Réal Ménard

[Business of the House, April 1st, 2003]

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, will it be an allotted day for the Bloc Quebecois or for the Canadian Alliance?

[Employment Insurance Act, March 20th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief, because a lot has been said on this bill. I want to congratulate the hon. member for Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore for his bill. I think that the Bloc Quebecois will support this legislation, even though our party does not impose a party line on private members' bills.

I understand what the hon. member is proposing in his bill. This is definitely a humanitarian measure to support families and informal caregivers. There is a whole series of legislative measures that provide government assistance and that allow a person to stay at home when that person becomes a new parent or adopts a child, whether it is here or abroad. However, nothing has been provided to help those who live with disabled persons, or who look after sick people or people who require palliative care and who are near the end of their lives.

The House would be well advised to support this legislation. It reflects a public health policy that provides that we should rely less and less on institutionalization. The Clair report in Quebec said so, and so did the Kirby report in the Senate and the Romanow report.

This is why, in the mid 1990s, the Quebec government made the shift to ambulatory care. What does this mean? It means recognizing the fact that increasingly people are living longer. As members know, we no longer talk about the old, but the very old. It is not rare, during the course of our activities as members of Parliament, to meet people who are 85 or 90. It is no longer exceptional in our society to meet people who are 90 years old.

When he launched the election campaign in Quebec, Premier Bernard Landry pointed out—since the Quebec government has made the work-family reconciliation initiative a major issue in that campaign—that a person born in 2003 has one chance in two of living to the age of 100. This shows how difficult it is for public authorities, health care professionals and parliamentarians to anticipate what home support services will be required.

The shift away from hospital care that happened in Quebec in the mid-nineties was aimed at unclogging hospitals and keeping people in their communities as long as possible. This is why hospital stays are being shortened and this is why we want more resources for CLSCs and we need natural caregivers. When we talk about natural caregivers, of course we mean immediate family members, but it can also mean members of the extended family, in-laws or friends.

Contrary to what our colleague from the Canadian Alliance was saying, I checked with the sponsor of the bill and I understand that the federal funds to be used will come from Human Resources Development Canada, since this measure is similar to the ones that exist for maternity leave, adoption leave and bereavement leave. This must be very clear.

The money will not come from provincial budgets either, which does not mean that we should not convince the provinces to introduce similar measures. This is why Pauline Marois, Quebec's Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance, wants the money from the employment insurance fund to be transferred to Quebec so that the province can have an integrated family policy. This kind of leave would obviously be part of such integrated family policy.

Therefore, this is an extremely positive measure that must be adopted, not only so that people can remain in their communities, but also because people obviously do not choose to be sick. There is not a single family that is immune from reversals of fortune. No one knows what tomorrow will bring. One can be healthy for most of his or her life and working, and then become sick. No one is immune to that, and people who participate actively in the labour market—even though they often have access to wage loss insurance—must be able to count on an extended network of people to help them, without financial worries.

I think this is the merit of the measure that our colleague is proposing. When illness strikes, it is catastrophic to people's lives. The person who decides to stand by in solidarity and take care of the person who is sick has to be protected by coverage.

The former leader of the NDP gave the example of taking care of her husband. I had a similar experience when I was an MP and my partner, who had AIDS, was at the terminal stage of the illness. However, I was not in financial difficulty.

When you earn more than $100,000 a year, you are relatively secure financially. But if you earn a modest income of $25,000, $30,000 or $35,000 a year, you do not have the means to forgo any of your salary. Often, you do not have the means to stop working.

There has to be coverage. In addition to the existing wage loss insurance and private policies, there are also the Human Resources Development Canada measures. I think this is an extremely positive measure, because we also know that this will result in savings for the public health systems.

In correspondence from the member, he pointed out that, according to the calculations, for every $1 devoted to the program, to be implemented if this House wishes it and it gains majority support, public health services will save $4 to $6. The provinces will therefore be the main beneficiaries of these savings.

