John Bryden

[Canada Elections Act, February 17th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that the danger in political financing tends to exist more at the individual or the riding level rather than the party level. I wonder what the member would think if we reversed the equation that is in the bill and put a limit on contributions to the riding of, say, $1,000 and allowed corporations to have a cap of, say, $20,000 or $30,000 if the money went to the party itself.

[Canada Elections Act, February 17th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to say that I have at my desk here the printouts from Elections Canada and I can offer to both members, and they can see for themselves what the member for Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca did with respect to his election campaign rebates. I have those documents. I would table them, but I do not think that is necessary.

I would like to just take the debate into another direction, if I may. I would like to ask the member who just spoke what his feeling is about third party advertising. Twice this Parliament has tried to pass legislation putting limits on third party advertising, because we are limited as candidates and we are going to be even further limited in our riding associations in terms of the amount of money that we can raise and show. Yet the National Citizens' Coalition, which supports the party opposite, has taken the current legislation to court in regard to trying to strike down third party advertising. I wonder if the member has a thought about that.

[Assisted Human Reproduction Act, February 11th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, in the late 19th century, H.G. Wells wrote a book called The Island of Doctor Moreau , which is largely forgotten now I suppose. However it dealt with was a mad scientist who occupied an isolated island and he experimented with humans and animals. The technology of the 19th century was pretty primitive, so the scientific story is relatively primitive. The impact of it was that Doctor Moreau was taking parts of animals and attaching them to humans, and vice versa. In the end he created, out of animals, semi-humans.

This novel had a huge impact in the 19th century because the message, and why Doctor Moreau came to an untimely end, was that he was playing God. Even in the late 19th century it was appreciated that scientific advances were going forward so quickly that it would not be too long before man would be able to act as God and create human life.

That sort of concept is like a pebble in a pond. That novel sent a shiver through western society and faith-based groups, and we still feel the repercussions now. One reason why this debate we are having on reproductive technology is so sensitive is because instinctively, all of us, regardless of what faith we practice or indeed regardless of whether we are practising a faith, realize that when one starts tampering with life at the embryonic stage in any sense, man is playing God. Of course we feel that this is a very dangerous thing to do.

Yet science has advanced so much that we see almost unlimited opportunities to save lives. Scientists, with gene research, particularly the various research that has advanced medicine so enormously in the 20th century, see enormous opportunities to save human lives. We have seen advances in vaccines and antibiotics that have pushed into retreat many diseases.

Now with stem cell research, scientists are seeing an enormous opportunity to address diseases that are primarily genetic in origin. Anyone who knows someone who is suffering from Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis or any of these diseases, which would appear to have their basis in original genes, would only want science to advance quickly to save those people.

Even though we look to science with a great deal of caution, because science is always a two-edged sword that can save lives but can also take lives, any time we look at somebody close to us who is suffering from one of these terrible genetic diseases, particularly children, our hearts go out to them and we want scientific research to proceed and help these people and save them.

Therefore we find ourselves in this debate in the House of Commons now where we realize that scientists have advanced to the point where they see enormous opportunities in stem cell research. They see those opportunities, in particular, with the possibilities that are attached to embryonic stem cells. Science is not entirely sure that ordinary adult stem cells cannot provide all the information and opportunities that they might want in order to do the research that may address these genetic diseases. However, from the stated knowledge now, it appears apparent that embryonic stem cells also offer great hope for researchers to make breakthroughs to address some of these terrible diseases like Parkinson's.

We find ourselves in the situation where, despite the fact that many faith based groups are very strongly against the use of embryos in any kind of research, we are torn by the prospect that these embryos may shorten the time if we are able to use these embryonic cells. I should make it very clear that we are talking about embryonic cells. Should these embryonic cells shorten the time that it takes to find cures for these terrible genetic diseases, then many lives will be saved.

We have a moral dilemma in which we now have a bill before the House that seeks to give opportunities to researchers to access embryonic stem cells, while, at the same time, putting real limitations on how they might be collected and how they might be used.

This is very important because, as in the case of the famous story of Dr. Moreau creating human beings out of animals, science always has the temptation of going too far. This is where Parliament comes in. It is up to us as parliamentarians to define the limits, and this is what Bill C-13 would do. It makes it very clear that embryonic stem cells are not to be deliberately created for research purposes. It makes it very clear that embryonic stem cells are to be used for research only if they are to be discarded otherwise.

I submit that there are those of some faiths who feel that embryos are human beings from the moment of conception. If that is the case, and one has that view, then surely an embryo is the most innocent of individuals, and that most innocent of individuals would surely want to see its short time on earth being used to save lives rather than being merely discarded.

