Bill C-56 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Patent Act and the Food and Drugs Act

Patent Act

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to the bill that my colleague has brought forth. I rise with a sense of regret and shame for a country that has failed to deliver on a promise that it made nearly 10 years ago. As a result of that failure and that promise that was never kept, we have witnessed children, men and women suffer and die because we did not get a chance to provide medications.

We built the system. This is important to recognize when we go back and look at the past. Bill C-56 was the original bill. It was nicknamed Jean Chrétien's aid to Africa act. We said at that time that we would put a system in place that would be the envy of the world. It would allow generic drugs to get to those who were suffering, whether it be from HIV-AIDS, tuberculosis or malaria. We promised.

When Parliament recessed Bill C-56 came back to the House as Bill C-9 in 2004. We made another promise. Experts appeared at committee a couple of times. We brought in witnesses. We had expert testimony from many people from around the world. People testified to make sure that we were WTO and TRIPS compliant, that we were within the mandate with regard to allowing the patented drugs to be generically created and distributed, and that we would follow certain rules. Basically, we wanted to create an open and accountable process. Instead we built a monster that really has only been exercised once in all of these years. It really is a monster, because it is preventing us from stopping death and suffering.

Why is it important? Lots of numbers get thrown out and there have been some improvements over the years. The reality is that many people are still suffering. I cannot understand it when I look at the problems being faced in sub-Saharan Africa. What are we doing when children are becoming the heads of households because their parents are dying? We are taking out the capacity for the family unit to be effective. These children are losing the knowledge of how to raise themselves, how to become successful, how to get an education and work co-operatively with others. We are undermining people because we are not providing the resources that are there.

There is a will out there. I want to read some comments from organizations that are in favour of the legislation, because it needs to be noted that they did their part. They did their part for many years on the Hill as we have moved this issue forward.

When we moved Bill C-393, the previous legislation, it ended up dying in the Senate. Unfortunately, we are back here today. It is important to move this legislation again to committee because it does have a few changes, some improvements and some compromise. It is not like we did not compromise along the way. At one point I submitted over 100 amendments to the original bill at industry committee because we knew the legislation was so badly constructed. The Canadian access to medicines regime was built to defeat itself.

The organizations that did their part include the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, Grandmothers Advocacy Network, Results Canada, the Federation of Medical Women of Canada, the Canadian Federation of University Women, the Ontario Nurses' Association, UNICEF, Bracelet of Hope, World Vision, the United Church of Canada. A whole coalition, a rainbow of organizations have come together and worked together.

There have been some important changes and there is some hope. We were fighting with the brand name drug companies along the way. We have gone through a whole range of issues about certain countries being listed and certain drugs being listed, and fought back and forth on all of those things.

However, now there has been a shift in their position. In a letter dated November 19 from research-based pharmaceutical companies to my leader, the hon. member for Outremont, it says they are open to looking at a more constructive approach. They list a series of concerns. Some I do not think are as valid as others, but there are important ones to note. They talk about transparency, amount and term, anti-diversion, eligible countries, eligible medicines and safety appeal mechanisms.

The good news is that there is no reason for any member now to vote against the bill. If a member is voting against the bill, he or she is voting directly against the pharmaceutical companies, the generics, and all the organizations I mentioned, that want to see this move forward. I thank them for coming to the table this time. In the past, we have witnessed a relationship that has been rocky at best. However, at this moment in time there has been a change in position. We are going to hopefully see this legislation move to committee so we can start to deal with some of the issues they raised to improve the legislation.

It is important. We have set an example internationally with this legislation. If we can get the changes here, other countries can also get some changes. We have a situation where some of the global funds are diminishing, so we have an issue with supply and management right now, and the costs.

I will conclude that I have come here today speaking out of frustration and disappointment, but there is a glimmer of hope this time. I am hoping all the members understand that there is nobody else out there against moving forward, so let us do it together with all members' support.

Motions in Amendment

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Halifax for her great work on the bill. I also want to thank the members who spoke in favour of the bill. The bill is very important. Since 2003 I have been trying to get the law amended or fixed properly. It was Bill C-56 originally.

I want to impress on members that we can make a difference. We can choose to make it happen. We have proposed under Bill C-393 WTO and TRIPS agreement compliance. By that I mean that it abides by all international laws. There can be no other excuse used during this debate. If members do not believe me, they can believe the Library of Parliament's independent research which shows that what we are proposing here today is legal internationally. If we want to make a difference, we can do it now.

Back in 2004 I spoke in this chamber about the law that we passed and my fear that it was built to fail. It has failed. There has been one application. Apotex got one drug into Africa, despite the obstacles of the bill.

We told the world something. We told the world that we would help, that Canada would stand front and centre, show respect and help people. We said that we would make sure that women, men and children would get drugs that we have on our shelves and in our plants, that they could not get because of the cost. We told that to the world. We promised the world that we would lead the way. However, the way that we did it is despicable. We made a law that does not work, which others replicated, which gave an excuse. Right now people are suffering. People are dying. That does not have to happen. Not only have we chosen to turn our backs on them, but we have given them a phony law and literally slapped them in the face. Canada, the country to which I belong, has done that.

That is a shame. I have seen that over the years as a member of Parliament. I have tried to fix it four times. I feel strongly about it. I thought about that on the way to Ottawa. I used to belong to the AIDS Committee of Windsor. Before that, I had friends in Toronto who were gay, who had AIDS, who suffered. I have seen friends die, and they had medication. It is horrible to witness the disintegration of a human being, and that is in the best of circumstances.

We have an opportunity to make a difference. We continue to hear that it is a great idea and the laurels of the bill are applauded but that it cannot work. It does work, and we need to try. We need to move the bill to the next stage. It has to go to the Senate. Let those excuses resurface there and let us find solutions. As New Democrats, that is what we have done along the way.

I have a brief time to speak today, and I have two amendments that I will propose.

We have agreed to compromise continually in this process, not only with the Conservatives, but with the Liberals and now with the Bloc. There has been an attempt, one way or another, to either gut the bill or pretend that we are doing something and then say that we are doing all these other things. That is not the point. The point is this is one tool that could end the suffering of millions of people. This is one tool in the kit that Canada could use to help people.

Even if members' worst fears occur, we could bring the bill back to this chamber and fix it again. We could bring it back right away. We do not want intellectual property stolen. It will not happen with this bill, but that is one of the excuses that has been given. We have actually included the components of criticism that members have put. Even though we did not think they were warranted, we have agreed to them. Even under the worst scenario, we could bring the bill back to the chamber and fix it right away. New Democrats are prepared to participate every single day to do that. We are here today to do that.

I want to thank some people. I want to thank Richard Elliot and the grandmothers across this country, people who care for people and understand the connection, the values and principles with which this country could lead the world.

We have told them that we have a phony law that does not give them the drugs they deserve, that they could get to actually have good health and take care of other types of problems, as opposed to a solution.

There is no other excuse. The bill is WTO and TRIPS compliant. I have heard that. Witness after witness came to the committee. The same excuses were brought forward against this bill. They were not verified. At the very least, we could try with this bill. The people who are opposed to this are worried that affordable medicines will get to people rather quickly, and even more important, will get to the types of diseases that we need to get to. If that becomes a problem because it is happening too often and too fast, then we could revisit that. The excuses we have heard make no sense whatsoever.

The drug industry has blatantly said that if we do this it is going to cost us research and development and the industry will not invest in Canada. Despite the generous corporate tax cuts, despite all the grants and subsidies the industry is getting for research development and all the other incentives that have been thrown in the mix, the industry would throw the country under the bus just because a bill could pass that would, ironically, give the industry money. The pharmaceutical companies would get money for the drugs. They would get a percentage.

Again, I want to thank every member for participating in this debate. I hope that everybody thinks about this as the bill, hopefully, goes forward.

I would like to amend Motions No. 1 and 2. Mr. Speaker, I move:

That the motion proposing to restore Clause 2 of Bill C-393 be amended by replacing the definition of “pharmaceutical product” with the following:

“pharmaceutical product” means any patented product listed in Schedule 1 in, if applicable, the dosage form, the strength and the route of administration specified in that Schedule in relation to the product and any other patented product, or product manufactured through a patented process, of the pharmaceutical sector needed to address public health problems, especially those resulting from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other epidemics, and includes active ingredients necessary for its manufacture and diagnostic kits needed for its use.

