Debates of May 21st, 2002

Assisted Human Reproduction Act

[Clifford Lincoln, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree entirely with my colleague, for whom I have the greatest respect. Our opinions may certainly differ with the greatest mutual respect. I even said in my presentation that I think that I represent a minority here. That does not mean, however, that it is a minority less certain of its opinions.

At the same time, however, the fundamental issue dividing us is the one concerning the use of embryonic stem cells. If this could be resolved tomorrow, the consensus here would become very broad. We are all in favour of regulating reproductive technologies. As for cloning and so forth, there is no problem. We are in favour of research on adult stem cells.

The issue of using embryonic stem cells is an extremely difficult one, one which unfortunately divides us and one on which those who think as I do hold very strong convictions, which make it very repugnant to us.

[Rob Merrifield, Canadian Alliance, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the CIHR, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, really has been driving this agenda over the last few weeks. It has come out with its own guidelines and in effect has pre-empted this piece of legislation. We are wondering whether or not that was something that was set up by the minister. Maybe it is not really that important, but it is something we question.

The president of the CIHR has suggested that it is not driving for the safe alternative, which is the adult stem cell. The member elaborated on that and I could not agree more that it is an avenue of no ethical concern and tremendous potential which Canadians would be proud to endorse. On the other side is the embryonic stem cell research which is full of hope, but all it is is hope and very weak research.

The CIHR is pushing the envelope toward embryonic stem cell research. Last year the president of the CIHR, Dr. Bernstein, said in committee that the number one issue in the legislation is the regulatory body and the trust it garners from Canadians. Does the way the legislation is written reflect trust for Canadians?

[Clifford Lincoln, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think the way it is now gives a tremendous amount of leeway to bodies like the CIHR and the proponents of embryonic stem cell research. As the member rightly suggests, they seem to be leading the whole thrust of the legislation to give primacy and priority to embryonic stem cell research. That is what I detect.

We have to have a fundamental debate to express the views of people like myself. I appreciate we may be in the minority, but it is a minority that cherishes its convictions and its beliefs must also be taken into account. I sense that when the argument is brought against embryonic stem cell research, certain quarters, such as those cited, view it as coming from a dinosaur living a thousand years in the past.

I happen to believe that the dignity and integrity of human life have no space in time. They were there yesterday, they are there today and they will be there tomorrow. If we have a safe and successful alternative in adult stem cells, that is the direction we must take.

I hope many of us here keep pounding on this so that eventually a reversal of the thrust of the legislation will happen in committee and after.

[Pierrette Venne, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to take part in this debate on Bill C-56, An Act respecting assisted human reproduction. It is certainly one of the most important pieces of legislation to have been introduced recently in the area of health, but it is also a very delicate bill that will surely be very controversial.

However, the various aspects of this controversy on the legitimacy of this bill, which was much anticipated by the medical and scientific communities, will not prevent our party from supporting, at least in principle, Bill C-56 which, as clearly stated in clause 2, sets out the fundamental principles of assisted human reproduction, and I quote:

1. The Parliament of Canada recognizes and declares that

(a) the benefits of assisted human reproductive technologies and related research for individuals and for society in general can be most effectively secured by taking appropriate measures for the protection and promotion of human health, safety, dignity and rights in the use of these technologies and in related research;

(b) the health and well-being of children born through the application of these technologies must be given priority in all decisions respecting their use;

(c) while all persons are affected by these technologies, women more than men are directly and significantly affected by their application;

(d) the principle of free and informed consent must be promoted and applied as a fundamental condition of the use of human reproductive technologies;

(e) trade in the reproductive capacities of women and men and the exploitation of children, women and men for commercial ends raise health and ethical concerns that justify their prohibition;

(f) human individuality and diversity, and the integrity of the human genome, must be preserved and protected.

Based on these fundamental principles and taking into account the activities that are prohibited in the bill and those that are regulated, Bill C-56 can be summarized as follows.

It prohibits the creation of human clones for any purpose as well as the transplantation of a human clone into a human being.

It permits certain research to be carried out using stem cells from human embryos, while at the same time banning the creation of embryos for the purpose of carrying out such research.

It prohibits commercial activity involving surrogate mothers, and payment of sperm or egg donors, as well as the buying and selling of human embryos.

Finally, it prohibits the sexing of human embryos solely for the purpose of deciding whether or not to continue a pregnancy.

In order to attain the objectives set for assisted reproduction, and in order to make it possible to control activities around these objectives, Bill C-56 creates a new body. The assisted human reproduction agency of Canada will be responsible for regulating fertility clinics and researchers in this area.

In particular, this federal agency will authorize researchers to use stem cells from human embryos, but only when required for such research. Like any body with responsibility for monitoring a specific area, the agency in question will have all the necessary powers to implement the policies and objectives defined by Bill C-56 and its regulation and to inspect the facilities in question, and to monitor application of the law and regulations and initiate proceedings relating to offences under the act.

The Bloc Quebecois feels that the government has reached a reasonable compromise between the American position with its restrictions on human embryo research and the British position, which goes too far and allows researchers to create embryos solely for research purposes. This latter practice, of creating embryos for study and research purposes, will be prohibited in Canada under the legislation being proposed in Bill C-56, if it is passed in its present form. Researchers will also be required to apply for authorization from the new assisted reproduction agency in order to gain access to surplus embryos from fertility clinics that are no longer needed by them.

With this we are getting to the most difficult moral issue raised by this bill on human embryos: the use for research of those that are no longer needed.

For some, research on embryos is reprehensible from an ethical point of view, because an embryo is a human being. For others, an embryo is not yet a true human being, a view that was shared by the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Bloc Quebecois feels that the bill will allow for the establishment of ethical standards for research on stem cells and embryos, and of valid requirements for research authorizations, the monitoring of research laboratories and fertility clinics, so that the fundamental issue of the respect for life can be reasonably monitored and dealt with.