I support, in principle, the idea that if embryonic stem cells are going to be discarded and can be offered to researchers who in turn can turn the information gained from them into saving lives, then I do not see, morally, how any of us should stand in the way of that very fine principle.

The bill does have problems and this is one of the reasons that we have to debate it so carefully. I support some of the motions that are before the House now which suggest that the assisted human reproduction agency, which oversees fertility clinics, should set very tight standards in how eggs might be created in these fertility clinics so that surplus eggs will not be deliberately created in order to provide material for research. Very high standards should be spelled out in the legislation, in my view, that sets the parameters on the oversight procedures that the assisted human reproduction agency should follow.

I draw the House's attention particularly to Motion No. 88. Motion No. 88 very emphatically and effectively states that the agency should be required to set standards that Parliament approves when it comes to the methods of encouraging egg production in women and how they are harvested. It is that kind of thing, I think, that is the role of parliamentarians, to take the legislation when it comes before the House after committee and to move this kind of motion. I urge all members to support Motion No. 88 when it comes up for a vote.

[Supply, February 10th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, if I may sum up, the point of the war with Iraq is that it has to have the support of the people of the world. If it does not have the support of the people of the world, they will lose confidence in the United States. It is not enough for leaders to decide. We have to bring along not only the Americans but people across the world. Right now, it would appear the majority of people are opposed to the war in Iraq seen as necessary by the United States.

[Supply, February 10th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, through you to the hon. member, consider this scenario.

If the UN Security Council holds a vote and action is vetoed, Britain has committed itself to joining the Americans should the Americans go ahead with action in Iraq. If that were to occur and British soldiers were committed to an American attack force in Iraq, what would happen to Tony Blair? It is very apparent.

Where it requires a vote of confidence to remove a prime minister in this country, the British prime minister can be removed simply by a vote of his own caucus. I would suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that Mr. Blair has so little support not only in his own country but in his own caucus, that he would probably not last more than a couple of weeks. The wounding, the impact that would have on the position of the United States president and the validity of his attack on Iraq, if the British prime minister was fired from his job as a result of supporting the Americans, would be profoundly negative. It would be a terrible blow to American foreign policy and its image abroad.

[Supply, February 10th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I think this is a very important debate, principally because the Americans are listening. Canada and the United States have been the best of friends since the second world war, the most intimate of friends, sharing their deepest secrets on intelligence and weapons development and atomic energy. The Americans trust the Canadians and when one has a trusted friend, the best thing that trusted friend can do is tell it as that trusted friend sees it. The reality is that Canada really does see a problem with the prospect of unilateral action by the Americans in Iraq.

I accept the findings of Colin Powell. I accept that Mr. Bush wants to settle the problem of Iraq for honourable reasons. It is true, as the member for Wild Rose just said, that Saddam Hussein is an awful dictator and there are many, many reasons why we should hope that there should be a regime change. I am not so sure that the threat posed by Iraq is a threat as serious as North Korea, which I think is a very, very dangerous threat, but nevertheless we have to accept that the Americans have the very best intentions in this proposal to attack Iraq and the proposal to attack Iraq regardless of the decision of the UN Security Council.

Now, here is the problem and I hope the people in the American embassy are watching and listening. If the UN Security Council rejects a unilateral attack or an attack on Iraq because there is not sufficient evidence and if this government, as it has the power to do, decides it will join a unilateral attack on Iraq, I will be one of the first on this side of the House to try to vote no confidence in my government.

The way our system works right now is the government, the executive, has the right to declare war and I agree with that principle, but it also must face Parliament. The reason why I would have to press no confidence in my government if it supported a unilateral attack on Iraq is because 66% of Canadians are opposed to such action and the total number of Canadians who are opposed to an attack on Iraq is about 80%.

You cannot have democracy two ways, Mr. Speaker. Either we represent the interests of our constituents and the will of our constituents, or we do not. When the feeling of constituents is so overwhelming against a war in Iraq, then a parliamentarian must listen.

Mr. Speaker, I would observe that this overwhelming opposition to a unilateral attack on Iraq does not stop at Canada. According to the Christian Science Monitor , 90% of Europeans are opposed to a unilateral attack on Iraq. If we go down the figures, Mr. Speaker, we find in Germany 80% are against a U.S. led unilateral attack on Iraq; 75% of the French; 90% of Turks, even though they have had to come to an arrangement with respect to air bases, but that is self defence. But the reality is the people in these countries are overwhelmingly opposed; and 66% of people in the U.K.

What I would implore the U.S. president to consider is: it is not a question of what the world leaders are saying; it is a question of what the ordinary people in the world are saying. They have seen a presentation by Colin Powell. They are not convinced that it justifies an attack on Iraq unilaterally without UN support. If they feel that, Mr. Speaker, and the United States goes ahead, what will be lost is enormous credibility on the part of the Americans and goodwill in the world.