We are aware of how much health systems devote to program spending. In Quebec, which is the situation I am most familiar with, the Ministry of Health obtains approximately $19 billion of a total budget of approximately $52 billion. Last year the figure was $17 billion, and this year it is $19 billion. That is obviously a considerable amount. It is the highest program expenditure the government has to make.

In closing I would point out that this is a bill with extremely strong support from significant groups of stakeholders in our society. I am thinking of the Victorian Order of Nurses, and of course the Newfoundland and Labrador health council. I am thinking of the Canadian Cancer Society. I am thinking of the various bodies that provide services to people with degenerative diseases.

I will be pleased to support the bill and to convince my colleagues in the Bloc Quebecois to do the same. I believe it will be voted on next Tuesday.

This is a humanitarian measure which puts an extremely modern face on the health and social services system. Once again, I congratulate our colleague on this praiseworthy initiative.

[Transportation Amendment Act, March 19th, 2003]

I do not know what the Minister for International Trade thinks about the Doré administration; some people thought it did a good job, others did not. But the fact is that we do not accept, nor will we accept in the future that, under the pretext of economic development, some of our fellow citizens should be deprived of quality of life.

Equipment is defective and schedules are not being adhered to. When the residents and I went to meet with railway officials—I repeat, a community committee was established—we tried to reach some solutions. Perhaps an anti-noise barrier or a wall could help? Should the railway not set aside some funds for measures aimed at noise reduction?

Do not think, Madam Speaker, that we met with a good corporate citizen who expressed the desire to help his fellow man. I sensed an authoritative attitude, authoritative-sounding legal language. I told them. I even indicated that if I did not sense an openness on their part, I would mobilize the population to file a class action suit, as permitted under Quebec's Civil Code.

They answered me in a haughty, self-important and even disdainful manner. However, I stayed calm, as usual, and said that if we had to take it as far as a class action, they did not stand a chance of winning. In their smug way, they replied that they had good lawyers, that they could defend themselves, and that they could afford to go to court. We know what that means: months and months of stress for the plaintiff.

We will not be swayed by this kind of talk. I too know lawyers. We are going to mobilize people, and then make sure that reason prevails. It is not true that we have to deprived of our quality of life because we live in a large urban centre like Montreal. It is not true that the development of Montreal harbour will require disregarding the demands of our fellow citizens.

This does not mean that we do not want industries on the east side of Montreal. Many factors can contribute to the development of that area, as the Minister for International Trade knows; we have four subway stations, qualified labour, community groups very dedicated to the people, public schools providing good service, Ontario street. There are many reasons for business people to want to have their offices in our area.

Vidéotron is an example. Bas Iris, a company which received grants under HRDC's program, is another.

But as I said, we will not accept that businesses be allowed to operate 24 hours a day. There has to be a limit. They must realize that they cannot operate all day and all night long. People might not object to operations starting at 7 a.m., but would it not be reasonable to expect them to end by 9:30 or 10 p.m.?

When we are at home, we do not expect to receive telephone calls at 10 p.m. We expect to get some rest after a hard day's work. It is the same for our fellow citizens. They do not want to be disturbed by noise coming from trains. This is a legitimate demand.

The government took too long to introduce this bill. But at least it did so, and I think this is a positive thing.

I do not own a car. I am a person that has a green side. To some, I have a pink side, but to others I have a green side. I do not own a car, which means that I always rely on public transit. I take the train to come to Ottawa.

I do not know whether there are other members of this House who travel by train, but when we travel on Via Rail's trains, whether it is in the winter, summer, spring or fall, there are significant delays. This happens frequently and it is unfair, because when we are on the train and expect to arrive in Ottawa at 10 a.m., but only get here at 2 p.m., we may miss oral question period. As we all know, a person cannot plan his schedule based on a service that is so bad that he reaches his destination three or four hours late.