The second amendment is long, and it is also WTO and TRIPS compliant. Mr. Speaker, I move:

That the Motion proposing to restore Clause 4 of Bill C-393 be amended by replacing the text after “4.(1) Subsection 21.04(1) of the Act is replaced by the following:” with the following:

21.04 (1) Subject to subsection (3), the Commissioner shall, on the application of any person and on the payment of the prescribed fee, authorize the person to make, construct and use a patented invention solely for purposes directly related to the manufacture of the pharmaceutical product named in the application and to sell it for export to any country listed in Schedule 2.

(2) Paragraph 21.04(2)(c) of the Act is repealed.

(3) Paragraph 21.04(2)(e) and (f) of the Act are repealed.

(4) Subparagraph 21.04(3)(c)(i) and (ii) of the Act are replaced by the following:

(i) sought from the patentee or, if there is more than one, from each of the patentees, by certified or registered mail, a licence to manufacture and sell the pharmaceutical product for export to one or more of the countries listed in Schedule 2 on reasonable terms and conditions and that such efforts have not been successful; and

(ii) provided the patentee, or each of the patentees, as the case may be, by certified or registered mail, in the written request for a licence, with the information that is in all material respects identical to the information referred to in subsection (2).

(5) Paragraph 21.04(3)(d) of the Act is repealed.

(6) Section 21.04 is amended by the following after subsection (3):

(4) The solemn or statutory declaration referred to in paragraph 3(c) is not required in the case of an application to the Commissioner for an authorization to supply the product named in the application to an eligible importing country for purposes of addressing a national emergency or other circumstances of extreme urgency in that country or for purposes of public non-commercial use, but in such cases, the Commissioner shall notify the patentee or patentees of the issuance of the compulsory licence as soon as reasonably practicable after it has been issued.

That is all about compromise by the New Democrats for those who are opposed to the bill.

The Patent Act

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Madam Speaker, I will begin my brief debate on this extremely important bill that is before the House this afternoon by quoting a message I received in my office this morning from an international development student who happens to be at St. Mary's University in my riding. I think she both expresses the sentiment and reflects the experience of a great many people who have visited the African continent in the last several years. The message reads:

I just returned a few days ago from a four month CIDA-funded research project in Malawi, Africa. I interviewed women who were caring for dying family members. I spent my days in the villages, witnessing the most shocking and horrible situations: a nine year old girl, alone to nurse her dying mother and take care of her twin seven year old brothers--she told me that the best part of her day was when she walked 40 minutes to get to school because once there, it was the only time of the day that she could rest; an old woman, completely bent over, unable to stand straight or walk properly, nursing her sick daughter and looking after scores of orphans from her other children who had already died. I spent days in the pediatric palliative care unit, talking to mothers of dying children--what can be said? What hope can they have? Imagine such a thing happening here. One thing that stays in my mind is women telling me repeatedly, “here, there is no peace--they weren't talking of civil war or political unrest, they were talking about the misery and poverty and injustice of so many people dying from a disease for which there are drugs, but not for them. There certainly can be no peace as long as this continues in our world. It is a blight on our common humanity.

To that I want to add that I think it would be a blight, not just on the record of the Liberal government, but a blight on the record of all members of Parliament if we are not able to summon here, over the next week, starting with the vote on this bill this afternoon, the absolute commitment, with determination, persistence and an appropriate sense of urgency, to ensure that the bill goes to committee where hearings will be held and that it comes back to the House for passage within the next 10 days.

I want to refer again to a statistic that I cited earlier. We think people can imagine the human misery that lies behind the statistic that every 13 seconds a person in Africa dies of AIDS. Nelson Mandela, not surprisingly, has been an incredible champion of the cause of dealing with the African pandemic. He stated:

The vision which fuelled our struggle for freedom;--

Referring to the struggle against apartheid. He goes on to say:

--the deployment of energies and resources; the unity and commitment to common goals--all these are needed if we are to bring AIDS under control.

This is a war, it has killed more people than has been the case in all previous wars... We must not continue to be debating, to be arguing, when people are dying.

Those words inevitably give rise to the question: why are we here discussing instead of doing? Why would we stop or hesitate for one nanosecond in getting on with speedy passage?

The possibility existed for us to send the bill all the way to third reading and conclusion in the House today. The questions that will be asked of all 301 of us will be: Why are we here debating? Why are we sending it to committee? I think we have to answer those questions honestly for Canadians.

I do not want to dwell, in the spirit of all party cooperation, on the point that has been made by the previous speakers that the government left it awfully late in the life of this session to introduce this legislation, because I want to focus on how we can deal with this in the most hasty manner possible but not such a hasty manner that we do not fix a fundamental flaw that exists in the legislation.

The reason we are here discussing the legislation and proposing that it go to committee is so the flaw can be fixed.

This is an occasion when we should express our gratitude, not only to the incredibly Herculean work of special envoy, Stephen Lewis, who has literally laid his life on the line in this struggle against the HIV-AIDS pandemic, but the other heroes and heroines on the ground: the NGOs in the African villages and communities who are doing unimaginable work; the representatives here in Canada who have helped to deal with our ignorance and our complacency in relation to this HIV-AIDS pandemic. This includes those who have been working under the umbrella of the Canadian Council for International Co-operation, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network , Oxfam, Medécins son frontières and many more. I think through them we want to express our thanks to all of those who have worked so hard.

Let me share with members what the coordinator and the spokesperson for the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network said today. He said:

The bill is intended to amend the Patent Act by allowing generic pharmaceutical companies to make lower-cost medicines for export to developing countries to deal with their public health problems. But as currently drafted, Bill C-56 provides that a brand-name pharmaceutical company has the right to take over a contract that a generic manufacturer has negotiated with a developing country. If they do so, the generic manufacturer cannot get a licence to make the medicine and export it.

This leaves generic companies unable to fill contracts that they have negotiated in good faith and at great cost and effort with developing countries.

As Richard Elliott, director, legal research and policy of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, has said, “as a result, developing countries cannot effectively give licences to generic manufacturers to make their cheaper medicines”. This means we will not actually end up seeing lower prices from either generic companies or brand name companies and developing countries will not see the benefit that Bill C-56 is supposed to deliver.

We need to heed the concerns that are being expressed. We should not act so hastily that we do not fix the flaw in the bill. At the same time, however, we must unanimously agree to act with great haste to make sure the legislation is enacted as quickly as humanly possible.

Yesterday was a rare day in the House, one of those rare occasions that I wish occurred far more often, when there was a real sense of common purpose in the House. I want to pay tribute to the outgoing Prime Minister when I say this. Yesterday we saw him, not only in some of his finest moments, but he delivered a very important message to us. It was a message that I think we have to take very seriously.

Sure we can have some fun poking criticisms at the record of his government, and there are legitimate criticisms, but let us today act in the spirit that was very evident in the House yesterday and the tone that was set by the outgoing Prime Minister when he pleaded with us to make Parliament work and to demonstrate to Canadians that we are all here for the same reason.

If there were ever a test of that resolve, if there were ever a test of whether that can be truly said about the 301 parliamentarians assembled here working on behalf of Canadians, surely we can make that commitment. Surely we can commit today to see the bill through in the most effective and efficient way that we possibly can do it.

The government can demonstrate good faith here. I do not buy the idea that it is bad faith on the government's part that it is saying we should send this legislation to committee. To the contrary, it is evident that the government wants to see this legislation became part of the so-called legacy of the Prime Minister. It is fair game for all of us to say we will help make it part of the Prime Minister's legacy.

That requires a commitment today from the House leader and from government members opposite that this legislation will go to committee, that it will be fast tracked. If there had not been a fundamental flaw in the bill, we were prepared to fast track it through at every stage of reading today and see it enacted as soon as possible. We cannot do that.