The difficulty is when you are a superpower, you labour under the disability of always being perceived as a bully. And when you are a superpower it becomes more and more incumbent upon you to work with others in order to achieve legitimate aims. We can say that a regime change in Iraq is a legitimate aim, but it is not legitimate in world opinion if it is done unilaterally by the world's superpower.

What I fear so much, Mr. Speaker, is the aftermath of Iraq might settle the problem of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but I am afraid it will unleash a kind of cultural hatred that will spread around the world and the hatred will be against American culture. That is the fear. That is the danger that the Americans are running.

The cost of that in American assets alone is dreadful to contemplate, not only in the loss of investments abroad, not only in the fact that Americans will not be able to travel freely abroad because they will be afraid of attack not just from Muslims and the various dictatorships of the world, but also those people in other lands who already have suspicions about American culture, who are already afraid of an American culture that spreads across the planet.

Most of all, what will be lost? What will be lost is the ability of the Americans to say to the world, “We stand for freedom. We stand for the rights of everyone. We stand for working together for world peace”. That is what they will lose and it will be the biggest loss of all.

If the terrorists ever had a hope of destabilizing the world and hurting the United States, that hope will be fulfilled if the Americans invade Iraq without the support of the UN Security Council.

[Supply, February 10th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for St. John's West for his remarks.

First I would like to note that the motion itself is flawed.

The motion says consider. The House is always considering something.

I think the motion should have read, “That this House approve the sending of troops to Iraq by the government only after the United Nations Security Council has passed a resolution explicitly authorizing a military intervention in Iraq”.

I believe what was intended, though, was that the government or Parliament should only approve or even debate sending troops to Iraq if a Security Council resolution suggests that this is something we should be doing. In other words, I believe the motion is intended to forestall the unilateral use of force in Iraq and that Canada should join the United States in that circumstance.

In that context, I believe and as a matter of fact the polls show that the majority of Canadians are opposed to Canada following the United States into a war in Iraq without United Nations approval. Indeed, the latest polls indicate that from 70% to 78% of Canadians oppose this.

I would ask the member opposite, is this a situation where MPs should follow the dictates of their conscience, obey the suggestions of their constituents and not support going into Iraq without a UN Security Council resolution?

[Criminal Code, February 3rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to this debate because I feel the issue is very important. I appreciate the sincerity of the members opposite, even though I find myself somewhat at odds in certain areas with some of their remarks.

My biggest fear when the government came to look at this question of child pornography, particularly the section that was cited in the Sharpe case pertaining to artistic merit, was that it would go in the direction of closing down on the artistic merit clause and interfering with freedom of speech basically.

One of the issues with respect to child pornography is that it has been the subject of great literature in the past. Romeo and Juliet and Lolita are two famous works of art that spring to mind. The danger is, if we so hastily, in trying to put limitations on child pornography, put restrictions on literature and freedom of speech we make a very big mistake. I think even my colleagues opposite would agree that freedom of speech like the rule of law and democracy are principles that have to be kept at the highest level of protection, even if it means sometimes having to put up with shall we say very bad literature or a very bad intent in the creating of salacious material.

The problem with the artistic merit defence and what happened was that it left the courts with the dilemma of trying to decide what artistic merit was. That was an unacceptable situation. We can say that Shakespeare and Lolita are examples of art, but there are other pieces of literature, somebody's private attempt at a short story or something like that. Who is to say whether it has artistic merit, particularly if it is not receiving any kind of distribution or opportunity to be assessed by the public? It was a bad provision as a defence for something that could be deemed otherwise as child pornography.

The government's attempt now to say basically in a section that an item would not be considered child pornography if it were deemed to serve the public good is much broader. It allows a lot more latitude and I think we can trust the courts to make a distinction between something that is gratuitous child pornography or even worse, that has created the child pornography for profit. What we really want to do is get at those people who undertake child pornography to make money.

That raises another issue. I am not sure in what I read here whether these amendments deal with the question of where the written pornography, could be inscription, is not meant for distribution; that a person writes their own private thoughts. That raises some very interesting issues of privacy as a fundamental right, as the Privacy Commissioner is wont to say. Is something we write down, a drawing we make or words that we write, if it is never distributed beyond our desk or beyond our home and if it is not seen by other people, or if seen, only in a very private way, should that constitute an offence under law?

The government has inserted a new subsection that says “For the purpose of this section”, the child pornography section, “it is a question of law whether any written material or visual representation advocates or counsels sexual activity”.

