seconded by the hon. member for Yellowhead, moved:
Motion No. 104
That Bill C-13, in Clause 71, be amended by replacing line 6 on page 35 with the following:
“person who undertakes or continues to undertake a specific controlled activity with no change in scope or purpose”
Motion No. 105
That Bill C-13, in Clause 71, be amended by replacing line 12 on page 35 with the following:
“until a day fixed by the regulations. Once sections 10 to 13 are in force, changes in the scope or purpose of such controlled activity shall require a licence.”
Motion No. 106
That Bill C-13, in Clause 71, be amended by replacing line 12 on page 35 with the following:
“until 90 days after the coming into force of this Act.”
Madam Speaker, I have a number of motions in this group. I would like to comment very briefly on them and use the remainder of my time to focus on the issue in general.
Motion No. 92 outlines some detailed provisions whereby equivalency agreements can be set up. The bill says that a province has the right to establish its own regulations and legislation with regard to the matters dealt with by Bill C-13. Therefore if it is deemed that the provincial legislation is compatible and covers it adequately, that legislation will override the federal legislation.
This would be an absolute nightmare in my view. The members from the Bloc Québécois probably will quote me on this, but the provinces have jurisdiction with regard to delivery of health care and certainly to the regulation of fertility clinics and researchers, even with regard to whether or not cloning, for instance, might be permitted within a province.
In fact the province of Quebec immediately came out and banned embryonic stem cell research. It was very clear from the beginning that the province of Quebec had some problems with the whole idea of the federal government starting to legislate in provincial jurisdiction.
We must address very carefully some of these equivalency agreements. We have to make sure the provinces are on side because we need to have some uniformity across the system to make sure that the intent of parliamentarians is applied uniformly across the country. Motion No. 92 lays out some features that the equivalency agreements should have, features that presently are not in the bill and which I believe should be.
Motion No. 93 seeks to delete clause 66(5). It says that if a regulation is new or altered after we pass the bill and after we promulgate the regulation, if we come forward with any new regulations or amendments to the regulations, they would not have to come back to Parliament like the original ones. Every regulation to this very important bill, whether it is a new regulation or an alteration of an existing regulation should have the consent and the review of Parliament before it is promulgated.
Motion. No. 94 is a consequential motion to delete clause 11. That is explained by virtue of the fact that Motion No. 47 moves the content of clause 11 to another clause. Motion No. 95 is similar so I will not speak to that.
The next motion I wish to talk about is Motion No. 100. The bill says that if there is a change in federal or provincial legislation, we do not have to renew the equivalency agreement that was entered into with the provinces. It appears to me that if there was a change in federal legislation it should come here. If we are allowing provincial legislation to override it if there is equivalency, then ipso facto, if there is a change in provincial legislation we must also have that amendment reflected in the new agreement the federal government would have with the province.
There has to be continuity. We cannot do something with regulations or changes in legislation when the bill is passed and for the first round but ignore it subsequently. That would allow legislators to get through the back door what they could not get through the front door.
It is a consistency motion. The motion also says that we should be consistent and treat everything the way we would treat in the original bill.
Motion No. 103 is very important. Some members would like to delete clause 71. It has to do with transitional provisions. It says that when this bill is promulgated we will have a situation where the enforced date on prohibited activities will be a date specified by order in council. It would be very shortly after the bill received royal assent. However, certain parts of the bill, in particular controlled activities, will not have royal assent until the agency is established and until the regulations guiding all of this legislation are put in place.
Testimony from the health officials confirmed on two occasions that it would take at least two years. This is very important for members to know. After the bill receives royal assent, it will probably take as long as two years before most of the bill comes into force.
Clause 71, which is a transitional provision, says that once the bill comes into force, anybody who has done anything under the bill at least once during the past year is grandfathered and can continue to do it without a licence and without the scrutiny of the legislation. There is a motion at report stage which says that this is something that is asking far too much. If someone is out there doing a prohibited act or a controlled activity which is not in accordance with the provisions of the bill and the person continues to do it, this is problematic.
I understand that fertility clinics will be licensed and they are an ongoing and continuous activity. I believe that they are aware of this legislation. They will have ample opportunity to make the appropriate application. I believe that they are legitimate operations with no problems under whatever regulations guide them now, which I understand are very limited. If they are reputable fertility clinics, they would apply and they would ensure that they were operating in accordance with the provisions of the legislation.
I tend to support eliminating this transitional provision. It is very qualified, the idea that if one has done it at least once in the last year one is grandfathered. I have never seen that before.
I think the different in force dates is somewhat problematic. The regulations are going to specify these dates. We have no idea when the controlled activities sections will come into force, but it will be a long time.
Members should understand that if this bill were to receive royal assent and the prohibited sections come into force earlier, that means we would prohibit cloning, genetic alteration, surrogacy for profit, and purchase and sale of human reproductive material, but the rest of the bill would not be in force until the agency, the unique body about which I have grave reservations, was put together. I will explain why I have grave reservations.
The Standing Committee on Health had a discussion about conflict of interest. The Minister of Health spoke extensively. She said that there was a provision in the bill which said that one cannot be a member of the board of directors if one has a relationship with a licensee or an application for a licence and that should certainly cover it.
The health committee after doing an extensive review and hearing from witnesses and so on, decided that commercialization and commodification of human reproductive material had to be nailed down very strongly. The committee very strongly supported a new clause which said that one cannot be a member of the board of directors if one has a possible pecuniary interest somewhere down the chain, whether it be a licensee, a fertility clinic, or a researcher. We even talked about pharmaceutical companies, biotech companies, those companies that generally would be involved in the whole process of taking research and development and creating patents and pharmaceuticals and all kinds of things.
There is no question that the whole concern is that commercialization may lead to patenting. Patenting may restrict research and may restrict the ability of others to turn that research into therapies and cures.
The minister has not seen the potential impact. I am not concerned about the board of directors' decisions somehow being influenced by fertility clinics or researchers. It is beyond that. I have grave concerns.
If the government has already decided that 50% will not be women, I take it as a signal that the members of the board of directors of this new reproductive agency have already been selected and are just waiting for their appointments. That is the only explanation I can possibly give for why the government would not recognize that the bill has to do with women's issues, with women's health issues and women's social and economic issues, and that it is important that women have at least half the representation on this board. Apparently somebody believes that is not the case.
I hope that members will speak on these very important issues in Group No. 6.