We feel that it is better to have a valid legislative framework, with true control by the new assisted human reproduction agency of Canada, which will be created under this legislation, than to remain in a regulatory void that can lead to all kinds of abuse, as may be the case right now.

Moreover, the definitions of “human clone”, “embryo”, “ in vitro embryo”, “foetus”, etc., found at the beginning of Bill C-56, in clause 3, are explicit and restrictive enough to allow for the anticipated monitoring of assisted human reproduction.

It should also be pointed out that Bill C-56 is an important measure for all those who need assistance in the area of human reproduction, something which affects the fate and destiny of mankind.

However, assisted human reproduction will not be the only benefit resulting from this legislation. Indeed, according to a number of experts in genetics, research on embryos and on stem cells from excess embryos—again, it must be emphasized that only excess embryos can be used, and only if a researcher can clearly demonstrate that he cannot conduct his research with other biological material, before he can get an authorization from the agency—could allow us to fight terrible diseases such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, diabetes and probably others.

These are definitely laudable objectives and we must regulate research in this area, so that these objectives can be achieved and so that science can continue to make progress in our country, under a tight implementation and monitoring framework, and under principles that are recognized by experts in research, by Canada's health research institutes, and by Canada's health research funding agencies.

However, while Bill C-56 has some merits, it also has flaws and I want to mention some of them.

Even though Health Canada is supposed to consult the provinces regarding the regulations governing research and activities related to assisted reproduction, we must ensure that this promise is respected. It is critical that Canadian policy be developed in concert with the provinces and that there be unequivocal recognition that it is an area of shared jurisdiction.

The proposed legislation grants the regulatory and monitoring agency a very broad mandate which gives it significant powers. Yet, nothing guarantees the independence of the agency's board from the Minister of Health. The agency, which reports to the Minister of Health, will advise the minister, and will be headed by a board of directors made up of no more than 13 members who reflect a range of relevant backgrounds and disciplines.

Since it is up to the regulatory agency, and not the provinces, to enforce the regulations, it is important to ensure that the board is representative of Quebec.

Two observers—one representing the federal government and the other representing the provincial governments—will discuss issues of common interest with the board.

Once again, we must ensure that this observer understands and defends the interests of Quebecers. No regulatory body can be completely effective without a fair representation of the provinces on its board.

One clause of the bill stipulates that all of the regulations be introduced in the House for approval and that the committee consider the bill and propose amendments. Among the recommendations made by the Standing Committee on Health, there was a proposal that the bill include provisions comparable to clause 42.1 of the Tobacco Act, provisions that require that proposed regulations be referred automatically to the standing committee. The relative clause in Bill C-56 does not go this far. Given that for this bill, the regulations are equally, if not more important than the bill itself, we must ensure this recommendation made by the committee is respected.

Contrary to the Bloc Quebecois' requests and the committee's recommendations, the bill does not amend the Patent Act in order to exclude human genetic material.

In particular, we must define the scope of clause 25 of Bill C-56, which reads as follows:

1. (1) The Minister may issue policy directions to the Agency concerning the exercise of any of its powers, and the Agency shall give effect to directions so issued.

(2) Policy directions issued by the Minister may not affect a matter that is before the Agency at the time they are issued and that relates to a particular person.

(3) Policy directions issued by the Minister are not a statutory instrument for the purposes of the Statutory Instruments Act.

This power given to the federal Minister of Health seems completely excessive and clearly implies that the assisted human reproduction agency of Canada could lose its independence in favour of the minister, and despite all other qualified stakeholders: the content of clause 25 must therefore be clarified in order to bring it into line with the requirement that the agency responsible for monitoring this field be independent.

Finally, Bill C-56 affects all members of parliament with respect to their personal beliefs, religious or not, with respect to human life, the protection of human life, and especially with respect to what constitutes a human being, and for this reason I strongly suggest that the vote on Bill C-56 be entirely free, without party lines. Members will thus be able to vote freely, according to their conscience, without any constraints, for the benefit of all and for the good of democracy.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, the member has made some very important points for the House to consider as we move forward on this bill. It is important that she reiterate a bit more on the background of the Quebec government's decision announced last January to ban embryonic stem cell research.

I know the member is a very experienced member of parliament, and I would like her to comment on polling. In the debate today there have been references made to polling. A poll was conducted in the United States which identified that embryonic stem cell research might have promise, but it disclosed that the embryo had to be destroyed to get the stem cells and that stem cell therapy would be subject to immune rejection. Seventy per cent of Americans who took part in that poll opposed embryonic stem cell research on that basis.

However a poll conducted in Canada asked if it would be all right to do stem cell research and said that embryonic stem cells had a lot of hope in helping in therapy and finding cures for diseases. Seventy per cent of Canadians supported embryonic stem cell research.

The member is experienced in how we can wordsmith or play with words. Does she believe that Canadians are diametrically opposed to the opinion of Americans because we are different or simply because the questions were absolutely ludicrous?

[Pierrette Venne, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there are two questions here, the first having to do with Quebec and its position on stem cell research. I must point out to the member that this was only a consultation document. It therefore cannot be said that the Government of Quebec took a definitive stand on this subject.

As for stem cell research per se, I wish to emphasize that in this case and in the bill before us, it is really a system which functions by exception. I therefore think that in this regard, the member opposite is not pressing hard enough.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will pass on to the member the documents we received announcing the ban by the health minister for Quebec with regard to embryonic stem cell research.

I know the member has a legal background and I want to ask her about the patentability of genetic material. I think the health committee report made it very clear that we had very little idea of what was going on in Canada in terms of research and very little information was offered.

