House of Commons photoWon her last election, in 2006, with 50% of the vote.
Prostate Cancer March 4th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, last week the Minister of Health announced the creation in Vancouver of a centre of excellence for prostate cancer.
How can the minister explain spending $15 million in British Columbia to create a prostate cancer research centre from scratch when there is already such a centre in existence in Quebec with an internationally reputed research team?
Karine Vanasse March 2nd, 1999
Mr. Speaker, I would like to pay tribute to a talented new actress from Drummondville, Karine Vanasse.
Karine plays Hanna in Léo Pool's film, Emporte-moi , which is entered in the Berlin film festival. In the film, which also features Pascale Bussières, Karine delivers a very mature performance and shows an impressive mastery of her art.
Upon completion of this film, the talented 15-year-old was chosen to co-host a television program for young people called Les Débrouillards with Grégory Charles, another actor from my riding.
I wish Karine many other experiences such as this one. She can now count herself among the artists helping to bring Quebec's culture to the world stage.
Bravo, Karine, and thank you.
President Of The Queen's Privy Council For Canada March 1st, 1999
Mr. Speaker, most decidedly, the president of the privy council seems to not have been privy to any counsel.
He certainly needs some, for if he continues to blunder about from sea to sea, all of Canada will end up joining forces with the Quebec sovereignists in condemning federalism as it is being served up by this academic who has taken up a new career.
For example, last week in Edmundston, he was preaching the apocalypse to the Acadian minority, warning them of the dangers of Quebec sovereignty. What a fine example of paternalism, arrogance and ignorance.
This same minister, who has already said that Quebeckers needed to be made to suffer in order to learn an appreciation of Canada, is now preaching to the Acadians. He reminds them of their minority situation, agrees that they are suffering, but tells them that they could suffer even more. An editorial in the February 24 edition of l'Acadie nouvelle quite rightly spoke out resoundingly against him.
This is what has become of federalism—
The Budget February 17th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, the minister also announced the establishment of a $25 million fund supposedly designed to remedy the nurses' situation. But the Fédération des infirmières du Québec recently issued a statement to the effect that the fund was far from being an answer to all their problems.
Does the Minister of Finance not consider that the $25 million would be better spent on emergency services than on paperwork?
The Budget February 17th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, while hospital staff is struggling with overcrowded emergency rooms, the federal government is spending tens of millions of dollars on developing statistics, carrying out studies and drafting reports on the performance of provincial health systems.
How can the Minister of Finance justify putting millions of dollars into studies and statistical analyses, and at the same time keeping tabs on the provinces, when emergency rooms are overflowing thanks to him?
Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act February 15th, 1999
Not the same people as in our province.
Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act February 15th, 1999
What about unemployed workers?
Employment Insurance February 15th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, another of the Minister of Human Resources Development's bright ideas is to tax back benefits paid to the unemployed if they find employment paying more than $39,000.
Does the Minister of Human Resources Development plan to demonstrate to us once again that it is for the good of the unemployed that he is going to recover benefits paid to them if they get good jobs? Is this one of his wonderful strategies for improving the situation of the unemployed?
Criminal Code February 11th, 1999
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Criminal Code February 11th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, I am obviously extremely frustrated with this amendment, which reads as follows:
For clarity, for the benefit of the public, this means that, if passed, the bill will not be allowed to follow the normal course and the government will be able to set the date when it should come into force, that is probably never as the government is likely to introduce its own bill to take all the credit—because we all know how much this government craves visibility—for prohibiting human cloning.
The purpose of this amendment is basically to make the coming into force of the ban on human cloning subject to a government order. On the surface, this amendment may seem totally innocuous, while in fact it has a great deal of importance, because we cannot afford to wait much longer. Immediate action is required. We know how slow and superficial the government has been on this issue. This kind of amendment is tantamount to blocking the coming into force of the prohibition on human cloning.