What do the people at Via Rail tell us when we ask them about this? They tell us that they are not responsible for this situation, because the rails that they use belong to CN-CP. However, CN-CP does not want to make the necessary investments to make these rails functional and to ensure that the signal system allows trains to arrive “just in time” at their destination.

Therefore, we must call back to order the very bad corporate citizen that CN-CP is. I will ask the Bloc Quebecois critic on transport issues, the hon. member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, to call the residents of Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, who are creating the anti-noise committee, as witnesses. I will ask the committee to obtain explanations for the government's refusal to provide the quality of life that people are entitled to.

Do not think that such things happen just in Hochelaga—Maisonneuve. I have been contacted by the residents of Côte-Saint-Luc. CN-CP is also a very poor corporate citizen in other provinces as well, believing that anything is allowed in the name of economic development.

I am told that residential areas have the same problems in the lower St. Lawrence area, the Gaspé, Matapédia and Mont-Joli, and this has gone on far too long already.

Bill C-26 will, therefore, provide a mechanism for handling complaints and I feel that it is a very good thing that is it being proposed to us, and that the people will be able to make their views heard.

The bill includes changes relating specifically to rail transportation. Among these, it provides for the creation of a mechanism for dealing with complaintsconcerning noise resulting from the construction or operation ofrailways. This is vitally important to the people of Hochelaga—Maisonneuve.

This is not a problem that has just popped up out of nowhere.

I saw correspondence from the late Jean-Claude Malépart, former member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie.

Since the late 1970s, regardless of party affiliation, all members elected to represent the east end of Montreal here, in the House of Commons, made representations to CN-CP. Unfortunately, they got no results. The problems were always the same: no respect for quality of life, excessive noise and the pursuit of economic development without any consideration for the legitimate aspirations of people.

We will not miss this opportunity to apprise the Minister of Transport of the current situation in the east end of Montreal. I am eager to see how this complaint mechanism will work.

I can assure the House that those people from Hochelaga—Maisonneuve whom I mentioned earlier will follow the work of the parliamentary committee very closely. They will make a request to appear before the committee. I hope that we will be able to bring a corporate citizen like CN-CP to its senses.

The world has changed since the days of Émile Zola. We are no longer in the 19th century, in the era of industrial capitalism where corporate citizens were granted every privilege for the sake of economic development. This situation no longer exists.

Today, when we think about urban development, we want to make a distinction between economic development and quality of life. If we have a choice to make between the two, as legislators, we must choose quality of life. We have only one life to live and there is no reason that we should agree to live it in appalling conditions.

We will attend the committee meetings. Gone are the days when the anarchy of economic development took precedence over the rights of residents of the east end of Montreal.

[Transportation Amendment Act, March 19th, 2003]

Right, it is “juste à temps”, but they said it in English. Perhaps they thought it demonstrated their superiority in some way, but I was not impressed. However, I wanted to quote them properly.

Therefore, I met with the officials of this railway, a private company that is not, I might add, subject to the Environmental Assessment Act. I would have liked to see Bill C-26 make CN-CP subject to this legislation so that we could look into their actions and network expansions and, naturally, monitor pollution.

That said, there are five trains passing or entering the station and going to the shunting yard. There are maintenance problems; proper braking is a problem; schedules are not adhered to. As a result, there is noise pollution for local residents, who have raised their families in Hochelaga—Maisonneuve and who, for generations, have been living with this major inconvenience.

Obviously, we could ask why the municipality allowed a housing development near a railway facility. Obviously, the question arises. It happened under the Doré administration.

[Transportation Amendment Act, March 19th, 2003]

People back home call it “une traque” in French, but they are not as erudite as the Minister for International Trade. They say “une traque”, but it is true that the proper term in French is “une voie ferrée”.

These people are experiencing a veritable nightmare, a veritable hell. When cities were being planned in the last century, people were not always as concerned about having separate residential and industrial areas. It was believed that people should be able to live near their place of work and be able to get there on foot.

Obviously this type of urban planning no longer has any currency. Nobody today would accept having big, polluting companies in their residential neighbourhood, nor would they accept having a railway line.

