Gurmant Grewal

[Social Condition, April 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am also pleased to rise this morning on behalf of the residents of Surrey Central to participate in the debate on Motion No. 392 being put forward by the hon. member for Sherbrooke. I commend the member for his thoughtfulness on this issue.

The motion reads:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should add “social condition” to the prohibited grounds of discrimination in the Canadian Human Rights Act.

This is not the first time that the House has considered the possibility of adding social condition as a prohibited ground for discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act. In the 36th Parliament, Bill S-11 proposed to do exactly the same thing but after passing the Senate it was defeated here in the Commons.

I suppose the first question to consider is what we mean by social condition. It is tempting to equate social condition with poverty, however, the term social condition conveys much more, including disadvantages that are associated with, though not synonymous with, poverty. This could include occupation, literacy, type of employment or even unemployment. It may also include culture, to the extent that one's social station is conveyed by dress, language or mannerisms.

Quebec's definition of social condition has been evolving and includes one's rank, place or position occupied within society, or the class in which they belong. The Quebec courts and tribunals have found social condition to include temporary conditions, such as pregnancy and unemployment. Further, social condition is considered distinct from social origin.

Quebec is the only province that currently includes social condition as a prohibited ground for discrimination in its human rights legislation. However all the other provinces, with the exception of New Brunswick, include various grounds encompassed by the term social condition. For instance, Nova Scotia, Alberta, Manitoba and Prince Edward Island prohibit discrimination on source of income. Similarly, Ontario and Saskatchewan protect receipt of public assistance as an enumerated ground in their codes. Newfoundland prohibits discrimination on the basis of social origin.

Canada has always been a leader on the international stage in terms of the promotion and protection of human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, often referred to as the Magna Carta of humankind, was co-written by a Canadian. The declaration includes the right to social security and to the realization of social and economic rights indispensable for a person's dignity and the free development of his or her personality.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was ratified by Canada in 1976. It guarantees the right to social security and social insurance and the right to an adequate standard of living.

Human rights are both entrenched in the Constitution and protected in provincial and territorial human rights acts across the country. However an argument can be made that Canada has fallen short of its international obligations by failing to fully implement its international commitments to promote and protect social and economic rights.

The recent general economic condition in Canada has been one of slowly increasing average real incomes. Yet, this improvement has been taking place simultaneously with signs of increasing disparities. There is a growing underclass of people homeless or with precarious shelter. Also there is a growing contingent of labour force that relies upon non-standard employment: part time, temporary or seasonal employment. This employment tends to provide incomes that will not meet a family's basic needs.

According to Statistics Canada, the net worth of the richest 20% of Canadian families increased by 39% between 1984 and 1999, from about $290,000 to about $400,000. In the same time period the net worth of the poorest 20% decreased by $600.

In 1999 the top 50% of families in Canada had 94.4% of the wealth while the other 50% had the remaining 5.6% of the wealth. The gap between the richest 20% of families and the poorest 20% of families is a cool $1 million.

In a 2002 report the National Council of Welfare pointed out that although Canada's gross domestic product had grown considerably inequality among Canadians either widened or stayed steady throughout the 1990s.

Households with young children, especially those headed by a single parent mother, suffered the most chronic poverty between 1980 and 1999. While the gap between the rich and the poor has been growing ever wider, particularly in the past decade, members on the opposite side have done little or nothing.

If the taxation proposals of the Canadian Alliance were listened to and followed by the government many of the poorest families would be much better off. We in the Canadian Alliance believe the threshold for paying taxes should be raised. More money should be put back into the pockets of Canadians so that they can address their real life needs.

The fact is many Canadians have incomes that are inadequate to meet their minimum needs. Poverty restricts the lives of many Canadians. It limits choices in food, clothing and shelter. For children, it denies what other Canadians take for granted, for example, recreation, holidays and school field trips. Poverty also has impacts on health, education and children's subsequent income.

Many disadvantaged Canadians are subject to prejudice, that is, preconceived notions that low income people are lazy or uncaring parents. That is unfortunate. This further restricts the choices available to low income Canadians.

The most recent United Nations human development report contrasts Canada's 3rd place ranking in terms of human development with its 12th place ranking with respect to poverty.

Some questions have been raised about the feasibility of inserting social conditions as a prohibited ground of discrimination in the Canadian Human Rights Act. It is argued that many of the cases alleging discrimination in this area have involved rental of accommodation, an area that is of minimal relevance to federally controlled issues.

However, anti-poverty organizations feel that social condition must be inserted into the federal human rights act in order to address issues of discrimination faced by poor people with regard to federally regulated services like banking and telecommunications.