From the information we see in the media, for instance, there is the so-called Harvard mouse that has been genetically modified. A patent is being sought and in fact it is going to the supreme court.

Could the member advise the House whether she is aware of the state of health of the Patent Act and whether it is up to date in terms of being flexible enough to deal with complex matters such as patenting of genetic materials?

[Pierrette Venne, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Yes, Mr. Speaker. Furthermore, I believe I mentioned in my speech earlier that we were sorry that the current bill did not exclude stem cell research from the Patent Act. I therefore mentioned this oversight earlier.

The Bloc Quebecois is also calling for a public morality clause in the Patent Act in order to exclude certain patents. I think that this may answer the member's question.

[Reg Alcock, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey starts with a scene of a bunch of prehumans, ape-like creatures, gathered around doing the various things they do. One of them, in a random act, grabs the femur of some animal, waves it around and eventually smashes another bone with it. He waves it more and smashes more and the next day in an attack uses it to club down somebody. The metaphor was the birth of the age of technology. What it did not show was that night around the campfire when those same groups were talking about what had happened and one of them said that if the creator had wanted us to have bones to hit people with he would have grown them out of the ends of our arms.

Thus in a sense the debate we are engaged in here was born. Throughout history there has been a constant debate between the capacity that science gives us and the ability of a society to absorb that capacity, to understand it, to come to terms with it and to figure out how it fits into the kind of life we want to lead.

I actually was not going to speak to the bill, but upon reflection and after listening to some of the debate today I thought it would be useful to reflect a bit on what occurred in the committee as we did the pre-study of the bill, because it was a really marvellous opportunity. It was a marvellous time.

In all the years I have been here I have not had a committee process that brought together into a struggle so many people from so many different positions. That is all I can say about it. People fought. They wrestled openly with the concerns they had. Those concerns got debated. We tried to figure out the tremendous promise that was inherent in the advancement of science in this area and the very real fears about what this does to us as a society. What happens if we start to truly treat life as a commodity that can be bought and sold or if we manufacture life for other purposes? These are the kinds of issues where I think this place is at its best when it truly struggles with them. I think the report that was produced was the best we were able to do to try to marry those conflicts.

I wrote a piece some years ago on how parliament could never make an optimal decision because what is optimal is in many ways dependent on one's point of view. We all come to the table with a particular position on something. Ultimately, throughout all of these processes, we pick the best fit, the best marriage of all the pressures, the concerns, the history and the diversity that exists in this country to make a decision that ultimately is not optimal from anybody's point of view but hopefully, in the best of times, is the most optimal decision for a society. I think we achieved that. I think we did something very special in that committee.

We also learned a lot. As someone who has worked with children for a good portion of my life, I learned a lot. I think it is important to step back to what got this started, which was the very real desire of people to have children. We heard images raised in some of the speeches about big farmers doing this and about a corporate agenda trying to achieve something else, but at the end of the day it was about people having difficulty conceiving, and they were searching desperately.

I was director of child welfare in Manitoba. I can tell hon. members about the numbers of people who are really trying very hard to have children, who want to have the kind of joy and satisfaction that I feel all the time with my kids. Science began to offer them some hope. It is not that long ago that the first in vitro fertilization took place. As well, we are also now doing a bill on the control of pesticides and there are actually concerns that some of the ways in which we burden our environment may contribute to the fact that people are having difficulty conceiving, to this rise in infertility. Also, the fact that people are waiting until later in life to have children is believed to be a big cause of it.

However, the reality was that a lot of very competent, caring Canadians were having trouble producing children. Some solutions were developed, not in a totally random way but by different people trying different things. Some doctors were more aggressive and we saw the rise of the clinics. A great deal of relatively unstructured activity took place at that time.

In a sense what rather surprised me was the randomness, because this was something that was driven by a couple wanting to have a child with all of the dialogue taking place between the couple and with the researcher and the doctor without any sort of social overview or any of the kinds of normal protections we might have in bringing forward a new medical service, to the point where, as we discovered in committee, there were children being produced who in some ways had none of the body of protections or supports and the family had none of the supports that we would offer to anybody adopting a child.

One of the very real issues was the ability to track parents. When I was first a director of child welfare in 1983, an adopted child could not track down his or her parents. Today open adoption is a commonly accepted practice and active adoption registries, where for certain reasons children can seek out their parents, are pretty much the norm. It is done for very real reasons. In this case, with the advancement of knowledge about genetics, knowing the genetic make-up of parents may be very helpful to people in the management of their own health.

Yet in regard to the issue we are dealing with today, we had a group of children being created and going into families but having none of those rights, those systems or that ability to track their parents. We found a sort of randomness in how the records were kept. Some were kept for a few years, but it was all at the discretion of the local physician.

There was a system that had grown. There were also concerns about the protection of the women, who were in effect the active guinea pigs for the advancement of this new technology and who were driven by their overwhelming desire to have children.

Then of course we had the concern that I would rate as the third order of business for the bill, which was the attempt to build a regulatory framework around the other services, the other activities that are enabled by the first ones, such as the availability of embryos so that research could actually be done on them. It was something that could not have been anticipated when all this started. We all see now the absolutely fantastic articles in the scientific journals and certainly in any tabloid. There was one article about combining spider genes with goats' milk in the hopes that the goats will produce a protein that produces spider silk, because of its wonderful strength. The idea of having goats spinning webs in my house does not thrill me, but it is hard for us to capture these things.

The ideas of combining the genes of animals and plants, as has been talked about with certain foods such as tomatoes, or combining genes of animals and humans to create other kinds of animals, now put very difficult, very frightening possibilities before us. Before now they did not exist and we did not have to worry about them because they could not happen, but today they are real.

