem cells; in fact banning embryonic stem cell research outright. The words he used were “It is forbidden”. I remember reading that in the press article.

While all this is going on, we have a group called the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. It came forward with an interesting set of guidelines. It is the funding agency for publicly funded research in Canada, including things on embryonic stem cell research, and it has laid out the guidelines and the criteria under which they would permit such research.

That was quite controversial to this place and certainly to the health committee because those guidelines were developed and it was announced that they would be in place almost immediately at the same time as the committee was in the middle of dealing with Bill C-56, the legislation on precisely that issue. The controversy was that we now had another jurisdiction.

This agency was set up by the Government of Canada. It transferred funds to publicly funded research projects. I believe it was formerly called the Medical Research Council and is now called the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. It even brings more relevance to the question of whether or not there is a jurisdictional problem here, because it is not just the federal government and provincial governments, it is also funding agencies, et cetera. Our bill right now, I believe, but I do not have my papers with me, seems to take the approach that this is the law but if the law is silent on some aspect then that other aspect still comes into play. I am thinking of the tri-council policy statement that permits research on embryos up to 14 days. We know that is in there.

What I do not believe is fully covered in the bill is the element of education and training and whether or not all of the provisions with regard to the safeguards, controls, consent, et cetera, with regard to donations of gametes or embryos for education and research purposes, are fully articulated in the current bill. I think we may want to consider whether there has to be some amendments. That is another jurisdiction.

The tri-council policy is basically the recognized leader or association of all researchers that makes pronouncements and provides guidelines for all research.

We have the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the tri-council policy statement and the provinces all having the opportunity to establish equivalency agreements and negotiate those with the governments, and then we maybe have another dimension that enters into this and that is the disciplines.

The Canadian Bar Association, which appeared before the health committee yesterday, said that it had a problem with criminalizing prohibitive behaviour. If a person makes a clone that is prohibited by this law should the person be treated as a criminal and penalized as a criminal? Bill C-13 says, yes. The Canadian Bar Association says, no. Other representatives of the medical research community obviously have come to us and said, no.

Now we have, not necessarily a formal jurisdiction, but certainly an industry, that being the lawyers, doctors, researchers and whoever else, having a problem with jurisdiction. I do not know how they will fight their cases if every province will be able to establish their own rules and require respect for their laws, practices and regulations, which will be incorporated, I guess by reference, in this legislation.

Now we are getting complicated. This now is a multidimensional problem. The member therefore has raised a quite straightforward motion, the implications of which are enormous. They are enormous because if we open up this matter with regard to the criminalization issue we must necessarily open up the matter with regard to splitting the bill between reproductive technologies and related research.

Eighty-five per cent of the bill is acceptable to Canadians and to the House. There was such a strong consensus on the bill, which deals with cloning, genetic alteration, surrogacy for profit, et cetera, all in line with what the health committee report on the draft legislation laid out, that today the legislation would have been passed.

However, it is not passed today and there is one reason and one reason only, and that is because the bill incorporated the whole aspect of related research.

I understand that research using embryos is an activity and that those embryos have to come from somewhere. Where they come from and prescribed to come from under the act is embryos which are surplus or left over after the process of in vitro fertilization, test tube babies.

The only linkage to this bill is the fact that those embryos are surplus to an IVF process. The IVF process is part of the reproductive technologies bill. It is a very small linkage. This whole area of embryo related research, education and training, finding therapies and cures for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, cancer and diabetes, is a wonderful science. I know of no one in Canada who is opposed to stem cell research because stem cells occur naturally in the human body. Every organ in the human body has stem cells. They also occur in placentas, umbilical cords, umbilical cord blood, aborted fetuses, as well as in embryos. The only linkage of related research in Bill C-13 is the fact that embryos from the IVF process will be used in the research, and the IVF process is linked to reproductive technologies.

A perfect argument would be to say that we should split the bill and take the reproductive technologies as one bill. Eighty-five per cent of the substance of this bill is acceptable to Canadians and to the House, party by party. It could be passed immediately and put into law. We could then ban cloning and genetic alteration in Canada. We would be able to deal with surrogacy for profit in Canada. We could have done this a year ago but the bill included related research. Now we have a problem.