The Association coopérative d'économie familiale du centre de Montreal prepared a report for Industry Canada in 1996 entitled “The highs and lows of access to banking services in Canada”. The report emphasized that the major barriers in accessing banking services were the large number of identification documents required and the attitudes of bank employees. Besides identification issues for poor people who wish to open an account or cash a cheque, many banks continued to close down branches, in the name of efficiency, mostly in low income communities.

The so-called fringe banks that have moved into low income neighbourhoods provide a variety of financial services, including loans, cheque cashing and money orders, at high costs to low income and financially distressed individuals who either have no access to a bank in their area or lack of experience with the banking system.

A recent study found that while most people being serviced by fringe financial services would rather have a bank account, the costs of transportation to a bank, the lack of proper identification, limited banking hours and previous credit difficulties have pushed them into fringe banks. Yet, the financial costs for services with these banks can lead to a substantial personal debt. They add stress and other psychological components.

One of the most serious practical concerns is the fact that the Canadian Human Rights Commission has limited resources and an existing backlog of cases. Adding social condition to this definition would further drain the resources as well as increase the backlog of the cases it is dealing with. Therefore, I rest my case here.

[Assisted Human Reproduction Act, April 10th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise again on behalf of the residents of Surrey Central to speak to Bill C-13, an act respecting assisted human reproductive technologies and related research.

The government stated that the legislation would protect the health and safety of Canadians using assisted human reproduction, that it would prohibit unacceptable practices and that it would regulate assisted human reproduction activities and related research.

Specifically, the bill is supposed to create a regulatory framework for fertility clinics, ban human cloning and commercial surrogacy, and restrict research using human embryos.

Key provisions in the bill include: prohibitions on human cloning; the creation of human-animal hybrids; and sex-selection of babies. It also includes payments to egg and sperm donors and so-called “rent-a-womb” contracts where women profit from carrying babies for infertile couples. It also would create a new agency to regulate how scientists and infertility clinics use human reproductive materials. It would issue licences to both research and treatments involving in vitro embryos.

We are dealing with an issue that will have a profound effect upon the lives of Canadians. It deals with the creation and death of human life. Needless to say, this field therefore requires some measure of public oversight and regulation.

It has been a decade since the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies issued its report called “Proceed with Care”. The report was four years in the making and contained nearly 300 recommendations. The commissioners listened to the opinions of 40,000 Canadians. Four different health ministers have been involved in the debate. Since the bill was first introduced, I have heard from literally hundreds of my constituents. I would like to thank them for their opinions. Undoubtedly, this is an issue on which consensus is nearly impossible. Everyone has an opinion.

Pro-lifers, ethicists, fertility doctors, researchers, sperm banks, people who have trouble conceiving babies the usual way, children conceived in laboratories and people suffering from diseases, all have different points of view on the issues.

The common consensus is that the bill requires important amendments. I fully support bans on reproductive or therapeutic cloning, chimeras, animal-human hybrids, sex selection, germ-line alteration, buying or selling of embryos and paid surrogacy.

We in the official opposition recognize and support the need for regulating this field. I also support an agency to regulate this sector, although I want changes to it. Sometimes regulations are not good but in this particular field the regulations are the most important thing because in that way we can have oversight on this particular sector.

I will now turn to various areas of Bill C-13 with which I have special difficulty.

First, there is embryonic stem cell research. The bill would allow for experiments using human embryos under different conditions. There are four different conditions but I will not go through them. However, by allowing the creation of embryos for reproductive research, Canadian law will legitimize the creation of human life solely to be used for the benefit of others.

Embryonic research is ethically controversial, as demonstrated by the numerous petitions tabled in the House which are probably gathering dust on the shelf. All the petitions called for embryonic stem cell research to be seriously reviewed.

Another concern is that embryonic stem cell research results in the death of the embryo, which is early human life. For many Canadians this violates the ethical commitment to respect human dignity, integrity and life. The Canadian Alliance opposes human cloning as an affront to human dignity, individuality and human rights. We have repeatedly spoken out against human cloning, urging the federal government to bring in legislation to stave off the potential threat of cloning research in Canada.

Embryonic research constitutes an objectification of human life, where life becomes a tool that can be manipulated and destroyed for other ends. In September 2001 we tabled a motion in the health committee calling upon the government to ban immediately human reproductive cloning. We are pleased that Motion No. 13 was passed last week at report stage to foreclose any possibility of new cloning techniques from getting by the bill's cloning prohibition.

Adult stem cells are a safe, proven alternative to embryonic stem cells. Sources of adult stem cells include umbilical cord blood, skin and bone tissues. Adult stem cells are easily accessible, are not subject to immune rejection, and pose minimal ethical concerns. Adult stem cells are already being used in the treatment of various diseases such as Parkinson's, leukemia, MS, and many other conditions. Meanwhile, embryonic stem cells have not been used in the successful treatment of a single person.

