Debates of Nov. 4th, 1996

The Divorce Act

[The Deputy Speaker]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. The House has also given unanimous consent to this motion. I must point out to my hon. colleagues that this is a debatable motion.

[Michel Bellehumeur, Bloc, Berthier—Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak briefly on this amendment, and not on the approach per se, whereby we examine a motion introduced by the government at the very last minute, as the hon.

member for Québec indicated. On the whole, this is an amendment that does not affect the substance of the clause in any real way.

Where I am concerned however is when the parliamentary secretary brings in a motion under such circumstances, claiming this was an oversight on the part of the government. If that is so, how many more oversights have they made in this bill? As far as we in the Bloc Quebecois are concerned, the five or six motions we have put forward also addressed oversights. Why did they not act on these motions?

It is disturbing when the Liberal Party, the overly self-confident governing party that puts forward just about anything and refuses to see reason, because of its arrogance, on very important points made by the official opposition, through its parliamentary secretary, tables a motion in this House at the very last minute, claiming it was an oversight. I think this is an unforgivable oversight, one that we in the Bloc Quebecois cannot forgive, because we are convinced that there are more oversights in this bill and some more striking than those raised today in motions put forward by Bloc members, which the government chose to ignore.

We in the official opposition are quite worried about this government's administration. Bill C-41 is a very important bill in that it affects the future of our children, including children of Quebec, an emerging nation.

[Jay Hill, Reform, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, while the hon. member from the Bloc was making his intervention just now, a couple of my colleagues were bantering back and forth across the House with the hon. parliamentary secretary. They asked him what exactly this 11th hour amendment does to this bill. He said that it does not do anything.

One has to wonder, if it does not do anything, why bother bringing it in and having to run around in the opposition lobby at the last possible moment and approach both the Bloc and Reform to try to get unanimous consent to put it. If the Liberals have an 11th hour amendment it should do something very compelling and comprehensive, instead of bringing forward something that clearly is so inconsequential that it makes one wonder why it was brought forward at all.

To sum up Bill C-41 today, the subject of divorce, support payments, maintenance payments, custody and access to children is of interest to all Canadians.

I have three children and as a parent I cannot foresee anything as horrendous as losing access to my children. For many non-custodial parents the reality is that the de-parenting process of divorce is the same as if the child or the children have died. Every member, regardless of which side of the House they are on, will appreciate that if they are a parent.

I believe this issue has not been adequately dealt with by the government. As I said earlier, it has chosen to deal with one small portion of it.

I would argue with the parliamentary secretary when he said that these issues are not linked. All of these issues are linked together. We cannot possibly tell parents, custodial and non-custodial alike, that we can deal with one section and ignore the rest. That is simply not the case. We must bring forward serious amendments and serious legislation to deal with the subjects of mediation, custody and access to children. That has to be done. Canadians from coast to coast are asking the government to do that.

We have a commitment from the justice minister and the Liberal government that they will bring in comprehensive legislation to deal with all of those issues, but we have yet to see that happen.

[Gordon Kirkby, Liberal, Prince Albert—Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank very sincerely members of the two parties opposite for agreeing to the motion and for the grace with which they done that. With respect to the Reform Party, all I can say is that it is not that the amendment does not do anything, it is that its members probably would not understand the amendment if I explained it to them.

In any event, the purpose of the bill is to enhance maintenance for children. We appreciate, once again, the co-operation of the opposition parties in bringing this amendment forward.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Reform, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I have one question for the parliamentary secretary.

[The Deputy Speaker]

No questions are permitted at this time unless members wish to give their unanimous consent.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Reform, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I have a very brief comment that I would like to make.

The parliamentary secretary said that he would not give an explanation why this is necessary because the Reform Party would not understand it. The arrogance displayed by that is unconscionable. The people of Canada deserve an explanation. There has to be something on the record to explain why at the 11th hour the government introduced an amendment without any explanation of why it is necessary. That has to be on the record. Otherwise, why should we approve it?

[John Williams, Reform, St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would also like to say that I was insulted by the parliamentary secretary. He asked us for unanimous consent. We have been listening to him all day talking about his position on Reform amendments. He said

that we were trying to slow down the process, that it would be detrimental to the administration of justice and so on.