What can we do that is second best? What can we do in view of the circumstances that we face? We can agree today that we will be back on Parliament Hill for committee meetings.There is a recess in the parliamentary calendar and the government party has important work to do with respect to electing a new leader, which we all understand and respect. However we can be back in this place a week from Monday to hold committee hearings. Those hearings can happen over a period of a few days. We can ensure that the legislation will come back and will be enacted within the next 10 days or two weeks.

There are all kinds of suggestions going around that the government is shutting down this session of Parliament. It has tried every day this week to get the means to do that by outvoting us on a call to recess Parliament. We stood against it in solidarity with other parliamentarians to ensure that Parliament did not recess before we had an opportunity to deal with the legislation to get drugs to the millions of people who are dying in Africa.

Let us use the opportunity that we have to summon that all party cooperation. Let us make sure that we can hold our heads up high. Canadians and other countries around the world want Canada to provide the leadership. Let us make sure that the committee does its work and that Parliament does its work to get this legislation enacted within a couple of weeks.

I would like to finish by quoting Stephen Lewis, the special envoy who has been working tirelessly on this issue. He provided some of the most powerful inspirational evidence before the foreign affairs committee on this issue early in 2003. He said:

The pandemic is overshadowing anything we know in human history, that nothing is comparable, not the 14th century Black Death nor all the loss of life, both military and civilian, in the two world wars of the 20th century, military and civilian. Nothing can begin to compare to the dreadful consequences of the pandemic. People now talk about 100 million deaths down the road. I don't doubt that for a moment. The numbers may rise even higher than that.

The numbers will rise higher than that and they will rise faster than is necessary if we do not fast track this legislation. The numbers will rise if the desperately needed drugs are not dispensed in the most effective way possible. The numbers will rise if we do not help put the infrastructure in place to ensure that the drugs can be dispensed in the most effective way possible and that treatment and support is given to those who are suffering from HIV-AIDS.

Let us act with compassion in dispatch and get the job done. That can be part of the legacy, not only of the Liberal government, but of this Parliament.

[André Bachand, Progressive Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in what is probably the last day in the current session to speak to an extremely important bill.

During our life as parliamentarians, we often make mountains out of mole hills even though there are no mole hills in this dignified House. But here we are dealing with an extremely important bill in the dying days of a session.

Regrettably Bill C-56 was put forward at the very last minute. It could already have been reviewed in committee and disposed of, sent to the other place where it could have been reviewed, amended if necessary, and passed.

A political agenda has taken over a humanitarian agenda. This is what is going on here. For the past few days, even weeks, various opposition parties, several government members and some ministers also, I hope, various stakeholders in Bill C-56, including brand name drug companies and generic name drug companies, as well as humanitarian and community groups involved in this issue have been urging the government to go ahead.

As a matter of fact, the office of the Minister of Industry had invited members to a briefing session on the bill, but it was postponed and was only held this week. It makes one wonder.

This week, the Prime Minister answered a planted question on Bill C-57, reading a prepared text saying that it was a priority. We might stop sitting very soon. Yesterday, the government House leader, before leaving for a warmer climate as a result of an appointment, said good bye to parliamentarians although Bill C-56 has not passed yet. Once again, the partisan agenda has taken over the humanitarian agenda.

For several weeks now the government has tried to blame the drug industry as well as the opposition parties, including the Progressive Conservative Party, the sponsor of the Drug Patent Act, accusing them of delaying matters. The holdup is not with us; it is with the government.

I will not talk about the benefits of Bill C-56, as everybody is in agreement on that. However, as my Bloc Quebecois colleague said, now that Bill C-56 can be discussed, as we are doing now, we see that there are people on both sides who have reservations, be they the brand name drug companies or the generic drug companies, humanitarian groups or non-governmental organizations.

We are ready to take a few hours or a few days to study the bill in committee, very quickly. We will not be the ones holding the process up. The problem is that every time there is a delay, there are more deaths in these countries, every day.

Let us imagine the possible and probably scenario of an adjournment and a prorogation in the next few weeks. We should be called back sometime in February. However, if there is a prorogation, all the bills will die on the Order Paper, unless there is an agreement among the parliamentary leaders of all the parties represented in the House. This could represent a delay of three or four months.

I would not want to hit a nerve here, but how many hundreds of thousands of people will contract these diseases, tuberculosis, malaria or AIDS, in that period? How many hundreds or thousands of people will die? It could be interesting to air the Liberal convention in Africa next week to make sure people realize that, because of a leadership convention, everything is being put on hold while people are dying.

We all agree with the bill. Yes, we support the pharmaceutical companies, and we also support the Patent Act since we introduced it. As one of my colleagues was saying earlier, what is interesting in all this is that we can be compassionate while doing business.

We can do it. The big bad World Trade Organization was able to arrive at a compromise, to strike a delicate and complex balance. It can be done.

That being said, we are stuck in a situation that we cannot control. The four opposition parties are in agreement about speeding up the process, but not at any cost. Our party does not have on its agenda a leadership convention that will be broadcast on all major Canadian networks on November 14 and 15.

We are lawmakers. We are here to finish any job that we start. Certain bills are frivolous. In fact, they exist just to make a minister or a government look good.

Bill C-56 is a very important bill. The Minister of Industry has made a number of blunders when he was justice minister and when he was health minister. We all remember the blunders he made on the hepatitis issue. At least here, with the credibility given to this file by the Minister for International Trade, he had a chance to speed up the process. But no. We are getting a new prime minister.

People dying in Africa are not a priority after all. Surely something can be done. We, in the Progressive Conservative Party, are in contact with our colleagues and our leader in the Senate. He and the PC team in the other place are ready to do the job quickly, but properly.

Will we have time to finish the job? While reading a letter, the current Prime Minister was boasting about the fact that we are the first country to legislate on the WTO decision, but the legislation may not be passed because of the partisan agenda of this government.

Yes, maybe it is time we had a new leader. Yes, maybe it is time we had a new prime minister. I agree with that, but surely there can be better planning. It is so important. Surely it would be possible to give the House, the committee and the other place the opportunity to look at this issue.

House leaders on this side met and they had discussions with the government House leader, or at least the person who will be in that position probably for another few hours. Rumour has it that he is going to Brazil. They can send him wherever they want. The fact remains that he always was a good soldier for the Liberal Party.

However, what are we going to do now? We will be back in our ridings next week. In my riding, I have organizations lobbying to have this bill passed. In Quebec there are organizations lobbying to have it passed. They are going to ask us what we are doing. And we will have to answer that we are currently on break. Their next question will be, “So will you be able to deal with it next week?”

We do not know whether or not we will come back. Regardless of the fact that the Order Paper is calling us back on November 17, we do not know if that is what is going to happen. We are ready. I am ready, as a member of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, to come back next week to review the bill, to bring in people concerned with Bill C-56 and speed up the process.

We can do it. However, in some respects, we wonder if we should lend credibility to the Liberal partisan agenda. Should we do it? They tried to put the blame on us, “We know full well that the Conservatives favour the big drug companies. In the 1990s you introduced the Patent Protection Act and so on and so forth. You are against it. You are the bad guys in this Parliament.”

We are not the bad guys in Parliament. The bad guys are those who are unable to get their priorities straight with regard to their own legislative agenda. That is the problem.

With better planning and cooperation when they introduced Bill C-56, it could have passed today. Today, we are realizing that the big mean drug companies are not the only ones to have reservations. The generic drug companies also have reservations regarding the implementation of the bill. As I said earlier, without sounding like I am repeating myself and rambling on, organizations have reservations regarding Bill C-56. We would like to hear from them in committee. I can guarantee we will speed up the work, but we will do it.

If it were only pharmaceutical companies that had reservations, I would not be making this speech today. But stakeholders on both sides have reservations about the application and the applicability of this legislation.

Members of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology discussed this issue, and we would like to see the regulations. A bill is often 3, 4 or 5 pages long, whereas regulations are often 3, 4 or 5 inches thick. We would like to see what would be in there.

We must protect tens of thousands of jobs in Canada. In fact, we must protect the delicate balance between Canada and the United States with regard to pharmaceutical research and the distribution of pharmaceutical products.

Therefore, this bill must go to committee quickly. I am sure that, on this side of the House, we would agree to do this right now. Members on this side of the House, or at least members of the Progressive Conservative Party, are ready to sit down in committee and do a good and credible job.

