Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. member for the question and the discernment he has with regard to the pre-empting of parliament by the CIHR.
If there was ever a situation of putting the cart before the horse this is it. It is unbelievable that the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, which is 100% federally funded, would take the very valuable taxpayer dollars and use them for embryonic stem cell research, and use guidelines that deal with one of the most difficult issues that we have on ethics and the ethical dilemma that parliamentarians have to deal with in this piece of legislation. It is unbelievable that we could be pre-empted by this group.
Not only that, then we have the other group, Genome Canada, which just last week took $5.5 million from the industry minister and put that into embryonic stem cell research without any regulations in place, although it says that it will adopt the Canadian Institute for Health Research's guidelines, which really go beyond anything that the majority report has suggested.
It is absolutely appalling to see parliament and parliamentarians pre-empted. We need to consider the people we represent and their will on this issue. They have not had an opportunity to speak on this. We absolutely must bring this forward as soon as possible so they can have their voices heard.