Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to this bill and to this group of amendments. I am pleased to do that because I know every member in the House of Commons, probably including yourself sir, has received a number of submissions from Canadians throughout the country.
In my riding I have received literally hundreds of petitions, e-mails and letters asking me not to support Bill C-13 without significant amendments. My constituents want all Canadians to know that in no way will they ever support any kind of activity allowing embryonic stem cell research. There is no way they want Canada to engage in any activities whatsoever regarding cloning.
My constituents feel we are off base in even thinking about this without looking at alternatives to deal with this entire situation. I certainly agree with these petitioners, in particular, with regard to the use of embryos for research and efforts to clone human beings.
I commend members of the committee in their efforts to try and reflect the will of Canadians in the legislation. I also commend members of the House of Commons for proposing amendments such as some of the ones in Group No. 6. I support these amendments because I believe they will add a lot of credibility to the whole issue. I encourage all members of the House to look at these amendments and seriously consider what will happen if they do not support them.
Motion No. 94 removes the ability of the governor in council to make regulations respecting transgenics. The whole discussion about animal-human combinations should be stopped in its tracks. A number of people who have written to me feel the same way.
Under the legislation, it is unbelievable the number of times the governor in council can make regulations regarding so many of these activities. This really concerns me. If many of these amendments are put in place, they will delete the ability of the governor in council to make decisions regarding the regulations on how we will proceed with this important issue.
I have been in this place for nine years and I have seen a lot of legislation come forward. The ability to make decisions to change regulations with regard to proposed legislation is overwhelming and wrong. I refer to old Bill C-68, the gun legislation, which caused great debate across this country. No less than 74 times in that legislation did the governor in council or the minister by order in council have the authority to make any changes they saw fit and at their whim. Throughout this legislation the same thing is happening over and over again. The ability to regulate what we do with regard to animal-human combinations is in the hands of one individual by order in council.
Motion No. 93 would delete subclause 66(5) which would remove the power of the governor in council to make regulations for carrying into effect the purposes of the bill. We support that amendment. Subclause 66(5), if not deleted, would allow the governor in council to exempt controlled activities from the provisions of the act through regulations.
Controlled activities requiring licences and the reasons why violations would be subject to prosecution were put in the bill for a very good reason. They involve the creation and the manipulation of human life. In no way should anything be in the hands of one individual in regard to controlling the activities through regulation of that nature. To me it is absolutely astounding that anyone would suggest that would be possible. Cabinet should not be allowed to exempt certain activities through regulations. That is a really dangerous clause and Motion No. 93 would delete it. I am certainly in support of that.
As well, we have an amendment that would delete clause 71 which would allow the grandfathering of controlled activities until a day fixed by regulations. Once again, the current clause 65(bb) would allow the governor in council to exempt controlled activities through regulations. Controlled activities cannot and must not be grandfathered. Why? They deal with the manipulation and the creation of human life. That cannot be in the hands of such a minimum number of people through order in council.
When we head down this path, we had better be very cautious of where we are going by allowing certain things to happen in regard to the licensing and the permitting of activities simply because the bill would allow it to happen through order in council. That has been demonstrated on a number of occasions to be completely out of control in a lot of legislation and we cannot allow that to happen in this bill.
I will be supporting the motions in Group No. 6 because they would eliminate a lot of the proposals and remove the power of the governor in council. That is an absolute must. What we need to do more than anything is take into consideration all the petitions, letters and e-mails which we have received from our constituents throughout the country. We need to move in the direction that society as a whole has called for in regard to these issues.
Research in adult stem cell and umbilical cords has indicated many things. There are a number of ways we can deal with this kind of research in a manner that does not manipulate human life and does not deal with the creation of life or the destruction of such. I would encourage members to do everything we can to go down that path rather than the path of creating embryonic cells to be used as research, or the cloning of human beings.