Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege and pleasure to rise on third reading, and give my voice to the bill one more time. We have had a number of opportunities to speak out strongly and firmly on a piece of legislation that will impact our nation in a significant way into the 21st century. I do not think we need to understate that. We must state it as clearly and strongly as we possibly can so that the people of this great nation understand the road that we are about to embark upon.
This legislation has the potential to change the ethics of a nation. It is the first time that we will approach the idea that it is okay as a nation to destroy human life for the sake of research.
In doing so, we set out that the ethic we stand on is for the greater good. If we shrink ourselves to the place where the only ethical ground that we stand on is that for the greater good we should do something, then we are on a slippery slope as a nation that will disregard the value of human life as we have seen in many different countries around the world.
It is important that we discern the intensity of the impact of this proposed legislation. After a year of draft work on this bill and after going through committee stage, report stage and third reading, which brings us to this point now, we must understand that we have tried to explain this all the way through.
We ask for the wisdom of the House that it discern clearly and carefully the actions and the voting pattern that will set this in motion or stop it, and with some wisdom throw caution to going down this road so aggressively.
Having said that, we need and have called for legislation in this area. My colleague talked about the banning of cloning, chimera, sex selection, and all the prohibitions within the bill that are important. We must ensure that happens.
However, when it comes to Bill C-13, it touches matters of a great human affair. It touches matters of life and death, and the desires of parents to conceive children. Couples are attempting to build families. That is how the bill started. The problem with the bill is that it goes beyond building families.
As my colleague has said, one in eight Canadians are having difficulty with the experience of becoming fertile and creating a child. That is where the bill started. It started with the idea that the bill should address how to assist those individuals to create a replica of themselves.
Bill C-13 touches on the hope for the treatment of debilitating diseases and conditions. It is important that we address both the ethical complexity that is so highly controversial as well as the other side, which is the whole area of whether the proposed legislation is going in the right direction with regard to the science behind where we will allow ourselves to go.
I believe that Canadians have been driven by the value of protecting human life and respecting it. Whether young or old we have an intrinsic value to respect our creator. Human life is special; it is not to be disregarded. It is not to be created for the sake of destruction. It is important that we have that concept and because of that we should respect life right from conception to natural death.
I regret the government has chosen the uncharted path of embryonic research which may lead in a direction other than human health.
Let us go back 10 years to the evolution of this piece of legislation. It started in 1993 with the royal commission and a piece of legislation came forward. Bill C-47 died on the Order Paper in 1997. It came forward again as Bill C-56 and died on the Order Paper at the prorogation of the House. Now we have Bill C-13 that we are debating.
It is important to understand that in the drafting of this legislation we did something special and unique. In a non-partisan way we had a piece of legislation that was drafted and went to committee. For nine months we listened to the greatest minds and the most informed to give us the input that they had with regard to how it could be amended and how it could be a model of legislation that would be used around the world.
We had the opportunity to have the best legislation of any nation in the world. It is for those reasons that we fought so hard to put in place some of the changes to this legislation prior to it going to committee after it was introduced.
What I find astounding is that the report that came out on the draft piece of legislation is significantly different from what we have before us today. There were many cautions put before the committee. The committee members at that time were nervous about the idea of embryonic stem cell research. The committee was explicit on how we should deal with the regulatory body that will allow or not allow certain practices to occur in the area of reproduction.
The bill we have before us seems to ignore much of the work that was done. It ignores much of the work of the witnesses who came forward and advised the committee. This is why, if we talk to many of the committee members privately, they are frustrated with a piece of legislation that has ignored the recommendations after nine months of hard, non-partisan work and nine months of truly looking at a piece of legislation that would be the best for Canadians. Canadians deserve no less. They deserve the best piece of legislation. They deserve their values to be protected. The bill falls short of that. We must be cautious when we move down this road.
I would like to spend some time on some of the things we support in the bill. It is important to state them and to understand them. It is important that if the bill falters at this stage that we go back and look at the things that we would all agree on, such as the things that are prohibited in the bill, for example, banning either reproductive or therapeutic cloning.
Cloning is an emotional issue that has been publicized in the last while. The threat or the possibility of cloning is a reality that we see coming closer and closer as the days pass. In fact, there are those who have suggested that they have cloned already.
We applaud the idea of the prohibition of reproductive or therapeutic cloning in this piece of legislation. That reflects Canadian values. If such a piece of legislation were to come forward in the House it would pass as quickly as a salary increase, in 72 hours. That is how quickly it would pass because there would be unanimous consent from every seat in the House.