If we look at the volume of the bill, we see that only about 50% of the pages are on reproductive technologies. The rest of the bill sets up an agency. We are going to set up an agency with a full time chair and representatives from all disciplines and provinces, part time people, and their responsibility will be to license fertility clinics and researchers. We are going to set up a bureaucracy.

On top of that, and I will not talk about it in any detail but I will just raise it, when we deal with research we are dealing with commercialization issues, and money gets made. Things like generic drugs versus brand names, the patent process and the legal issues of informed consent really start to come in on the related research.

When we look at this, the provisions to establish this agency are enormous. After the bill gets royal assent, which I expect might be in a year from now, it will take an additional two years to establish this agency and the related regulations. We are two and a half years away from having laws on the books to ban cloning. Shame.

I would argue, just as did the member who moved this motion, that we should split this bill and get the related technologies out of it. If it is going to take that long to come up with regulations to figure out how to deal with this, why not spend the time to look at this carefully, but let us get legislation on the books banning cloning, banning genetic alteration, and dealing with surrogacy for profit. Let us get those other prohibitions on there and the other controlled activities. It has nothing to do with embryonic stem cells. It has to do with the fact that Canada does not today have any legislation whatsoever dealing with matters such as cloning. We are one of the 128 countries in the world that does not even have legislation on these important matters.

We could have that legislation immediately. All it would take is to split the bill. I could make that argument just as well as the hon. member from the Bloc who moved this motion to split it. With regard to jurisdictional issues it is tremendously complex.

It has taken a long time to deal with the bill. I suspect it will take a lot longer. I know that members are very concerned about this issue. Certainly there are ethical issues that are involved which are not universal.

Canadians must be heard. We must respect the due process of the legislative process. If it means that we have to have a vacuum in our legislation on matters such as cloning, because we have put things in there which perhaps should not have been there to make an efficient disposition of legislation, there is always time for common sense to prevail.

Business of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

November 22nd, 2002 / 12:45 p.m.
See context

Canadian Alliance

Rob Merrifield Canadian Alliance Yellowhead, AB

Madam Speaker, I certainly appreciate the opportunity to ask a question on this matter. It is a very important issue. I am sure that at the root of my colleague's concern is the impact Bill C-13 would have on some provinces.

I understand that Quebec is very concerned about embryonic stem cell research. In fact some dialogue has taken place as to whether Quebec will allow embryonic stem cell research to be done there. I applaud Quebec for that. I think it is a progressive move, one that is ahead of many other areas in the country.

However, the piece of legislation has an equivalency agreement contained within it. If it allows embryonic stem cell research, which will take precedence: the provinces or this piece of legislation?

I also wonder if my hon. colleague would speak to the reason why he wants this piece of legislation split, the appalling procedure of therapeutic and reproductive cloning? If his province feels so strongly about embryonic stem cell research, does it also feel the same about cloning? Is the idea that Quebec will not allow human cloning within the province on its books?

I am also a bit confused about this jurisdictional thing, because we are seeing from the provinces intense pressure on Bill C-13 and this area, reproductive cloning. I am a bit confused because my colleague, his party and his province seem less interested in provincial jurisdiction with regard to the impact of the Kyoto accord, which would have many more repercussions on his province than this bill would have.

Business of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

November 22nd, 2002 / 12:35 p.m.
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Mississauga South Ontario

Liberal

Paul Szabo LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services

Madam Speaker, I am quite familiar with Bill C-13, as the member knows. This issue related to criminalization matters as well as provincial equivalency agreements has been the subject of much debate. Indeed, the matter is still before committee and we do have the opportunity. I think the member has raised some interesting points.

Yesterday, the Canadian Bar Association, I believe, made a presentation to the health committee specifically with respect to the criminalization of certain acts under the bill. It would be important if the member would like to comment on the following. If the legal community and Canadian law were to agree that the criminalization of certain activities that are prohibited under the bill should not be treated as criminal law, I wonder whether or not that would satisfy the member vis-à-vis what would be the case in Quebec.