I am not a lawyer but I would hope the question in law is whether the offensive material is meant for distribution or meant to be held privately, because in the end it is not the business of the state to try to correct the individual behaviour of people when that behaviour has no impact on the people around them.

If somebody is mentally sick, as indeed somebody who is a pedophile certainly is, the state should not punish that person simply because they are sick. It is when that sickness has an impact on other people, particularly children, that the state must intervene. That is the other thing I have observed here.

I am not sure that the amendment makes it clear that punishment for child pornography should always follow where there is a victim. This is why a visual representation of child pornography should always be against the law and should always be punishable. Where there is photographic representation of a child, or a woman for that matter, or any person in an abused situation, the possession of that photographic image is in fact condoning and co-operating and is party in the original crime. I would say that without any doubt that type of pornography is a crime.

The government addressed a very important issue and it is an issue that has not been mentioned so far. That is the business that has arisen since the Internet has come upon us where people use secret video cameras to record people in compromising positions. The government has added that as a criminal offence under the statute. It is so appalling that I even hate to discuss it, but these are people who take secret cameras out and try to portray people in sexual positions and then sell them on the Internet. The bill very explicitly goes after that, and that is a very positive thing.

The bill does one further thing. Pertaining to this business of getting secret visual recordings of people who are nude as part of an invasion of privacy, there is a subsection that states:

Every one commits an offence who, knowing that a recording was obtained by the commission of an offence under subsection (1), prints, publishes, distributes, circulates [that material]...

What has given rise to these secret recordings of people having private sexual activity has been the Internet. If I read this section correctly, it means Internet distributors of that material would be subject to the penalty under the law.

The difficulty is that I do not know how that could be policed because the Internet is international. It goes all around the world. It is just like child pornography. Where this type of criminal recording might come from is very difficult to determine. One would presume that if this law passes, it will enable authorities to approach the immediate servers who might carry this type of material and advise them that they are breaking the law if they do not try to prevent this from happening. I wish this section would also apply to child pornography in general and I am not sure it does. As one of the members opposite pointed out, a lot of this issue has arisen as a result of the Internet.

Any legislation that comes forward in the House that materially and substantially protects children or anyone else from being abused for profit so that voyeurs of any kind do not have the opportunity to pay money for people to be hurt, both mentally and physically, to satisfy their sick desires, is a step in the right direction. I applaud the government for being sensitive to the question of freedom of speech.

[Supreme Court Act, February 3rd, 2003]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-349, an act to amend the Supreme Court Act.

Mr. Speaker, this is a bill that would attempt to bring back to Parliament the role of law-making. Since the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was introduced, the courts, particularly the Supreme Court, have taken on the role of Parliament in establishing law.

This act would amend the Supreme Court Act to the effect that whenever there is a question before the court that deals with constitutionality, the court would be required to take the debates in Parliament into account, which it does do not right now, and when a decision is rendered, if the decision is not unanimous, then the constitutional decision would only be binding on the case before the courts and would not be taken as a precedent.

This would get us around the problem that has so often happened in the past when there has been a split decision on a constitutional or charter matter and it has led to a new law being made without Parliament's approval.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Assisted Human Reproduction Act, January 28th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I will come straight to the point. In this legislation the government has moved an amendment, Motion No. 72, which eliminates a change that the committee in its wisdom put in the bill. The committee in its wisdom inserted in the bill a clause related to the Assisted Human Reproduction Agency of Canada, which is the key agency created by the bill. The committee in its wisdom wanted to ensure that the board of directors would be free of any kind of conflict. Therefore the committee inserted a clause, section 26(8) which says:

No member of the board of directors shall, directly or indirectly, as owner, shareholder, director, officer, partner, or otherwise, have any pecuniary or proprietary interest in any business which operates in industries whose products or services are used in the reproductive technologies regulated or controlled by this Act.

I would submit that this is a very necessary amendment that the committee has inserted because I would point out that section 24(1)(a) and (b) describes the role of the Assisted Human Reproduction Agency of Canada. Subclause 24(1)(a) states:

exercise the powers in relation to licences under this Act;

Subclause 24(1)(b) states:

provide advice to the Minister on assisted reproduction and other matters to which this Act applies;

These are two powers and duties of this agency that would create an atmosphere of conflict of interest if there were persons on the board of directors who have a pecuniary interest.

It is very clear I think that a lot is at stake in the new technologies that are being dealt with by this legislation and the licences that may be permitted by this legislation. In other words, money will be involved, lots of money. It was prudent on the part of the committee to insert a clause that basically stated that the board of directors of the agency should not have any potential conflict. It was a very good clause.

I am at a loss as to why the minister should have taken that clause out. I am totally at a loss. I suggest the minister should review that clause. She should put it in or we should vote that clause down.