The idea of animal and human hybrids; the idea of chimera, mixing animal and human; and the idea of sex selection is appalling. The idea of germ line alterations that last forever once they are created, and the idea of buying and selling embryos and paid surrogacies are all areas in this piece of legislation that we agree should be prohibited. These are things that are important and we cannot understate them. We cannot overlook that the prohibitions are in this piece of legislation and we should applaud and embrace them.
However, there is one other thing which is an important part of this legislation and that is the agency. The agency will either allow or disallow what will be carried forward in research in this whole area. It will either enforce or not enforce the things that are in this piece of legislation. It is important that we discern who the individuals are that will sit on this regulatory agency. It is important that they are men and women of character who understand the intensity of what is being asked of them in order to control this whole area as the legislation comes into being.
The other thing we need to understand is the whole idea of cloning. What is frustrating for me is that before the ink is even dry and before the bill even passes third reading, scientists are clamouring to say that therapeutic cloning should be allowed.
This goes back to my opening remarks when I said that we were on a slippery slope. We should be very cautious and careful about the legislation. Before the ink is even dry and before we even vote on the bill, the scientists are saying that somatic cell nuclear transfer or therapeutic cloning should be allowed.
Great Britain, which has been under a regulatory agency for the last decade, is now allowing therapeutic cloning. It has also allowed the creation of embryos solely for the purpose of research. If we as Canadians say that is okay, then we are on a slippery slope and we will not be able to stop.
It is actually more ethical to allow that than to place frozen embryos in storage and then thaw them because less than 5% of them go on to create what we would like to create as far as research goes. Whereas if we could get them without the freezing process, it would be more ethical to use them that way.
The next battle we would be fighting in the House is whether we should move to that stage. I suggest that we are fighting that now, even before the ink is dry on this bill. We should be very cautious as we move forward on this legislation because the slope is more slippery than most members understand.
Canadian Alliance members oppose the whole idea of cloning. It is an affront to human dignity, individuality and human rights. It is very important that we make sure it does not happen.
We felt that this legislation should have been split. A motion was brought forward by my party in committee in September 2001 asking for some legislation that would put Canada on the prohibited side of this. We asked that reproductive cloning be something that everyone would have to agree on. At that time, the Liberals deferred the vote. Since they did not want to do it, we had no legislation in that area. That is appalling. It should have been included. If the bill had been split, we would have had the needed protection in the prohibited areas. We would have had more time to deliberate and move cautiously on the areas of controlled activity. We should be very careful as we move forward on this legislation.
I would like to talk for a bit to the preamble of the bill. Clause 2 states:
the health and well-being of children born through the application of assisted human reproduction technologies must be given priority in all decisions respecting their use;
It goes on to state:
human individuality and diversity, and the integrity of the human genome, must be preserved and protected.
Those are noble and thoughtful insights that we put into the preamble of the legislation. However my concern is that as a committee we ranked how we should approach this legislation. We asked ourselves what should govern our decision-making and what should have priority.
As a committee we said that the legislation was about building families and creating life and that obviously the child born by assisted human reproduction should have number one priority. Our paramount concern was that the legislation respected and recognized their rights and protected the rights of the most vulnerable.
The second thing we considered to be an important driver in the legislation were the adults who would be participating in assisted human reproduction.
The third consideration were the researchers and physicians who would be conducting the research on assisted human reproduction.
If we had kept in mind the child first, the adult second and then the science as we went through the legislation, we would have had a different bill in place than what we have right now.
We also must recognize where we have faltered, where we have mixed these things up, where we have allowed science and parents' rights to override the rights of the child. We should reflect on those as we go through the legislation and stop it at third reading if it violates those three priorities.
The preamble of the bill recognizes the priority of the offspring but it fails the offspring in other areas. Children born through donor insemination or through donor eggs are not given the right to know their biological parents. I will return to that a little later in my presentation.
The bill's preamble does not provide an acknowledgement of human rights and respect of human life. That is another misgiving because we believe that is a value that Canadians hold near and dear. The bill is intimately connected with the creation of human life and yet there is no overarching recognition of the principle of the respect of human life. That is a great deficiency and a grave deficiency in the legislation.
With regard to research using the human embryo, Bill C-13 would permit the use of the human embryo from supposed leftovers from in vitro fertilization treatments. It would allow stem cell research and it would allow the creation of actual embryos for reproductive research. I think this is an important fault in the legislation that we should recognize right up front.