Business of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

November 22nd, 2002 / 12:15 p.m.
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Bloc

Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC

Madam Speaker, it always pays to persevere in life.

I was saying that every member of the Bloc Quebecois understands the importance of the issue of reproductive technologies. I am aware that this type of bill concerns one couple in five on average, since 20% of people experience reproductive difficulties at some point or other in their life.

However, we do have some real concerns, concerns that are shared by the Government of Quebec, led by Bernard Landry. Quebec's minister of health sent a letter to his federal counterpart, the federal Minister of Health, outlining some of these concerns.

What we would like, is for the federal government to use the valid constitutional power that it has, under section 91.27 of the Constitution Act, 1982, to criminalize certain practices around which there is consensus for ethical reasons and because of our values.

In the time I have left, I will come back to the prohibited practices and the need to criminalize them. Remember that, since 1997, the Bloc Quebecois with its sense of responsibility it has always had, and through the member for Drummond, whom I would like to commend, has introduced a private member's bill three times, to criminalize cloning for reproductive and therapeutic purposes.

Back then, members will recall that the government had turned a deaf ear to the member for Drummond. If it were not for the member for Drummond, who is part of a too small group of visionary people who really paved the way for the government when it comes to reproductive technologies, I believe this government would never have acted with the diligence that we should expect from the members opposite.

We would feel quite comfortable voting in support of a bill that would maintain the 10 prohibited practices in Bill C-13 as it now stands.

We cannot be a party to an attempt to invade a provincial jurisdiction. Let me explain. With Bill C-13, a federal regulatory agency is established, which will administer an annual budget of $10 million and—who would have guessed?—regulate the medical profession. It will determine under which conditions physicians will be authorized by regulation to perform medical procedures related to insemination or other activities related to reproductive technologies. In Quebec, in the Act respecting health services and social services, section 112 confers that power to the Quebec health minister. So, let us not mix two debates and two issues that should be kept separate.

As a society, we may say that certain activities are immoral, unethical, and as lawmakers, we may not be prepared to condone them; we have no problem with that. We may want to prevent potential manipulations and such practices in government or private laboratories; we are willing to follow the government in that direction.

All our fellow citizens may not be aware of this, but I can sense the Chair's contagious interest in this matter. Still, clause 5 of the bill lists 10 activities prohibited under Bill C-13. Once again, we hope this will be enacted in legislation, as was recommended by the hon. member for Drummond, who is ahead of her time in this field. Under clause 5, it is prohibited to create a human clone for reproductive or therapeutic purposes.

We believe that each human being is unique, that each has a personality of its own, and therefore we do not want cloning to be made possible.

It is also prohibited under the legislation to:

(b) create an in vitro embryo for any purpose other than creating a human being or improving or providing instruction in assisted reproduction procedures;

It is also prohibited under the bill to:

(c) --create an embryo from a cell or part of a cell taken from an embryo or foetus or transplant an embryo so created into a human being;

It is prohibited to:

(d) maintain an embryo outside the body of a woman after the fourteenth day of its development--

This 14th day is the recognized time when the formation of the nervous system begins.

It is prohibited to alter the germ line, that is to:

(f) alter the genome of a cell of a human being or in vitro embryo such that the alteration is capable of being transmitted to descendants.

This means that we cannot create custom made human beings. We cannot say, “I want a girl with blue eyes and I want all her descendants to have blue eyes”. It is not possible to use genetics for such purposes.

Under the bill, it is also prohibited to:

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

It is easy to understand the need for such a prohibition. Under the bill, it is prohibited to:

(h) for the purpose of creating a human being, make use of any human reproductive material or an in vitro embryo that is or was transplanted into a non-human life form;

Under the bill, it is prohibited to:

(i) create a chimera, or transplant a chimera into either a human being or a non-human life form;

Finally, it is also prohibited under the bill to:

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

If the government had been logical, had introduced Bill C-13 and had limited its scope to these 10 prohibitions, we would have immediately given our support to this legislation.