The focus on research should be on adult stem cells, being a more promising and proven alternative to embryonic stem cells. To that end, our minority report called for a three year prohibition on experiments with human embryos. Let us stop until we have enough resources and opportunities given by adult stem cell research. Our amendment to this effect was defeated in the health committee.

Bill C-13 proposes the creation of the assisted human reproduction agency to: issue licences for controlled activities, collect health reporting information, advise the minister, and designate inspectors for the enforcement of the act. The agency's board of directors would be appointed by the governor in council.

Clause 25 would allow the minister to interfere and give any policy direction to the agency. If the agency were independent, it would be answerable and accountable to Parliament and political interference would be more difficult for the minister. The entire clause should have been eliminated.

The Canadian Alliance proposed amendments specifying that agency board members be chosen for their wisdom and judgment, so that they could pursue the greater good for the sake of humanity. While regulating in that field, board members should not have commercial interests in the field of assisted human reproduction or related research, like fertility clinics or biotech companies. Conflicts of interest must be prevented.

Another area of concern is donor identity. The proposed assisted human reproduction agency would hold information on donor identity. Donor identity is important because children have the right to know who their parents are even without their written consent to reveal it. We must end the secrecy that shrouds donor anonymity and denies children knowledge of an important chapter in their lives.

In its review of the draft legislation, the health committee recommended an end to donor anonymity. The Canadian Alliance minority report clearly stated that where the privacy rights of the donors of human reproductive materials conflict with the rights of children to know their genetic and social heritage, the rights of the children shall prevail.

We must not deal with this issue lightly. It is an important issue and we must ensure that we get this right. All members should be allowed to have a free vote in the House so they can vote according to their conscience. This is an issue of life and death.

[Committees of the House, April 8th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the second report of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations.

This committee deals with the means by which Parliament can better oversee the government regulatory process and in particular, to inquire into and report upon the role, functions and powers of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations.

[Supply, March 25th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I highly appreciate the informative speech by the hon. member. He has done tremendous work on the gun registry issue. He has been following and carrying the ball on this issue for a very long time. In fact he is the only person in the House of Commons who has been pursuing this issue for so long. Still, I believe there is some misinformation and some of the facts on this issue are disputed.

I know that Parliament and Canadians were kept in the dark on the issue of violent crimes and the use of guns. I remember that in 1997 the commissioner of the RCMP wrote to the deputy minister of justice to complain about the department's misrepresentation of the RCMP's statistics on this issue.

Could the hon. member throw some light on that, with some facts and statistics on the use of guns in violent crimes, and the misrepresentation of facts by the government to Canadians and Parliament?

[Organized Crime, March 19th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the epidemic of marijuana grow ops in B.C. is a very serious concern. These are not mom and pop operations. They are controlled by organized crime.

This $6 billion industry diversifies into the cocaine and illegal gun trade and results in the gang violence that plagues our streets. One in eight murders is connected to marijuana grow ops.

Lax sentences and open ads result in criminals flocking to the region. Surrey has over 4,500 grow ops, 6% of the households. Kids in schools sell and smoke pot.

In neighbouring Washington state first time offenders receive a minimum three month sentence. In Surrey, even after seven convictions, they still have not seen the inside of a jail and the doors of the courts continue to revolve.

The solicitor general could not have seen and smelled marijuana from his Surrey helicopter tour.

When will this weak Liberal government enact laws with teeth and allocate adequate resources and lay stiffer penalties for those involved with marijuana grow ops?

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

Madam Speaker, I thank the members very much. I will take my time to go over all these motions now.

We oppose Motion No. 28. The sponsor, the hon. member for St. Paul's, believes women should receive some compensation for surrogacy. This amendment would delete prohibitions on surrogacy in order that they could be dealt with in regulations. The health committee, in its report “Assisted Human Reproduction: Building Families”, was united in wanting to end commercial surrogacy. The sponsor respectfully was not on committee at that time. Surrogacy should be altruistic. There must not be any payment for children, no commodification.

We oppose putting off decisions on commercial surrogacy to the regulations. We should not always leave all the details of legislation to the regulations.

I would like to comment here that it is the habit of the government to table legislation in the House with little substance. Only the intent of the bill is there and generally the regulations are not tabled along with the legislation in the House. Therefore the will of the members is imposed upon the legislation but the regulations are ignored, so they completely escape the scrutiny of the members and input from the members on the regulations.

I always say that the government is ruling through the back door, not governing from the front door. It is an affront to democracy and it should be a habit in the House that all regulations be tabled along with the legislation so the members can read them, make comments and have input into the debate.