Sometimes we overlook the whole idea of creating an embryo for reproductive research. Canadian laws will now legitimize the view that human life can be created solely for the benefit of others. This obviously goes against the view that life should not be created in order to be destroyed, yet this is what the legislation would allow. It is an ethical issue and it is something that divides Canadians right down the middle. It is something we should be very cautious about allowing. Canadians are very concerned about this. I know many members in the House have received many e-mails on it. Many of their constituents are very concerned because it violates their whole value system of respect of human dignity and integrity of human life. It is great that we have legislation that can wax eloquently in its preamble about respect but then it does not follow through with that in the rest of the legislation.
Embryonic research also constitutes an objectification of human life and a life becomes a tool in which it can be manipulated or destroyed for others, even to ethical ends. This is one of the things we have to understand.
People always ask me that because I think life begins at conception therefore it is just an ethical argument, so they dismiss it. Well, let us take the ethics out of it and just ask, biologically, whether life begins at conception. I would argue, biologically, that when 23 female chromosomes from an egg and 23 chromosomes from a sperm connect and begin to grow we have the same DNA at that stage as we do when we are 80 years old or lying on our deathbed. If it does not start there, then where does it start?
Protection under law starts when we are born. A fair debate would be on the kind of protection we should allow at the embryonic stage. However whether that is life is not debatable. It is just biological. As biologists will tell us, that is where life begins.
Let us have a true debate, not on the ethics but on the reality. The reality is, that is life. Do we protect it at that stage or do we not? The legislation is very interesting because it does give some protection at that stage. It protects it after 14 days. Therefore we would have to conclude that life begins, according to the legislation, at 14 days after conception. If not, why would we protect it at that stage? Why not just keep allowing it to grow until nine months in the womb, where it is protected under law? Obviously that is a little further than most Canadians would allow it to go. Therefore, from that perspective, we have to understand where that ethical argument is, and let us be realistic about it.
The other thing that really upsets me is that we do have an alternative. We do not need to put Canadians through this dilemma. The alternative is what is happening with the non-embryonic stem cells or adult stem cells. It is a terrific study. Some of the things that have been proven possible out of the study on non-embryonic stem cells have been absolutely astounding. We can get these stem cells from the umbilical cord, from tissue, from skin and from bone marrow. Last summer a group of scientists out of Minnesota discovered that stem cells could be grown into any organ of the body
If we have an answer looking us right in the eye, it is very difficult for us as a nation to say that we should go to the embryonic stem cell. Why would we do that with our precious resources? Why would we do that when any organ that is grown out of an embryonic stem cell and then put into another individual would result in that individual being on anti-rejection drugs for the rest of the individual's life? We have to recognize that is not in the best interest of the patient either. Why would we do that when we have an alternative?
Most Canadians who have tried to take part in the debate on embryonic stem cells have failed to understand the difference between an umbilical cord stem cell, an embryonic stem cell or an adult stem cell. It is quite complex but we should make no mistake that the embryonic stem cell has the ethically charged problem.
Incidentally, the embryonic stem cell has its own problems. It is so elastic that it cannot be controlled to grow into the organ that scientists want it to grow into. They say that they need those embryos so they can trigger it appropriately. If that is true, I would say that they should carry on with their research but carry on with the research on animals, on embryos from the animals, carry on with research on the stem cell lines from the United States that have already been created and which we have imported into Canada. That would be fair. However let us move carefully and slowly, as Canadians, into the area where we would destroy human life for the sake of research.
Nonetheless, we are seeing some response and some results from the stem cells that are derived from the adults. Parkinson's patients are being cured. Leukemia is being cured. MS patients are improving. Conditions have greatly improved in the whole area of taking stem cells from the adult and using those. I think that is where Canadians' money should be placed. It is very limited. We need to use those dollars as wisely as possible if we are to create the kind of society that we want and the kind of research that is most productive for that society.
The minority report we had for the first draft of the legislation actually recommended that. The report said that we should pull back for a three year period to allow the scientists to continue their research on the adult or non-embryonic side and see where that goes. The report also said that we should continue with animal research on even the stem cell lines from the embryo but that at this stage we should not move to the place where the scientists could move the ethical guidelines, where we changed the line in the sand to as far as what we as a nation would find it appropriate to go.
It is interesting that the legislation uses the word “necessary”. It says that the only way we should be able to touch the embryo is if it is deemed necessary. In saying that, one would think that it at least gives the agency, which would be validated to control this activity, an indication that it should only go there if it is necessary. Yet, in the definitions we do not define “necessary”. When I asked what the word “necessary” meant to the scientists, they could not define what would not be necessary. In doing that, it indicates that everything would be necessary.
The health committee originally was very nervous about this so we put it in a different way. We said that if they were to go there then they could only go there if there were no other category of biological material that could be used for the purpose of that research. If they could prove that to the agency, only then should it be allowed. Even with that, there was a strong debate in the health committee and much nervousness in even allowing it to go to that point.
