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.