The amendments which we put before the House were serious, well thought out amendments, which we felt would help improve the bill. That is the spirit in which we enter debate in this House. Then, at the very last minute, as my colleague for Yorkton-Melville said, the Liberals asked for our permission to introduce an amendment. The Liberals knew the bill was being debated in the House. They followed it all the way through committee. It is now back here. We have done our homework and then we get this insult that I would even dare to say is unparliamentary in the terms in which it was presented.

Therefore, I would request a retraction from the parliamentary secretary for insulting the Reform Party by saying that we would not understand his amendment. I felt it was totally unparliamentary and disgraceful.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The Chair has been put in a very difficult position because a member cannot speak twice to an amendment. In light of what has been said, I wonder if there would be unanimous consent to give the parliamentary secretary the right to explain the purposes of the amendment?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[John Williams, Reform, St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not have a problem with giving the parliamentary secretary unanimous consent to explain his motion if at the same time he will withdraw the accusation that he levelled at the Reform Party.

[Gordon Kirkby, Liberal, Prince Albert—Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Speaker, if I said anything unparliamentary, I withdraw it.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I understand from comments in the House that there will not be unanimous consent to let the parliamentary secretary speak twice on the bill so he can explain his amendment.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

No. No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Very well. The question is on the amendment. All those in favour of the amendment will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

[Some hon. members]

On division.

(Amendment agreed to.)

[The Deputy Speaker]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred divisions at the report stage of the bill.

Call in the members.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The chief government whip has requested that the vote be deferred until tomorrow at 5.30 p.m.

The House resumed from October 31, 1996 consideration of the motion that Bill C-47, an act respecting human reproductive technologies and commercial transactions relating to human reproduction, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Human Reproductive And Genetic Technologies Act

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-37, an act respecting human reproductive technologies and commercial transactions relating to human reproduction, is very important.

This bill has been the subject of research and studies which seemed, in a way, to go on forever because for many years women in Canada, in Quebec, have been asking for government action. Unfortunately, the only government that can act in this matter in this country we still are part of is the federal government, because the issue is under federal jurisdiction, matters of life and death, as we know, being under federal jurisdiction.

The very first reaction of the federal government was to create the Baird Commission in 1989. This commission generated some controversy, and so did the fate of some of its conclusions. Its mandate was to review current and anticipated scientific and medical progress regarding reproductive technologies, their repercussions on health and research, as well as their moral, social, economic and legal consequences. The commission also gave the general public an opportunity to recommend policies and safety measures.

Obviously, this was a mandate whose scope was very wide. After four years of review, after hearing 40,000 witnesses, and after spending $28 million, the Baird commission finally tabled its report in November 1993. It must be pointed out that the commission's main conclusions and recommendations were essentially the same as those of other similar bodies abroad.

Let me say from the outset that some of these recommendations went way beyond the initial mandate, which was already very wide in scope, and dealt with issues as varied as the effect of tobacco and drug use, health and safety in the workplace, and family law. In

short, the commission also made recommendations in areas that come under the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces, namely those relating to health.

The Liberal government, elected on October 25, 1993, was slow to react. By contrast, the minute the Bloc arrived in this House, it repeatedly asked, first through its critic on health and the status of women and then its critic responsible for this specific issue, the tabling of a bill to criminalize certain practices relating to new reproductive technologies, NRTs.

It was not until July 1995 that the Liberals finally took concrete action. However, it was not the measure hoped for, far from it. Indeed, after all this time, the Liberals asked the professionals concerned to comply with a voluntary moratorium that more or less prohibited the use of certain reproductive technologies.

Here are some of these prohibitions: preconception contracts under which a woman is paid to act as a surrogate mother; the sale or purchase of human ova, sperm or embryos; choosing the sex of the child without medical justification; providing free in vitro insemination in exchange for ova from women who cannot afford this service, and so on.

Declaring a voluntary moratorium means that the people and the professionals who did not care about the moral, scientific or largely human aspects of these acts kept doing them. Needless to say, all the groups that had long been clamouring for action in the area have been greatly disappointed and have made it known to the government.

Last January, the government announced the creation of a temporary advisory committee with a mandate to monitor the enforcement of the voluntary moratorium. Can we imagine a policy as flexible or that corresponds so little to what we call a policy? In other words, the government wanted to look like it was doing something whereas in fact it was doing nothing.

A lot of information found in everyday life confirmed that nothing was happening. Whether it was advertisements published in all sorts of ways, and we refer here to the example of advertisements placed in university student newspapers offering to buy ova from young women on behalf of infertile couples, or the fact that institutions keep paying sperm donors, and I could go on. This voluntary moratorium certainly did not change conditions in this regard.