The railway is closely linked to the port of Montreal. Economic development is at stake, and this cannot be ignored. I can understand this. East Montreal needs to have some prosperity. It was a manufacturing district from the 19th century until the 1960s and now services, such as Vidéotron, Mediacom and other companies, are setting up there.

However, we must not sacrifice quality of life in the name of economic development.

The advantage of Bill C-26 is that it will allow the Canadian Transportation Agency to hear complaints about railway companies that are guilty of making too much noise.

Allow me to explain the situation of the people I referred to a moment ago. First, there are five trains per day that leave at all hours. That means that there may be a train entering or leaving the rail yard at 3 a.m. Obviously, it is hard not to hear it when a train stops or starts. The average train has three or four engines and any number of railway cars. It affects the quality of life of people, and we need to be concerned with this.

When I met with CN-CP representatives, they were intransigent and told me that one of the factors of economic development—and I believe I have heard the Minister for International Trade say this—is just in time delivery. It means that deliveries have to arrive when requested.

[Transportation Amendment Act, March 19th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, when my colleague, the member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, the transport critic for the Bloc Quebecois and himself a former mayor, told me that Bill C-26 changed the role and mandate of the Canadian Transportation Agency, I was extremely curious to know whether the bill in question could in any way improve things for my fellow citizens.

I became interested in this bill because in my riding of Hochelaga—Maisonneuve—which I have been representing here since 1993—there is a railroad track near Moreau Street in the east end of Montreal and a shunting yard. For many years I have frequently and periodically received representations from people who live near the track and who obviously find it a nightmare.

I will have an opportunity to explain this later, but I think that CN/CP rail is a very bad corporate citizen. It is truly unbelievable. The management style and corporate behaviour at CN/CP rail should be looked at by us as legislators. It is high time to call them to order.

CN/CP rail acts as though economic development should be the only consideration, quality of life is not important and it does not matter where railroad tracks are located.

When my constituents made representations to me, I suggested to them that they form a citizen's committee. We know how governments react to these sorts of disputes. Sometimes they are blind, but they are never deaf. They go where there is noise. I soon realized that to make any headway in a case like this, it was important to form a citizen's committee.

This was done. There are a dozen or so people who are active members of this committee. I would like to thank them for their involvement. I will mention their names so that if you ever happen to meet them, you will know who they are. They are: Léopol Bourjoi, Gaétane Couture, Maurice Lahaie, Michel Languedoc, Victor Berthelot, Lina Gauthier, Guy Walman, Robert Dalpé and his wife Olga Berseneff, and Martin Mercier.

They live in the east end of Montreal near a railway track and it is sheer hell.

[Assisted Human Reproduction Act, March 18th, 2003]

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.

[Assisted Human Reproduction Act, March 18th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I have good news for you. I just learned that our colleague Jean-François, who looks after question period for us with the House leader, will soon become a father. Since we are talking about assisted human reproduction, I thought I would share this with my colleagues. I am sure that everyone in this House will want to join me in extending our congratulations to him. Of course, no artificial processes were involved here, as far as I know. The child will be born some time in November. I will come back to that in due course.

This bill underwent a rather long gestation period. We debated it in committee for 18 months, but have yet to see it through report stage. We, and the minister's parliamentary secretary in particular—who is the father of this bill to some extent—look forward to a timely delivery. We look forward to that happy event in the near future.

It has not been easy for the Bloc Quebecois to come up with a position on this bill. Members will recall that the member for Drummond, whom each and everyone of us in the House is fond of, has been in the vanguard of this debate. Back in 1995 she tabled a private member's bill inviting the House to legislate and set out provisions in the Criminal Code to protect us from therapeutic cloning. We now realize, with the passage of time and some perspective, just how much of a visionary the member for Drummond was. I think that is the appropriate word.

