Mr. Speaker, I feel honoured to follow the hon. doctor from Macleod because he certainly has provided a technological background. I must apologize in that I do not have that background, but I have studied the bill and I have talked to many people in my riding who are concerned, on both sides of the issue, the ethical side and of course the pure science side and the importance of the bill to infertile couples.
These feelings in the local area are very hard felt. Those couples who for whatever reason find themselves in an infertile situation are looking at the science, which has been progressing over the last number of years, and they believe that this is a great opportunity for them to have children. Certainly I understand the importance of children. I have three of them myself and certainly something I think everybody desires at one time in their lives is to be able to raise children. Child rearing is very much the foundation of our country and nation. I certainly understand the concern these people have.
Also, it is unfortunate that in a lot of ways science is passing the legislative process. It has taken us as a legislature a long time to sit down and actually try to deal with this issue.
As we will recall, the history of this file is such that the government almost basically delegated it to the health care community until a lot of members of Parliament became very concerned. They thought that this should actually be formulated in a bill prior to delegating that authority. This is a common theme of this legislation. As we go through it, we see that time and time again there is a delegated authority, delegated to regulations. It is clear to me that there has not been a lot of thought, at this stage at least, put into what those regulations are going to look like.
Worse than this, I suppose, is that it would appear that legislators are not going to be involved in that process. In other words, we are going to delegate this authority to bureaucrats and others to work out, which may or may not be in the best interest of my constituents, the people I represent. I feel somewhat offended by the legislation in that sense.
I also know that there are those who suggest that it is such a technological issue and so complex that it possibly would be very difficult for members of Parliament who do not have a science background to comprehend, but the reality is that all of these things impact people. It is our duty as legislators to try to represent our constituents in the best way possible.
I have some problems with this. I think that sometimes we try to take shortcuts with the legislative process. I certainly understand the concern of people who are infertile or otherwise want to use reproductive technologies and think it has taken too long already, but the object of the exercise is to try to get this thing right.
I do believe that we should go back to the drawing board to some extent on the delegated authority and see if we cannot find ways to work this out, if not at this point in the stage of the legislative process, then at least to provide that those regulations come back before a committee of the House and members of Parliament will have the ability to comment and to maybe indeed even change or object to the regulations as formulated. I think that is a natural and healthy process in a democracy, where people can put a constant check on the regulated authorities in the best interests of people generally.
I have another concern. One of the driving forces to bring the legislation into passage is an industry that seemed to be starting up, that of paid servicing. This, of course, most of us have big problems with, because we cannot understand why people would actually be prepared to rent their bodies. However, I also have talked to people who have told me that it is none of our business, so there are two ends to that. But I think if we take the orientation to science generally, it is incumbent on us to ensure that there is not some kind of profit maximization motive here that would drive people to do these things.
Essentially the bill is attempting to do this, but the bill would permit surrogates to be reimbursed for lost employment income if they have a doctor's certificate, so in fact we have not really ended the concept of paid surrogacy. We can visualize someone opting to leave their employment to do this and possibly earn more money, or whatever the case may be. That would be legal and legitimate under this legislation. Once again, I think that these are areas we should be concerned about and should review a little more before this legislation passes.
What I do want to reiterate is that in regard to this technology, like so many types of legislation in this area, the real world is passing us by in some real and fundamental ways. I read an interesting column about the evolution of spam mail in this morning's Globe . I think there is a correlation between that and this issue, and that is that technology is way ahead of us. The people who are concerned, our constituents, are those who are receiving e-mails they did not ask for. There does not seem to be a regulated authority to control that. Because there are not a lot of controls, we also have a tendency to demean the electronic commerce and its potential.
Here too we are going down a road where technology is surpassing the legislative process. Clearly here we are trying to find a general process within our country that would allow us to use new technologies to the benefit of individuals, but at the same time we realize that really we are playing with the human genome here and there are some significant ethical concerns about cloning.
Having said that, let me say that the bill has some strengths, such as, for instance, stem cell research. Certainly I have talked to a number of disease organizations that see this as having tremendous potential to end or certainly curtail significantly diseases that affect the human species. On that strength alone, I think we should keep on moving down the road with the legislation, but I am concerned about the delegated authority.
I think we could possibly have a better system if we brought the legislation and regulations back to the House, to the committees, so that members will not simply be in a position where they have passed this legislation, it has gone out into the real world and we will have no way to really measure it other than possibly complaining and having another bill in a few years to try to correct some things. It would be beneficial for the House and for the importance of members of Parliament if we were to have an oversight and a review process in place prior to implementation of the legislation.
Other than that, I basically support the general thrust of the legislation. I think it has taken us too long to come to this place. I certainly respect the concerns many people have about using reproductive technologies, about the importance of that in their lives, and about getting on with a significant research agenda.