However, when it comes to health, the federal government wants to engage in nation building, it wants to interfere and get involved in provincial jurisdictions. The Kirby report is indicative of this trend. The national forum on health, which proposed a national pharmacare program, is also a case in point. On Thursday, we will see what the Romanow report recommends, but we think it is going to be more of the same.

The Quebec government, which is one of the best to have presided over the future of Quebeckers, examined all the acts that would be deemed incompatible, totally or partly, with Bill C-13.

I will tell you about this, if I may. Our Civil Code—one of the things that is most distinctive about Quebec, since the rest of Canada has the common law tradition—this most important legal system prohibits such things as payment for the services of surrogate mothers, as well as reimbursement of surrogates or donors for certain expenses.

The Civil Code, the legislator and the National Assembly have taken stands on this issue, stating that donors and surrogates must live with their choices. Donation must be a purely altruistic act, and that is why under the Civil Code no reimbursement of any kind is allowed.

Bill C-13 makes an exception to this principle and acknowledges that certain expenses might be reimbursed with ministerial authorization. The bill proposed to us is therefore incompatible with the wishes of the Quebec legislator.

There is also incompatibility with Quebec's Act respecting Health Services and Social Services. As I have said, section 112 of this legislation empowers the minister of health to determine those facilities which will provide services relating to infertility and reproduction. Any issues relating to the approaches to be used in this service delivery are determined by the legislation.

The regulatory agency would, therefore, be superimposed, adding another condition which is central to health and social services, although these are a provincial area of jurisdiction.

I trust that the government House leader will bow to this logic. It is not too late to influence the Minister of Health, a lady who must be treated with kid gloves because she can sometimes be a bit obtuse. But I am counting on him.

There is also incompatibility with another piece of Quebec legislation, the Act respecting the Protection of Personal Information in the Private Sector. If the regulatory agency did come into being, it would be possible, admittedly only with consent of the parties involved, but nevertheless possible, to disclose identifying information. In Quebec, in such cases, such information cannot be disclosed under any circumstances.

It is therefore clear why it is important for all references to the assisted human reproduction agency of Canada to be deleted from this bill and for the provinces, which already have legislation on this, to be left to do their work.

The list of legislative measures is a lengthy one. It is a great shame that such a bill has been allowed to see the light of day. The government is going to pay dearly for its desire to centralize.

So, as I said, it is incompatible with the Civil Code, with the Act respecting health services and social services, the act respecting access to documents held by public bodies and the protection of personal information, and the act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector, the act respecting medical laboratories, organ, tissue, gamete and embryo conservation, ambulance services and arrangements for corpses, and last, but least, it is incompatible with Quebec's Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.

I cannot mention Quebec's Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms without getting emotional. First, because the charter was one of the first ones in North America. It was adopted in its final version in 1977—the work on it having been started by the Liberals with Jérôme Choquette at the National Assembly—but it was really the Parti Quebecois government, a government that has always been progressive, which was the first to give the charter its shape, and make it the envy of other parliaments.

Of course the charter contains provisions regarding the protection of life and the equality of citizens. However, the charter also contains the right to confidentiality and the right to privacy. Section 10 of the charter also contains provisions on social condition. I have had the opportunity to speak to this on several occasions; there are only three provinces, and the federal government, that do not have provisions regarding social condition in their charters of human rights.

However, rest assured that I am here, keeping an eye on the situation. I have sponsored a bill that has been chosen that would allow us to amend the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to include social condition. While the government has done nothing, the Bloc Quebecois is fulfilling its responsibilities.

So, the bill is incompatible with Quebec's Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, with the medical code of ethics, with the guidelines of the Quebec health research fund, better known to people in the field as the FRSQ as well as with the ministerial action plan on ethics and scientific integrity.

So clearly, the Government of Quebec has not waited for the federal government to get to work on the issue of assisted reproduction. The Government of Quebec took action. It has already established practices. Civil law has rules on a number of issues, but despite all that, the federal government once again wants to stick its big nose into areas that are not under its jurisdiction.