During the Christmas break, we were given a scare because of claims made by a company called Clonaid. No one here would have wanted embryo cloning to be possible. However, if what the spokesperson for Clonaid was saying had been true, unfortunately there would not have been any recourse available to Parliament, because the Criminal Code does not contain any relevant provisions.

It is a bit sad that the government has taken so long in legislating. Ten years have gone by since the report of the Baird commission, the royal commission of inquiry on reproductive technologies. I think this is reasonable. We would have expected the government to have introduced a bill to deal with the pressing issues, at least.

True, it is not easy to look at every consideration and every aspect of a bill such as this one. It involves ethical values. One's perspective will depend on one's idea of family.

Of course, we have to bear in mind that when dealing with assisted human reproduction, one in five couples in Canada has fertility problems. Therefore, one in five couples could benefit from assisted human reproduction. We must also acknowledge that for the first time in the history of humanity that it will be possible to reproduce without there being sexual intercourse between two people. That is what is troubling when we look at how we must perceive this debate.

There are other important elements. First, with respect to this bill, the Bloc Quebecois asked, quite early on, that the bill be split.

If it had been, we could have voted rather quickly on provisions to add to the Criminal Code. I think that there is consensus in the House regarding the 13 prohibited activities. Some activities are unanimously condemned by all parliamentarians, be they members of the Canadian Alliance, the government party, the Bloc Quebecois, the Progressive Conservatives or the NDP. We could have voted rather quickly on these activities.

For example, there is the issue of cloning, of maintaining an embryo outside a woman's body for not more than 14 days, because the central nervous system forms after that.

There is the issue of paying consideration to surrogate mothers. There is also the issue of not taking human reproductive material and mixing it with that of an animal to produce what is called a chimera.

There are, therefore, 14 prohibited activities in the bill that members unanimously agree on and that could have been voted on rather quickly.

That is why the Bloc Quebecois had asked that the bill be split. If we had been able to split the bill, perhaps it would have been passed already. Perhaps it would have already gone through the Senate and received, naturally, royal assent. Because we have been asking for many months now that this be done.

Today, we find ourselves in a complex situation because the Canadian Alliance does not like the bill. This bill is like an unwanted pregnancy. And as with all unwanted pregnancies, the father refuses to step forward. The Canadian Alliance is doing everything possible to prevent labour. We are being made to undergo a C-section. People want to force the bill into existence despite the protests of the Canadian Alliance. That is why, if the bill had been split, we would not be in this situation.

The Bloc is also in an uneasy position because we would like there to be provisions in the Criminal Code, but at the same time, we are uncomfortable with the assisted human reproduction agency of Canada. This agency would receive $10 million a year and interfere in provincial jurisdictions.

Allow me to give a few examples. If this agency were created, it would be incompatible with 14 pieces of legislation in Quebec, all of them important to the National Assembly.

One of these is the Civil Code of Quebec. What are the differences between the bill and the Civil Code of Quebec?The Civil Code of Quebec states that under no circumstances will surrogate mothers be reimbursed for expenditures. Pregnancy is an altruistic act. If you want to give life to someone, bring a child into the world, it cannot be for monetary or commercial reasons. It has to be a purely altruistic act. There cannot be reimbursement for certain expenditures.

Bill C-13 states that under certain circumstances, if receipts are provided, the agency may agree to reimburse certain expenditures such as for consulting a psychologist or travel. Some expenditures could be reimbursed. This is not consistent with the Civil Code of Quebec.

There is another extremely significant interference. The bill, especially the regulations that will govern its implementation, sets out not only the conditions under which gametes (the sperm and the ova) will be maintained but the conditions under which health professionals will be able to make technologies available and carry out medical procedures.

The National Assembly—the only true parliament for Francophones in North America—amended the Act respecting health services and social services. Quebec's Health and Social Services Minister was given authority for designating institutions for the exclusive delivery of certain services, including medically assisted human reproduction.

The conflict in jurisdiction is obvious. We have the federal government, which clearly has no valid constitutional jurisdiction over the delivery of services involving medically assisted human reproduction.