On the other side of it, this research adds to our understanding of who and what we are and how we function in the hope that we can correct some of the very horrible conditions that afflict people. Hopefully we can correct some of the tremendous deformities and incapacities children are born with. Hopefully we can find the triggers to help quadriplegics regenerate nerves. There is a tremendous wealth of very exciting possibilities here.

Therefore, as society has had to do with each major advancement, we were called upon to try to figure out what was the optimal path for the group. I think we did a pretty good job.

I think we struck a balance in the committee report and what I see us doing now is a sort of drawing back and a re-fighting of the positions we fought through in that report. I think we need to reflect on what our collective goal was. There was not a surrender in the writing of that report. There was a consensus after a lot of struggle. We tried to strike a balance in regard to creating a commodity. We talked about fees, payment, for people who were acting as surrogates. The report recommended that there be no fee given. I argued that there should be, not that there should be a purchase price for a child, but if somebody's sister agrees to carry a child and take time off work to do so, that person should be able to compensate her. In the end it was decided to take a stronger line on that.

There were a number of issues like that. There were absolute bans and prohibitions on the cloning of human beings and on the creation of chimera, the mixture of animal and human genetic material. There was an absolute ban on it because we just could not imagine where that might go.

The debate about the benefit that may exist here, that sort of Holy Grail of being able to unlock some of these mysteries and actually make seriously injured people whole again, really led us to leave that door open, to leave a regulatory mechanism in there which would allow us to constantly make that decision because that decision needs to be made, remade and made again in the face of advancing knowledge. I think that was the right decision and the right approach to take and I think the bill captures the intention of the work we did. In some sections it does not use the same language. It does not go as far in some of the preambles as we would have gone, but I think it attempts to do that.

I also want to talk just briefly about what happened with CIHR, because when the Canadian Institutes of Health Research came out very quickly with its own guidelines I felt quite strongly that it was attempting to promote its position and to try to end run this process in advance of the House actually taking the time to act on this. I am here to say that I am very pleased with the actions of CIHR and its director since then. I think they have responded very appropriately by holding back. I really want to thank them for it and I congratulate them for being that sensitive to what has gone on.

There is another aspect to that. In attempting to deal with these very difficult and very sensitive subjects, we have tended to devalue expertise. It is easy to do that, to say that a researcher is just a clone of that particular drug company or that another researcher has some other motivation. The reality is that most of them are just researchers. They are just trying to figure out a new way of doing things. They are not driven by any other secret agenda or whatever. They are like all good researchers: they are in that quest for knowledge. We should listen to them. We should not disavow what they say. If we get ourselves to the point where we are driven only by emotion, then we are not respecting those who spend their time really trying to understand and bring some light to these topics. Then, I think, we do take ourselves back to the time of Galileo and forget to admit that the earth does revolve around the sun. There is a very real danger in this.

I think that where there is real discomfort is in that sense of commodification, that sense of making it really easy to have a child, almost to the point where one can pick the hair colour, the size and the intelligence quotient. There is that sense of almost being able to say that a certain kind of baby is wanted, but if it does not come out quite right we will toss out that one and get another one. I want to do everything we can to push back against that.

We know those forces exist. We see them in other countries with sex selection in children. We want to do everything we can to balance that, regulate it and push back against that trend. I argue educate on the other side of that because the only real change will come through broader education.

We have to be careful too that we do not shut the door on what could be some extremely important advancements in the health of ourselves, our children, our families and our nation.

[Betty Hinton, Canadian Alliance, Kamloops, Thompson And Highland Valleys, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I found the last speaker rather confusing. I have been trying to follow this issue very carefully.

The thrust of the bill in my mind is stem cell research. The question that we are asking on this side of the House is whether that should be embryonic stem cell research or adult stem cell research. I happen to go toward the stem cell research part because at this point in time it is a safer way for us to go.

I would like to ask the speaker to clarify a couple of things that he mentioned. I believe he said that adult stem cell research was not science. I do not understand that and would like him to explain it.

I would also like to ask him a hypothetical question. Suppose that in two or three years time we discover, if we are going to be using embryonic stem cell research, that the actual optimum time to harvest is when that embryo is two years old. Would we still be comfortable with the situation we find today or do we want to go down that road? What we want to do is declare a moratorium for three years so this very sensitive and ethical issue can be discussed thoroughly and that we do not rush into something that we regret later.

If he could address those questions, I would be very grateful.

[Reg Alcock, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry the member found my speech confusing, although it is a very complex topic. No, I did not say that I thought adult stem cell research was invalid or junk science by any stretch of the imagination. There are researchers working in that area. I did not make that case. If I was believed to have done so, I am sorry. That certainly was not my intention.

On the second question, I am will not respond to it. I can invent all sorts of hypotheticals also. The reality is there is a significant number of highly qualified researchers who say that there is value in embryonic stem cell research just as there are those who say that there is value in doing adult stem cell research.

The compromise that the study tried to reach was to say that we should not close the door. Let us not allow it. It is a controlled activity. We did not ban it outright the way we did on the chimera or the mixing of animal and plant genes. We said it was an area that we did not know and that it would evolve. Therefore we would create a process and a structure that would control and regulate it so that we could manage it, closing the door if necessary or opening the door if necessary. We still have a choice. For us not to leave ourselves the option of evaluating what is happening each step of the way in an area like this is just wrong.

There are two other important areas. The emotional side, the heat is in the use of embryonic stem cells because that is where we get right down to the question of life and the destruction of life for other purposes. It is a hugely important question.