I have had the opportunity to meet physicians such as Doctor Bissonnette, not to mention names. This is a physician who is involved with the firm Procrea. They cannot see why, with the expertise we have in Quebec and what Quebec is doing, and doing well, in the field of reproduction technology, another structure, one which is cumbersome, inefficient and complicated, would be superimposed on the existing one.

Let me touch on this briefly. There are at least 15 good reasons to defeat Bill C-13. If passed—thank goodness, this has not happened yet, and we will not let it be passed as it stands—Bill C-13 would block any new initiative by Quebec to manage assisted reproduction techniques, even if Quebec has made strides in that field in the past decade.

The assisted human reproduction agency of Canada would superimpose a cumbersome and expensive structure on a system that has been tested and is already operational in Quebec.

It is important to note that the Quebec government's approach is to empower the stakeholders, an approach which is not always compatible with this desire to make certain procedures illegal, except for the ones listed in clause 5, with whose prohibition we agree.

Again, the saddest thing about Bill C-13, and we will never tire of pointing it out, is that it infringes on the power vested in Quebec's Minister of Health and Social Services concerning the exclusive delivery of services under section 112 of the Act respecting Health Services and Social Services.

This is a direct infringement upon a provision of the legislation passed by the National Assembly, under which Quebec took its responsibilities.

Again, criminal sanctions are created for medical procedures that have been enshrined in our civil law. I addressed earlier the whole issue of paying surrogate mothers. Bill C-13 interferes with provisions of the Civil Code, particularly with respect to the whole issue of consent to treatment—the government House leader will recall that this is covered in articles 10 and 11 of the Civil Code—and that of the relationship of parentage as it regards adoption, and articles 538 to 542 of our Civil Code.

Seventh, Bill C-13 does not reflect the positions taken by Quebec, particularly as regards adoption when we dealt with civil union. As hon. members know, Bill 84 was unanimously passed. It is rather unusual in our parliamentary system to have a bill that is unanimously passed. That was the case at the National Assembly with Bill 84, which instituted the civil union and which established new parentage rules.

Bill C-13 creates discrimination between children who were born through the use of new reproductive technologies and the others, since there will be a national register in which information will be available. This information will not necessarily be made available to adopted children.

One of the saddest aspects of the bill is that it interferes with the confidentiality of assisted human reproduction files.

I could go on and on, but I am asking hon. members to do something sensible and to allow this bill to be split, so that we can all vote as one. We know how beneficial this is for society. The bill could be quickly passed if it only dealt with prohibited activities. Let us leave it to the provinces, since it is their responsibility, to the extent that it relates to the delivery of health and social services, to adopt the practices relating to these issues, which are covered by clauses 25 to 39 of the bill.

I think such a measure would reflect common sense. It would be respectful of our constitutional law and it would allow us to move forward very quickly on issues which, again, are extremely important from an ethical and moral point of view.

Since my time is almost up, I am asking the House to unanimously agree to this motion.

Assisted Human Reproduction ActRoutine Proceedings

November 22nd, 2002 / 12:15 p.m.
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Bloc

Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC

moved:

That it be an instruction to the Standing Committee on Health that they have power to divide Bill C-13, An Act respecting assisted human reproduction, into two bills in order to deal with all matters related to the criminalization of practices such as cloning in another bill.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the notice of motion on the Order Paper, I want to speak to the motion that I have brought forward asking that Bill C-13 regarding new reproductive technologies be divided into two bills.

There is not one member of the Bloc Quebecois who does not see the importance of this bill—

Assisted Human Reproduction ActRoutine Proceedings

October 9th, 2002 / 3:15 p.m.
See context

Edmonton West Alberta

Liberal

Anne McLellan LiberalMinister of Health

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-13, an act respecting assisted human reproduction.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is in the same form as Bill C-56 from the first session of this Parliament and, in accordance with the special order of the House of October 7, 2002, I request that it be reinstated at the same stage that it had reached at the time of prorogation.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)