Motions Nos. 30 and 49, also moved by the hon. member for St. Paul's, both correspond with each other. They would delete the prohibitions on payments for gametes or embryos, again in order that this area be dealt with in the regulations. It should be retained in the bill, not left to the regulations. We oppose opening the door to payment for gametes or in vitro embryos. We do not want any commodification around assisted human reproduction, so we oppose those motions.

Similarly we oppose Motion No. 46, again moved by the member for St. Paul's, because the motion corresponds with Motion No. 28. The new clause would place exceptions on prohibitions on procuring a surrogate, arranging a surrogacy and inducing a female to become a surrogate, namely, except in accordance with the regulations. We oppose leaving controls on commercial surrogacy to the regulations.

Motion No. 29 from the member for Vancouver Centre would allow payment for legal and medical services in arranging surrogacy. The health committee was united in opposing such payments and the hon. member again was not a member of the health committee when it came up with the recommendations. There should be no such payments around surrogacy.

Motions Nos. 51 and 95, again from the member for Vancouver Centre, would open the door to compensation to surrogates for work-related loss of income. It would open a can of worms. The health committee heard testimony that compensation for such expenses could be greatly inflated.

How much compensation is reasonable for loss of work-related income? It is a very difficult issue and the health committee decided not to include it. The health committee recommended that there be no such compensation for surrogacy. Surrogacy must be altruistic, not for payment. There should be no commodification of children according to the recommendation. We have to oppose the three motions from the member for Vancouver Centre.

Motions Nos. 32, 33 and 36 would add prohibition on the purchase of fetuses of fetal tissue. We support checks on the commodification of human life. Therefore we support those three motions.

Motion No. 39 would add no transfer of ownership of embryos or reproductive materials. This supports the goal of preventing commodification around assisted human reproduction. Therefore we support this motion.

Motion No. 44 would add that the adoption of embryos should be restricted except as provided in the regulations. Embryo adoption is a possible alternative to the destruction of or research on so-called excess embryos, though not without its own complications. We will support this motion.

Motion No. 45 specifies no research on embryos for reproductive research, except as provided in the regulations. We oppose research on human embryos for any purpose and, therefore, support the earlier amendment as Motion No. 14. If Motion No. 14 fails, then I would support Motion No. 45.

In a nutshell these are the motions on which I wanted to touch. I would mention here that the Canadian Alliance supports some aspects of the bill. Some of the things in the bill are actually good. We support the banning of human and therapeutic cloning, chimera, animal-human hybrids, sex selection, germ line alterations, buying and selling of embryos and paid surrogacies.

We support the recommendation that the health and well-being of children born through assisted human reproduction should be given top priority. This is all about children and children who are to be born. We believe that human life should be recognized in the embryo.

The children are a part of the legislation. However the bill is far from perfect and needs amendments, including those amendments we are considering here now.

I heard that there were over 100 amendments. The hon. member from the opposition, as well as members from other parties, worked very hard to put forward those amendments. We must carefully consider and support those amendments.

Given the great moral sensitivity of the decision, I believe the government ought to allow the conscience of every individual member of Parliament to be freely heard. This means that there should be a free vote in the House on the bill, and I recommend that.

We on this side of the House oppose the bill until all the amendments are accepted.

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

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the constituents of Surrey Central to participate in the report stage debate on Group No. 3 amendments to Bill C-13, an act respecting assisted human reproduction.

Every year thousands of babies are born in Canada using assisted reproductive technology, everything from simple insemination to cutting edge in vitro fertilization. But there have been no laws governing any kind of regulations leaving doctors and infertile couples to come up with their own guidelines.

This long overdue act would now regulate some activities, such as research involving human embryos and criminally ban others, such as commercial surrogacy, non-medical sex selection, and all forms of cloning involving human reproductive material.

Since 1989, Canada has been attempting to define the proper legislation and regulatory controls to govern assisted human reproductive technologies through the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies. According to a Léger marketing survey, 84% of Canadians were against the cloning of human beings, compared with just 5% who favoured the controversial practice and 11% did not know or refused to answer.

Human reproductive cloning represents a profound disregard for human dignity, individuality and rights. In effect, it is an affront to the dignity of human life and reduces its value to that of a commodity. That is not acceptable.

The Canadian Alliance minority report recommended that the final legislation, which we are now debating, clearly recognize the human embryo as a human life and the statutory declaration include the phrase respect for human life.

For many years, adult stem cell transplants have successfully been used to treat a variety of diseases such as Parkinson's, MS, leukemia and Crohn's. Adult stem cells are a safe, proven alternative to embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells include those collected from umbilical cords, placenta, brain tissue and bone marrow. Embryonic stem cells, on the other hand, are those extracted from an embryo in a procedure that kills a tiny but 100% genetically human living being. Despite the hype embryonic stem cells have never been successfully used in clinical trials.

