Mr. Speaker, I think the reason why time always runs short on this kind of speaking arrangement is the same reason why we always find what we are looking for in the last place we look.
I would like to begin by saying that I have four nieces and nephews who were all born as a consequence of assisted human reproduction. They are certainly cherished in our family. We have all just returned from family get-togethers over the Christmas season. I was reminded every day for 10 days about the precious products of assisted human reproduction. I cannot imagine our expanded family without their beaming presence as part of that collective.
The other interesting part about this story is that the father, my brother, is a geneticist and a scientist working at a leading scientific institution. He was very much a part of the decision and followed it through all its stages. Of course he was concerned about how it was done scientifically, but he was also concerned about the ethics and the consequences of the exercise they went through over these three successive endeavours.
A few things are very clear. First, we do need regulations. Second, when we set up a board, as would be conceived by this legislation, the people who would be controlling and regulating this type of activity must include people who are not from the scientific community, not part of this biotechnology or other scientific processes, but are there because they represent the ethical side of this whole issue. We cannot entrust this process, which is so important to society, to scientists only or to business people or to politicians. Clearly that is a major failing of the bill. It has not been fixed in committee because of actions taken by some government members.
The other disquieting action is that the minister is diluting the conflict of interest portion of the requirements for appointments to the board and suggesting that his or her ministerial judgment would be good enough. According to the language, the board of directors would be appointed by governor in council, in other words by cabinet, with a membership that would reflect “a range of backgrounds and disciplines relevant to the agency's objectives”.
I consider that a clear statement. These appointments would be a self-fulfilling conflict of interest simply because they would be there to somehow fulfill the agency's objectives. That is most inappropriate. Unless there are strong changes this would soon be subverted into a board that would perpetuate its own objectives and would not constitute a proper set of checks and balances that reflect the greater needs, aspirations and wishes of society to regulate, control and keep up to date with changes, not just in social mores and values, but with changes in technology that can influence all of that.
In 1995, for example, my brother, being aware of advances in technology, took umbilical cord cells from his first child at birth and went to a private institution that was in the business of freezing and storing those umbilical cord cells for the possibility of future medical advances. That would mean that these special cells, which are only attainable from the umbilical cord at birth, would be available.
The company offering those services was basically drummed out of the advertising game by people who were suggesting that it was taking advantage of people's gullibility and that there was no validity or likelihood that the service it was purporting to provide would lead to anything of any value in the future. Within two or three years everyone was talking about the scientific value and the medical breakthroughs that could be obtained through using those very stem cells from the umbilical cord, the non-embryonic stem cells. These are the ones that avoid the whole argument about using embryonic cells in medical research.
I point that out just to say how fast this field can move. The general direction that is pointed to right now is that non-embryonic research is much more favourable to advances, breakthroughs, treatments and so on. People are using that scientific argument to bolster their argument that we should ban embryonic research.
We must clearly identify, from an ethical standpoint, that we do not want embryonic research in our country. If there are going to be advances, we are going to make a decision based on ethical grounds rather than scientific grounds because that is the appropriate way to do it.
If someone decides 20 years from now, or whenever, that it needs to be changed, that is what the Parliament of Canada is for and that is what legislators are for. Maybe they can make a different decision at that time. I think that would be the enlightened position to take now.