Madam Speaker, it is always very touching to see the great spirit of comradeship in this House. Surprising, sometimes, but still very pleasing.
So, on to the crux of the matter. We had hoped, as I have said, for the bill to be split. That was defeated. We introduced the standard motion in the House to that end. The government did not see it our way and we respected that. Today, however, the issue is still unresolved as far as the Bloc Quebecois is concerned, because again we are hoping to see provisions in the Criminal Code. We do, however, have questions about the consequences of having a regulatory agency.
Let us talk about the Government of Quebec. As you know, Madam Speaker, it is an excellent government and one that may retain popular support for a third mandate. The outcome will be known on April 14. I will have an opportunity to speak of this again.
What is worrisome is that, if the Bloc Quebecois votes in favour of this bill and regulations, it will mean the superimposing of structures one on top of another, and there will not only be the Criminal Code, but also an agency responsible for application of very important regulations.
I was in the process of listing inconsistencies between the agency, Bill C-13 and legislation passed by the National Assembly. I mentioned the Civil Code. This is an important piece of legislation because there is a world of difference between the common law tradition and Quebec's civil law tradition. What makes Quebec different, besides its blueprint for sovereignty, which will see it become a sovereign state as soon as the people make that decision, is its legal system.
In Quebec civil law, it is not up to judges to decide the meaning and interpretation of legislation; it is up to the National Assembly, which, through elected representatives, adopted a type of law called positive law, which is codified in its Civil Code. English Canada is not governed by the Civil Code, civil law, but rather by common law. This means that when there is a dispute and a court is asked to settle it, it may not necessarily be what the lawmaker provided that prevails, but precedents, tradition, custom. Judges are not required to take into consideration what was decided by an assembly of parliamentarians, but do take into consideration how their colleagues ruled in similar cases. That is what the common law tradition is all about. That is not what we have in Quebec.
That is why the Civil Code of Québec contains provisions prohibiting surrogacy agreements. One cannot give birth to a child and say,“I will not be its mother.” There are provisions against that in surrogacy agreements.
So, there are major inconsistencies between Quebec law and Bill C-13. These aspects are not compatible with our Civil Code and the Act respecting health services and social services, which was amended by the National Assembly a few years ago to allow the Government of Quebec to determine which facilities will provide medically assisted reproduction services. There is the Université de Sherbrooke and its health care facilities for instance, but the National Assembly and the minister determine who is authorized to provide services.
If we were to pass Bill C-13 with the related regulations, the federal government would then be able to determine which facilities, while not under its jurisdiction, may provide medically assisted reproduction services. This, of course, is a problem.
The debate with regard to the Privacy Act is extremely important. In the bill, the government says that there is no obligation to disclose the identity of donors. Individuals who donate at fertility clinics can and should maintain their anonymity. The child of a donor will not know who the donor is.
In committee, we heard the testimony of children born through such technologies who told us that this makes no sense.
In legal terms, this is called the right to know who you are. Are children born through these technologies entitled to ask fertility clinics about the donor's identity?
This is the subject of much debate. The government says that it does not want to force donors to disclose their identity for two reasons. It says that, in places where this has been done, donations have decreased, and fertility clinics have experienced a shortage of donors. This has created problems in the supply of sperm and eggs.
If we look at the situation in Australia and New Zealand in the months after donor disclosure became a requirement, we see that supply really was a problem.
At the same time, some point to a whole new area of law opening. up. For instance, I recently read a document for the European Convention on Human Rights that said that the act of withholding the identity of the donor is inconsistent with human rights, not to mention what this means for psychogenesis. For his development as a human being, an individual, a child needs to know not only his social father, the man who raised him and took care of him, but also his biological father.
In our report to the Standing Committee on Health, we asked the government to lift the ban and make identity disclosure mandatory. The government did not listen to the recommendation of the Standing Committee on Health. If passed in its present form, the bill would not require disclosure of the donor's identity, except in emergencies.
Clearly if the child born of these technologies goes to the hospital for a blood transfusion and he needs to know his father's blood type, a national registry would exist for that purpose. This registry would make it possible to search and find the identity of his genetic father, his genetics, and of course, his blood type.
Over and above such urgent considerations, there is no provision in the bill for disclosure of donor identity.
We also note major incompatibilities with laws in place that have been passed by the National Assembly. I have already referred to the Civil Code, the Health and Social Services Act, and the Act respecting the Protection of Personal Information. I could now talk about the Act respecting medical laboratories, organ, tissue, gamete and embryo conservation. There is also an extreme incompatibility concerning the right to one's origins, in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I could also refer to the physicians' code of ethics, the guidelines of the Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec, or FRSC, and the ministerial action plan for research ethics and scientific integrity.
As you can see, it is not easy to gain a grasp of a bill like this one. We had good intentions, and were convinced that the government was prepared to split the bill, but it did not do so.
So we find we are faced with an incompatibility as far as the Health and social services act is concerned; a superimposition of criminal penalties onto the practices of our civil law; interferences with certain provisions of the Quebec Civil Code, particularly those relating to adoption. I am thinking of sections 538 through 542.
Then there are problems with qualifications, as found in the various statutes on professional practices, as well as the addition of an administrative framework to which researchers will be subject, as defined in the regulations as set out in the bill.
Madam Speaker, you are indicating that my time is up. I do not want to take up the time of the House further, particularly since it is an important law and I have already had 10 minutes. I will come back to this at third reading. I assure you that, obviously, in this matter as in others, we are going to defend the interests of Quebec to the best of our ability.