There are other areas. One area that I think is not dealt with adequately in the bill is the fact that children are being produced. It started off with people wanting to have kids and were producing real, live children who are walking around and they are as citizens. Frankly, they have fewer rights today than any other children have and that needs to be corrected. It is not the hot, emotional topic that everyone wants to talk about in terms of stem cell research but it is a real issue and it is a service that needs to be sorted out.

Then there is the larger management of the system and clinics so that women receive consistent quality in the kinds of services that they provide. When we move into the use of new technologies or new techniques, we need a proper service for deciding which can and cannot. It is not just left to the sole discretion of the researcher. All three of those are very important.

[Bev Desjarlais, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Winnipeg for his comments. He certainly touches on a number of areas where there is concern.

I believe this has been mentioned previously, and from my own perspective, that the bill is lacking in a number of areas which the committee has recognized should be included. He mentioned that the big topic area was children not knowing where they were from and not having the same rights. As far as I am concerned, this is a big issue. We hear of more and more adults, 40, 50 or 60 years old, who want to know exactly from where they came.

This is an opportunity for us to not allow that to happen to children coming about as a result of reproductive research or medical procedures. This crucial area needs to be addressed. It is not a tough area to include in the bill so it is absolutely beyond me why it is not there.

I am greatly concerned that the bill does not stipulate mandatory testing of reproductive material. At a time when we have so many diseases floating throughout the world, why we would not ensure that testing is done and that it is mandatory within the bill? Again, this is again beyond me. It does not appear to be a big issue.

My colleague spoke highly of researchers and I believe that the majority of researchers are credible and honourable people. However we also have to recognize that there are those individuals who are unscrupulous, dishonest and will do anything for a buck. The bill lacks assurance that those types of people cannot proceed with issues that are contentious.

Though recognizing that there should not be payment for certain procedures, the bill does not contain anything about disallowing patenting and money making from DNA or reproductive technologies. I am a bit concerned about that. Would the member comment on that?

[Reg Alcock, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Mr. Speaker, on the issue of children, the bill does try to address some of the privacy and access questions. People are not allowed to donate reproductive material without being willing to have their identity disclosed.

The act of carrying a child and the whole process one goes through preparing their family for that child is a period of time for thought and reflection. It is a period of time for adjustment. For somebody adopting a child there is a need for preparation. When people apply to adopt a child they go through all sorts of processes before they are approved. If surrogacy is involved where someone else carries the child, an individual could become the parent of the child without having gone through anything other than painting the bedroom.

Some children do not fit into those types of homes and are very seriously damaged by that fact. We have lots of examples of that. Should there not be more structure and education in this type of situation? Part of the issue here is that it is the responsibility of the provinces. They manage those types of cases. The department intends to raise these issues with the provinces and look at ways by which these kinds of activities could be brought under that same gambit. An agency will have the same broad regulatory powers as the department itself has.

My comment with regard to scientists was not to say that all scientists were perfect, that nobody had a self-interest and that there was no corporate interest. I did not mean to say that. I am more concerned about the fact that we are at the point now where we disavow all who disagree with us. A lot of very powerful and positive things could come out of this and we really blind ourselves if we do not allow ourselves to hear them.

[Rob Merrifield, Canadian Alliance, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his words that, as a member of the health committee, we wrestled with this. I would agree with him that it was a unique process where we looked at the bill before we became partisan about it. Because of that, I think we drew consensus and wrestled with these very difficult issues.

I guess my biggest disappointment is that the bill does not reflect the will of the combined effort of the committee in so many areas. We can argue that the largest and most important part of this bill is stem cell research. It may or may not be. To me it is not. To me the most important part is looking ahead into the 21st century and having a regulatory body that really garners the trust of Canadians, a body that takes us into the 21st century in the way which research from many different areas is looked at in an ethical way.

However, going back to the idea of science and having children, to a scientist success is a brand new baby. However to someone who is a product of reproductive technology in society, that is not where the success is. Success is far more down the road where we have adults who are truly productive to society, who understand where they came from and where they are going. It is much more than just a baby. There are different perspectives on this whole issue.

One thing that is missing in the bill is the anonymous donation of a donor. From the perspective of the member, why would the legislation not have a donor specified in the legislation?

[Reg Alcock, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Mr. Speaker, just on that final point, perhaps I read this wrong. The member is right, section 14(1) does not say the name of the person. It does say that health reporting information is required to be collected under the regulations. The regulations are not attached to the bill so we do not know how broadly or narrowly that is drawn.

I would agree that in my read of the bill, it does not answer some of the questions that I had about how the second process would take place. There are two parts to it. There is the actual identity of the parent or parents who are missing in the mix. That could be handled more directly. I also think the whole issue of preparing parents for parenthood when they are not going through the process of gestation is an important issue. That is also lacking in the bill.

Beyond that, the bill actually does not do a bad job of reflecting the consensus to which we came. Maybe we are looking at it through different lenses, however it comes fairly close to our intention, which is to control a very difficult and very contentious area of research but not eliminate it.

[James Lunney, Canadian Alliance, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on this issue.

As a member of the Standing Committee on Health, I identify with the comments of the hon. member from Winnipeg who just spoke. Members of the committee wrestled with many of the issues surrounding human reproductive technology and came up with the proposals for the draft legislation which has come back in the form of Bill C-56.

Bill C-56 states it may be cited as the assisted human reproduction act. I would like to state for the record that I believe we need much more research on the causes of infertility, particularly in the western world on delayed child bearing. We need more scrutiny on the various practices that defer pregnancy including the birth control pill; the use of abortion and the effect it has on fertility; the accumulation of pesticides in the environment and the effect it may have on human reproduction; and recently, concerns about estrogens accumulating in the water supply which are affecting human fertility.

A lot more research is needed on what is actually causing this epidemic of infertility. Rather than trying to find other ways to produce babies, we should be looking at how we can accommodate successful human fertility in a natural way.