As the member for Mississauga South said earlier, Bill C-13 would not ban human cloning. Thus, the bill belongs in the garbage and I agree. That is why we in the official opposition are opposing the bill.

Besides regulating the use of embryonic stem cells, Bill C-13 would ban the practice of paying a woman to carry a pregnancy. It would make it illegal to pay a man for his sperm or a woman for her eggs: gamete donations, as both are known. An estimated 50 to 100 babies are born through surrogacy every year in Canada while hundreds more result from gamete donations.

I will proceed to deal with all the motions in this group. The House has been very generous today and I would like to ask for an extra five minutes if I could, Madam Speaker.

[Gasoline Taxes, February 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the transport minister thinks our cities should start charging road tolls. There is a better idea.

The Liberals should start giving provinces their fair share of gas tax revenue. Thirty eight per cent of what we are paying at the pumps goes into government coffers. The government rakes in nearly $5 billion in gas taxes annually, but it spends merely $113 million on roadway development, just two and a quarter per cent. As gasoline prices soar, so do government revenues as the Liberals continue to charge taxes on taxes. The Ottawa gas tax rip-off is highway robbery.

Transportation is critical to B.C.'s economy and public safety. Money is needed for repairs to the Sea to Sky Highway and public transit, but instead the government has one boondoggle after another.

The government should dedicate more of the gasoline taxes to highway spending, eliminate the one and a half cent per litre deficit-financing gasoline tax and stop charging GST on gasoline taxes.

[Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act, February 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise this morning on behalf of the constituents of Surrey Central to participate in the debate on Bill C-2, an act to establish a process for assessing the environmental and socio-economic effects of certain activities in Yukon.

We heard from the hon. member for Yukon and I do appreciate his concern for the environment and the socio-economic development of Yukon. All members in this Chamber are concerned. However, I wish that the hon. member had some influence on his government and the minister to address the issues which I will be addressing.

Let us consider some important elements about rural Canada. Canada is the second largest country in the world with a huge wealth of natural resources. Though we are sparsely populated in Canada, more than 60% of our population lives in 10 or so of our southern most cities.

In the last decade of the Liberal government's rule, rural Canada has more or less been ignored by the government. Rural Canada suffers because of poor roads, poor rail links, and a lack of infrastructure development.

The interior of Canada depends on resource based industry, which is not supported by government programs, and is suffering badly from the plight of the Liberal government. The reasons are political more than anything else. It likes to focus on the voter rich areas, but it forgets about the concerns of rural Canadians.

The mismanagement of our natural resources by the Liberals is quite evident. Softwood lumber, mining, oil and gas and the fisheries are some of the examples of Liberal government mismanagement. If the weak Liberal government had a vision Canada would have been exporting more value added products rather than the natural resources like raw materials that we export.

If we were to go to the port in Vancouver we would see big heaps of sulfur or lumber. Why can we not add value to the products? It would not only create jobs but it would contribute to the economy. That is the unfortunate plight.

Rural Canada is suffering because of Liberal government mismanagement. The government's approach to dealing with the environment, Kyoto, endangered species and wildlife, or even the gun registry has not been fair to the rural communities in Canada.

Bill C-2 should have been in the House at least six years ago. Despite the lengthy development process the bill is significantly flawed. The Canadian Alliance is opposing the legislation, not because legislation in this area is not needed, but because this particular piece of legislation is not what is needed. Our main concern with the bill is that it does not do the very thing the minister says it does. The minister and his department claim that the bill would hand over to Yukoners the task of assessing development projects that have been proposed on federal, territorial and first nations lands.

The government says the bill is about devolution, about putting into local hands responsibility for making these assessments, but the truth is that the minister would retain for himself the power to control the process and to control who sits on the board that would be set up.

Once again the federal government cannot keep its hands off areas that should be under provincial and territorial jurisdiction. When it says that it is handing over powers to another level of government, it is doing nothing of the sort. There is no true handing over of power to Yukoners. The minister would retain the powers that he claims would be given to Yukoners.

I would like to focus on other concerns that we have with the bill. The minister would have too much authority over project assessment in Yukon. The bill was supposed to be about devolving to the people of Yukon authority for project assessments. The public relations material from the minister's department and the spokesman of the committee have sold this bill as a devolution of power, but the opposite is true. The minister would hold all the strings.

We find that in a number of places in the bill, the most important of which is the composition of the assessment board, which would be the main body established by the bill.

