Mr. Speaker, later this year Dr. Severino Antinori and his team of American and Japanese surgeons will proceed with the first human cloning experiment, the first of a planned batch of 200.
These experiments and the results will have serious, far-reaching implications for humanity. The question of human cloning raises some fundamental scientific and ethical questions for us as human beings in general and as citizens of Canada in particular.
Canada simply does not have the necessary regulatory framework to establish parameters for this type of research. It has been eight years since the royal commission on reproductive and genetic technologies recommended the establishment of a national framework for the support and regulation of these technologies. It has been five years since the Liberal government attempted to introduce poorly drafted legislation on this subject and was obliged to withdraw it.
I call upon the government to introduce legislation immediately to deal with issues of human cloning and other reproductive and genetic technologies.