Today, we can help those who are suffering, those who have had enough and those who will contract these diseases. We can tell them that Canada's commitment is more than a statement made by a Prime Minister at the end of his reign. Parliament will take its responsibilities.

At the same time, if the government has not done a good job in terms of legislative planning, that is its problem. It is not the opposition that is the big bad wolf here, but the government.

Bill C-56 is one of those bills that gives goose bumps. Yesterday, we were watching the Prime Minister who was boasting about Bill C-20. It gave me goose bumps, but not for the same reason. It gave me a negative feeling, whereas Bill C-56 gives me a positive feeling. If everybody agrees, we could look at this as early as next week, unless the partisan agenda prevails again over the humanitarian agenda, unless the government is willing to wait three or four months and have a few thousand more sick or dead people on its conscience. We are ready to move quickly to do a credible job.

Patent Act

[James Rajotte, Canadian Alliance, Edmonton Southwest, AB]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his answers to those questions.

I want to state at the outset that the Canadian Alliance does support this initiative. We support Bill C-56 and we certainly look forward to seeing the government acting on this.

I want to state a few points just to be clear and to be on the record. Some have suggested that the Canadian Alliance is a johnny-come-lately to this issue. That is not true. In fact, it goes against the public record itself.

As soon as the Ministers of Trade and Industry raised this issue in September following the agreement at the WTO in August--and I think we all should commend the World Trade Organization for taking that step in August--as soon as these two ministers publicly mused about doing this, my colleague, our critic for international trade, and I publicly wrote to the Minister for International Trade and the Minister of Industry. I would like to quote directly from the letter. We stated:

We would like you to know that the Canadian Alliance supports efforts by the Canadian government to facilitate the delivery of drugs to help developing countries deal with public health emergencies such as the HIV-AIDS crisis in Africa.

October 2, 2003

We put ourselves as a party on the record as supporting this initiative at that time.

Further to that, I want to discuss the work of another colleague, the member for Calgary East, who has brought up this issue with me on numerous occasions and has been pressuring me to push the government to act. As we know, he was born in Africa. He has a very personal connection with that continent and this issue and he would like us to act. He stood up on a member's statement and he called for it, which was publicly recognized in the The Toronto Star by Carol Goar.

Third, I would like to point out the work of one of my colleagues who is a doctor. The member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca has been on trips to Africa trying to actually facilitate the much needed delivery of drugs to people. This is something that my colleague himself will not talk about, but I can because I think it is a wonderful example of a member of Parliament dedicating his time and resources to try to address this issue.

So I want to state publicly that the Canadian Alliance has been very publicly supportive of this initiative. We have some concerns on how it is going to be implemented, but we do very much support the initiative.

I have to say that I was quite pleasantly surprised with the bill that was introduced yesterday and with the briefing. I know that on this side of the House often we are critical of those in the bureaucracy, but quite frankly, I thought the bureaucrats from Industry Canada and Health Canada had done their homework. I thought the briefing was very good and I think that in general this is a very good piece of legislation.

Obviously I want to touch upon why we need to do this, why we in the House need to act. The fact is that because we are facing epidemics, as human beings we have to address the issue. The developing countries have simply been ravaged by HIV-AIDS, by tuberculosis and by malaria.

In Botswana and Zimbabwe alone, it is estimated that 30 million Africans have HIV-AIDS, which is equal to the entire population of Canada. Just to think of the staggering numbers is simply astounding.

The plague has already killed 15 million Africans. Women and girls are particularly vulnerable. Sixty per cent of infected Africans are female. Less than 200,000 Africans are receiving HIV-AIDS anti-retroviral drugs with the appropriate medical follow-up.

In August 2003, the World Trade Organization agreed on legal changes that would make it easier for poorer countries to import the cheaper generic drugs made under compulsory licensing if they are unable to manufacture the medicines themselves.

In September, the WHO made a proposal known as “3 by 5”: to get HIV-AIDS drugs to three million people by 2005. Only 300,000 people in poorer countries now receive the drugs with appropriate medical follow-up.

There are a number of problems associated with AIDS, which the United Nations is trying to overcome. For instance, HIV-AIDS and TB often occur together. In addition, malaria thrives on bodies whose immune systems have been weakened by AIDS. We have to look at these diseases in concert and try to address them all.

While there is presently no cure for AIDS, anti-retroviral drugs, ARVs such as AZT, can prolong the life of an infected person by up to 20 years and reduce the chance of an infected pregnant woman passing on the virus to her unborn child. ARVs curb the reproduction of the virus itself.

We have to address the issue of poverty. Currently, companies like GlaxoSmithKline provide HIV-AIDS drugs for as little as 19¢ a day. In August 2003, GSK licensed a generic manufacturer in South Africa.

However, these low costs, as low as they are at 19¢ a day, are still too expensive for most patients. In addition, people who cannot afford the correct diet or clean water may have an adverse reaction to a medication. This is why we encourage the government, not in this bill specifically but as part of this initiative, to look at the medical infrastructure and the medical follow-up and take a holistic approach to this problem: not just getting the drugs at a low cost to the people who need them but ensuring that the medical infrastructure is in place and that there is medical follow-up.

In terms of distribution, even the president of South Africa, who was here recently, has said that while he wants cheap drugs to be delivered “tomorrow”, the effort would be wasted without putting in place an adequate infrastructure to ensure the medicines were stored properly.

We in the Canadian Alliance hope the government recognizes that drugs are only one component of improving care in African countries and other developing nations that have been ravaged by HIV-AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. Poverty, distribution problems and a lack of medical care continue to compound the problem of public health crises in these countries. While we support the provision of cheaper drugs, we must look at it, as I have said, in a very holistic manner.

In terms of the timeline, the Minister of Industry announced in September that Canada would export cheap generic versions of AIDS drugs to developing nations. Obviously we know that generic drugs are copies of the brand names. In Canada, generic drugs can be produced only after the 20 year patent expires for the initial brand name.

We recognize that there are some concerns with the legislation, but we also believe that because of the good faith surrounding these issues we can address these concerns quickly.

I have talked to as many interested parties as I could, certainly this morning and last night: the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, Doctors Without Borders, the generic drug companies' representative association, and representatives of research based pharmaceutical companies. Certainly these interested parties should have an opportunity to present at committee and to try to make what they see as improvements in the legislation, but the issue of timing is of concern to us.

As I mentioned in my questions, I think the new Liberal leader should state exactly where he stands. If he supports this, that is great. Then he should be encouraged to bring this legislation back as soon as possible, because if this is the last sitting day then unfortunately the committee would not be able to get to this before the new year, which I think is unfortunate.

Again, just for the record, the Canadian Alliance supports the government's initiative in proposing that the bill pass second reading unanimously and go straight to committee. We support this initiative to provide lower cost drugs to developing nations to address HIV-AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and possibly other diseases. We certainly look forward to working with any and all interested parties on the issue.

[Serge Marcil, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Madam Speaker, I think that yesterday was a historic day for the Canadian government. One of the best parts of the legacy the Prime Minister will be leaving is Bill C-56.

For many years, stakeholders in the non-government organizations and the developing countries have asked western governments to help in the fight against debilitating illnesses, epidemics and other illnesses found in these areas.

It should be noted that these countries cannot take charge of their own destiny. We know that on this planet, with its billions of inhabitants, the western and northern countries are living in opulence. We are developing all sorts of services for our populations. We are trying to improve our fellow citizens' quality of life as much as we can. It really is a shame to see that we are only looking north and that we are totally ignoring our friends in the south, the whole of Africa and many countries in Asia, which are appealling for help because they are facing major health problems.

Once again, Canada is playing a leadership role in assisting developing countries. The commitment of our government and our Prime Minister to Africa has taken the form of an extraordinary initiative. Canada has become the first G-7 country to make its knowledge, research and medical products available to developing countries.

I am very happy to speak to this bill. I congratulate the Minister for International Trade, the Minister of Industry and the Secretary of State for Science, Research and Development on the exceptional effort they made in so little time. I also want to take this opportunity to congratulate the officials of the industry department who worked tirelessly seven days a week to prepare a bill and implement a government decision to help developing countries by providing them with the drugs they so urgently need.