This entire area is difficult when we see how loosely this is worded and when we see that we have legislation that perhaps is taking us down the wrong road, the wrong road maybe with the right intent. Maybe we think that by doing it we can save some lives in the long run. I would suggest that has yet to be proven and until it has been proven we should not go there.
My biggest frustration is that for this piece of legislation the committee that was asked to report on it was not listened to. We reported on it and I believe we did so in a very non-partisan and very good way, putting some safeguards in place in the legislation. The health minister decided to ignore that. It gets even worse if we talk about some of the amendments made here last week with regard to allowing surrogacy. I will talk about that later.
When we talk about the regulatory agency and how important it is, in reality that is the most important piece of this legislation. If we get this wrong, we get it wrong for the 21st century. If we get it right, we then put in place something that will garner the confidence of a nation in this entire area. It is very important that we look at the agency, at how it is made up and how it is controlled.
When we look at the legislation, we see that it allows the Minister of Health sweeping control, complete and total control, of that agency. Because of this legislation, the minister can have sweeping control of this agency and I am not even speaking of the current minister but of any minister who comes along in the future. Because of this, it is very dangerous legislation. In fact, clause 25 would allow the minister to give any policy direction she would like to the agency, and the agency without question must follow it. That is what clause 25 states. I believe that clause 25 should be absolutely and completely removed from the legislation because it goes against anything that we would see as being wise.
The agency must be answerable to Parliament. It should not necessarily be answerable to a minister of health and her or his will. The agency has to recognize that it is important to have the wisest individuals in that agency. In fact, the health committee said that we should have men and women of wisdom, men and women of judgment. We do not care whether they are all women or all men; I do not. What is important is that they are men or women of wisdom and judgment who are not impacted by monetary gain, who do not have a conflict of interest, and who are not driven by a certain constituency and controlled by the scientists or the special interest groups. They have to be outside that. They have to be above that.
In this legislation we had the opportunity to make that possible and I think we have failed on that count. That is what I would see as the largest failure of the legislation. How terrible it is when we had such a golden opportunity to get it right and we got it so wrong. When this agency is struck, I hope that the Minister of Health and the Prime Minister at the time will reflect on the wisdom of the committee originally and will reflect on who the personalities are that they place on this agency. It is absolutely critical that we get this right, in spite of the legislation, if it goes through the way it is now.
Donor anonymity is another area in the legislation and we have totally blown it. Although the agency would hold the information for donor identity, a child conceived through donor insemination or donor eggs would have no right to know the identity of the parent unless written consent were given.
Let us go back to the priorities I mentioned earlier. The priority should be the child, and then the parent, and then the scientists. This gets it wrong. This allows the parents to override the will of the children in knowing their identity. That is getting it wrong. Do we realize how many offspring this would impact? It is very significant. In Canada right now we have somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 children born each year through donor insemination. That is a small community or a small village in many of our constituencies. That is how many are born not knowing where they came from. They have no opportunity to know unless they have consent.
When we look at the history of individuals who donate semen, we see that a good amount of the donations, almost 50% or more, are coming from the United States. Sometimes we have no idea of where they come from. We have no way of knowing. Sometimes they come from prisons, for goodness' sake. We need to look carefully at this whole area. The legislation fails in this. It fails to force individuals to allow their history to be given to the child who is born through donor insemination.
This was a very difficult issue at committee. In fact, it came to a vote and, if I remember it right, the vote was six to five. All the committee members were not there that day. It was a six to five vote. That is how close it was. We voted the wrong way. That was a terrible error. It was a terrible mistake that was not corrected at report stage and it should have been. It needs to be. What a golden opportunity it would have been to do what is right for so many if such a little change could have taken place.
One of the other things that upsets me is the grandfathering of the governor in council's exemption in clause 71. It allows the grandfathering of controlled activities until the day it is fixed by the regulations. Unfortunately, when we allow that sort of thing to go into the regulations, we really have created a clause that we could call a get out of jail free clause. It allows the scientists to actually go in a kind of free will and totally uncontrolled way into the whole area of using these leftover embryos before the legislation is actually enacted, because there is no grandfathering clause in it. Because of that, we will see a great rush to take the embryos that are there now and do research on them before the legislation and the controlling agency are in place. The agency would handle the controls. Because of that, this is a grave error in the legislation and the scientists are just sitting back waiting to make this happen.
