Mr. Speaker, I think most of us will bring forward amendments on the basis of what we see in the bill. I think the point the member is making is a commendable one. It is one that we certainly have concerns about. I am glad that he did get on his feet because the structure of the Canadian institutes of health research lends some questions to the integrity of the system.
The minister tells us and the bill spells out that the CIHR will be led by a president and a governing council, who together will be responsible for the overall direction of the institutes. Members of the governing council will reflect the highest standards of scientific excellence and so on. It goes on to explain what they will do.
One of the concerns we have is that every one of these appointments will be by governor in council. In other words, cabinet will decide who these people are. I think that process has to be re-examined as to how these appointments are made. Are they there at the pleasure of the government? The act tells us that indeed they are at the pleasure of the government, up for review every five years. That is a major issue we should examine in committee and have more explanation on. As to the institutes themselves, nobody knows. It is not spelled out in the bill.
I will talk about Dr. Chopra from Health Canada who sued Health Canada under the Human Rights Act. He was one of the scientists who testified on the shredding of documents that had to do with the BST beef hormone issue. The word is the independence of this body and the independence of the governing council and the president. That is a very important issue that the bill has to address and that we need more clarification on by the minister.
If the treatment that some people have received from the government and the Department of Health is any indication of what might come, this whole process will have to be examined a little more closely and a little more transparently. We have gone through the difficulty of where one person basically is making the decisions. It is the Prime Minister of Canada who decides who the president will be and who the members will be. There is a real danger in doing that. I hope we can move beyond that.
I thank the member again for allowing me to get back up based on his question. The other consideration is the review process, who is accountable and the measuring stick. Are we going to wait five years to determine whether or not the new body is functioning efficiently without any reporting to parliament other than tabling the document?
It is not a question of coming into parliament and reporting to the committee on the structure and whether or not it is working. It is simply blindly giving the government a blank cheque to set up a process which I think should be reviewed very thoroughly every year for the next five years to determine whether they have done it right or not. Those are some very important points that have to be made and that will come out in committee.
My party, along with the Bloc and his members, will be bringing forth some amendments that we think will strengthen the bill.
At the end of the day, we support the initiative. We think it is very credible. With some of these little deficiencies, if the government is willing to look and listen, I think we can strengthen the bill dramatically. We will then have a bill that will indeed work for all Canadians.