Let me mention some of the amendments the Canadian Alliance moved in committee. These amendments would have curbed the minister's power over the assessment process, but each amendment was voted down by the Liberals in committee.

First, the minister currently has the power under the bill to make an unlimited number of patronage appointments to the assessment board. Two different amendments were proposed that would have restricted the size of the board. We made those amendments on the recommendations of an MLA from Yukon. This would have limited the federal minister's ability to make patronage appointments to the board, but the amendment was not passed because the Liberal members voted against it.

Second, another amendment would have forced the minister to establish minimum qualifications and other criteria for the selection of board members. The bill in its current form makes no such requirements and therefore patronage appointments are easier to make. Our amendment would have made patronage appointments more difficult for the government and the minister. Again, the Liberals on the committee voted down this amendment.

Third, we also proposed amendments designed to strengthen the role of the Yukon government at the expense of the federal minister's role. The bill is supposed to hand to Yukoners control of the project assessment process, so one would have expected these amendments to pass because they are very natural amendments, but again the Liberals voted them down.

One such amendment would have strengthened the role of the territorial minister by enabling him to nominate one of the three executive committee members of the board; just one of the three. At present the minister must merely consult the territorial minister on one of those three appointments. Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker?

Another amendment would have strengthened the role of the territorial minister at the expense of the federal minister by enabling him to nominate two rather than only one of the four non-executive board members. Again, the Liberals voted this down, choosing instead to keep all of the strings in the federal minister's hands.

Another amendment would have limited the size of the board to a maximum of 13 members, but the Liberals on the committee voted against this. So now, the federal minister can make as many patronage appointments as he or she wants, up to 13 at least.

Another amendment would have changed the process of how the additional board members are chosen. Currently half of these members are nominated by the Council of Yukon First Nations. Under another amendment, the other half would be nominated by the territorial minister. That is fair enough. Half would be nominated by the minister and half by Yukon first nations through the council.

The handing of power from the federal minister to the territorial minister would make sense if, as the minister says, the bill is about handing to the people of Yukon powers that have until now been with the federal government. However again the minister is holding all of the power rather than giving it to the people of Yukon.

Clause 22 would give the federal minister authority to select the communities in which six assessment officers would be located, because the bill would establish six offices in various communities in Yukon. This would create the potential of political influence in the selection of the communities. We have moved an amendment that the authority be transferred from the minister to the board so that a board could make those decisions but again the Liberals on the committee rejected that amendment too.

A second major concern with the bill is that it is silent on the subject of timelines for the completion of assessments by the board. This is unacceptable given the problems that have existed in Yukon in this regard. Project assessments have taken far too long. Given this major problem, the bill should have addressed the matter of timelines right away. The bill has failed the people of Yukon on that issue again.

Let me describe the problem that has existed in Yukon, with project assessments dragging on for so long. Development and the economy of Yukon are hurting and the people of Yukon are suffering for that.

Currently, environmental and socio-economic assessments of proposed projects in Yukon are assessed under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. It is administered by the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. The department has failed to conduct a timely, efficient and cost effective assessments of the projects in Yukon under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

These projects should be assessed in a timely, efficient and cost effective manner but the department has failed the people of Yukon. It is widely recognized. For example, in the mining industry, the recent annual survey of mining companies rated Yukon as having the second worst mining regulatory system in Canada. A survey was done by the Fraser Institute and it rated Yukon to be the second worst mining regulatory system in Canada. By the way, the first one was British Columbia.

As for hard data over the past 10 years, the length of time between the submission of an application and the delivery of a permit for a mining project has far exceeded what any reasonable person would consider acceptable. I did some research and have some examples.

Western Copper Holdings Ltd. made a submission in 1994 for an assessment. It is still not complete after 97 months. Imagine a business company applying for a licence and waiting for 97 months.

New Millennium Mining Corp. made a submission in 1996 for assessment. It is still not complete after 79 months.

I had an opportunity to visit the Cominco mine. Cominco Ltd. made a project assessment submission in 1996 and the permit was delivered in 2000, after 47 months, almost four years.

Minto Explorations Ltd. made a submission for assessment in 1994 and the permit was delivered in 1997 after 35 months, almost three years.

Viceroy Resources Ltd. made a submission in 1994 and the permit was delivered in 1996, after 23 months.

Most jurisdictions in Canada, at least for small mines, take six months to one year. Can members see the comparison? In the rest of Canada it takes just six months to one year. In Yukon it takes from 97 months. That is not acceptable. Globally it takes two years or less and that is the norm. The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, has not come close to these Canadian norms of two years or less.

The failure of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development to conduct timely, efficient and cost effective assessments of projects in Yukon has contributed to the economic slowdown in Yukon and destroyed Yukon's reputation as a sound and stable jurisdiction in which to develop new mines. How can Yukon attract foreign investments or investors in the mining industry when the government's standard is letting those miners down?