Ten years ago, already, the Baird commission was established. The commission clearly indicated that it was urgent that we act and legislate on reproductive technologies, one of which is human cloning. Four years of studies, 40,000 witnesses and $28 million later, the Baird Commission tabled its report in November 1993. We are now in 1999. Ten years after the Baird commission was set up, no clear rules have yet been established to regulate medically assisted reproductive technologies.
Then, we had a voluntary moratorium which was ridiculed by all the opposition parties and by all the relevant organizations. This is unthinkable: a voluntary moratorium. We are supposed to have a monitoring committee, but it never released any report, and we have a voluntary moratorium. Who is checking in the labs to see what scientists are doing in terms of genetic and cell manipulation to perhaps clone human beings? Such research is already being conducted in some labs, but does that mean it is not going on in Canada? We cannot assume that. Therefore, this voluntary moratorium is meaningless. As I said, people were totally indifferent to it.
Then we had the advisory group set up by the government to monitor the implementation of the moratorium and the developments in NRTs, and to advise the Minister of Health in this area. As I said earlier, we never heard from that monitoring agency.
On June 14, 1996, the then Minister of Health introduced Bill C-47. During the hearings of the Standing Committee on Health, witnesses told us they had a number of reservations about the bill, because it was inappropriate and did not deal with what should have been regulated. These people told us certain things, including the fact that human cloning and genetic manipulation are two completely different issues and that they should be dealt with separately.
The bill died on the Order Paper. It was fine with the government to have it die on the Order Paper, because it did not know what to do with it. So, we were promised that the government would come back, at some point in time, with a bill that would be more acceptable to the scientific community and to the population as a whole.
We have been trying to ask questions at times, but the answers are always vague. We are told to wait, as the minister said today when we put the question to him. We are told that appropriate legislation will soon be introduced.
We have been waiting for 10 years. We have been hearing about this issue for 20 years. We have had 10 years of promises but nothing has been done yet.
The Bloc Quebecois has introduced Bill C-247, which, at least, would be a first step. We are very conscious of the fact that it does not solve the whole issue of assisted reproductive technologies, but it would at least prohibit human cloning, which is just around the corner.
I recommend that the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Health read what is being written on this subject and she will see that human cloning is just around the corner. It is not a matter of waiting to hear what the scientists have to say. It is here; the studies have been done. So why does the government not prohibit human cloning under the Criminal Code? Incredibly enough, it refuses to do so. It continues to wait, but for what? For another scandal like the tainted blood scandal?
Nothing has been done in Canada to fill the legal and moral void surrounding medically assisted reproduction even though the international community has been working for several years to set acceptable limits in this field. Again, Canada is not keeping pace.
Members of the international community seem unanimous in their opposition to any form of human cloning. Concerns about possible cloning attempts are legitimate. No one has yet been able to show that this can be done without creating serious ethical problems.
The scientific community, even the researchers who succeeded in cloning Dolly, have stated that they have no intention of trying to clone a human being in future. It is obvious that, regardless of how stringent the legislation is that governs such research activities, the issue of human cloning involves the international community.
In this connection, the President of France, Jacques Chirac, recently stated that the main problem with cloning was an international one, in that this practice must be banned world-wide, right now, not two or three years down the road.
First, UNESCO adopted a universal declaration on the human genome and human rights which bans the cloning of humans in article 11. The World Health Organization also asked member states to take steps at the legislative and legal levels to ban human cloning.
In March 1997, while I was present, it passed a resolution stating that the use of cloning for human reproduction is not ethical, because doing so violates certain fundamental principles of medically assisted procreation, including respect for human dignity and protecting the security of human genetic material. I could also tell you about the European countries.
In the United States—Canada often looks to the United States for guidance—President Clinton spoke out against cloning and announced that the government would not fund any project involving its use.
Where is our Prime Minister's statement on human cloning? We hear it will be coming soon. Soon.
A number of countries in Europe and Asia have adopted measures to ban human cloning or are in the process of doing so. We must do our part to close the door on these practices, and Bill C-247 must be passed so it can be applied immediately.