In fact I was talking to one of the scientists the other day who said, “This is already in place. We are already starting on April 1”. That is today. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research said it will not allow research in this area until today. Does this mean that tomorrow it starts? Yes, this means that tomorrow it starts. That is a terrible mistake. This legislation has sent the wrong message to our scientists. To allow this before the legislation and the regulations are even in place is very unfortunate.
The whole idea of chimera is something that is repugnant to most individuals. That is about combining humans and animals. In regard to chimera, the legislation talks about the human embryo being implanted with an animal cell, but it does not talk about the reverse. We tried to bring forward an amendment at report stage to change this, to tighten it, because it does not talk about an animal embryo being implanted with human cells. Because of that, it is just as repugnant, and actually more so, and yet the legislation is silent in that area.
Some things should be in this legislation and are not. Why not? If we are to bring forward legislation, let us deal with it completely. We know that we have had enough time, but what we have not had is the appropriate will on the part of the minister and her department to deal with it. That is regrettable.
Now I would like to talk about the whole idea of surrogacy. Allowing the individual who is to be a surrogate to be compensated for loss of work is detestable. It will allow the commodification of the womb. It is something that we have been very nervous about from the very beginning. It is one thing that on every side, whether it was the Liberal individuals at committee, the NDP or ourselves, the Canadian Alliance, we all found repugnant, yet we saw the motion to allow it pass in the House last week. It is a terrible mistake. It will vault us into the commodification of human life beyond anything we have ever seen.
We will find it becoming trendy for an individual who is a movie star to get a surrogate and some sperm from a superstar or a super-athlete and create a fashionable individual. Money would not be an object. It lends new meaning to the whole idea of prostitution. It goes beyond that.
This is a deplorable thing that we are now allowing in Canada. It should be looked at again. It is absolutely incredible that the amendment was allowed to pass last week in the House. I do not believe that most of the members in the House understood what they were voting on. That is very shameful. We need to go back and re-examine it so that they understand what is actually in the legislation. I know that the members in this place are honourable and I know that this does not reflect Canadian values in any way. So why would we allow it? I really have to ask myself that. I know individuals from all sides of the House and I know that they did not understand this completely or they would not have voted that way on the amendment.
We are calling for a free vote in the House on this legislation. That is very important. It is important that on all sides we are able to vote the will of our conscience and the will of our constituents. That is the way it should be on every piece of legislation, but on this one in particular. We are calling for this because it is very important. We should look at how important this legislation is to the future of Canada and to where we should go as individuals. I cannot imagine being forced to vote for something that would have such ethical repercussions without clearly being able to vote our conscience. I cannot imagine being whipped into voting in this area on something with which we and our constituents disagree.
I would certainly challenge members to go back to their constituents to try to discern exactly where Canadians are, but to do it in a way that informs them, to do it in such a way that they will understand the differences in umbilical cord stem cells, embryonic stem cells and non-embryonic stem cells taken from bone marrow, skin, blood or other areas. It is complex, I know, but I would challenge every member of the House to do his or her homework and to truly discern what is appropriate for Canada as we look at this.
The bill is critically flawed. It sets us on a path we should not be on. I will be recommending that the Canadian Alliance vote against the legislation. It should not go forward the way it is. It is flawed to the point that it should not be accepted. It would be a terrible thing for Canadians to be pushed without their knowledge into something in this area that is so ethically charged. I do not believe that the debate has reached most Canadians so that they understand it well enough. That is a shame.
I have had people from the diabetes association, the Parkinson's association and others in my office. These are well meaning people who would do anything to save their loved ones or to save themselves. Unfortunately, embryonic stem cells have not been proven to be their answer. Adult stem cells have and that is where we should go. That is where we should be putting our energies and our efforts.
The way ahead is clear if we stick to our principles. This legislation should put the child first, followed by the parent and then the science. If we were to keep that straight, we would change much that is in here. Also, if we were to understand that this changes the ethics of a nation and that we should be careful where we go in that area, we would also be very cautious about moving in this direction. That is where we should go.
Because I am so concerned, I have absorbed myself in this piece of legislation for the last two years. We have had some of the brightest minds give us their wisdom and their input. With all my energy I have tried to impress upon the House that we should be cautious in going down this road and that we should change the bill to make it the best in Canada. We really should consider doing exactly that, because it has not been done to this stage.
Now that we are at third reading, it is important that I at least encourage the House to do one more thing, which is to amend the bill. I would like to put forward a motion. I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following thereafter:
Bill C-13, an act respecting assisted human reproduction, be not now read a third time, but be referred back to the Standing Committee on Health for the purpose of reconsidering clause 18 with the view to allow children born through donor eggs or sperm to know the identity of their biological parents.
I respectfully submit this amendment, Mr. Speaker.