I am not denying that the federal Parliament has a responsibility when it comes to health care for aboriginals; the federal government has a fiduciary obligation to aboriginals. I am not denying that the federal government can intervene on matters of defence and the military; the federal government is responsible for the Canadian military. I am not denying that the federal government can intervene when it comes to research; the Supreme Court has recognized it as a valid power.

However, the federal government cannot intervene to provide health care services in hospitals, in research institutions or in university facilities. That is not right.

That is what the Bloc Quebecois finds reprehensible. We want the Criminal Code to contain clear provisions to prevent cloning. Imagine living in a world where everyone started cloning and that threatened every human being's uniqueness.

The bill goes much further than that. It allows for changes to the Criminal Code, but it also makes other changes.

Madam Speaker, given the good news I just announced, would you please see if there is unanimous consent in the House for me to extend my speech for ten minutes? I would appreciate that, and it would be a fitting tribute to the child that Jean-François is expecting.

[Iraq, March 17th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, although the Security Council did not authorize a war, it seems that there will be a war on Iraq. However, we still do not know if Canada will take part or not.

On one hand, the Prime Minister says that Canada will not participate in any war not backed by the UN; on the other hand, he says that the existing resolution already authorizes war and that Canada will take part in an authorized war. On one hand, he says that he does not approve of war aimed at a regime change; on the other, he submits a proposal authorizing, after a deadline, a war that, everyone knows, is aimed at a regime change.

In fact, the government says what the public wants to hear but does whatever Washington asks.

The 250,000 people assembled in Montreal the day before yesterday do not know what to make of this contradictory and ambiguous behaviour. They want their elected representatives to oppose Canada's participation, period.

Put an end to ambiguity and let parliamentarians decide by allowing them to vote here, in this House.

[Assisted Human Reproduction Act, February 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleagues. It is this climate of genuine camaraderie which brings us closer to a reform of democratic institutions.

The other thing we must point out to our colleagues is that the Government of Quebec—whose excellent track record the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration is very familiar with—has passed legislation on personal information.

I will draw a connection with the identification card. I read the speech the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration gave before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration and I agreed with what he said. The Canadian public is currently debating this. Do we need an identification card? Hopefully, privacy will remain a consideration.

If I recall correctly, the minister—he will tell me if I am wrong—gave the example of Great Britain, where a debate is under way. I was even told that Great Britain has the most cameras in public places of any society.

All this to say that, if passed, the bill would establish a registry of those who use the technologies and a donor registry. People who go to a fertility clinic, be it public or private, will have to provide a certain amount of information, naturally.

The desire for a public registry of donors is understandable because of concerns about consanguinity. Still, at committee, we heard very poignant testimony. It was argued that donations of sperm or ovules should remain anonymous. If I, Réal Ménard, go to a clinic and make a donation, it is not to have my own family. It is a humanistic, altruistic, philanthropic act designed to help a couple experiencing fertility problems.

But we heard testimony to the effect that, where the development of the individual is concerned, for his or her psychogenesis, it just made no sense not to know the identity of the donor. This is referred to as the right to know who you are. For our personal development, it is good to know not only who our sociological father is—the one who raised us, took care of us and instilled values in us—but we also want to know who our biological father is.

The committee members had an number of questions, among them wondering whether obligations would be created under family law by doing away with anonymity and requiring all donors to disclose their identity. When the children in question reach the age of 18, 19 or 20, might they not go to court to get financial assistance for their studies? To seek support? To seek any other kind of assistance one expects from biological parents?

This was not a simple matter, because we heard from many children conceived through the new technologies who reported problems growing up, troubled childhoods, because of not knowing who their father, the donor, was.

The committee recommended donor disclosure to the government, but the government did not comply. I agree that this was not a simple question to settle. There are arguments for both sides.

The purpose of everything I have had to say is to indicate just how much this bill goes to the very depths of our humanity, of our understanding of the potential of science and of the values we hold with respect to the protection of privacy.