Mr. Speaker, Motion No. 24 adds a new prohibitive activity. This is very important. This comes down to the essence of the bill. The whole controversy on the bill has to do with the so-called existence of surplus embryos not necessary for reproductive purposes. If there were no surplus embryos, then there would be no debate about embryonic stem cell research. How do we deal with this?
Research is going on now to perfect the process to cryogenically store women's eggs. If we could store women's eggs, it would not be necessary to fertilize them once they were harvested from women. The eggs would only be fertilized to the extent necessary for in vitro fertilization. There would not be one surplus embryo ever. We would never have “to throw them in the garbage”, to quote the minister. We do not throw them in the garbage. They are human beings and they die a natural death. Humans do die, and I am not going to stand here and suggest that somehow they do not. Motion No. 24 says that if the science is perfected to store ova then we shall not freeze embryos. Freezing embryos is wrong. Cryogenic freezing of embryos is an awful thing because it dooms half of those human beings to death. Only half of cryogenically frozen embryos will survive the thawing process.
Dr. Françoise Baylis has told us many times that about 500 embryos are presently in storage across Canada. About half of those so-called surplus embryos might be available for research purposes. However, of those 250 frozen embryos, only 125 will survive.
She then goes on to tell us in many articles and in many representations before UNESCO and other places, that of those 125 embryos, only 9 will produce any form of viable stem cell line. Of those nine, only half, maybe five, will actually meet the quality standards required by research.
Do members realize that we would have to destroy 500 embryos to get 5 viable stem cell lines. It is a fallacy when people say that by donating embryos they can be used to help cure people's diseases. That is such a leap that it has no credibility. If one embryo is donated there is 1 chance in 100 that it will actually provide a viable stem cell line that will meet the quality for research purposes. Even then, who knows what the research is for. They would need 100,000 different stem cell lines.
Dr. Françoise Baylis has said very clearly that there are not enough embryos presently in Canada to sustain meaningful research. To back it up, she made application to the Canadian stem cell network telling it that an inventory had to be done to find out whether enough embryos were available to do meaningful research.
Wait a minute. We have a bill before us that would guide research on embryos. Why would we have a bill that seeks to regulate research on human beings without even knowing whether there are enough embryos available to sustain meaningful research? This is backwards. It is another fatal flaw of the bill. That work should be done in advance. We should not be going through this if there are not enough embryos.
I have no doubt in my mind that pre-existing embryos prior to Bill C-13 coming into force will not qualify for the concept of informed consent. People who donated those embryos for research did not know all the facts. They did not know that half of their embryos would not even survive the thawing process. They were not told that they could give up their embryos for adoption. They were not told that the woman would be drugged to the max to harvest the most eggs possible.
This is a women's health issue and then the government turns around and says, by the way, we do not care if it is a women's issue, a health issue, a social or an economic issue, we will not permit women to have at least 50% representation on the board of directors of the agency that is going to make decisions affecting women. How bizarre and how hypocritical to say no to gender balance on a board of directors affecting women's health issues and then on the other hand say there is gender analysis and so on.
If anybody talks about gender issues in this place and if they are going to support the bill, if they are going to support the removal of gender balance on the agency, then they are contradicting their own principles. It is about time for this: If we say we are going to respect gender balance and gender equity, it should be in this bill, and in any bill. There is no bill more important than this one for protection of the health and well-being of women, but the motion by the government is to eliminate the committee's decision that there should be gender balance, at least on the board of directors. Why is that? What is the agenda of those who are pushing the bill?
Watch out if I get excited, Mr. Speaker.
There is another aspect: therapeutic cloning. It sounds pretty good to me, but its real name is somatic cell nuclear transfer. I have a motion in this group which states “for greater certainty”. We want to make absolutely sure there is no somatic cell nuclear transfer, no therapeutic cloning. The reason is that this is the basis on which Dolly the sheep was created, by using that process. The research community is saying it needs to use somatic cell nuclear transfer, therapeutic cloning, because it quite frankly cannot get over the problem of immune rejection by using embryonic stem cells. That community says that if it is allowed to take an embryo, suck out the DNA of that embryo to make it neutral, then take a cell from a prospective patient and put the new DNA in there and give it a few chemicals and a little electrotherapy, it will start to divide and then there would be stem cells that are compatible with the patient's.
Dr. Françoise Baylis has come out totally in favour of therapeutic cloning, i.e. somatic cell nuclear transfer. Dr. Bartha Knoppers came before committee. She has written articles and has sent them to all members of Parliament, saying that researchers want to have somatic cell nuclear transfer.
Seven days after this bill was tabled in the House, Dr. Alan Bernstein, president of the CIHR, was on a TV program. I have the tape. It was a business program. He was talking about the importance of commercialization of genetic technologies and why we should have somatic cell nuclear transfer. That was just one week after the bill was tabled, and his agency is the one that is going to determine which research is done.
Dr. Ronald Worton came before committee and said we had better provide some flexibility in the bill so that the research community could do some therapeutic cloning. I was in a TV debate with him on CPAC. I asked him the question directly: what is the difference between therapeutic cloning and just cloning as people would understand it? He had to admit that there is no difference. The only difference is that when therapeutic cloning or somatic cell nuclear transfer is done, we stop the process. We kill the human being and take out the stem cells. That is the only difference.
Mr. Speaker, if we had an ova, a woman's egg, and I took a hair or a cell of skin from you, I could take the DNA out of that woman's embryo and I could take the DNA out of your skin cell and put it in the embryo. I could then implant it into a carrier, a woman. If we did not do anything and that embryo took, we would have another Speaker. Every cell in the human body contains the entire DNA of a person.
We cannot permit it. We cannot permit somatic cell nuclear transfer now or ever. That is why there is this motion in Group No. 6 about the regulations, which we will not see for two years until after the bill gets royal assent, but the bill also says that any other regulations that come after that, new regulations or amendments to existing regulations, are not going to go before Parliament. That is their hole, that is the back door, and that is where the research community that is controlling Health Canada is going to get somatic cell nuclear transfer so it can clone human beings and drive their agenda, not Parliament's agenda.
It is wrong, Mr. Speaker. For those reasons, and I could give many more, I appeal to members. I wish I had a couple of hours to speak on this. Today I asked a number of members if they would simply come to the House to second a motion of mine so that it could get to the floor. The response was no, they did not understand it. Ninety-nine per cent of the members of Parliament in this place probably do not have a comfort level with this bill.