So, I want to congratulate them on an extraordinary bill which they prepared in very short order. This bill is very well articulated, and it really reflects the philosophy of the Canadian government on humanitarian assistance.

This bill was introduced yesterday, and we are already proceeding with second reading today, because we want to pass the bill as quickly as possible. But we do not want to botch the job. We did think we had done our work before the bill was introduced, but it is important that the bill be referred to committee as quickly as possible so we can hear witnesses. Many agencies, like Doctors without Borders, want to be heard and give their opinions on this bill. There is also the Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association. I would like to quote just one paragraph from the letter it wrote to the leader of the Government of Canada. This letter is from the Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association:

The CGPA and its member companies strongly recommend that Bill C-56 not be passed without further consultations with our industry and other stakeholders. We believe that, at the very least, it is necessary for the legislation to be referred to Committee so that amendments can be made to increase the likelihood that the goals of the legislation will be realized.

Therefore, it is important to ensure that organizations who share the same concerns as the government have a chance to speak up and share their views on how to improve the bill and enhance it so that it is not just a token gesture, but a tool to provide real assistance to developing countries.

We held consultations. The bill was not established in a contextual vacuum. Again, I congratulate officials in the Departments of Industry and International Trade. We cannot thank them enough for their hard work. They went to great lengths to consult as many Canadian organizations as possible to ensure that the bill, at least at first reading, is consistent throughout, and facilitates Canadian government action for the benefit of developing countries.

These last two months, a special group made up of officials and both ministers concerned has been working on the bill. I can say, as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry, that we have been closely involved in the drafting of this bill.

Today, the Government of Canada is at the forefront of a worldwide movement to promote access to pharmaceutical products needed by developing countries to address public health problems such as AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other epidemics.

During my short life I have had the privilege of working in developing countries, and I hope to get back there. I had the privilege of working in Senegal, Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. I either worked in the field or took part in training sessions in these countries. I had to deal with these health issues on a daily basis.

We talk about AIDS, but two of the leading causes of death among children are malaria and diarrhea, both of which are the subject of considerable research. We Canadians, as citizens of the world, must take part in this kind of research and work toward improving the quality of life of people in developing countries.

We cannot and must not ignore the problem, be navel gazers and only criticize what happens at home. While striving to improve our own lot, we forget about the needs of people in the rest of the world.

If we took the six billion people living on this planet and tried to determine where the wealth is, we would easily find that the wealth is controlled by less than one-sixth of the population. More than two thirds of human beings live in totally unacceptable conditions.

Today, we are setting an example, but we are also inviting other western countries to imitate Canada and do what we are doing today. Hopefully, we will get the support of the United States, France, Germany, Great Britain and others countries, all members of the World Trade Organization and the G-7 who like to make a great show of their economic power every year. I hope that from now on these countries will start to reflect on the fact that the planet does not belong only to a minority, but to everyone. Everyone has a place on this planet.

All those who have the privilege of living in a healthy environment should turn to those in need and help them. These people have a right to the same human respect, they need our help and they need to live.

Of course, we cannot buy respect, and Africans do not want to beg from western countries. They want to be recognized as true citizens of this world.

Today, acknowledging the call of those people, we have converted our thoughts into an exceptional act. It is true that we are acting through CIDA and international trade programs. It is true that we are acting through the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. CIDA spends hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to developing countries.

Today, all Canadians, through these agencies and departments, approve this action and congratulate the Canadian government because it had the courage to take the lead on this issue and call on other countries to imitate Canada's action for communities in need.

Essential agencies are playing a role in developing countries. There are hundreds of NGO's in Canada. Quebec is very much involved with NGO's. I have had the opportunity to work in education for the Fondation Paul Gérin-Lajoie, which was founded in the 1980s.

As I said earlier, I witnessed some totally unacceptable situations. Every year, many Canadians and Quebecers go to work as volunteer cooperants with other NGOs, like Oxfam Quebec or CECI, to share their knowledge and help the underprivileged to learn to look after themselves. Doctors Without Borders is another organization that plays a remarkable role.

Today, I want to pay tribute to Dr. Thomas, from Doctors Without Borders, who worked hard to ensure that the Government of Canada would show some leadership on this issue.

I do not want to go into this further, but I would urge all members of Parliament, regardless of their political affiliation, their origins and the regions they represent in this House, to support this initiative. This bills ought to be referred to a committee as soon as possible. I would also encourage them to meet with the organizations and the workers who are in contact with the people in need. Listen to them and see to it that this bill does not come back to us in a year or two to be amended. Let us draft a good bill right away so that we do not have to revisit its purpose constantly and that we can give the front line workers a badly needed tool and reach out to those who really need our help.

International Aid

[John Reynolds, Canadian Alliance, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, BC]

Mr. Speaker, countries on the African continent need help fighting HIV-AIDS. They need medication and they need it now. Cabinet ministers put on a big flashy show yesterday when Bill C-56 was introduced. Now we want action to back up those flashy words.

Will the government commit to passing the bill today at all stages?

Business of the House

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

Given that we were pushing for Bill C-56 long before the Alliance ever knew there was a problem, we just want you to know that the NDP agrees to pass it at all stages right away.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to answer all these questions.

This afternoon, the House will proceed to the report stage of Bill C-19, the first nations fiscal legislation. If this is completed in time, we will call Bill S-13, the census bill.

Tomorrow morning the business will be Bill C-51, the amendments to the Canada Elections Act. In the afternoon, pursuant to the offer made by the hon. member and others, we will proceed with Bill C-57, for our aboriginal community of Westbank, and hopefully will do all stages.

There have been discussions among House leaders. I understand that we could also, pursuant to the outcome of further negotiations, deal with Bill C-56.

We would then return to Bill C-52, the radiocommunication bill.

On our return from the remembrance week break, we will return to the unfinished business from this week. We will also commence report stage of such anticipated legislation as Bill C-38, the marijuana bill.

May I in conclusion thank all House leaders for the excellent cooperation they have given me throughout the last several years. Of course I will get to say that when we come back in November. I thank the right hon. Prime Minister as well.

[John Reynolds, Canadian Alliance, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the government House leader to indicate what business is scheduled for the rest of today and tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker, all opposition parties have agreed to pass at all stages, Bill C-57, which is the enabling legislation to bring into effect the Westbank first nation self-government agreement of October 3, 2003 and the Westbank first nation constitution.

My party has also agreed, and we hope others will, to pass Bill C-56 at all stages. Bill C-56 amends the Patent Act and the Food and Drugs Act to facilitate access to pharmaceutical products, to address the public health problems affecting many developing nations, especially those resulting from HIV-AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other epidemics.

Could the government House leader advise us whether we will put those through the House before we leave on Friday? With great anticipation, could he also tell the House what business we will be dealing with on November 17?

International Aid

[James Rajotte, Canadian Alliance, Edmonton Southwest, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Alliance supports Bill C-56 which attempts to facilitate the delivery of drugs to help developing countries deal with public health emergencies, such as the HIV-AIDS crisis in Africa.

We would have liked to have this legislation in September when it was first announced by the Minister of Industry rather than on the day before the House closes.

Why has the Minister of Industry waited so long to introduce this legislation?

Patent Act

[Allan Rock, Liberal, for the Prime Minister]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-56, an act to amend the Patent Act and the Food and Drugs Act.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Assisted Human Reproduction Act

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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--

[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.

[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.

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

Mr. Speaker, we are back again speaking about the assisted human reproduction act. It came before us previously as Bill C-56. We are talking now mainly about the Group No. 4 amendments. I want to make some general comments before I get into the specifics of the Group No. 4 motions and amendments.

One of the reasons that we need to have a discussion about this important issue is that we are setting the stage, not just for a single bill but for a legislated attitude toward people. We are setting up a bill that sets out a legislative attitude toward other human beings in our society. The conclusions that we reach in the House about our attitude and our decisions about other human beings will have great consequences.

For example, we have seen throughout this century what happens when governments and ideologies decide that individual human beings are not unique and that they are only basic economic units. I had the opportunity in university to sit under three years of teaching that bombarded us with Karl Marx's political theory that all events can be analyzed from a particular economic perspective, and that human beings then must fit into that perspective and into that analysis. Individuals are never seen as unique in that ideology. They are seen as a commodity that needs to be used.