Looking at the bill, the opposition has been calling for legislation since 1993 when the royal commission on new reproductive technologies reported. The government introduced Bill C-47 eventually in June 1996 and it died on the order paper.

This subject has been debated for a long time. In this the 37th parliament the Standing Committee on Health received draft legislation on May 3, 2001, a little more than a year ago. We spent months deliberating and hearing from witnesses from all aspects of Canadian society who are concerned about the complex and varied issues associated with the bill. Finally the committee submitted its report in December to the minister. It is one year later and the bill has finally come to the House for consideration. It has been a long time coming.

There are many controversial aspects and complex issues related to the bill. Probably the most significant one is the issue of stem cell research. To enter into that subject, it was stressed at committee that we need to think of ourselves as cellular beings. An adult human being is some 80 trillion to 100 trillion cells; we are cellular beings.

We are talking about embryonic stem cells versus adult stem cells. We hear in discussions that embryonic stem cells are better because they can produce the entire array of tissue found in an adult human being, which is true. The early cells in an embryo are on their way to producing an 80 trillion to 100 trillion cell adult which will take some 20 years to accomplish. The embryonic cells can produce a whole human being; that is their destiny in the ordinary sense.

Recent research has found what early researchers used to suggest, that adult cells are no longer able to do that. However in the last year and a half we have seen tremendous breakthroughs in adult stem cell research.

It should not have been such a surprise to us. The blueprint for each one of us, including all of the 200 cell types that we have in our body, is found in each and every cell of the human body, except for the red blood cells which do not have a nucleus. Each of us has in each of our 80 trillion to 100 trillion cells a complete set of chromosomes with a complete blueprint to reproduce a whole human being.

Therefore the dialogue saying that the embryonic cells are better for this reason simply does not hold up with the current research. We are finding tremendous breakthroughs some of which have been cited already today.

We heard from researchers in committee, and even in the months since we concluded our report there has been further research reporting results with Parkinson's disease using adult stem cells. Also with multiple sclerosis, adult stem cells from the donor's body were introduced back into the same body with tremendous results.

From what we heard in the standing committee and in the past year, there have been tremendous gains in adult stem cell research in humans. We heard that after many years of embryo stem cell research with animal models the results have not provided the expected advances. Therefore, it was the conclusion of the standing committee to encourage research funding in the area of adult stem cells.

There are many problems with trying to introduce embryonic cells into another human being not the least of which is each one of our cells has a blueprint, our own genetic marker. An intact immune system checks licence plates. The immune system will reject foreign cells. If embryonic cells are used to produce a new cell source for a human being to try to solve a health problem those cells will be subject to rejection by the immune system of the receiving body unless the patient takes anti-rejection drugs for the rest of his or her life. That is a very significant problem in trying to use embryonic stem cells in another human being. It is a problem that is avoided entirely by the use of autologous cells, or cells from one's own body.

To quote a couple of other advances, recently University of Minnesota Stem Cell Institute researchers showed that adult bone marrow stem cells can become blood vessels. Duke University Medical Center researchers turned adult stem cells from knee fat into cartilage, bone and fat cells. When the research of Dr. Freda Miller from our own McGill University was announced just a few months ago, the newspaper article said that the researchers had found gold with skin cells able to turn into neurons or muscle cells.

We should have known there were stem cells found in bone marrow because bone marrow regenerates itself. The average human being is replacing 25% of his or her blood every month. Skin cells replace themselves regularly. Therefore stem cells are found. Also we are finding that skin cells not only produce skin but they can be coaxed into forming other tissues, as Dr. Miller found, such as neurons or muscle cells.

If adult cells have the promise to produce tissue, why are researchers reluctant to go there? I posed that question to Dr. Alan Bernstein, the head of the CIHR, when he was at committee and I pose the question again to my colleagues in the House. If we can produce cells from our own bodies that would replace tissue, avoiding the need for anti-rejection drugs for life, if we could take stem cells from our own bodies, grow them in a Petri dish and reintroduce them to our bodies to repair damaged tissue, would that not in fact be superior? That is autologous.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Order, please. I always hesitate to interrupt a member, but it might be helpful to the Chair to know if in fact members are splitting their time.

[James Lunney, Canadian Alliance, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for North Vancouver.

Dr. Bernstein's answer was that yes, of course it is superior to use autologous transplant cells from one's own body. Dr. Ronald Worton from the University of Ottawa when asked the same question replied that of course if we can use cells from our own body that is the gold standard.

With respect to the comments by the hon. member for Winnipeg South who said just a few moments ago that he felt we had struck the middle of the road and we had found the best compromise here, sometimes the middle of the road is not the best place to be. Sometimes the middle of the road can be a very dangerous place. One can be killed in the middle of the road.

I heard one researcher say that in genetic research speed wins. However the slogan used by the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia is that speed kills. We are concerned that researchers may run past the most promising venue of restoration and healing in their search for knowledge. We are concerned it could lead to commodification and industrialization of human tissue.

Our party had encouraged a three year moratorium on the stem cell issue. I still feel that if the CIHR were to use its considerable resources to invest in adult stem cell research, Canada could be a leader rather than a follower in this very promising area of research.

Many other issues need to be addressed, such as the area of chimera, the area of anonymous donations and many other very significant aspects to the bill. I will leave those to my colleagues to bring out and we will be discussing them at committee.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I note that the member favours the avenue of providing one's own stem cells, adult stem cells I presume he meant, for one's own illnesses.

Would the comments of the member still apply if the requirement were to have one's own embryonic stem cells? That practice would be banned by the bill, in terms of the actual taking of the genetic material from an embryonic cell and then putting in one's own genetic material and producing material which would definitely not be rejected by the body.