For example, the shutdown of the mine at Faro in 1998, I am sure the member for Yukon knows, had disastrous economic consequences in the region. This could have been mitigated by timely approvals of other projects prior to the Faro shutdown. However those timely assessment projects by the government were not there. One company had to shut down. The other projects for the assessment were not completed for so long and the economy suffered.

The federal government has not been equal to the task. As a result, Yukon's economy is largely dependent on the net federal transfer payments to fuel economic activity, whereas Yukon could be self-sufficient. Development should have been taking place if the government's approach was right.

Given the failure of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development to conduct timely, efficient and cost effective assessments of projects in Yukon, we would expect the bill to correct these deficiencies so that worthwhile projects could proceed in a timely manner. However the bill does not do this nor even attempts to do this.

Instead the bill focuses on identifying and mitigating negative impacts of development. The bill shows little concern for development as something positive and desirable for the people of Yukon. It focuses on the negative impacts of development, including damage to lifestyles, heritage sites, the environment and community social systems. Therefore the bill is missing a needed balance between development and sustainability. It does not consider development as a public good which benefits communities.

The assessment board is therefore incapable of weighing costs and benefits in a balanced fashion since its only mandate is to safeguard against damage. Under the bill the board's preference when making assessments must always be to prohibit or limit development, even in cases when the benefits of a project would be great.

The only timeline that would come into play has yet to be determined, since it will be a part of regulations. That timeline does not relate to the assessment process. It relates to something that will follow the assessment process. Let me explain this, because it demonstrates just how much the bill fails to do what is needed.

Once a project has been assessed, the board, or one of the six offices in the communities that have conducted the assessment, will recommend to the responsible federal, territorial or first nations decision bodies whether the project should be allowed to proceed. These decision bodies, not the board or its six offices which are supposed to be listening to the people, have the final say. The board can only recommend. These decision bodies can accept, reject or vary the recommendation contained in the assessment.

The incredible thing about the bill is that timelines will be created under regulations for the decision bodies to issue their decisions. The bill specifies no timelines for the assessment board and its offices to deliver assessments to these decision bodies. That means the board can make its own decisions as to how long it wants to take to complete an assessment. People who do the labour of assessment get to decide how long they will take to finish their work, the while development will be held up.

I mentioned that the regulations will decide about the timelines and the fact that the regulations are not submitted along with the bill. Normally, the government submits the regulations after the bill is debated in the House. All members in the House passionately debate bills and passionately vote on bills, but without knowing the contents of a bill.

The government is in the habit of submitting the intent of the bill without any substance or subject matter. The subject matter and the substance comes through the back door by way of regulations. Why does the government not submit all regulations with the legislation when the legislation is tabled in the House so we can debate them and vote on them? We could then understand what the bill means. The government is not governing; it is ruling through the back door. Eighty per cent of the substance that we see in the law in Canada comes through the back door by way of regulations not debated in the House.

The Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations, which is supposed to scrutinize those regulations, has very limited powers. The committee cannot even scrutinize regulations made by the delegation of authority to various agencies and boards. The disallowance procedure is not on statutory footing, but I will talk about that another day.

This is a non-partisan issue. The House needs to have a disallowance procedure for those regulations which are submitted through the back door to be scrutinized properly. If committee members decide that those regulations are not fair enough, or they are not legal or they are not valid, then they should be disallowed. That procedure should be on statutory footing, but it is not.

Sixteen years ago a committee set up a temporary experimental procedure to see if the procedure would work. For 16 years we have been following that temporary procedure rather than putting the statutory disallowance procedure on statutory footing. However that is for another day.

The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development has a history of foot dragging in completing assessments, and we have seen this in relation to the mining industry. Timelines should have been imposed on the board by the legislation itself, not by the regulations. The bill fails the people of Yukon in this important respect.

It is unfortunate that the bill fails to provide the people of Yukon with a true devolution of power as the minister has been touting. It also fails to provide a timely way to assess and approve projects so that they can get off the ground and development can begin in Yukon.

What is particularly shameful is the way in which the Liberals have concealed their failure to the people of Yukon by telling them the opposite of what the bill will do. The first thing mentioned in a Liberal press release was that the bill would hand over power to the people of Yukon. Once again we see the Liberals playing their power games with other levels of government. We are seeing again that confrontation between the provincial and territorial governments. The Liberals are hoping their public relations material will be slick enough that the public will not catch on.

