Mr. Speaker, one of the interesting things about this debate is that we have people in the House of Commons and in society at large who are concerned with the subject of animal rights, yet today we are dealing with the subject of the rights of human beings and, in a sense, embryos as the beginning of human life. I always find it intriguing that in our modern age we have a scenario where in this place and in society at large sometimes the rights of animals are more pristinely maintained or upheld or looked after, or there is more concern for their rights than the rights of human beings. We are in a perverse situation in these decades where animal rights issues seem to trump some of the very concerns that we are trying to deal with in this legislation. It is a perverse warping of a sense of priorities and a sense of rights.
It reminds me in a sense of the whole criminal justice debate in our country, where the rights of the criminals trump those of the victims. We deal with those issues, whether it is conditional sentencing, early parole, consecutive sentences, age of consent with regard to pimps and minors, or pedophiles. We get into this perverse situation where the government many times seems to take the rights of the criminals into account more than it does the rights of the victims. It is a shame.
This reminds me of the whole idea that somehow the rights of human beings, embryos and babies are not as important as even animal rights would be. We had that debate in the last session.
Going on to the specifics, I would like to talk about how I and my party believe that the preamble should have an acknowledgement of human dignity and respect for human life. We also believe that the bill is intimately connected with the creation of human life and yet there is no overarching recognition of the principle of the respect for human life. It is a grave deficiency.
I could go on with all of these things I have in front of me, but I would like to touch on some of the things that I think other people will not cover. One is the question of what sword upholds the covenant.
As I am running out of time, I will say that we have to ask this question: Who profits from the bill? I would say it is the drug companies who are going to be coming up with anti-rejection drugs.
As well, would it pass a referendum? Fundamentally that question should be answered with this one: Why is it not being put to a referendum of the Canadian people?