Interestingly enough, through the last century we have seen that theory lived out through various socialistic and communistic governments on this earth. In the last century there has been more brutality from those regimes than anywhere that we have seen in the history of mankind. It is important that we have a unique view of the uniqueness of human life and what it means.

I can think of a couple of examples. In Stalin's Russia, one of the results of his decision to get control of the middle class farming communities was that he was willing to starve them until they disappeared. He had no concern for the uniqueness, the individuality or the greatness of human life.

In China, even today, we see that it subjects its individual citizens to the wishes of what it would call the collective. We see this show up in different situations where there is brutality toward people who may believe differently than their leadership does.

In the Sudan we see another socialist regime that is only too happy to wage war for money. It has little responsibility toward its own people and it seems to care little about the human life of its citizens.

It is important that we decide what our attitude and our view will be toward human life. Where there is a weak position taken regarding human uniqueness and individuality, there is definitely a loss of compassion for others. I would suggest that we are not as immune from this as greatly as we think we might be.

We see a number of places where the government already refuses to deal with issues that involve the value of human life. We spent a day earlier this week talking about child protection and child pornography. I would suggest that the unwillingness of the government to deal directly and decisively with child pornography is one such example of a government that is refusing to deal with those issues that say that human life has ultimate value.

Last spring we had the opportunity to meet with the police officers who deal with this material. After seeing their presentation I would agree with my colleague from Wild Rose that there is absolutely no excuse for allowing this to continue.

I was embarrassed the other day by the NDP's position that as long as people can create things out of their own imagination, that there needed to be some reason to defend that. After talking to the police officers who have to deal with the child pornography issue on a daily basis, I guess I do not have the tolerance that others might. This material is repugnant. It is abhorrent. The failure to deal with the issue really touches at the heart of how the government views the people who are its citizens.

We need to take a look at a couple of questions. One of them is, when does human life begin? Although present law says that human life begins at birth, that is a ridiculous position from a scientific perspective, and it really is nonsense. I was reminded of that the other day when I saw one of the beer companies' advertisements. They had a picture of a fetus in the womb on their poster. The point that was made was “When you drink, she feels it”. I thought it was interesting that beer companies will accept the fact that fetuses and embryos are human beings but our government refuses to do that.

Clearly, I would suggest that the point at which being becomes human is when the union of the genetic material takes place and when we have the completion of the DNA package. Whether we want to embrace that or not, scientifically that is the only point where human life really begins.

Scientists have thrown out a couple of red herrings. One in particular is when they say that they have picked a 14 day period and after that 14 days is the arbitrary decision that now this is human life. That decision has not been based on science. It basically has been meant to avoid the scientific discussion and to stay away from the discussion of when does human life really begin.

I would suggest that scientists generally have failed the test of speaking clearly on when human life begins. Because of that, they run the risk of disqualifying themselves by not dealing honestly with this issue. It has become for many scientists more of an economic than a scientific or ethical decision. They want to have the open field. They want to have the free rein to run the experiments. They do not want to deal with the moral choices that need to be made so they try to avoid doing that at all costs. It is important that someone in the country address this issue and I would suggest that it is the responsibility of Parliament to deal seriously and decisively with it.

I think we can accept that human life is put together at conception when the DNA material is put together, but there is a second important question that needs to be asked. What is human life worth? Throughout history we have traditionally valued human life from its natural beginning. There has been much discussion of it over the years but most belief systems, most religions and most philosophies have accepted that until the last few years.

In places and times we have seen the devaluing of that idea and that value. I guess one of the prime examples would be Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany where there was a prevailing ideology that he set forth, and that was that not all people were worthy of living out their natural lives. He targeted particular groups. We know that he targeted racial groups, the weak, the handicapped, the visually identifiable groups and in lots of places skin colour and complexion was enough to be questioned and persecuted.

I am reminded of a saying that no one does what they think is wrong. We all justify our behaviour and we are prepared to do that. We need to remember that Hitler's focus was on genetics; it was just on a different stage of development. We need to be very careful where we go with this issue, with this bill and how we begin to treat other human beings and human life.

I want to talk a bit about what is the result of taking a low view of human life. If we cannot come to an agreement on what human life is worth, we will always have inevitable consequences from that. One thing that happens if we set a low view of human life and we do not say that human life is unique right from its beginning, is that we always devalue the defenceless and the ones who do not have a voice. I think we have begun to see this already in the Netherlands where many who are in hospitals do not even know that they are being euthanized. They do not have a voice. They do not have the ability or the strength to say no. Because of that they are not given the voice to say no.

As I mentioned, it seems there is an inability to deal with the child pornography issue. This government cannot bring itself to deal with the issue. It shows a willingness to live with a bad and I guess some people would call it an evil court decision. A casual attitude to human life begins to manifest itself in so many different areas and I hope we are not beginning to see that in our own country.

A casual attitude to human life also shows a willingness to assign different degrees of worth to different human beings. We had the issue a few years ago, and it will continue, with Tracy Latimer, the choice her father made to end her life and the government's uncomfortable silence about that issue. As we look at the issue of human life, I hope it will not progress to include others who have what some people would say no use in our society, and that is the handicapped and the elderly.

I know my time is running out and I will have an opportunity to speak to this issue later. However we need to reconsider what we do here, take it seriously and treat it very carefully as we move into this area and issue of what we do with human life.

[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.

[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--

Criminal Code

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

Mr. Speaker, regarding the importation of semen from the U.S., I acknowledge what the parliamentary secretary said about the testimony the other day in committee. However, there was testimony given on Bill C-56 from one of the distributors of semen. It acknowledged that indeed it is importing from prisons in the United States.

This was such an issue in 1999 that Health Canada discovered inconsistencies with the Canadian semen banks. An ensuing investigation found most semen banks to be non-compliant with the semen regulations under the Food and Drugs Act. There were missing medical files. Mandatory testing of product safety was not being done. It resulted in a moratorium for a while.

There is no authority to inspect facilities outside our borders. We cannot even control drugs coming in from across the border. For example, Vanessa Young ordered Propulsid over the Internet. It was imported and she died as a consequence.

How can we possibly control the safety of gametes and cellular material coming in if we cannot inspect beyond our borders?

Business of the House

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Parliamentary 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.

Petitions

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

Mr. Speaker, the second petition has to do with stem cell research. In light of the fact that just yesterday Bill C-56 was reintroduced to the House the importance of these signatures is even more significant.

The petitioners are taking note of debilitating diseases, such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes, cancer and spinal cord injury, noting that ethical stem cell research offers an opportunity to advance cures for these conditions.

The petitioners further take note of the fact that adult stem cell research avoids the complication of tissue rejection and anti-rejection drugs. They encourage Parliament to consider wholehearted support for adult stem cell research.

Assisted Human Reproduction Act

[The Speaker]

The Chair is satisfied that this bill is in the same for as Bill C-56 was at the time of the prorogation of the first session of the 37th Parliament.

Accordingly, pursuant to order made on Monday, October 7, 2002, the bill is deemed read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Health.

(Bill read the second time and referred to a committee)

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Minister 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)

Committee Business and Reinstatement of Government Bills

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, I do understand the member's concern. He has expressed I think some important points, in his view, with regard to certain legislation, but the debate is now with regard to the overarching motion about the reinstatement of bills and related testimony, and reinstituting committees et cetera. I do want to get the debate back to some of the principles and hopefully share with members some of my views with regard to why Parliament has not been disadvantaged by the prorogation or reinstatement.

The House prorogued in late September. I think it would be interesting to look at some of the research material. Members well know that the principal effect of ending a session by prorogation is to terminate business. That is the historic purpose of prorogation. At that point, members are released from their parliamentary duties until Parliament is reconvened. All unfinished business normally drops from the order paper; technically, it dies on the order paper. All the committees lose their powers to transact business. It provides a fresh start for the next session. It is a fairly terminal situation and rhetorical questions have been asked about it. Why have we prorogued? What was the purpose?