Would the member's view still hold if he had to obtain stem cells from such a source?

[James Lunney, Canadian Alliance, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member is talking about therapeutic cloning. Indeed the bill would ban that and we certainly support that ban.

We are talking about actually taking cells from one's own blood, bone marrow or skin from one's own body, simply extracting a hair follicle. It has been found that there are skin cells available that can be grown in vitro in larger numbers and injected back into the body.

We heard testimony from Dr. Prentice of Indiana State University that stem cells are being extracted from blood. The bone marrow is chemically stimulated to release stem cells which can be extracted with a simple blood sample, grown in a Petri dish and injected back into the same body. These cells actually would find their way to the damaged tissue and begin to identify with the cell type that is involved in the repair response. There is tremendous promise available in this area.

I agree with the member that we are not interested in going to therapeutic cloning.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's contribution. He is a member of the health committee and has followed this matter since last April when the draft legislation was first presented to the committee by the previous minister of health.

During the hearings at the health committee there was a lot of anecdotal commentary about the agenda being driven by research and that research had progressed very swiftly and was way ahead of the policy makers and legislators. I suppose that when there is a regulatory and legislative vacuum it is easy to understand how that might happen.

I wonder if the member might want to comment on whether or not he got the sense that it is the research community that has driven the legislation thus far, both the draft legislation and the current bill.

I wonder if the member would also comment on whether or not it might be advisable for the health committee to ask those who wish to appear before the health committee on this bill to provide a curriculum vitae in which they identify and declare their relationships and associations. I mention this in view of the fact that so many of the witnesses who appeared the last time around had linkages either by being co-authors or members of the same group, et cetera, and were just filling the committee. I think the vast majority of witnesses were linked in some fashion and supported a particular position.

[James Lunney, Canadian Alliance, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there was a general feeling in the committee, having listened to witnesses from the scientific community, that they were very keen to advance the issue of embryonic stem cells and for some reason were reticent to engage in discussion about the tremendous potential of adult stem cells. For that reason a preamble was proposed by the standing committee. It put the interests of children first, the interests of the adults participating in assisted human reproduction second, and finally the interests of researchers and physicians supported to the extent that they do not compromise the interests of the children and the adults. That commitment seems to be lacking in the bill.

There is a concern that although researchers say they would not allow research beyond 14 days with an embryo, once they splat that embryo and extract the stem cells it is no longer an embryo in form but they could continue to grow those tissues indefinitely. There is a great danger which some call the slippery slope to industrialization and commodification, that what they can extract from these tissues are products like chemicals, dopamine for Parkinson's, or neurotransmitters for Alzheimer's, or insulin for diabetes. This slippery slope may lead to human tissue factories, the commodification and industrialization of human tissue. That is certainly something the committee is not keen to entertain and as parliamentarians is something we should want to resist.

[Ted White, Canadian Alliance, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the first paragraph of an article in the Ottawa Citizen on May 19 reads:

Canada's political parties, MPs and bureaucrats aren't giving Canadians the say in policy-making they promised, another blow to the nation's eroding trust in government, says a respected think-tank.

A forthcoming report by the Canadian Policy Research Networks concludes that for all the talk, money and time spent on “public consultations” and “citizen involvement,” Canadians aren't having a real say in federal policies.

And if they do get a say, they're rarely listened to.

I have heard a number of members in debate today give their own personal opinions on the bill. That may be doing a disservice to our role as parliamentarians. I know not everyone in this place believes that we should be representing our constituents. I have tried to do my best to achieve that over the years.

In September 2001 I printed an article, in the North Shore and Outlook newspapers in my riding, predicting the arrival of this bill and asking my community to get involved. It stated:

The final form of the Bill will probably ban certain activities such as human cloning, sex selection, the creation of human embryos for research purposes, and the sale and purchase of human embryos. On the other hand the Bill is almost certain to also include extensive, and some would say quite arbitrary, powers for the Health Minister to regulate reproductive technologies or turn that job over to a new authority created for the purpose.

The time has come to show that my predictions were pretty accurate in that regard. I will come back to that in just a moment. Later on in the article I invited my community to get involved and stated:

Bills like this do not come along very often, but as with the so-called Gun Control Bill of 1994, there is inevitably going to be a lot of media and public discussion about the new legislation.

I invited my community to form two committees, one for the bill and one against, to help me reach a conclusion within my riding on which way I should vote on various amendments and provisions in the bill.

It is interesting to talk about representing constituents. I received quite an amount of lobbying from those who have very strong moral feelings about this issue. I invited not just experts or those with scientific experience but lay people as well who had strong moral feelings to come forward and help me with the committees.

People did come forward and posed some interesting questions. I will read some of the questions that came from my riding in just a moment but now I will go back to the predictions that I made in the column about the ministerial powers that would probably come forward in the bill. When I read the bill the first thing that struck me was subclause 20(1):

The Minister is responsible for the policy of the Government of Canada respecting assisted human reproduction and any other matter that, in the opinion of the Minister, relates to the subject-matter of this Act.

What an appalling clause to put into a bill. In the opinion of the minister anything in the world that the minister thinks relates to this act therefore relates to this act and is under ministerial control. Couple that with subclause 25(1) which states:

The Minister may issue policy directions to the Agency concerning the exercise of any of its powers, and the Agency shall give effect to directions so issued.

My goodness. What happened to the days of arm's length agencies of government? Here we have a minister who can decide at his or her whim what is connected to the bill and whether it is important or not and then direct the agency with no choice by the agency, no matter whether there is logic for the policy or not, to go ahead and do it or cease doing it, whatever the case may be.