The federal government finally tabled a bill on June 14, 1996. This bill is the one I am addressing today. It bears the number C-47. Once again, the government is planning to act in two steps. First, it wants to pass this Bill C-47, which prohibits certain acts, with the intent of criminalizing them, and I will get back to that. The bill would also provide for a subsequent step: regulations that would be enforced by a national agency whose action we now already feel is not only disturbing but warrants criticism.

Let us talk about Bill C-47, which proposes to criminalize certain action. I will say right away that we are not really talking about criminalization.

If this were an amendment to the Criminal Code, the implementation would be left to the provinces. But that is not what is happening right now. The government is setting up a policy that would criminalize certain arrangements through a separate act which will be enforced by a national agency responsible for the monitoring and enforcing the act. That would be part of a second phase.

This situation is totally unacceptable. We are now in the first phase. We-and I say we meaning women-in Quebec are calling for action in this area because it is not under Quebec's jurisdiction, even though, ultimately, it is Quebec that will be enforcing the act. In this situation, not only is criminalization counterproductive, but we are also quite sure that this new national agency that would control and monitor new reproductive technologies would only be one more jurisdictional encroachment, one more case of duplication with what has already been done by the Quebec government and its health department, which is the agency that should be enforcing this act.

This new federal agency would have to get the resources to be able to deliver licenses, inspect clinics, monitor the enforcement of regulations, and oversee the development of new reproductive technologies-not in itself a trivial scientific undertaking-and give advice to the federal department in this matter.

Do they have any notion of what setting up of such an agency implies? To what end? Take licensing for example. I am just going down the list. As I said before, we have to see what it entails for such an agency to deliver licences, inspect clinics and enforce regulations.

Again, the activities that will be prohibited and criminalized, but not through the regular means, that is not pursuant to the Criminal Code, would include in-vitro fertilization, insemination by a donor, the use of foetal tissue, the preservation, manipulation and donation of ova, sperm and human embryos, research on embryos, pre-implantation diagnostic, and postmenopausal pregnancy. The proposed agency would also set up a data bank on donors and children of donors in order to allow future meetings in certain special cases.

When you think about creating an agency responsible for issuing licences, inspecting clinics, enforcing regulations and also for monitoring scientific developments and advising the minister, you are thinking about something big, very big, that would revamp and reorganize the health assessment systems, instead of integrating

into the assessment and monitoring systems the dimensions we have been criticizing for some time now.

We want some kind of instrument that would let us say: "This procedure is prohibited". We want to be able to prohibit these procedures wherever they are performed, in hospitals, in research centres. But for that we need the only instrument the federal government can give us, prohibitions.

However, the federal government had delayed prohibiting and criminalizing such procedures. What would it rather do? It wants to supersede and take the place of the whole health network, the women's network and the conference of health ministers.

This is totally unacceptable and at some level even outrageous. We know how many cuts were made in the Canada social transfer payments, particularly in health care. The federal government has taken means away from the provinces, in particular from Quebec, and now it wants to establish this big national agency to do what would be better done by others who are asking for an instrument that the federal government has been reluctant to give.

The Bloc has repeatedly asked the federal government to do something. And now, three years after a commission finally made recommendations in 1993, we are still studying a bill, which will not solve problems but create new ones.

In every other field, it is said that the players must speak to each other. It is said that one must be efficient and synergistic. But in this field of reproduction, which is most important for the human race, for Quebec and for Canada, which touches upon the very nature of the human being, we cannot act without creating this costly, inefficient, slow and inadequate national agency.

The federal government did not amend the Criminal Code as it should have, and the only action it takes is to try to dictate to the provinces after cutting their Canada social transfer payments. This is enough reason to be furious, because it is an important matter. There are scientists with dubious motives who clone human beings using semen that young people sell to be able to eat. This is a fact, not a bad movie.

It seems to me that in this case the inaction of the central government is tantamount to carelessness. This debate clearly concerns our future and values and it is disturbing to see that instead of deciding in its jurisdiction and providing instruments, the government wants to dictate to the provinces.

It will not even let the provinces do their work as is usually the case with the Criminal Code. Bill C-47 and the inaction of the central government on this dramatic question of new reproductive technologies is a perfect example of the aberration of the Canadian federalism.