Mr. Speaker, I think it is important for all members to make comments in this particular debate. It is something that is controversial and something with which I think each of us have struggled.
There is one thing that I think is necessary. So far the government is doing it and I hope it will continue in this vein, and that is that there has to be full and unrestricted debate on this legislation. We cannot have closure on this at some point or some attempt to rush this through. I hope the government sees that. There is no indication it would do otherwise but I trust it will stay with that.
In committee, in particular, aside from debate, it is very necessary that there be full public consultation. We have had some arguments, I guess we could call it, with the transport committee recently. The Canadian Alliance refused travel on a particular piece of legislation. I go along with that simply because with the committee travel that I have been a part of before I have seen occasions where we go out and hear overwhelming testimony from the public one way or another where people are of a common mind. Yet the legislation or any amendments that pass at the committee level do not reflect what we have heard from the public, which then of course brings to cause whether we should be bothering to consult and pretend to go through this facade if indeed we are not going to reflect what people have said.
In this bill in particular it is very important that we not only consult with the public but that the legislation ultimately reflects the will of the public as a result of those consultations. Beyond that, when it comes back to the House for a vote, I think it is very necessary that this be a free vote. A free vote is often something that is misinterpreted. A free vote should not be for individual members of parliament like myself, my colleague who just spoke or any of the members across the way to vote the way they personally feel regardless of input from others.
There are 301 members of parliament in the House and collectively we represent all the people of this country. The free vote should reflect our consultation with the people we represent in our individual ridings. We should take the time and the trouble to explain these issues, to bring the information before our constituents, to seek input from those constituents and ultimately to vote according to the direction of those constituents after they have been informed as openly as possible of the pros and cons of this bill.
We support a three year delay in proceeding with any experimentation on embryonic stem cells. We do this, first, because there have been great advances in the case of adult stem cell research and utilization of adult stem cells in treatments. There has been nothing that indicates or has demonstrated the ability of embryotic stem cells to be superior to adult stem cells. We keep hearing about the potential of what might be, what could be. The reality is that there is absolutely nothing concrete yet that says it is superior.
To the contrary. We know there are a lot of problems with embryotic stem cells because of rejection. We are using foreign tissue and, as a result, there is a rejection problem. I have some acquaintances and friends who have gone through organ transplants only to reject them and need the operation again. Rejection is a serious thing and it is something we want to avoid at all costs.
There is probably a desire on the part of some people to say that they want some kind of magic fix that is squirted up their noses which fixes their toes, so to speak. The reality is that in the treatment that comes from adult stem cell research, the stem cell is taken from the individual who is being treated so there is no rejection problem but it is very site specific. There is not necessarily a problem with that as long as they ultimately manage to produce the medications and cures necessary to deal with illnesses that are currently treatable.
I hope the vote of individual members of parliament does reflect the information that has gone out to the public and the opinions of their own constituents that they get back.
Certainly we need some of the things proposed in the bill, and there are some things that should be in the bill but are missing, one of them being a total and absolute ban on the creation of hybrids. A hybrid is the result of a human egg fertilized with an animal's sperm. It is fine to say that we will not allow it to proceed to fruition, but there is no justification for even the creation of it. It opens up the door to all kinds of horrors. We think it is something that should be nipped in the bud and stopped. I do not think there will be much support at all from the general public. I am sure that if hon. members took the trouble to have even quick consultations with their constituents they would find that most of their constituents would be shocked and horrified at the very concept of this thing proceeding.
One area that I have a couple of concerns about deals with the same category. It has to do with placing limitations on the donors. There is a very obvious need for this. I do not think it has been spelled out in the bill at all, and it needs to be. We have had some cases, one in particular in the United States, where a very unscrupulous individual who was supposedly acting on behalf of a number of donors simply supplied all the sperm himself. It turned out that he had hundreds of offspring with none of them realizing that they were interrelated, with all the potential problems that brings forward. There need to be some guidelines and safety measures put in place to ensure that this can never happen.
Beyond that but on the same concept is an area that our party is proposing, and I agree with it, providing the right caveats are in place, and that is the rights of the child who is born as a result of embryonic mixing. When that child grows up and wants to know who the parents are, our party's position is that absolutely the information should be available to the child. I agree that our background history, our knowledge of our ancestors and our heritage is very important. There is something that needs to be put in the bill with regard to this, very clearly and specifically. There must be some kind of legal protection for the donors so that there can be absolutely no question about it, so that the child cannot come back years later and say “You are my father so you have to pay for my full education” or for some other costs. The intention has supposedly been spelled out in the bill, but we know that often intention does not prove to be reality.
In regard to intention, we have seen all kinds of bills offered by the government. One that always sticks in my mind is conditional sentencing. That is where someone does not serve any time in jail. Violent offenders were allowed to go free as a result of that. When we brought the issue back to the House, the minister who introduced that legislation said that it was never the intention that it would apply to violent offenders. The reality is that because it was not clearly spelled out in the bill it was indeed applied to violent offenders.
It needs to be made absolutely clear in law, in the bill, that the children created through this type of birth can have access to their parents' histories but that there can be no legal or financial ramifications that would come back on those parents.
One area which I think shows maybe a bit of arrogance on the part of the government is the method by which the assisted human reproduction agency of Canada would operate. I would hope we would all agree that there is something fundamentally wrong with creating an agency for which the government appoints those who will be in that agency and then allows the minister herself to give that agency any policy direction that she wishes. Further, the agency is obliged to follow the directions given to it by the minister and must ensure that these directions remain secret. That basically says that we will appoint one person in the House who will decide for herself which direction things will go in and who will be accountable to absolutely no one and will not even have to release the information about which decision was made except to give direction to those who would carry out that will. That is fundamentally wrong. That is one thing that has to stop.
I see that I am out of time, but I think this is the kind of subject for which we need to have a great deal of time and consideration. We need to listen to one another and consider one another's position. I would hope that each person does take the time to consult with their constituents and reflect upon their needs and wishes rather than just take direction from their parties, and I hope that we ultimately have a free vote which truly will reflect the wishes of our constituents.