We in the Canadian Alliance are opposed to the passage of this bill and will vote against it in the true interests of the people of Yukon. I am sure people of Yukon will understand. I wish the hon. member representing Yukon had some influence on the government in addressing these issues.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the constituents of Surrey Central to participate in the report stage debate on motions in Group No. 2 relating to Bill C-13, the assisted human reproduction act.

This long overdue bill would regulate some activities such as the research involving human embryos and criminally ban others such as commercial surrogacy, non-medical sex selection, and all forms of cloning involving human reproductive materials.

It is imperative that we realize that we are creating legislation that would greatly affect the lives of many present and future Canadians.

The motions in Group No. 2 deal with such important issues as human cloning and the use of human embryos. The bill declares that human cloning, either reproductive or so-called therapeutic cloning, would be illegal. The total ban on cloning would put Canada at the forefront of an internationally contentious issue.

The bill would ban the creation of in vitro embryos for the purpose of research. Yet, it would permit embryos to be created for the purpose of reproduction and any surplus embryos would then be used for medical research, which means their destruction 14 days after conception.

For many years, adult stem cell transplants have successfully been used to treat a variety of diseases such as Parkinson's, MS and Crohn's. Adult stem cells include those collected from the umbilical cord, the placenta, brain tissue and bone marrow.

Embryonic stem cells, on the other hand, are those extracted from an embryo in a procedure that kills the tiny, yet 100% genetic human living being. Despite the hype we may have heard, embryonic stem cells have never been successfully used in clinical trials.

The University of Minnesota Stem Cell Institute researchers showed that adult bone marrow stem cells can become blood vessels. The Duke University Medical Centre researchers turned stem cells from knee fat into cartilage, bone and fat cells.

Last summer, a Montreal woman newly diagnosed with leukemia received a stem cell transplant from the umbilical cord blood of her new infant daughter. Seven months after the transplant the woman was in full remission and considered cured.

Canada is already a leader in adult stem cell research. For example, by supercharging adult blood stem cells with a gene that allowed them to rapidly reproduce, a team of Canadian researchers at the University of British Columbia healed mice with depleted blood systems. One day these adult stem cells may replace bone marrow transplants in humans.

Unfortunately, research using human embryos has not yet led to human healing therapies. We should focus our energies and scarce resources on research that is making a difference now.

In spite of these facts, Bill C-13 focuses on the use of the in vitro embryo and would regulate its use for research and experimentation. Such activity disregards the dignity of human life and reduces its value to that of a commodity.

I will be dealing with Motions Nos. 13, 14, 16, 17, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26 and 27 which all deal with some aspect of clause 5 in the current draft of the bill.

In brief, the proposed amendments call for changes that deal with the elimination of the option to clone a human being through any technique. They propose that the technology should be used for no other purpose than human reproduction including the experimentation and transplanting of an embryo, a sperm, ovum or fetus and that there would be no combining of any human genome with any part of the genome of a non-human species.

The subjects addressed in Bill C-13 are ethically complex and highly controversial. The Canadian Alliance supports some aspects of the bill. Some of the things in it are actually very good. We support the banning of human and therapeutic cloning, animal-human hybrids, sex selection, germ line alterations, the buying and selling of embryos, and paid surrogacies. However, the bill is far from perfect and needs amendments, including those amendments that we are considering today.

Given the great moral sensitivity of the decision, I believe the government ought to allow the conscience of every individual member of Parliament in the House to be freely heard by allowing a free vote on the bill.

The official opposition's minority report called for a three year prohibition on the experimentation with human embryos to allow time for the use of adult stem cells to be fully explored. We recommended that the government strongly encourage its granting agencies and the scientific community to place the emphasis on adult post-natal stem cell research.

We must make changes to the bill before it is voted upon. I hope that all hon. members will be listening to their constituents and voting accordingly on this important bill. I am sure the House is aware that 84% of Canadians are against the cloning of human beings. Let us also remember that medical therapies developed using human embryos may be refused by people who do not believe they are ethically derived. I am sure members are aware of the blood transfusion case in Alberta. Ethical concerns are important and we should look into those ethical concerns as well.

I remind all members that the bill is about improving human health, not destroying it. I am a pro-research person. I believe in research and we must give research a chance. The Canadian Alliance strongly supports research at this end, wherever it is compatible with the dignity and the value of human life. We should not forget that. The Canadian Alliance will strive to protect the dignity and value of human life because nothing is more precious than a human life.

The bill is about the best interests of children born through the use assisted reproductive technology. Along with my colleagues in the Canadian Alliance I will work to protect them. With this in mind I would urge all members of the House to vote with their conscience and to listen to their constituents.

I received many e-mails, phone calls and letters from my constituents asking me how I intend to vote. We should respect human life. It is known that human life exists after conception. We must have a free vote in the House and I would urge all members to vote with their conscience.