Finally, if we couple that with subclause 25(3) which states quite clearly:

Policy directions issued by the Minister are not a statutory instrument for the purposes of the Statutory Instruments Act.

This is the final straw. The government has written into the bill that policy directions which are to all intents and purposes regulations are not even recognized as regulations so we cannot take them to the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations to find out if they are even legal.

There has been a ton of talk in this place today about whether embryonic stem cells are better than adult stem cells. My personal feeling is that the most important thing at the moment is the appalling provision in the bill that regardless of what we think about embryonic or adult stem cells, the minister has complete control to do whatever he or she wants.

I want to mention one other subclause in the bill. Subclause 5(1)(f) which deals with prohibitions states:

No person shall knowingly alter the genome of a cell of a human being or in vitro embryo such that the alteration is capable of being transmitted to descendants;

If researchers were to find a cure for Parkinson's or heart disease or some other abnormality, would we not want to allow the genome change to be passed to the next generation? Would we not be doing a disservice to prohibit it? This is one area of the bill that disturbs me greatly.

Maybe the minister made a mistake and did not think about what the implications were of that clause. I hope she will consider amending that clause to ensure that if cures were found they could be passed on to succeeding generations.

I would like to turn to some of the questions that came out of my riding because they are important. Whether embryonic or adult stem cells are better can be argued all day in the House. It can also be argued by scientists

However when we put these issues before the people we represent, we get a number of questions asked. If we were to ban certain types of research in the bill, would we not be kidding ourselves into thinking that this type of research would not happen elsewhere? In other words, would we not just be like the proverbial ostrich, putting our heads in the sand?

Would it not be better to permit wide-ranging research, even that which is banned in the bill, so that we could regulate and monitor it while ensuring that our best researchers remain here in Canada, instead of going to other countries where those types of research are permitted? Are we willing as Canadians to accept the medical benefits which flow from research in other countries, even if that research is of a type banned in Canada? Are we willing to make it a crime for Canadians to travel to another country to take advantage of medical procedures and/or treatments which are banned in Canada under the bill?

How does the bill prevent researchers in other countries from carrying out research, such as the three Middle Eastern women who are supposedly pregnant with clones as a result of the work of an Italian researcher? Are we really advancing the cause of ethics by driving these researchers to work in countries which may not have the same ethics that we do?

Why do some people claim that cloning is unethical? What exactly is it about cloning that makes it unethical? For example, should pro-life groups not be consistent in their support of the right to life and be willing to embrace a cloned person just as they would embrace a person created through natural means?

Here is an example given by the person who posed the last question. Let us say there is a woman, not married, who wants to have a baby. She does not want to go through in vitro fertilization using a donor because she does not want to create a baby with someone else's sperm. She wants her own baby, so she makes the decision that she would like to have a cloned baby. What is unethical about that? I am actually having trouble understanding what is unethical about that. I suspect that the services will be offered in other countries anyway, so a woman in that type of example will just go to the Philippines or to Afghanistan, or somewhere else where she can have it done.

Those are the sorts of questions that have come out of my riding. Those are the concerns I have with the bill. I do hope that the minister at least will take some notice of those concerns.

It was brought to my attention that there was a conference on stem cell research in the Vancouver area in March. Some interesting material came out of that conference. I do not have time at the moment to read it into the record, although I did write one of my North Shore news articles about it. The two researchers who were speaking at that conference said that it was important for Canadians to understand the science before they make the ethical judgments. That is an important thing for us to consider.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his contribution to the debate. It is important that the kinds of questions that he articulated that come from ordinary Canadians be addressed.

There are certainly far too many that I could possibly help him with now. However, I refer him to a publication called The Ethics and Science of Stem Cells . Canadians can get it from their member of parliament or they could see where to get it on my website, www.paulszabo.com.

I know the member is quite active in communicating with his constituents. In his experience has he found whether the kind of information that is currently available would constitute true, full and plain disclosure that would give constituents in his riding the kind of information that they really need to be able to make an informed opinion to let him know?

The member has been involved enough in these matters and probably understands when we say stem cells can probably solve the problem of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's if we use embryonic stem cells. Does he think it is all right to do embryonic stem cell research? We asked that question and 75% of Canadians said yes. What they did not understand were all the other inherent problems, such as immune rejection. Would the member like to comment on the issue of true, full and plain disclosure?

[Ted White, Canadian Alliance, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am thrilled to comment on that. I am worried that the minister is rushing the bill through. The type of process I want to do in my riding involves full disclosure from both sides of those who argue for and against these issues.

I do not think there will be time the way this thing is moving right now. It concerns me. We have an obligation as parliamentarians to share information with our constituents. Then we should find out whether they agree with our personal views or not.

In that regard I mentioned the convention held in Vancouver. I printed excerpts from that convention in the newspapers so that people would understand some of the things that were there:

That embryonic stem cells can be expanded in vitro while adult stem cells cannot. That embryonic stem cells do not seem to age, while adult stem cells tend to degenerate and fade. That scientists know how to engineer the embryonic stem cell's genome very efficiently and that embryonic stem cells can produce a large variety of specialized cells, both inside and outside the body. That scientists cannot at this time efficiently control the production of mature cells or specialized adult stem cells. The adult stem cells that scientists produce are not quite the same as the cells that are produced with embryonic stem cells. That almost every type of adult tissue contains stem cells but most adult stem cells can only regenerate the tissue from which they are taken.

I have presented some excerpts from a presentation given by two medical researchers in the Vancouver area. I am willing to bet that there are members who can stand up in the House and quote me from other researchers who contradict that. If that is the case, we are doing our constituents a disserve if we allow the bill to proceed to committee before the summer. We must keep this issue out there to give us time to sort out fact from fiction and ensure our constituents can direct us on what to do.