There is precedent in this place such that even after prorogation, with unanimous consent of the House to reinstate legislation, it can be reinstated at the same stage it was at prior to prorogation, or the House has also historically adopted amendments to its standing orders to carry over legislation to the next session following a prorogation. There is some precedent for prorogation, but it is interesting to note that in regard to the bills that were in process at the time of prorogation, whether they were at some stage in the House of Commons or going through the Senate, it is being asked that all of the bills that were in process be reinstated.

So the question is valid: Why was there a prorogation? Precedent plays an important role in this discussion. The fact is that it has historically been the case that mid-mandate the government would prorogue. We have, in each of the parliaments since 1993, at mid-mandate prorogued the House and come out with a throne speech to refresh the mandate.

That is exactly what is happening, but was it necessary to prorogue? I think it is a valid question. I think it was. We probably could have simply carried forward with a statement by the Prime Minister, maybe, with regard to our plans for the coming period, but I think it was important that there was a prorogation, that there was a throne speech and that it got the kind of attention it did to frame the legislative intentions of the government for the remainder of its mandate. It was an important thing to do.

Certain strategic events have occurred since the last election, probably the most significant of which was September 11. It created in this place a demand, a need, to deal with certain legislation and to bring forward new legislation with regard to the security and safety of Canada. There were a number of other consequential bills that came forward. At the same time, there was also the legislative agenda of the government as laid out in its election platform during the last election.

I think the issue of whether prorogation was necessary, et cetera, is really a moot point. In fact, all the bills that were in place continue to be as if the House had not prorogued. That is in fact what is being asked for now. On top of that, the prorogation date and the day at which the House resumed were very close, so theoretically there was no productivity of the House compromised by having a prorogation at a time during which the House had not been scheduled to sit in any event. So the question then becomes one of what we are talking about.

A number of members are taking the opportunity of this motion to discuss some of the bills that are of particular interest to them or to their party and to again renew the arguments of debate that they had at a time when the bills were at certain stages, depending on which bill it was. In going through this, I tried to listen to the arguments. Of course the classic came up: private members' bills. We have established the principle that private members' bills that have not changed in substance can be reinstated at the same stage. I can understand that fully, absolutely, knowing the process we have to go through to get a private member's bill crafted, selected in a lottery and made votable and to get it through the various stages, along with the time it takes and what is really the luck of the draw, because if members are too late in a particular session we may not have enough time in the legislative calender to actually get through the full stages.

Private members' business is almost an impossible scenario to go through. We have had very few pieces of private members' business go through, so I think that is not the meatiest argument that we could make with regard to reinstating legislation.

The reinstatement, for obvious reasons, has some advantages. Clearly where legislation has been brought forward by the government, has proceeded along a certain path and has in fact passed second reading, there has been some time invested by this place, from the beginning of the process up to second reading. Maybe I should just very quickly review the process. First reading is simply the introduction of the bill in this place. From a private or confidential document in presentation at first reading, it becomes a public document. It gets a bill number and it is printed for all to see, the public included. Second reading, as members know, is debate in the House, a debate among members about whether or not the general direction or the thrust of a piece of legislation is something that they can work with and whether this is a good starting point. We go through a process in accordance with the Standing Orders to have this debate at second reading, after which time it goes to committee.

At committee witnesses are heard as necessary. There is extensive discussion among all parties. All official parties are represented on all committees. There could be amendments at committee. Following that process the bill will go through a process of clause-by-clause: Are we happy with this and can we report it back?

It comes back to the House at report stage and another opportunity for report stage amendments whereby the bill can again be amended. After report stage and another vote by the House of Commons, then there is third reading. Again some limited amendments or motions could be made at third reading, one of which could be to refer it back to committee.

So throughout the entire legislative process within this Chamber, there are numerous opportunities, numerous steps, at which members have the opportunity to argue their case, to seek support, to try to get a minister to appreciate the importance of a certain amendment or to make other changes that would be consequential to other developments.

So this House really is dynamic. Bills are not just tabled at first reading and then stay exactly the same as what is passed. We have numerous cases in which bills have changed substantially, one of which is the species at risk act. I must admit that it had one of the rockiest roads I have ever seen, but as a consequence of the work of many hon. members that legislation was changed substantially and now in fact is at the Senate.

Following the House of Commons process, once we pass third reading the bill goes to the Senate. The Senate has a similar process to deal with legislation. It can also hear witnesses. It can do almost anything it wants. The Senate is a separate entity unto itself and members have the opportunity to sell their ideas again. As we can see, without carrying on this part of the argument very long, parliamentarians, whether they be in this place or in the other place, have numerous opportunities to affect legislation from first reading right through to royal assent. It is important to understand that opportunities are not lost. By virtue of the fact that we are proposing to reinstate the bills at the legislative point they had last completed, it means that there would be no time or no opportunity lost to members.

Some will argue that what really has been lost is a bill that passed at third reading in the House of Commons and is referred to the Senate. They will argue that they have lost their House of Commons battle, that they have given it their best shot but did not win the case. Members do have an opportunity at the Senate but may not be sure about it if the House has given it passage at third reading, because unless there have been material changes in the facts, the Senate may not be in a position to consider certain changes simply because they are opinions which one parliamentarian has that does not agree with the others.

I think the point here, quite frankly, is that to deny the approval of this reinstatement motion because there are bills that members maybe did not win the battle on is to simply ask the House to sacrifice all the work that has been done on all the bills so that they get another crack at the same bill all over again. I think we have to assume that Parliament did its job to the best of its ability and it is now at another stage.

I do not believe that members can ever argue successfully that they have lost an opportunity to express the will of their constituents, to express their views and their convictions on matters of importance to them. It is on the record and the record is there. In fact, with regard to those bills that have passed second reading and are now before committee, we also have proposed that there be a reinstatement of the testimony. I think that is very important. Witnesses, however, even though they would have their previous testimony reinstated, can always be called again, and we can call more witnesses, the reason being, as we all know, that committees are the masters of their own destiny. They have the rights of a committee to do what they as committees feel like doing.

Many committees have done excellent work on important pieces of legislation. I do not have to tell hon. members of the good work that committees can do when they set aside the partisan issues and start looking at the substantive issues of good legislation, of what they can do to contribute to good legislation. I know that far and away most committees have been operating on a very productive basis and have done a wonderful job on behalf of the people of Canada on a non-partisan basis.

I was on the finance committee and I know a couple of members across who are currently on the finance committee. We all know that the important work done on prebudget consultation and special studies such as those on bank mergers or productivity issues has produced important reports for the House.

With regard to legislation, work has been done and we have to assume that Parliament has done its job and done it to the best of its ability. In the event that there are events or circumstances that were not known at a prior point, as long as that bill has not received royal assent there is always still another opportunity to have the legislation amended. I will give an an example of this. I think it is useful to give an example of how things might have changed between June 21, when the House rose the last time for the summer recess, and today. In fact, this has to do with Bill C-56 on assisted reproduction and with related research. I have taken a lot of personal interest in the bill. I want to raise with the House some of the points that could demonstrate how something might change.

I am not supporting an effort not to reinstate the bills. I want them reinstated. I want changes to this bill, which is now at committee, but I have opportunities to do that. If I cannot achieve that at committee, I will have an opportunity at report stage. I will have another opportunity at third reading. I will have another opportunity when it goes to the Senate, if I can convince the Senate, or any of those other stages, of the relevance or the validity of the points I wish to raise.

The story came out with regard to the stem cell issue and reproductive technology. Part of Bill C-56 is about stem cells. As members know, stem cells have been found to be very important cells. They can become virtually any cell in the human body. If they can be harnessed and so-called tweaked to become any other cell in the body, they can then become the instruments for therapies and cures for a host of diseases, like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes and cancer to name just a few.

There is no opposition that I have heard of right now, from anyone, to stem cell research, full stop. There is no opposition. So what is the issue? The issue is, where do we get the stem cells?

