Mr. Speaker, let me rephrase that, and I do apologize. The minister has not explained to the House why she feels the amendment is important or necessary. Absent the rationale behind this, we can only criticize and oppose the move to say that people with a conflict of interest should make these important decisions. Heads of projects and people who have financial interests in assisted human reproduction clearly would have a lack of credibility and objectivity that would be very necessary to make decisions in this area.
We also have a problem with the minister's amendment to repeal the committee's recommendation that the agency overseeing assisted reproduction should be composed of 50% women, again because the minister has failed to inform the House as to what her rationale might be.
We do know that assisted human reproduction is something that is very much targeted to meet the needs of women. Men are also involved, particularly when there is a family situation, although not always. We think there should be a very strong component of input from women when these kinds of decisions are being made. Maybe it does not need to be 50% but certainly there is a concern that women may be closed out to an unacceptable degree from input into the operation of the agency. Because they are the main clients and customers, I guess one could say the ones who access this important technology, it is important that their voice be heard.
Again, we would like to know why the recommendation has been withdrawn. We want to ensure that women are not closed out by their male peers in a male dominated area of endeavour without some good reason. I would urge this to be revisited by the House.
Board members should be chosen for their wisdom and judgment according to the health committee. We certainly agree with that. There should be a very strong merit principal but the people who are most impacted by this activity should also have strong input.
We think there is merit for amendments that would ensure that the agency is adequately funded. That just makes sense. There is no point in creating an agency that does not have the money to do the job. We support an amendment that says the agency would establish a dispute resolution process which may include arbitration in case there is disagreement between the agency, donors, licensees or any other relevant parties. I guess it is pretty hard, if the people running the agency can have a conflict of interest, to see how this dispute resolution mechanism could work fairly but it obviously will be extremely important.
There is an interesting provision in this group of amendments with respect to the reporting that is required of the agency. Originally the agency would report to Parliament annually but the minister would like to change it to say that the minister would report on behalf of the agency. We disagree with the report of the agency being filtered through the minister. We think the less political filtering there is in this important area the better. I would like very much to see the minister explain why she is putting the amendment forward because we would oppose it simply on the basis that it puts a undesirable barrier between Parliament and the agency.
Lastly, we believe that people entering into an agreement to produce surrogate children must have counselling. The minister would like to remove the requirement for counselling and say it would be made available. We think it must be made mandatory.