Madam Speaker, it has been an interesting process working through this very important bill. Bill C-13 is entitled an act respecting human reproduction and related research.
The scope of the bill is very broad and relates not only to in vitro fertilization and assisted reproduction. The intent of the bill is to help people, couples who are having trouble because of infertility to have the families they want. It is because of that the health committee, in doing its work on the bill, entitled the study “Building Families”, which is the focus.
There are many controversial aspects of the bill. Part of it is the related research that spins off as a consequence of the in vitro process. The bill contemplates allowing so-called surplus embryos or left over embryos--frankly, even the terminology is offensive to consider--to be used for research purposes.
The bill discusses important issues which we have yet to debate. The amendments in Group No. 2 will be coming up later, and deal with anonymous donations for example and surrogacy. Donations of gametes and issues like that are also covered in the bill.
The subject today largely deals with some of the regulatory aspects. There are 11 amendments in Group No. 6, among them Motion No. 92 brought forward by the member for Mississauga South. These amendments deal with the regulatory body, the governor in council, how regulations shall be set up and some of the responsibilities of the Minister of Health.
Motion No. 92 brought forward by the member for Mississauga South has a number of subclauses. It deals with the equivalency agreements with the provinces. Various provinces may wish to develop their own bills. The province of Quebec already has some regulatory measures in effect concerning reproductive technology, and other provinces may have some also. The clause deals with equivalency agreements with other provinces. The member has very astutely observed that it is quite a loose arrangement in terms of equivalency and the amendment would tighten up the responsibilities. It specifies what an equivalency agreement would look like and the responsibilities that would come with making such changes.
The hon. member has brought in amendments which are quite reasonable. Motion No. 92 states in part:
Equivalency and enforcement agreements shall be subject to the following safeguards:
(a) the Minister shall be accountable to Parliament for all equivalency and enforcement agreements;
That is a very important clause. Ultimately, what is the purpose of our going through this exercise as a federal institution to develop a law for Canadians if someone is not responsible and accountable to the legislators who put the bill in effect in the first place? The motion further states:
(b) the public shall be actively consulted on draft agreements before they are finalized;
The members of the committee who worked on the bill put a lot of work and effort into it. We heard from Canadians across the country. The committee received the bill in draft form and went to great lengths to tighten up this very important area.
We are dealing with human life. Children will be produced from this technology, children who will want to know about their identity later in life. We are dealing with some very profound emotional and moral issues relating to this research. The minister needs to be responsible and accountable and the public needs to be consulted. The motion further states:
(c) the draft agreements, together with the comments made by the public, shall be tabled in both Houses of Parliament for comments and recommendations;
There are a few other accountability measures mentioned in Motion No. 92. An important one is item (g):
(g) five years after this section comes into force, and at the end of each subsequent period of five years, a committee of the House of Commons, of the Senate or of both Houses of Parliament is to be designated or established for the purpose of reviewing this Act.
That is a very reasonable thing to do. This area of science is expanding at an amazing rate. The possibilities that come out of reproductive technologies are profound and have great scientific and health implications but also great moral implications. It is a very important motion. I hope all members of the House will give it due consideration and will vote appropriately. We certainly will be supporting this amendment.
Motion No. 94 also moved by the member for Mississauga South addresses a very important issue. It deals with the issue of transgenics or so-called chimera. A lot of Canadians are probably wondering what that is all about.
We wrestled with this issue at committee. We might wonder about this and I have raised this question repeatedly. There is a tremendous and resplendent array of genetic material available to us as human beings with some six billion of us on the planet. If we look around, a tremendous variety can be found within the human genome, from the little ones among us to the great tall ones who play basketball for great sums of money, from the ones of us who are a little slow to the ones who are really fast in terms of athletic prowess and ability.
I had the pleasure this week to watch an accomplished pianist at a concert. It was amazing to see that woman sit at the piano and play without looking at a note on a musical score. She could play this tremendous array of music from memory. I watched her hands fly across those keys.
It is amazing what human beings are able to accomplish. All that tremendous ability is available to us within our human genome. I have a hard time relating to why we need to mix animal and human genes. What would we hope to accomplish by putting a gene from a lower life form into a human cell or by mixing cell parts from animals and humans or by mixing genes from animals and humans? The bill allows for this under a licence.
The amendment would change it so that the regulations relating to chimera and transgenics could not be changed by the governor in council or by the minister. That is a very important amendment. If we are going to go this way at all, it needs to be tightened up so that this area is very significantly supervised and regulated.
Motions Nos. 96, 98 and 99 are procedural amendments which we would support. They are tidy-up amendments and we certainly agree with them and support them.
Motion No. 93 is an important amendment. It would delete clause 65 entirely, removing the power of the governor in council to make regulations for carrying into effect the purposes of the bill. Clause 65(bb) would allow the governor in council to exempt controlled activities from the provisions of the act.
There are important reasons that controlled activities in the bill require licences and that violations are subject to prosecution. It is because they involve the creation and manipulation of human life. Cabinet should not be able to simply overrule these regulations in a closed cabinet meeting. We certainly support the motion and feel it is very important.
Turning to Motion No. 103, clause 71 deals with transitional provision and grandfathered activities. This is a very important motion. It would delete lines 5 to 12 on page 35. This, as I said, has to do with the grandfathered activities. An agency that had done an activity as little as once would be allowed to do it if it had done it in the period preceding the adoption of the regulations.
The regulations could take some two years to come into effect. There is another motion coming forward, Motion No. 106, which is related to this that would require 90 days as a limit for grandfathered activities to be accomplished.
I hope all members will give these motions serious consideration and we certainly support the amendments brought forward.