Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today on Bill C-13.
It has been interesting to follow some of the headlines as they appear on the debate on this issue.
There is no question that politics are being played out here when it comes Bill C-13. We can see it bounce back and forth not just between the opposition and government parties but between members within the government party and also between members within the opposition parties in the House.
There was one particular headline in a newspaper a few days ago which read “Vote on human cloning bill delayed: Bill C-13 'God squad' MP stages filibuster, debate stalls”. That is a very interesting headline. Obviously a member of the Liberal Party is considered to be part of what is called the God squad, or so it has been tagged. All of those who are opposing the proposed legislation might be tagged the same. I do not find that so unsettling. In fact, I would be proud to wear that as a badge if that applied to me by taking that position.
There have been other very strong members of Parliament. I will talk about one by the name of William Wilberforce in the great country of England in the United Kingdom. He was actually tagged the same way. He was a Christian MP who stood up against slavery. For years he fought that fight again wanting to better the lot of those who were enslaved in that country. As a result of his efforts, he and four or five other MPs were categorized as such. Because they believed in God, because they felt that there should be a stronger commitment on the part of legislators to better the position of others in society, they were tagged as such by their colleagues, the media and the opposition. They stood for something that would allow others to live in a better way and that is the tag that was placed on them.
For decades Mr. Wilberforce fought that egregious legislation to change it, to ban slavery completely and it spread throughout the free world.
Here we have another kind of legislation. It is an intrusion into human life. A whole series of unknowns are attached to this particular endeavour, that is human cloning. The House has faced the issue now for a period of time. Its intention is to set the ground rules for cloning, embryonic research and reproductive technologies. That is the bill. There are a lot of unknowns in it and it deals with human life.
The bill bans all human cloning, both reproductive, which would allow a cloned embryo to be implanted in a woman's womb and grown to a full person; and therapeutic, which would allow a cloned embryo to be used for research and medical purposes. That is the bill that is being advanced here.
For the most part the House should be applauded for that piece of legislation. However we cannot talk out of both sides of our mouths and expect to gain credibility or acceptance on one side if we are saying something different. That is what in fact is happening here.
Canada is preparing to work against some of the other countries whose efforts are to ban all forms of cloning. Belgium put forward a motion at the United Nations international convention dealing with this. Canada will support a competing resolution to what the government is even attempting to pass here in the House. How can the government do both? Explain that to me and explain that to the public. Who is to be trusted? It is inconsistent.
That is part of the politics of this particular legislation. Forty countries worldwide would like to see a total ban on reproductive and therapeutic technologies, cloning, yet Canada is now speaking out of both sides of her mouth. That would have to fall back on the shoulders of the government.
How does it play out further? The government would like to see an end to this debate. Our party has suggested that there be a moratorium or a cessation of debate until further research and information comes to light, but that is not the action the government is taking. In fact, as soon as this debate dies today, there will be no other mechanism to continue debate.
We are debating a motion introduced by the government House leader that the question be now put. This motion is known as the previous question. On page 556 of Marleau and Montpetit, the previous question is described as “at best an unpredictable method of curtailing debate”. We on this side cannot hoist it. Once we stop talking about it today, in other words, once the situation develops where no other member rises to speak to it in the House, that is it. We cannot extend it.
That is the method available to the government to curtail the debate. The previous question, time allocation and closure are all means, so this is a form of time allocation. Personally, the fact that the government would curtail debate by using this procedure is embarrassing.
Just for the record, the government has invoked closure and time allocation 82 times. There have been 73 time allocation motions and nine closure motions. If we factor in the number of times the previous question has been used, the number jumps to close to 100. The government has curtailed the action of debate in the House 100 times.
On one of the most important pieces of legislation which we are debating right now it has decided to use time allocation. It is disgusting.
Regarding the politics of Bill C-13, some of the opposition members have decided to support the government. One of the parties, of course the New Democrats, opposed the bill because it did not ensure gender parity on the board. The board is another issue altogether and we could speak for quite awhile on the lack of accountability on the board, or the weakness of the board which could in fact be overridden by the Minister of Health. We could speak for a long time to that issue alone.
The NDP has decided to side with the government and support the bill now, all because of one very weak argument. The government has assured the NDP with a written promise that gender parity on the board will be certain. How weak can that party get? Is that the NDP's sole argument on a matter as important as this one?
I think we should be re-examining the whole process of debate if that is as weak as the NDP is in its arguments to support a bill that is as serious as this one.
Our party has chosen not to support this legislation, for good cause, and I support the member for Mississauga South in his endeavour to bring all the issues to light.