When the legislation first came out it came out in draft form. The draft bill from the Minister of Health and sent to committee for its consideration had one overriding premise: that stem cells, which can come from virtually any organ in the human body as well as placentas, umbilical cords and umbilical cord blood, and from aborted fetuses, could also come from embryos, which are fertilized eggs. The overriding premise was that embryos and stem cells coming from embryos had more potential than any of the other stem cells and therefore the legislation should permit embryos to be used for research purposes. The problem starts to get a little complicated from there, the reason being that to get those stem cells we have to destroy the embryo. We have to kill the human being.

Then the ethical question is, do we destroy one human being to help another human being? That is a very difficult argument for some. For myself, no, it is not very difficult at all. I believe that life begins at conception, period. That is my position. Other members have different views. On top of that, the embryonic stem cells have a different DNA from that of a potential patient. That means there would be the problem of immune rejection. It also means there would be lifelong anti-rejection drugs. They also found that stem cells from embryos had a tendency to create spontaneous tumours when injected under the skin. So suddenly there were these problems, but the researchers were saying they still wanted to use them because they had more potential. Why would we do that when adult stem cells, or those stem cells that come from the human body, could do that?

On November 21, finally, we got the research. It showed that stem cells from human blood, from bone marrow, could become any cell type in the human body, proof positive from the Stem Cell Institute at the University of Minnesota, totally ratified. I would like to read into the record that Dr. Alan Bernstein, the president of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research said that this was a “beautiful paper” and stated:

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

He went on to state:

In general, there has been a dogma that's grown up over the years that cells that are neurons are not going to switch and become blood cells tomorrow, or muscle.

In other words, they are not going to change, but he said:

As a result of this research, it looks like the minimum one can say is the old view... is going to have to be modified.

The president of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research has said uncategorically that the old view has to be modified. Bill C-56 has to be modified because the original premise that embryonic stem cells had more potential than non-embryonic stem cells has been totally dismissed by third-party research, by ethical research, and it has shown that we can continue to pursue cures and therapies for those requiring them without getting into the ethical argument.

I should also point out that even Dr. Françoise Baylis on the board of governors of CIHR has pointed out that only 2% of embryos donated for research purposes would be useful for research purposes, as 50% of them do not survive the thawing process, the cryogenic process of in vitro fertilization, and the balance of them would not meet quality criteria. It is estimated that there are only about 500 embryos out there. That 2% means that all this argument about embryonic stem cells has to do with 10 embryos. We are searching in Canada for 10 embryos so that we can do research. Based on the evidence that I hope to provide to committee, to anybody else in this place and to the Senate, there is no need to go to embryonic stem cells. We have, based on the research from stem cells from human bone marrow, the ability to do the research necessary to treat all illnesses and diseases.

[Rob Merrifield, Canadian Alliance, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to the amendment and what legislation is going to be brought forward in the next few months, one of the pieces of legislation of concern to me is Bill C-56. We have been dealing with this bill in the health committee for the last 18 months.

I read the Speech from the Throne and I listened to it very carefully. I was particularly struck that there was no reference to this piece of legislation in it whatsoever. It is a very controversial piece of legislation and one that is very important to the ethics of the nation. Whether what it was called was appropriate or not was something that was discussed in the health committee. We dealt with it for a considerable amount of time. We listened to some of the best witnesses when it comes to reproductive technology from across the country and around the world.

Reproductive technology was the name of the bill. At the end of our consultations we said maybe it should not be called reproductive technology because it encompassed so much. It encompassed two aspects. It dealt with reproduction and the true desire of families to reproduce and some of their problems as well as in vitro fertilization and what comes out of that.

On the other side was the ethical dynamic or the related science. This is putting a lot of people in this country in a very uneasy position because of what actually happens when we take life at its earliest and most vulnerable stage and destroy it to create stem cells. The stem cells would potentially be built into another organ and transplanted. That research and its potential is something we have wrestled with.

It is very important that this piece of legislation come forward. There has been a void in this kind of legislation and there has been for 10 years, a decade of the government's reign. We have seen this piece of legislation die on the Order Paper before. We need a political resolve to bring this forward and deal with it in an effective way for Canada because of advancements in technologies that are taking place. Researchers across Canada and in other places around the world say reproductive cloning will be done within the next six months or so. We have absolutely nothing on the books to regulate this from happening in Canada, yet it is universal.

The previous health minister at an international convention in Geneva a year ago last spring said that we need an international consensus on this issue. There is an international consensus and that is that reproductive cloning should not take place.

I am very concerned with some of the things that this piece of legislation deals with because of the complexity of the material. There are two sides to it; it is about reproducing families and also about the science. Canadians have a lack of understanding of the exact dynamics of this piece of legislation. We should look at that and weigh it very carefully.

To bring the bill back in its present form would scare me and Canadians. The bill needs to be amended. It was in the health committee prior to prorogation. If it were to be reintroduced it would come back to committee. At that stage we should be open to some of the amendments that Canadians feel are very important for this piece of very delicate legislation.

The 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, chimera, animal-human hybrids, sex selection, germ line alterations, buying and selling of embryos, paid surrogacies. They are all part of this legislation.

One of the things that is not in the legislation and one that is very important for us to consider is the banning of the patenting of human life. This is something the government needs to deal with. I was looking for an indication in the throne speech on that as well. Are we going to ban human life or are we going to allow life at its most vulnerable to be patented?

When we sit back and think about it, why would we want to patent human life? It would be for no other reason than to protect the individual who discovered it because of an economic value. Patentability is usually based on that. If it is all about economics and it is all about dollars and cents and making a commodity of human life, that is something we should be very careful of.

We are very concerned about this legislation in many other areas. One is the accountability of the agency that would be struck which is talked about in the legislation. To be able to go forward in the 21st century we need an agency that will deal with the very delicate things that are in the bill regarding scientific advancements, some of which we cannot even talk about now because we do not know what they will be, but as we go into the 21st century we know that they are going to be there.

We need an agency that is very strong, independent, transparent, and also which is accountable not only to the Minister of Health but to Parliament. The agency should be an independent agency outside Health Canada. Clause 25 in the legislation is quite disturbing. It allows the minister to give any policy direction that she likes to the agency and the agency has no choice but to follow it. That is not accountability. We need an independent agency that answers to Parliament. That sort of direction would be very difficult for the minister to direct.

The performance of the agency should also be evaluated by the Auditor General, not by itself. The legislation says that the agency will monitor itself. There is nothing in the bill saying that the agency will have to report on an annual basis to the House at all, which is something else that is quite disturbing.

The bill also allows for the creation of advisory panels. We believe that stakeholders in this important area should have been given statutory standing. That statutory standing should be before the agency. We are talking about more than just being driven by scientists. It should be a group that has a broader scope than that.

The users and the children who are born from assisted reproductive technologies should be part of that group. People with disabilities should be part of that group. Scientists and the medical community should be part of it. The faith community, the private providers, research firms, taxpayers and their representatives in the provinces and territories should also have a voice. They should have statutory standing if it is going to have a broad enough scope and if it is going to garner the confidence of the nation as an agency that will move forward in this area.

I was surprised to find that there was no reporting in the bill. As I said before, the agency does not have to report annually to Parliament. That is something that needs to be there for sure.

The agency is going to be called upon to do many things, whether it is to decide upon the number of embryos that are created or destroyed or provide ongoing assisted reproduction procedures. It needs to report on all of those things and it should all be part of that report.

We also have to understand that this agency and this piece of legislation have to work in concert with the provincial governments. Some governments, such as the province of Quebec, are saying that they will not allow embryonic stem cell research in their provinces. What happens under this piece of legislation then? Who calls the shots? Is it the federal government in this piece of legislation, or is it provincial jurisdiction that has the mandate to deal with this area within its facilities?

These are things that concern us about this flawed piece of legislation. When we look at the ethics of this, it is something that is very disturbing to many Canadians.

On one side we have people who will say that embryonic stem cell research is something that could create a cure for their children or for their loved ones. We know that they will stop at nothing to do that. As parents we would lay down our lives easily for our children if we could keep them alive and healthy. It is something that is within us to do.

On the other side of it, there could be embryos created for the purpose of reproduction that would be destroyed. There could be others who would look at that and say “These are my children and I will stand in the way of this legislation to protect those children”.

I understand both sides, and both sides are very right in their dynamics. It is a very explosive piece of legislation and we should think very carefully before we bring it back in its present state.